EGYPT: No Doubts About Who's in Charge

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The remarkable jet shuttle between Aswan and Jerusalem that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger employed to achieve an Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreement was distinctively different at either end. At the Israeli terminus, Kissinger often had to await a consensus on issues in the talks among the members of Premier Golda Meir's Cabinet. On the Egyptian end, in contrast, he essentially dealt only with President Anwar Sadat. The Egyptian President has so improved his stature since taking uncertain control of the government on the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970 that he was able to accept or turn down every decision himself.

Heikal's Fall. Any doubts about the scope of Sadat's power were settled last week when al Ahram, Egypt's most prestigious newspaper, appeared without the familiar column of Editor Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, 50. Heikal's "Frankly Speaking" column customarily appeared on Friday-the equivalent of a Western paper's Sunday issue -when al Ahram's circulation soared to 772,000. That increase was at least in part due to the column, since the Arab world read Heikal as the semiofficial spokesman of Cairo's government. Sadat not only fired Heikal from the chairman-editor post he had held for almost 20 years, but offered him as an alternative no more than a post as presidential press adviser.

Heikal's fall from the top of the 100-year-old al Ahram (The Pyramids in Arabic) had important political overtones. The granite-faced Heikal rose to power because of an early friendship with President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was the spokesman and interpreter of Nasser and the Arab socialism that the late President introduced into Egypt; even after Nasser's death and Sadat's succession, Heikal and al Ahram retained a special status and authority. But in recent months Heikal's foreign policy pronouncements began to differ from Sadat's apparent aims. For instance, while Sadat has been making overtures to reestablish Egyptian friendship with the U.S., Heikal's last column on Feb. 1 accused Washington of undermining Egypt's political role and disrupting Arab unity. The voice of al Ahram obviously was no longer speaking for the government. After Heikal was fired, government spokesmen explained that he had tried to build "a state within a state" and turn "the Ahram Building into a new center of power."

Heikal, in an interview with TIME last week at the editor's Nileside apartment, blamed his disagreement with Sadat on Watergate. Chewing his inevitable cigar, he said: "Nixon is busy defending himself, and I doubt that he has the strength to force Israel to give up enough for an acceptable peace settlement. I greatly admire the abilities and intentions of Henry Kissinger, but even a man as brilliant as the Secretary of State cannot rise above a country's institutions." Because of his doubts over Nixon, said Heikal, "I began to differ with Sadat about the pace with which we were putting all our trust in Nixon. I believe we should retain our options, making concessions only bit by bit, but never putting all our eggs into one basket. I was afraid we were moving too fast. I know many thought my editorials were part of a maneuver. But rightly or wrongly, it was a genuine position that I took."