Traitors of Islam
Traitor: Gemal Abd-Nasser
Was Nasser A CIA Agent?
Miles Copeland, former CIA operative specialising in the Middle East, writes in his autobiography entitled "The Game Player" , that in 1951 and 1952 the CIA worked on a project known in the secret annals of the CIA as "The Search for a Moslem Billy Graham." The CIA station chief in Baghdad recruited a local 'holy man' and was sent on a speaking tour which got him arrested and hanged by the government of Nuri es-Said. Put on the back burner, the project was again activated by Copeland in 1953, this time in Egypt.
According to Copeland, the CIA needed a charismatic leader who would be able to divert the growing anti-American hostility that was building up in the area. The CIA task was to create 'something' more menacing than Israel, to be a substitute for the US and the jewish state. A religious spellbinder would be ideal.
The search for a plausible enemy took them initially to the darwish tariqa, and then onto the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen. Copeland held the opinion that the only kind of coup against Faruk that could be effective was a combination of the army and the ikhwan.
Copeland recollects that in the first secret meeting he had with three army officers one of whom was Major Abdel Moneim Ra'ouf (a member of Gamal Abdel Nasser's inner circle), no mention was made of a coup d'etat. But in March 1952, four months before the coup d'etat that ousted King Faruk, Kim Roosevelt (head of the CIA operation in Egypt) and Nasser began a series of meetings that led to the coup. Copeland lists three such meetings. Nasser and Kim Roosevelt apparently agreed on three things. Firstly, that the masses would not revolt because of economic circumstances. Secondly, that the masses would not revolt for any reason. The army would take control and gain the support of the urban populace and the rest would gradually follow. Finally, that future relations between the US and Egypt would publicly eschew phrases such as "re-establishing democratic processes", but privately there would be an understanding that the pre-conditions for democratic government did not exist.
Both the CIA and Nasser were in agreement on Israel. For Nasser talk of war with Israel was irrelevant. Much more of a priority was British occupation of the Suez Canal Zone. Nasser's enemy was Britain.
The US could assist Nasser by not opposing the coup. Right up to the day of the coup (23rd July 1952), the CIA station operatives stayed in very close touch with the members of the Free Officers.
According to Copeland the coup took place without a hitch, with General Mohammed Naguib nominally at its head. For the next six months the only contacts with Nasser and the Revolutionary Command Council were maintained by the embassy, not the CIA.
After the coup in 1953, the CIA assisted in the reorganization of the Mukhabarat (intelligence service). Key courses were set up designed to acquaint members of the Revolutionary Command Council with what they could reasonably expect from the USA. Nasser agreed to all of this. In addition, Zakaria Mohieddin, head of the Mukharabat, agreed to send an English speaking Free Officer, Captain Hassan Touhami, to Washington. There Touuhami was shown the whole range of services the CIA, FBI and police agencies could offer the government. During these early days, when Gemal Abdel Nasser was the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, all arrangements had to be formalised by Nasser.
Copeland writes that during this time, prior to Nasser getting rid of Naguib, he would have lunch with Nasser two or three times a week, either in the Interior Ministry or in the lunchroom of the Revolutionary Command Council headquarters in Zamalek. Most of the time Hassan Touhami was with them.
The CIA's relationship with the Egyptian government was kept secret and to assist this Copeland's employers, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, and the CIA joined forces advising on the organization of the Interior Ministry. This entailed making improvements in the immigration and customs services, tackling the system of identity cards and vehicle registrations. It also included keeping Nasser alive!
In 1953 the CIA's main worry was the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, later on it was the British. Copeland recalls that Sir Anthony Eden became so manic on the question of Nasser that the Secretary of State expected to be confronted with a British insistence on an assassination plot. The CIA station chief received a message from Allen Dulles to examine ways Nasser could be killed. There was a negative tone to the message. Dulles wanted a reply that would say Nasser was invulnerable.
Nasser was invulnerable because the CIA designed the security arrangements around him, without the knowledge of the British.
Nasser's regime's hold on Egypt depended on its being consistently and convincingly anti-American. The CIA helped him with his anti-American propaganda by sending an agent, Paul Linebarger, to Egypt to coach the Egyptian-American team that turned out the anti-American propaganda that poured out of Radio Cairo. Linebarger advised both the Minister of Information and Nasser on how the Egyptian press and Radio Cairo could issue stories and editorials which were seemingly pro-Soviet but did the Soviets and Communism more harm than good.
For all of this Copeland does not give the impression that Nasser was an unthinking puppet of the USA. As CIA operatives in the field, the first priority was to keep Nasser in power. However, the government in Washington were at times instructing Nasser to take some action that both he, and the CIA, knew would be suicidal, and when he kept refusing the operatives were directed to lay plans to get rid of him. Those in Washington were seemingly unable to understand that even the most pro-American government will not do the USA's biding unless it serves its interests as well as the USA's , and unless it doesn't endanger its hold on the country.
If Nasser was a puppet of the CIA how does one explain his anti-Israeli stance, after all the USA is Israel's biggest supporter? Firstly, one has to understand that the CIA needed a leader whose views were consistent enough with his own peoples views that he would be sustained as a popular leader. A puppet in the mould of King Hussein would not do. Secondly, whilst the US strove for peace between the Arabs and the Israelis, this was done for domestic consumption. The US was under no illusions that a continuing state of hostilities was something they had to live with. Thirdly, Israel itself needed Nasser to be unequivocally anti- Israeli. A moderate Nasser may have swayed the Americans with his reasonableness. Thus in 1955 Israel raided Gaza killing over thirty people. This prod from the Israelis forced Nasser to take an interest in the Arab- Israeli conflict.
The Gaza raid caused Nasser to request arms from the US. Kim Roosevelt and Miles Copeland went to Egypt to convince Nasser that he should make use of his sudden wave of popularity by setting in motion a plan leading to peace with Israel. However, the same day that Nasser agreed in private to go along with this plan, Secretary Dulles issued a press statement announcing that George Allen, Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs, would be going to Cairo to issue a warning to Nasser. Dulles was therefore creating a situation that forced Nasser into making moves that would escalate the conflict. This was at variance with the CIA's relationship with Nasser.
This difference between the CIA's hands on relationship with Nasser and the US governments confrontational relationship is demonstrated in the issue of financing the Aswan Dam. Southern Congressmen were against financing the Aswan dam because they feared it would enable the Egyptians to grow more cotton. Western Congressmen were against it because they were not getting finance for their own dams in the West. However, Bill Rountree, who succeeded George Allen as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, wrote an explanation of the withdrawal of the loan in a manner calculated to enrage Nasser. It also enraged the CIA.
But for all of the apparent disagreements, Secretary of State Dulles and the CIA agreed that Nasser must be kept in power. Nasser's response to the withdrawal of the loan to finance the Aswan Dam was to nationalise the Suez Canal Company. This brought the Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt and the US governments subsequent support of Egypt.
Reference: Islamic Revival Homepage
* These are the most important classics of Muslim modernism. They belong on the "black-list" and should be approached with extreme caution because they have all done (intentionally or unintentionally) irreparable harm to the Islamic cause.
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