45 Years Ago In TIME

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Long before Saddam Hussein's face-off against the U.S., another controversial Arab leader provoked U.S. concern in the Middle East, Egypt's President GAMAL ABDEL NASSER:

It had been a week of dangerous, teetering triumph for Gamal Abdel Nasser, the new Alexander of the Eastern Mediterranean, a conqueror who has never marched beyond his balcony, a soldier whose victories are made from military defeats, a victor who has never won a war or even a battle. By marshaling the emotions of the Arab masses, articulating their angriest aspirations, stirring their most vituperative violence by his press and radio, and plotting to subvert rulers everywhere, Nasser had achieved his pinnacle. This vigorous and magnetic figure, who wears Western-style sports clothes but kneels toward Mecca with the strictest mullah, had burst into history at precisely the moment when the impact of the modern West unsettled the ancient Islamic ethos of the East. With the Western gifts of radio and press, with the Eastern habits of intrigue and assassination, he had become the most feared and most loved man in the Arab world. --TIME, July 28, 1958