“GUATEMALA, Mr. President, Guatemala.” Having just heard the news, the pro-American Egyptian ambassador to the United States Dr. Ahmed Hussein, who was then visiting Cairo, ran excitedly into Nasser’s office at 9:00 A.M. on September 28. All he could think of was the Alfhelm and what had then befallen Arbenz. As this story was later told, Nasser’s reaction was pure resolve. “To hell with Guatemala,” Nasser said.54
If indeed he ever said that, this was bluster to lift the morale of his inner circle. For Nasser himself worried about the consequences of his decision to buy from the East. He had tried to soften the blow on the eve of his announcement, but even his American advocates Roosevelt and Byroade had warned him that U.S. public opinion, at the very least, would react strongly to the news.
Although not yet trusting the Soviets, Nasser understood their utility and decided to move a little closer to them as he watched the Western reaction unfold. This movement took two forms. First, he decided that he would offer himself as a go-between in Moscow’s efforts to seek diplomatic recognition from Saudi Arabia and Jordan. This was good politics because it meant he could monitor what Riyadh and Amman were up to and eventually reap the benefits of any deal that Moscow might strike with them. Egypt would thus become a power broker in the region. The other decision he made was to press the Soviets for some insurance: more military assistance, the existing orders faster, and possibly a deeper rhetorical commitment by Moscow to Egyptian security. Meanwhile he did not privately give up on Washington’s reacting to the Czech deal with a massive deal of its own.
On September 29, only two days after his speech, Nasser asked to see Solod immediately at his private apartment in Cairo.55 The United States had just informed the Egyptians of the visit of a special representative, George Allen, who would probably wish to see Nasser as soon as he arrived on September 30. Nasser’s sources told him that Allen would probably deliver an ultimatum to Egypt. If Egypt refused to break the deal with Czechoslovakia, the United States would encourage Israel to begin military action. Nasser warned the Soviets that Egypt would lose any war with Israel within ten days of its start.
Solod doubted the United States would deliver such an ultimatum. Nasser agreed. But he said that his decision to purchase weapons from the Soviet Union was “a turning point in history not only for Egypt, but for all Arab states. The struggle beginning now will be decisive for Egypt and the Arab world.” The struggle against Western imperialism would be “sustained and hard.” But Egypt had to go ahead. Nasser said that he had alerted the Egyptian Army to be prepared for “all possible surprises.”
This discussion led to the big question: “What would the Soviet position be in the face of this U.S. threat to Egypt?” Nasser asked that Khrushchev be asked whether the USSR could supply the MiGs and the other elements of the September 12 agreement faster. “This would lift the morale of the army, which strongly supports the Czech arms purchase.” Nasser stated that the army needed to see these weapons, “especially the planes and tanks.”56 To speed the delivery of aircraft, Nasser asked that they be flown directly to Cairo, by way of Albania or Yugoslavia.
Moscow responded quickly. The Soviet Union would not offer any military commitment to defend Egypt, but it promised political and moral support if the United States threatened Cairo. Solod conveyed this to Nasser directly on October 1.57 Nasser listened closely to every word. Although he was disappointed, he tried not to show it. Other news proved even more disappointing. Moscow refused to send the planes faster to Cairo. The first shipment would come by boat at the end of October. To save face, Nasser responded that the provision of those planes any faster mattered less to him than making sure the number of Soviet military experts were kept down. Originally Moscow wanted to send 130; Nasser asked that this number be cut to 20.58
A few days later Moscow reported that it was prepared to begin additional arms negotiations. Although they would take place in Prague, the Egyptians would have to discuss the purchase of torpedo boats and submarines with the Poles. Nasser preferred to continue discussions with the Czechs, but the Soviets insisted on changing the intermediaries for discussing naval weapons. “Czechoslovakia is a land-locked country,” Solod explained.59 The Soviets said the Poles would be in Prague, ready for talks, in a matter of days. The Soviets also agreed to Nasser’s requirement that not more than twenty trainers and aircraft engineers be sent with the MiG-15s.
