358 • 18 WAR AND THE QUEST FOR PEACE
Anwar al-Sadat
A
nwar al-Sadat (1918-1981) was born into a family of thirteen children in
the Egyptian village of Mit Abul Kom. In 1938, at the age of twenty, he
was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Egyptian army and was
posted to the Sudan, where Sadat eventually met Gamal Abd al-Nasir.
Sadat and Nasir soon formed a secret organization, called "Free Officers,"
which was dedicated to ousting the British from Egypt and ridding the coun¬
try of the monarchy as well. The members of this organization sought assis¬
tance wherever they could find it. In the early 1940s several of them tried to
establish communications with the German army in North Africa, not be¬
cause they were Nazis, but rather because Germany was the enemy of Britain,
the occupying power in Egypt. Their plot was discovered, and in 1942 Sadat
was arrested for treason. He spent several years in jail before escaping. In 1950,
Sadat was allowed to rejoin the army at his former rank of captain.
Sadat had never lost contact with Nasir and the other "Free Officers." In
fact, the organization had helped support his family while he was in prison,
and he felt an intense loyalty toward the group. Thus reunited, he participated
in the 1952 coup that overthrew King Faruq. He initially served as the group's
public relations liaison and later as speaker of the National Assembly. In 1969
he was chosen to be Nasir's vice president. Upon Nasir's death in 1970, Sadat
became interim president of Egypt.
At that point Sadat surprised almost everyone with his ability to outmaneu-
ver his rivals and, with the army's support, to secure his place as Egypt's per¬
manent leader. Pulling off surprises became his forte. He soon terminated
Egypt's alliance with the Soviets in favor of closer ties with the US. As he ex¬
plained, "The Russians can give you arms, but only the Americans can deliver
peace." Unfortunately, he was wrong about this. In 1973 he surprised the Is¬
raelis by sending the Egyptian army across the Suez Canal in order to force the
Israelis and the Americans to the negotiating table. This succeeded in restor¬
ing only a small part of the Sinai to Egypt.
Sadat's greatest surprise was his trip to Jerusalem in 1977 to present the
Israelis with a peace initiative. This led to the famous Camp David talks under
the auspices of President Carter. Sadat eventually signed a separate treaty with
Israel and regained the Sinai, but he managed to win only empty promises
from the Israelis when it came to the issue of Palestinian autonomy.
The tragedy of Sadat's effort to achieve peace in the Middle East, for which
he deservedly received the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, was that his partners were
not as sincere as he was. Partial success proved worse than failure, for Sadat's
separate peace isolated Egypt within the Arab world and earned him the scorn
of his fellow Arabs. Finally, on October 6,1981, a cabal of Egyptian army offi¬
cers assassinated Sadat during a military parade honoring Egypt's "victory" in
the October (Yom Kippur) War.