At an armed-forces exhibition in Cairo, thousands of army officers listened while Egypt's Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser made a speech. Subject: why the Egyptian army, which governs the country (TIME, Sept. 26), is too weak to fight. The step which Nasser announced he had taken toward remedying this condition drew thunderous applause from his officers, but last week its implications threatened the Western world with a dangerous power shift in the critical Middle East.
"Heavy arms," said Nasser, "are controlled by the big powers, and these agreed to provide Egypt's armed forces with arms, but on certain conditions." All deals failed. "France bargained with us, saying that she would only supply us with arms if we refrained from criticizing her attitude in North Africa, which was another way of saying that we should abandon our Arabism . . . shut our eyes to massacres . . . The United States only gave us promises, making it a condition that we should sign a mutual-defense agreement or pact . . . The United Kingdom said she would readily supply us with arms, but she has only sent us very small shipments."
Then came the startling announcement : "We received an offer from Czechoslovakia showing readiness to supply us with as many weapons as our army required, and on a purely commercial basis in return for Egyptian products such as cotton and rice, which I accepted with thanks. An agreement was concluded to this effect between Egypt and Czechoslovakia last week."
Risky Course. The arms that Nasser needs are tanks, jet planes, heavy artillery and a few naval craft. Czechoslovakia's famed Skoda armament works, now named for Lenin and controlled by the Soviet army, is well equipped to supply most of the arms. But to make effective use of Czech weapons, the Egyptian army will be obliged to set up a maintenance supply line running back to Prague, and, therefore, to Moscow. Thus Russia can secure a linn and influential hold on an area hitherto dominated by the West.
Nasser, no Communist, gave his reasons for taking such a risky course. "We insist.'' he said, "on securing arms for our army to safeguard our revolution and our independence, and to preserve our dignity.'' The fact that Israel (pop. 1,700,000) has an army more than twice the size of Egypt's (pop. 22.5 million) is a constant source of humiliation to Nasser's military junta. It enables Israel to move in and out of the demilitarized border zone of El Auja with impunity, as it did last week, and it gives (to Egyptian ears) an intolerable acidity to Premier-designate Ben-Gurion's statement on the eve of Yom Kippur: "I hope Egypt won't be foolish enough to try to blockade the Gulf of Aqaba against us. We can beat them ..."
To meet this, or any other Israeli challenge, Nasser has a mixed assortment of arms, including 32 obsolescent Centurion tanks, eleven Meteor and 26 Vampire jets and some 150 anti-tank guns, given to him by the British. But the British, who have no confidence in Nasser's long-range intentions, have also provided the Israelis with similar heavy weapons.