Nasser was going to get the weapons, but as he had promised the CIA’s Kermit Roosevelt and U.S. Ambassador Byroade, he did not intend to become a captive of Moscow. He had no desire to turn his back on Western assistance, nor did he want Soviet economic assistance if he could help it, given the political dimensions of accepting aid from Moscow. He could not dispel his phobia over letting Soviet citizens enter Egypt. He did not want engineers and economists swarming over Cairo, writing plans by day and engaging in subversive activities with local Communists by night. He didn’t even trust the military types that had to accompany the instruction booklets with the MiG-15s.60
Nasser also feared that the Soviets would betray him to seek détente with the West. In mid-October, as a new round of arms negotiations began in Prague, Nasser asked if the Soviet Union would trade its new relationship with Egypt for an agreement on Germany. He had heard that the USSR might add its signature to the hated Tripartite Declaration of 1950, the Western initiative to control the arms race in the entire Middle East. Referring to the forthcoming foreign ministers’ talks in Geneva, Nasser asked Solod on October 18 if there was any truth to U.S. press reports that a deal was in the works.61 When the Soviet ambassador said that this Anglo-American propaganda had no basis in fact, Nasser asked that the Soviets make a public statement disavowing any intention of joining the Tripartite Pact. He said this would be necessary to blunt U.S. efforts to discourage Syria and Saudi Arabia from buying weapons from the Soviet bloc. Nasser reported that the United States had just offered weapons, at no cost, to Lebanon. Nasser wanted the Soviets to start supplying other countries in the region. Worried that the Sudanese would otherwise look to the Anglo-Americans, he recommended that Moscow provide weapons to Khartoum. The Egyptian leader also asked Moscow to reconsider its policy toward the struggle for independence in French North Africa. Up to that point the Soviets had been passive, and Nasser, who admitted that Egypt was supplying the rebels, wanted Moscow to start sending material assistance to the Algerian and Tunisian freedom fighters.62 The Soviets did not respond to any of these requests. For the moment the Soviet Union had penetrated enough into the Middle East.
ON OCTOBER 29, 1955, a week after the Soviet ship Krasnodar delivered the first cargo of heavy weapons to Egypt, disaster struck the Soviet Navy at home.63 The 23,662-ton battleship Novorossisk, formerly the Italian Giulio Cesare, blew up mysteriously at anchor off the southern port of Sebastopol.64 The incident killed 599 sailors. It was the worst Soviet naval disaster since the summer of 1941, when mines claimed the destroyers Smely and Surovy and the German Navy sank the destroyers Gnevny, Tuchka, Taifun, and Tsiklon.65 For the Soviet leadership it was a wake-up call.
The tragedy provided Khrushchev with an opportunity to do some house-cleaning in the navy. “Kuznetsov is apparently a dangerous person,” he said, blaming the navy chief Admiral N. Kuznetsov, for the disaster. “[And] he is worthless as a commander-in-chief.”66 Khrushchev and Kuznetsov had different dreams for the Soviet Navy. Kuznetsov wanted a navy that could project conventional force, similar in size and capability to the U.S. Navy. Khrushchev wanted to reduce the size of the navy, restricting future procurement to missile ships and submarines, rather than aircraft carriers. The disaster gave him the pretext to purge the navy and place his men in positions of authority.
It is remarkable that as Soviet ships were sending weapons to Egypt and there was pressure from Nasser to assist other countries in the region, Khrushchev was firing admirals in Moscow to ensure that the Soviet Navy remained small. There was no better proof that Khrushchev had only a political and economic strateg
y in 1955 for dominating the third world than the way he responded to the Novorossisk tragedy.
By 1957 the Soviet Navy would be cut from six hundred thousand to five hundred thousand men with 375 warships mothballed; orders for new cruisers were canceled, four uncompleted cruisers in Leningrad were scrapped.67 In strategic terms, the most important decision involved the future of the Soviet aircraft carrier. Stalin had authorized the building of aircraft carriers in 1938 and 1950, but events had conspired against each attempt.68 In 1941 the Nazis captured the Soviet shipyards where the carriers were supposed to be built. Stalin’s death in 1953 effectively undermined the second push. Current plans had called for the construction of four carriers.69 Believing that the Soviet Union could not afford aircraft carriers, Khrushchev now scrubbed them. Less interested in being able to project conventional force into regional conflicts, he was prepared to rely in future on the Soviet Union’s ability to threaten the use of nuclear weapons.
