WHEN he succeeded the late Gamal Abdel Nasser last October, he was greeted with a cascade of tasteless jokes. "We're suffering two plagues at one time. First Nasser dies. Then we get Sadat." Haughty survivors of the ancient régime ridiculed him for his dusky skin (from his Sudanese mother) and because he had come from an impoverished delta village that is so remote, the nearest bus route is a mile away. Politicians dismissed him as a light-weight whose chief talent was sheer survival. When he delivered his first May Day speech in the steelmaking city of Helwan, workers shouted "Sadat! Sadat! Sadat!", but the photographs they waved portrayed Nasser, Nasser, Nasser.
Yet Egypt's President, Anwar Sadat, 52, after seven months in power, is no longer the butt of scornful jokes. He is no longer referred to as a "caretaker," soon to be supplanted by a more powerful leader. Dispossessed aristocrats no longer mock him, and politicians are discovering unexpected talents. Like some Nileside Harry Truman, Sadat is running the most populous and most important Arab nation with far greater authority and efficiency than anyone had anticipated.
Through deft diplomatic maneuvering, he has also managed to make himself something of a key to the solution —if any—of the Middle East riddle. In the weeks and months ahead, he will be one of the major figures with whom the U.S. must deal in the attempts to contain the dangerous Arab-Israeli conflict and to keep it from becoming a Soviet-U.S. confrontation. Last week Secretary of State, William Rogers flew into Cairo to make a first-hand assessment of Nasser's successor. Rogers was also interested in exploring one of Sadat's latest initiatives: a proposal for an agreement between Egypt and Israel on reopening the Suez Canal.
Unfinished Business
Sadat, among other things, is attempting to come to grips with the kinds of domestic problems that Nasser shunted aside as he pursued his costly war with Israel and his grandiose visions of Pan-Arab unity. Egypt last week reached a population of 34 million (early this year, Israel proudly welcomed its three-millionth citizen). At present, Egyptian babies are being born at the rate of one every 40 seconds. Sadat is trying to meet some of the inevitable problems that this overbreeding creates, particularly in a nation where much of the population is crowded into a narrow ribbon of verdant land astride the life-giving Nile. In both Cairo and Alexandria, the country's two dominant cities, emergency repairs are under way to keep haphazard water, sewage and electricity systems functioning. Last week Sadat promised old age pensions for all Egyptians within a year, and forecast constitutional reform "which will shape our society."