ABSTRACT
In the period which preceded the coup of 23 July Lutfi al-Khuli attended three political ‘salons’. He did so at the order of his superiors in the Communist Party and afterwards reported to them about the gatherings. One ‘salon’ had as its venue the old building of al-Ahram and its organiser was Kamil Shinawi, a journalist and poet. The new generation of intellectuals, including Najib Mahfuz, met there; they were thought to represent the political centre in Egypt and to be liberal bourgeoisie. A second ‘salon’ met at the headquarters of Ruz al-Yusuf, a progressive paper edited by Ihsan ‘Abd al-Qudus. The third ‘salon’ convened at the independent paper al-Misri, which was close to the Wafd Party and was edited by Ahmad Abu al-Fath. It was at al-Misri that al-Khuli first met some of the figures who were later to rule the country, including Nasser, Sadat and others. ‘I remember that Nasser did not speak much but listened most of the time contrary to Sadat who did not stop talking’, al-Khuli recalled. This, he explained, was Nasser's method to discover people's nature. One of those who attended the meetings was Hifni Mahmud Pasha, then a member of the Egyptian upper class, but who took a radical position against both his class and the old order. He believed in democracy, noted al-Khuli, ‘and was somebody whom Nasser listened to. He could have been an effective source of influence on Nasser to adopt democratic principles, because Nasser appreciated him a lot, but unfortunately he died a few years later’. 1
