In his huge, bay-windowed Cairo office, President-Premier Mohammed Naguib last week puffed his pipe and busied himself with an agreeable task. He set out various photos of himself, cocked his head at them, then, with the help of curio dealers, selected appropriate silver frames. He was going to Khartoum in a few days as Egypt's delegate to the first session of the Sudan Parliament; the pictures would be gifts for his hosts. At 53, the native son was returning to his birthplace.
At that very moment Egypt's real government−the young, twelve-man Revolutionary Command Council−was holding an emergency session to decide Naguib's fate. Three days before he had delivered an ultimatum: either the R.C.C. would give him the right to veto its decisions, to appoint and dismiss Cabinet ministers and to promote and cashier army officers, or he would quit. Naguib felt no uneasiness; since Farouk departed in July 1952, the amiable major general had become Mr. Egypt. He put on his general's cap and went home, confident.
All that night, in a towered, yellow, Nileside palace where Farouk once dallied, the R.C.C. fretted and wrestled with its decision. Nineteen months before the young soldiers, seeking a front man for the anti-Farouk uprising, had picked the bluff, respected, thrice-wounded soldier. The choice was happy: the nation cried "Yahish [long live] Mohammed Naguib," and flocked to him, holding out its centuries-old wounds. Naguib looked as a good father should−kindly, wise, genial. He smoked a pipe; he spoke softly and slowly; he waved aside guards and let the lowly approach. When they tried to kiss his hands, he would raise up the humble and buss them on the cheeks. He was honest and looked it, and Egyptians who had felt leaderless and betrayed for generations came to see him, their eyes shining.
But having tasted popularity, Naguib wanted power. He was President and Premier in name only; brilliant, selfless, young (36) Gamal Abdel Nasser, the real creator of the revolution, made all the big decisions, and he passed on to Naguib all the state papers, with notations on what to do. Naguib wanted a finer home, in keeping with his title; he insisted, when Egypt became a republic, on becoming Premier as well as President. He learned how to sulk and how to suffer diplomatic illnesses to get his way.
Learning the News. At seven the next morning Naguib woke, switched on the radio and heard the surprising news: at 4 a.m. the R.C.C. had accepted his resignation and had named Nasser to his place as Premier. Over the air, Chief Propagandist Salah Salem painted Mohammed Naguib as never before−an ambitious, hypocritical, devious publicity seeker. Added Salem: Naguib was not "under arrest," but had merely been "asked to remain in his house a month or two."
Newsmen sped out ten miles to suburban Helmieh to Naguib's modest, one-story, stucco villa in the center of a sandy, poverty-row street. They found the ex-President incommunicado behind a cordon of wellarmed, closemouthed troops. Even his phone was cut off.