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MOMENTS BEFORE HIS ASSASSINATION,
Egyptian Presiden t Anwar Sadat sits in reviewing stand ffanked by Vice
President Hosni Mubarak and Defense Minister General Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala. lnset photos: Mr. Sadat arrives at
parade site in limousine (top) ; Egyptian soldiers in military procession display their weaponry (bottom).
storming across the Suez Canal in
an operation that caught - t he
lsraelis by surpr ise. Though ulti–
mately defeated militarily, Egypt
had scored an enormous psycholog–
ical victory. The war did much to
rebuild national self-respect tbat
had been severely sbaken in tbe di–
sastrous Six-Day War of 1967.
Egyptians bailed Sadat as a hero.
In 1974 Sadat launched a policy
of economic liberalization that led
to invitations to European and U.S.
companies to do business in Egypt.
Despite these moves, Egypt was
still plagued with a desperately
poor economy. In a nation of 38
million people, with one fourth
concent rated in the teeming capital
of Cairo and the rest spread out on
narrow strips of fertile land along
the Nile, per capita income was
only $250 ayear. The cost of main–
taining a battle- ready army of
300,000 men left few funds for
Egypt's development.
In November, 1977, Sadat
stun ned the world wben he
declared he would go to the ends of
the earth, "even to the Israelí
Knesset [parliament]," to discuss
peace if it would save even one
Egyptian soldier.
Less than two weeks later,
Sadat was in Israel, electrifying
b is own nat ion a nd borr ifying
most otbe r Arab leaders. He
became the fi rst major Arab lead–
er to proclaim 'b is willingness to
accept Israel's existence as a sov–
ereign state. Tbe trip totally sbat–
tered Arab precedent.
Sadat's visit to Israel culmi–
nated in the 1978 U.S.-mediated
Camp David Accords and a peace
treaty with Israel signed on
Marcb 26, 1979, in Washington.
The treaty ended tbree decades of
conflict between Egypt and the
J ewisb state. With Israelí Prime
Minister Menachem Begin, Sadat
was a joint winner of the
J
978
Nobel Peace Prize.
Wbi le making peace witb his
old enemy, Sadat made enemies of
many former allies. Hardline Arab
states, condemn ing Sadat as a
"traitor to tbe Arab cause" and a
"pawn of Zionism," blackballed
him from t he Arab community.
Their response stemmed from tbe
fact t bat t he treaty did not pro–
vide a timetable for full self-deter–
mination for the West Bank Pal–
estin ian Arabs, leading eventually
to an independent Palestinian
State. Libyan leader Colonel
Moammar Khadafy, Egypt's west-
ern neighbor, was one of Sadat's
harsbest critics.
Sadat nevertbeless persevered in
his conviction that bis was the best
route both for Egypt and for the
region as a whole. That conviction
eventually brought about bis
deatb.
Sadat was well-educated and bad
taugbt himself English, French,
German and Persian. He spoke in
wonderful resonant tones. His daz–
zling smile carne across well on
television, where he used bis rural
roots to build a "man of the
people" image.
Many say Sadat's subtle elegance
was due to bis balf-English second
wife, Jiban, by whom he had three
daughters and a son. The beautiful
and aristocratic-looking Mrs. Sadat
became sometbing of a rarity in tbe
Arab world, an aggressively public
woman who played an active role in
public affairs and cbampioned a new
role for women and other liberal
causes.
President Sadat's assassination
on the eighth anniversary of the
October 6 War raises new uncer–
tainty about the future of the Mid–
dle East. The long-range geopoliti–
cal effects of his departure will be
major. o
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