ABSTRACT
Political leaders usually suffer a certain reassessment of their achievements after their death. President Sadat has undergone such a reassessment. The last months of his regime have been criticised as a period of spreading corruption when those around him exploited economic liberalisation for personal profit, and as a period of his growing megalomania and indifference to the real problems of Egypt. He was beginning to go astray, suffering from physical frailty and the pressures of having to live up to his image. So committed to his own ideas was he that he termed any who disagreed with him ‘unbelievers’. As the pressures mounted he retreated more into isolation. While still admired by the West, he was viewed with deepening indifference or hostility by his own people and he was hated by other Arabs. His wife who had been much in the public eye had to share his unpopularity. The growth of corruption particularly irritated young Muslim fundamentalists, those who had adopted and developed the ideas of the Muslim Brothers. A group of them in the army decided that Sadat had to be punished for his errors. Through careful planning they managed to join the military parade that Sadat was to review on the eighth anniversary of the crossing of the Suez Canal. They were together in a truck which they ordered to stop opposite the reviewing stand. Two or three jumped out and ran, firing machine guns and throwing grenades, towards Sadat who was standing to salute the marchpast. He died instantly. Seven others in the stand also died and twenty-eight were wounded.
