DR CHAZOV’S “VACATION IN EGYPT”Eg yptian president resumed his routine workload. Chazov states that he was kept
abreast of Nasser’s condition but was able to see him again only in July 1970
in Moscow.^7
Nasser’s seclusion produced a plethora of rumors, leaks, wishful thinking and
disinformation, which the Western press—lacking direct sources in Cairo—head-
lined almost daily, overshadowing the intense ground and air fighting that continued
on the canal front. The story broke on 16 September, after Jordan’s prime minister
related, on his return from Cairo, that the president “was too sick with a cold to see
him.” The greatest play was given worldwide to an exclusive report by the “indepen-
dent” Beirut paper Al-Jarida. It claimed that Nasser had purged “several top pro-
Soviet colleagues” to forestall a Soviet plot to depose him. Front-page stories claimed
that “the Kremlin planned to engineer Nasser’s overthrow while he was in Russia for
medical treatment” later in September. “The Soviet Union wants to topple Nasser
because of widening conflicts with him on the issues of armaments for Eg ypt, Russian
influence in Eg ypt and the overall Middle East problem.”
When this did not occur, it had to be reported that the Soviet coup was foiled. The
best-known pro-Moscow figure in Eg ypt, Arab Socialist Union (ASU) Secretary Ali
Sabry, whom the Soviets had supposedly groomed to supplant Nasser, was reportedly
ousted and put under house arrest. “Relations between Nasser and Sabry have been
tense, and the situation became further inflamed recently when Sabry returned from
Moscow with a load of expensive furniture.”^8 Two days later, “diplomatic sources” in
Beirut claimed that “Nasser has demanded the recall of Soviet Ambassador Sergey
A. Vinogradov ... Nasser is trying to emphasize his annoyance with what he considers
Soviet interference ... the Soviets are believed to have been alarmed at what they
consider Eg ypt’s increasing belligerence.”^9
As Cairo officially denied that Nasser was scheduled to go to the USSR in the first
place, a prominent Israeli commentator later suggested “one of the most plausible”
among many speculations: that not only the flu was fictitious but that Nasser had
never been sick at all. Rather, he had used the imminent trip to Moscow to excuse, in
advance, his absence from the first Muslim summit conference, which was scheduled
for the Moroccan capital Rabat on 22–5 September. The Saudis, taking advantage of
the fire at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on 21 August, had outsmarted Nasser by
expanding the Arab summit (which he had envisaged to press for more money from
the oil-producing states) into an all-Muslim conference.^10 But
Moscow was not particularly interested to have Nasser there and [to] be obliged to promise
him further large quantities of arms at a time when Mr Gromyko hoped to present his best
peace-loving face ... There are mounting indications that friction between Eg yptian officers
and officials, on the one hand, and Russian military advisers and Soviet diplomats in Cairo,
is attaining critical proportions ... Nasser is in a bigger mess that at any time since he lost
the June 1967 war.