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"Today, O my brothers," he shouted, "we are stronger than ever before. Arab unity has been unchained. The same flag of freedom that flies over Baghdad today will be hoisted in Amman and Beirut just as it rose in every corner of the Arab world." Then, with U.S. marines barely 50 miles away, he said: "If we see today that America occupies Lebanon and Britain occupies Jordan, then I say: If they call for peace, we are for it. But if they are hostile toward us, we shall fight to the last drop of our blood. We shall not be terrorized by threats of fleets or atomic bombs. The leaders of the West must realize that Arab nationalism is very strong everywhere." As Arab rhetoric goes, this was fairly moderate. He was not yet out of danger.
It had been a week of dangerous, teetering triumph for Gamal Abdel Nasser, the new Alexander of the Eastern Mediterranean, a conqueror who has never marched beyond his balcony, a soldier whose victories are made from military defeats, a victor who has never won a war or even a battle. By marshaling the emotions of the Arab masses, articulating their angriest aspirations, stirring their most vituperative violence by his press and radio, and plotting to subvert rulers everywhere, Nasser had achieved his pinnacle. This vigorous and magnetic figure, who wears Western-style sports clothes but kneels toward Mecca with the strictest mullah, had burst into history at precisely the moment when the impact of the modern West unsettled the ancient Islamic ethos of the East. With the Western gifts of radio and press, with the Eastern habits of intrigue and assassination, he had become the most feared and most loved man in the Arab world.
"Vanity, Obstinacy, Suspicion." The contradictions of Gamal Abdel Nasser's primitive yet complex character have made him hard for the West to appraise and even harder to deal with. In the beginning, Westerners saw much to admire in this handsome, dedicated young soldier who drove out the gross and sybaritic King Farouk, and who vowed to clean out the corruption of the greedy pashas. He seemed the promise of an honorable Arab future: unlike decadent rulers, or their wealthy retainers, he seemed to want nothing for himself. He lived simply with his wife and five children. He said—and doubtless meant it then—that he had come to power to bring political freedom and a better economic lot to Egypt's miserable millions: he would be a benevolent dictator until democracy was possible. The hundreds of foreign visitors who met him over the years found him reasonable, courteous, smiling, earnest, the sort of young man who listens to learn. There he sat, charming, soft-voiced and plausible in his little Cairo office with the eight telephones. Whatever his radios might shriek, he was one Arab leader who could even talk quietly about Israel.
Yet there was a sense of an underlying drive, the hint of a trickier side to this strongman that left doubts.