The unfolding of the discussion of a new Soviet naval doctrine took place against the backdrop of yet another request for military assistance from Nasser. Claiming evidence of increased Israeli activities, in mid-November Cairo requested one hundred MiG-15s, instead of the eighty promised in September, and five submarines instead of the two promised earlier in the fall.70 The issue came up at a Presidium meeting on November 16.
THE CZECH ARMS deal had become a personal triumph for Khrushchev, and he led the discussion of how Moscow should respond to Nasser. “It would be a risk,” he said to his colleagues.71 But it was a risk worth taking. “We have pursued an independent policy [in the Middle East],” he said approvingly. The risk now was that Moscow might be dragged into a Middle Eastern war. There were rumors of an Israeli preemptive strike to prevent Egypt from absorbing the Soviet arms. Khrushchev opted for a controlled increase in weapons to Nasser. Submarines were out of the question, but the group approved increasing the number of MiG-15s to one hundred. Tanks were also not mentioned. Not long after Moscow would arrange the sale of the tanks Nasser had asked for in August, though not the top-of-the-line T-54s or even the T-34 from the early Cold War period. Egypt would receive the World War II–vintage Is-3. Nasser also eventually received a destroyer or two. “But submarines, we can’t give him, not now,” said Khrushchev.72
One area where Soviet-Egyptian relations did not improve involved the building of the Aswan Dam. During the lengthy visit of an Egyptian economic delegation in the winter of 1954, the head of the delegation, General Hussein Ragab, the deputy minister of defense, asked if the Soviets would help with a large construction project envisioned for the Upper Nile.73 The Soviet response was vague but encouraging, and the delegation left, having negotiated the bases for a new trading relationship.74 But by the summer it appeared Nasser had cold feet about asking for Soviet assistance.75 In financial terms, Nasser was looking for at least one billion rubles or one hundred million Egyptian pounds in credit, which could be given in the form of materials, equipment, and the salaries of Soviet technicians. The Soviets responded cautiously. This seemed like a lot of money, and before they would provide any assistance, they wanted a five-to six-person team to visit the site near Aswan. However, the Egyptian government refused to discuss granting visas to these Soviet engineers. Moscow concluded that Nasser opposed allowing a Soviet team inside his country for fear they would engage in harmful revolutionary activity.
Nasser had always preferred getting Western assistance for the dam project, and after the Czech arms deal was made public, he again maneuvered to exploit Western anxieties about Khrushchev’s gains in the Middle East. Knowing how the West would subordinate economic questions to Cold War strategic considerations, Nasser began an ingenious campaign in the fall of 1955 to convince the West that its worst fears about Soviet intentions and capabilities in Egypt were correct.76 Animating this strategy was his decision to leverage Western fears of the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East to obtain better terms for Western financing of the Aswan Dam project.
The centerpiece of this strategy was the Egyptian finance minister’s November 1955 mission to the West. In London, Abdel Moneim el-Kaissouni told the British Foreign Office that his country could obtain financing from the Communist bloc if it was not satisfied with the offer made by the West. A few days later el-Kaissouni met with World Bank President Eugene Black and his deputy Gardner to discuss World Bank support for the Aswan Dam project.
Nasser timed his next salvo to strengthen el-Kaissouni’s pitch. The day after the meeting with Black, Egyptian newspapers published a report based on a declaration by the minister for production, Hassan Ibrahim, that “Egypt received from Poland an offer to finance the high dam. The Egyptian government is studying this offer…no decision will be taken until the conclusion of the Minister of Finance’s negotiations in the U.S.” In the next few days el-Kaissouni met with high-level officials in the State Department. The strategy was working. Secretary of State Dulles announced to the National Security Council during the el-Kaissouni visit that “the Soviets had deliberately opened a new cold war front in the Near East.”77
But the coup de grace came from London. On November 27, as the Egyptian finance minister was winding up his American tour, Anthony Eden sent a flash cable to Dwight Eisenhower, stating, “Poland will act as a stooge in this case as Czech did for the arms.”78 Eden asked for U.S. financial support to prevent Soviet involvement in constructing the dam. “I am convinced that on our joint success in excluding the Russians from this contract may depend the future of Africa.” It would be a disaster for the West, Eden argued, if el-Kaissouni and Samir Hilmy, secretary-general of the High Dam Board, left the United States without conviction that an agreement would be reached.
