Middle East: From God, or Nasser

It is never fun to break up a vacation and rush home to deal with some problem at the office. For Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, it was especially provoking, for he was enjoying some of the world's loveliest scenery at Marshal Tito's villa on the Yugoslav island of Brioni. But the cables from Cairo carried word that Nasser's Arab unity scheme was in a state of collapse. Reluctantly, Egypt's leader boarded a plane and headed across the Mediterranean to deal with his troublemaking partners, the Syrians.

Behind the crisis was a gamble three weeks ago by Syrian Nasserites that by yanking their six ministers from the Cabinet they could bring the government down, touch off street rioting, and snatch control from the dominant Baath Party in the resulting confusion. Up to a point, that was exactly what happened. Baathist Premier Salah Bitar had to quit; his replacement was Dr. Sami Jundi, supposedly a Nasser admirer. But as it turned out, Jundi, too, had Baathist leanings; after three sleepless days and nights of trying to persuade both sides to cooperate, he wearily stepped aside to let another Premier seek a solution.

Who was the new Premier? None other than Bitar, who promptly filled the Nasserite Cabinet vacancies with Baath supporters and tightened the party's grip over the army, thus completing a purge that had already sent into exile two planeloads of officers suspected of Egyptian leanings. Within hours of the anti-Nasser stroke in Syria, much the same thing happened in Iraq. There two Nasserites were dumped from the Cabinet and were replaced by more pliable fellows.

Cairo was enraged at Baath's "trickery, treachery and terrorism." Thundered Egypt's Al Gumhuria: "Punishment from God is sure to come. Or if not from God, from Nasser."