FIRST PRESIDENT: Mohamed Naguib, Egypt's first president, passed away 20 years ago Sunday. Within 24 hours of the 23 July 1952 Revolution, Naguib had become the face of the Free Officers movement. A major general, he was the highest-ranking member of the group; his colleagues were too young to provide the nascent movement with the legitimacy it needed in the eyes of the people, the army, politicians and foreign powers. On 18 June 1953, Egypt was declared a republic, and Naguib its first president. He was also prime minister and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council that ran the country. Tensions began to simmer between Naguib and other members of the RCC -- including Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the charismatic lieutenant colonel who would soon eclipse Naguib. The debate was over how the revolution's goals should be implemented. Naguib wanted to phase out the military's political influence, and return the country to civilian rule. The military's role was to protect those in power, not to rule the country itself, he believed. Although the army might intervene to change a corrupt regime, it should then withdraw. Unable to maintain the unity of the ruling RCC, Naguib's 17 months in power were not easy. The new president, charged with running the country, fulfilling the public's expectations, and avoiding the onslaught of foreign intervention, also had to deal with junior RCC officers' zeal and the intensifying power struggle with Abdel-Nasser. On 14 November 1954, Naguib was quietly escorted out of RCC headquarters to his house in Al-Marg, where he remained under house arrest for the next 18 years -- until President Anwar El-Sadat ordered his release in 1972. Nearly two decades of anguish and neglect had taken their toll, and Naguib died a lonely and broken man in 1984.