This was all nonsense. Poland, neither on its own nor on behalf of the Soviet Union, had made no offer of assistance. Without access to Egyptian materials it is unclear to what extent the rumors and false intelligence that flowed to the American and British governments in the fall of 1955 were inspired by Egypt. Eden’s warning stemmed from intelligence gathered by an allegedly highly placed British intelligence agent in Cairo, code-named Lucky Break. It seems likely that this was an Egyptian double agent, who supplied deception to trick the British into playing this helpful role in pushing the Americans.79
Regardless of the extent of the Egyptian cloak-and-dagger activity, Nasser caught both President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Eden in his trap. It is rare in international history to see cause and effect drawn so clearly. Eden’s communiqué had an immediate effect. The next day, November 28, 1955, Eisenhower overcame his advisers’ doubts about Nasser and the Aswan Dam, especially those of his Treasury secretary, George Humphrey, and decided to commit the United States to the project. Having no sense of its magnitude, he had not yet decided how much of a commitment to make. But Undersecretary of State Herbert Hoover recommended sending Robert Anderson, a well-respected Texas banker and former deputy secretary of defense, to Cairo to work with Nasser.
In Moscow these events were followed with amusement and slight bewilderment. The Kremlin cabled its ambassador in Cairo, Daniel Solod, to be sure he had never said to anyone that the Soviet bloc intended to participate in building the dam. Solod assured his bosses that he had said nothing and that there was no truth to these assertions.80 In Moscow the Foreign Ministry decided that Nasser had planted this information to drive a better deal with the West.
The West, for its part, did not consider the possibility that it had been duped by Nasser. Fearful that it was competing with Moscow on the project, the Eisenhower administration on December 1 approved a financial assistance package for it. It was assumed the project would take ten years. The administration decided to support a World Bank loan of $200 million with an additional $200 million from the United States and Great Britain, 80 percent of which would come from Washington. Two weeks later the United States published an official communiqué on the el-Kaissouni visit, which announced U.S. support for the Aswan Dam project. As he boarded the fli
ght from London to Cairo, el-Kaissouni confirmed that the West had committed $420 million to the $960 million cost of the construction of the high dam. Nasser’s gambit seemed to have worked.
THE CULMINATION of Khrushchev’s opening to the third world in 1955 was his five-week, three-nation tour of South Asia with Nikolai Bulganin in late November and December. His goal was less to educate himself about these areas, though he wished to learn about these countries and their populations, than to improve the standing of the Soviet Union there.
In India, Burma, and Afghanistan, Khrushchev encountered countries with different regional and cultural needs. In each case, he saw the opportunity to create strong relations. India was important to the Soviet strategy to increase its influence in the developing world. Khrushchev viewed India thorough an ideological lens, one that inspired him to tell his colleagues in the Kremlin that the situation in India was “Kerensky-like.”81 The implication was that Jawaharlal Nehru was the interim bourgeois leader of a state headed for socialism, the historical role filled by Aleksandr Kerensky in Russia in 1917.
Although he was convinced that India was in a prerevolutionary condition, Khrushchev was in no hurry to see the Nehru era end. He was disappointed by the work of the Indian Communist Party. Moscow’s closest allies in the subcontinent were guilty of taking a hard-line sectarian approach to the Nehru government, stressing the overthrow of the elected regime instead of exploiting Nehru’s commitment to industrialization, public education, and state property to form an alliance among the population. Flipping through Indian Communist magazines during the trip, Khrushchev found them unappealing and inflexible.82
Khrushchev did not want local Communist parties to impede the improvement of relations between the Soviet Union and these regimes. In particular he had high hopes for building very strong relations with India. In mid-December Khrushchev decided that he and Bulganin should return there before heading home to Moscow. The original travel plans had the men ending their tour in Afghanistan. Khrushchev, however, wanted to give a major foreign policy address that would demonstrate to the Indians that he shared some of their priorities in foreign policy. Characteristic of Khrushchev, he did so without seeking any staff support from the Foreign Ministry or even the Central Committee. It was his judgment that Moscow needed to go on record in support of the Indian claims to Kashmir. He also wished to express Soviet approval for the recovery of Portuguese Goa, one of the tiny remnants of the Portuguese Empire located on the west coast of India.
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