EGYPT'S President Anwar Sadat paid a call last month on the family of the late Gamal Abdel Nasser, his political predecessor and mentor. Sadat had an urgent request: Could he have the $36,000 bulletproof Mercedes limousine that had been parked in the family garage ever since Nasser's death last September? No, replied the family; the car had belonged to the man, not the office. In the midst of a heated argument that followed, Nasser's impulsive son Khalid, 23, dashed to the garage, doused the Mercedes with gasoline, and set it afire. It was a total loss.
These days Sadat could use a bulletproof limousine. Last week, moving forcefully to consolidate his power, he continued the arrests, demotions and sackings that have now affected some 500 army officers and 300 bureaucrats. Police were rounding up for investigation 1,000 or so members of a "secret organization" loyal to ex-Interior Minister Shaarawi Gomaa. Thirteen of Egypt's 25 provincial governors are reported on the way out, and a shake-up in the diplomatic service is rumored. In recognition of the numerous new enemies the President has made, however, the cops now keep the street in front of his home blockaded. To escort his limousine around town, Sadat has a score of motorcycle outriders and five carloads of armed guards.
People's Champion. "The past eight months have been an interregnum," reflected a top Western diplomat in Cairo. "That is over now, and Sadat is the real successor" to Nasser. The evidence is everywhere. For the first time since Nasser's death last September, his picture disappeared from some government offices last week, to be replaced by Sadat's. Already Cairo newspapers are describing Sadat's purge of his political foes as "the May 15 revolution, correcting the July 23 revolution"—the date of Nasser's 1952 takeover.
Despite Sadat's concern about assassins, his Egypt so far is a more relaxed place than Nasser's ever was. Sadat has cast himself as the people's champion, promising more personal freedom, attention to domestic ills, and an easing of police-state repression. As an earnest of that intent, the government eased press censorship and announced it was disconnecting the taps on no fewer than 11,000 telephones.
Still, strong doubts are beginning to disturb the cognoscenti, who worry that Sadat will become a Nasser-like strongman. It is an unexpected role. Before Sadat assumed the top office, his chief accomplishment was surviving for 18 years in Nasser's coterie, though he was banished to his native Delta village for five weeks only last summer for using government powers to take over a luxurious villa that his wife coveted. Cairo skeptics suggest that his accession to power merely portends a different sort of police state. "Up till now, the leftist-controlled intelligence tapped the telephones of the conservatives. Now the leftists will be tapped," said a leading Cairo journalist.