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At 6:30 one morning early this month, a phone shrilled in the small office off the bedroom of Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Already awake, he lifted the receiver to hear exciting news: a military coup had just been launched against the anti-Nasser government of Syria. The phone rang again. It was the Minister of Culture and National Guidance. How should Radio Cairo handle the Syrian crisis? Support the rebels, snapped Nasser.
Then Egypt's boss rapped out a succession of telephoned commands. To the air force: alert the bombers and fighters in case the Syrian rebels call for help. To the navy (six destroyers and ten submarines): steam northward and await orders. To the army: prepare to move in case the Israelis might be thinking of intervention; place missiles on launch pads ready to fire.
This done, Nasser finished dressing and went downstairs. The phone rang again, long distance from Baghdad. President Abdul Salam Aref, who only four weeks before had overthrown another anti-Nasser regime in Iraq, solicitously asked what Nasser intended doing about Syria. Nasser said that he would recognize a rebel government as soon as it was formed. Aref delicately responded that of course. Egypt should be the first state to grant recognition, promised that Iraq would follow suit five minutes later.
Limb from Limb. Since the Syrian coup was both swift and successful, Nasser's nerves and the Egyptian army were not put to the test. Israel alerted its border defenses but made no further move. On the surface, in fact, the Syrian affair was much milder and less bloody than most Arab revolts. In the past 15 years, the Middle East has been continually shaken like a kaleidoscope, constantly falling into new patterns. There have been two sizable wars and fully two dozen armed uprisings and rebellions. Premiers and princes have been torn limb from limb by street mobs; thousands of politicians and army officers have been killed by hanging, beheading, firing squads and assassins; and swarms of students, workers and tribesmen have been mowed down by machine guns and bombs.
It was quite clear last week that the latest shake of the kaleidoscope resulted in new patterns and alignments overwhelmingly favorable to Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Syrian revolution was the third in six months by rebels pledged to make common cause with Egypt. Flights of new leaders poured into Cairo for tear-stained embraces with Nasser and nightlong conferences on the future course of that misty concept called Arab unity. Nasser stands at the pinnacle of prestige, if not of power, and the shadow he casts has never been longer. Today, it falls over the entire Arab world from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean.