Inside Nasser's Egypt
Sir: If all that Mr Ivor Powell (9 June) says is to be believed, things in Egypt are in a pretty desperate case and it would be much better if Nasser, or any other leader, tried to put his own house in order before embarking on foreign adven- tures. Instead of more education, better agricultural methods:the stamping-out of disease, sae have the pitiful spectacle of thousands of Egyptians dying in the Sinai desert through the debacle of an Arab 'holy war.'
Last October, with several friends who had been in the Middle East in the SAF during the war. I went out to Cairo to see again some 'of our old haunts. Before going, I had endeavoured to contact Ali. Sabry (wham Mr Powell mentions), who for a time served with us in 1943/44 as an Egyptian Air Force pilot on exchange. We recall him as a hand- some, genial, pleasant companion, one of the most likeable of the Egyptian offacess. However, there was no reply to my letters, nor did 1 get any response when I called at the offices of the Arab Socialist Union.
Idealistically, we -bad thought that Sabry might be prepared to meet us on an "old boy' basis, but obviously the anti-west 'tide of feelings runs too strongly for any politician to dare to do such a thing.
When we drove out to our old airfield, Kilo 40, on the Cairo-Alexandria road, we were tailed by a security officials' car and forbidden to enter. although there was scarcely anything to be seen but sand, which we wanted to tread again for old times' sake. In retrospect, I think it is pro- bably part of a radar or missile site guarding the nearby Cairo West airfield, around which the road has now been diverted, but which we could see from a distance was stuffed with Russian air- craft.
The sad thing is that Egyptian minds have now, as Mr Powell says, been so assailed by propaganda that a quite innocuous request from former RAF pilots to see an airfield would automatically be regarded as an attempt to spy. No doubt we were thought tc- be working on behalf of the 'imperialists' or the Israelis, who, as we have seen, attacked the area with devastating effect in their recent operations.
Yet Egypt has so much to offer to visitors, with its beautiful climate and massive antiquities. It should be doing a roaring trade in tourism, not playing at power politics, and the country's leaders should devote their energies to raising the miserable living standards of the majority of the population.
Humphrey 1,1'ynn Crofters, Broad -Street, West -End, Waking, Surrey
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