A new book about Egypt's first president, Mohamed Naguib (1901-1984) has Sahar El-Bahr revising all that she learned at school Over the 293 pages of The Secret Papers of Mohamed Naguib by Mohamed Tharwat, published with Cairo's Dar El-Tahrir this year, the life of Egypt's first, short-lived president is probed from every conceivable angle. Tharwat, who was all too willing to give of his time to discuss the book with Al-Ahram Weekly, presents not only the late army general's previously unpublished papers but a probing analysis of the period 1946-54. Conveniently divided into a shorter biography and a full transcription of President Naguib's papers - sections one and two, respectively - the book was conceived when, at the newspaper stand on 23 July, the author saw a poster commemorating the 1952 Revolution in which all but one of Egypt's four presidents were depicted: Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak; it saddened him that Naguib was forgotten. Tharwat was struck by the fact that, for over half a century, Egypt had celebrated the revolution without the least mention of its leader: "I was almost personally motivated. I felt shocked by people's ignorance of the man, his complete absence from the media. I felt it was time he time he was granted all the recognition and respect he elicits." Even more valuable than Tharwat's stance are the 150 previously unpublished documents and recording transcripts he brings together; it would be no exaggeration to say that they might alter the accepted view of the July Revolution for good, due to much secret information they disclose concerning, notably, the March Crisis, in which Naguib differed with Nasser and other members of the Revolutionary Command Council over the Free Officers' original objective - which was to hand power back to parliament and let the army "return to its barracks", leading to his overthrow and eventual house arrest in 1954. In no uncertain terms, as he did in several volumes of autobiography published during his lifetime, Naguib condemns the abolition of political parties, control of the press and media and other autocratic strictures adopted by the Free Officers as well as his own marginalisation and increasingly persecution. Documents also include Naguib's MA and PhD theses on aspects of the law and human elements in military life, respectively, as well as evidence of his mastery of five languages, his outstanding courage in the 1948 War, and the development of his connection with the younger group of officers, starting in 1949, who were to stage the revolution, as well as the substance of his meetings with British officials after the revolution and a probing assessment of various political factions operating at the time, mainly Al-Wafd Party and the Muslim Brotherhood. The documents also contain Naguib's speeches which, unusually, he wrote himself. In the choice and presentation of the material, Tharwat underlines Naguib's vision for the future of Egypt, his attachment to democracy and his unfailing sincerity. Tharwat also reviews Naguib's writing, including the first volume of autobiography, banned on publication in 1955, and his 1943 book on Sudan in which he prophesied the clashes in Darfur. To produce the book, Tharwat had the Naguib family archive at his disposal, and he made excellent use not only of the family albums and documents but, notably, the audio recordings - including one in which Naguib, speaking months before his death, delineates the plot deployed to overthrow him, and a verbal response to a 1972 article in which Mohamed Hasanine Heikal, Nasser's mouthpiece, later briefly persecuted by Sadat, attacked Egypt's first president as "a fairy-tale ghost of the past" - at which time Naguib prosecuted Heikal for libel, prompting a widely published apology. Tharwat has all the documentation pertaining to the two figures' reconciliation, but, a quarter of a century after Naguib's death, he was disappointed to see Heikal on his regular Al-Jazeera talk show denigrating Naguib in the exact same words: "Once again Heikal said that Naguib's role in the revolution was, after all, a mere coincidence." This - up to and including the claim that Naguib appeared particularly weak during while bidding King Farouk farewell - Tharwat insists is untrue, describing Nagiub as "the architect of the revolution" and citing on the King and Queen Nariman's own testimonies on the matter. "Not to mention," he adds, "all the available memoirs of Free Officers who were present." To undermine his reputation for patriotism, Tharwat adds, Heikal circulated the rumour that Naguib's mother was a Sudanese national; in fact, he says, she was Egyptian. He is proud of the trust the family placed in him, particularly after he wrote a book on Riyad Sami, Naguib's office manager for 28 months: "They I realised I was objective and sincere. In fact our relations have developed so much we are almost family to each other by now, especially Naguib's nephew Major General Hassan Salem, who was very close to his uncle, and myself." But Tharwat does not rely on the documents alone. In the first section he interviews "all those who met Naguib or witnessed his life at close range, including the prosecutor general who presided over his detention in 1954". But it is in the image of Naguib under house arrest for over 30 years, allowed hardly any visitors at all, that Tharwat produces the most poignant scene, making it - appropriately enough - the finale of this entire biography.
