EGYPT: Nasser's Revenge

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"I look at Americans and say: may you choke to death on your fury."

So cried Egypt's Dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser early last week as he presided over the dedication of a new Cairo refinery. While Soviet Ambassador to Egypt Evgeny Kiselev nodded approvingly in the audience, Nasser spluttered his anger at the U.S. withdrawal of its offer to build the billion-dollar Aswan Dam, and branded as "lies" the U.S. explanation that it acted because of the shakiness of the Egyptian economy (TIME, July 30). Choking on his own fury. Nasser promised: "Egypt is going ahead with the High Dam."

But how? Nasser had already pledged his country's cotton crop for years to come to pay for his Communist arms. Moscow last week made it plain that it was not willing to finance the dam, even though it had let Nasser blackmail the West with the threat of a Soviet counteroffer. Now Nasser stood exposed. Even his brother Arabs privately agreed that he had asked for the trouble he was in. All this was vexing to 38-year-old Gamal Abdel Nasser, who is a proud man.

Two days later, on the fourth anniversary of the dethronement of ex-King Farouk, the West got a jolting reminder that Nasser has a nasty bite as well as a loud bark. Stridently haranguing a crowd of more than 150,000 with semi-hysteria reminiscent of Hitler, Nasser shouted denunciation of Israel, Britain and the U.S. for an hour and a half, then, with apparent irrelevance, turned his fire on World Bank Director Eugene Black.

"Whenever Black spoke." said Nasser. "I went back in my memory to the year 1854, when Ferdinand de Lesseps arrived in Egypt and told the Khedive: 'We want to dig the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal will bring you untold benefit.' " Egypt put up $40 million to help build the canal, supplied forced labor to dig it, and "120,000 workers died digging the canal . . . Britain forcibly took away from us our 44% of the company's shares . . . Instead of the canal being dug for Egypt, Egypt became the property of the canal."

Then Nasser delivered his blow: "We shall build the High Dam as we desire ... The annual income of the Suez Canal is $100 million. Why not take it ourselves? In the name of the nation, the President of the Republic resolves that the World Maritime Company of the Suez Canal will be nationalized ... At this very moment some of your Egyptian brethren are taking over the Canal Company."

The crowds cheered deliriously. It did not matter to them that Nasser was wildly askew with history and simple finance. The Suez Canal was dug with a loss, not of 120,000 lives, but of a few hundred, and Britain bought Egypt's shares in the canal only after the debt-ridden Egyptian government voluntarily offered them to

Disraeli.* It would matter more to the mob that Nasser's figures were wrong: the Suez Canal's net profit last year was $30.5 million. To clear $100 million a year, Nasser would have to more than double its already-steep tolls (about $8,000 one way for a laden 16,600-ton T-2 tanker).

"We shall rely on our own strength, our own muscle, our own funds." cried Nasser.