"Passing Cloud"

There is a time to retreat, just as there is a time to advance, and last week Lieut. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, zealous leader of Egypt's revolution, knew that the time had come to retire to more defensible lines. "Our trouble." said he, "is that we kept acting like idealists instead of politicians."

Nasser, secluded 18 hours a day in his workroom by the Nile, had miscalculated the country's temper. He had underestimated the popular appeal of General Mohammed Naguib, overestimated the unity of the officers' corps (which turned out to be honeycombed with fellow travelers), misjudged the troublemaking .capacity of the supposedly cowed Wafdist politicians and Moslem Brotherhood. To bring the shaken-up Revolutionary regime back into the confidence of the people, political salesmanship was called for.

This lesson learned, Nasser began one afternoon last week to mend some fences. He met with Naguib and Dr. Abdel el Sanhouri, chief of the State Council (Supreme Court). They talked earnestly until dark, then sped to the home of old Aly Maher, four times a Premier and a master of Egypt's political meteorology, to talk some more. Late that night, Aly Maher called in the press and announced that Nasser and his Revolutionary Command Council were relaxing their grip and would gradually turn Egypt toward parliamentary rule. The timetable: in June, the election of a 250-man Constituent Assembly; in July, an Assembly meeting to ratify a new constitution; by January 1956, free elections for a new democratic Parliament. The R.C.C. said it will then fade away. As a starter, news censorship was lifted.

But concessions to the outside were not enough to restore stability within Colonel Nasser's tense little Revolutionary team. Through the week, the military council rumbled with repercussions from the turbulent events which tumbled Frontman Naguib out of the presidency and the premiership, then yanked him back, smiling and presumably of good heart, to exercise only the lesser, presidential half of his former powers, while Nasser himself became Premier. But behind the smiles lurked more troubles.

Early this week, the R.C.C. gave Nasser the new title of Military Governor (undisputed boss of the martial law now in effect in Egypt), to go with his ten-day-old title of Premier. But next day more dissension broke out among the Revolutionaries, and the R.C.C. rushed into emergency session at Army GHQ. One member left, muttering: "Naguib wants too much."

A few hours later the officers met again, this time with some civilian Cabinet Ministers. Out of the second meeting came another strange reversal: at Colonel Nasser's suggestion, announced a spokesman, Mohammed Naguib had once more been designated Premier, as well as President. Colonel Nasser was stepping back down to Vice Premier. The sudden Cabinet shifts of a fortnight earlier were rescinded. "The setup [is] as before," said the R.C.C. All the stormy doings of two weeks, it added, had been but "a passing cloud."

It was plain that more clouds still hang over Cairo.