ABSTRACT
When Vice President Anwar al-Sadat announced Nasser’s death there was an outpouring of mass grieving that surprised many foreign observers by its scale and fervor. Yet while millions mourned Nasser’s death, a power struggle was already underway within the Egyptian government to anoint his successor. Acting President Sadat was one possibility, but it was widely believed in Egypt and abroad that he lacked the clout and ruthlessness of his rivals to assert a credible claim to Nasser’s mantle. Indeed, in the early days of his presidency, Sadat appeared at times to be emasculated by more powerful and well-connected political players such as Interior Minister Sharawi Guma’a, ‘Ali Sabri, Sami Sharaf and Mohamed Fawzi.1 Yet Sadat survived the ensuing power struggle in large part because his rivals erroneously judged him to be a weak, pliable, transition figure. How mistaken they were, for behind Sadat’s complacent exterior lurked a raw cunning and iron will that none of his adversaries apparently anticipated.2 Sadat slowly and quietly built his powerbase by shrewdly reaching out to powerful military and mukhabarat figures. At the same time, he proved adept at manipulating his opponents, playing on their weaknesses and undermining their confidence in each other. There are also indications that Sadat’s links to US intelligence helped bolster his hold on the presidency even though many in Washington suspected he would not last long. The early months of Sadat’s presidency were also marked by a growing estrangement with the Soviet Union. Part of this was based on Soviet awareness of the new Egyptian leader’s clandestine contacts with the Americans; however, Moscow also erred badly by backing Sadat’s political opponents in the postNasser power struggle. When Sadat expelled most of his Soviet military advisors in 1972 he did so with two objectives in mind: (a) to remove an obstacle to his plans for war with Israel; (b) to lay the groundwork for a new, pro-Western foreign policy.
