Because of the obstacles to the purchase of weapons from the West, Egyptian governments made attempts to explore arms deals with the Communist Bloc from 1946 onwards. During 1946-47, Egypt bought weapons from Czechoslovakia totaling 368 million Korona. The deal probably involved only small arms such as rifles, and it is unclear how many of those actually reached Egypt because deliveries stopped in 1948, probably as a result of the Soviet Union's support of the Israelis in the Palestine War. In September 1951, a year after the British refusal to deliver the agreed-upon weapons to Egypt, an anonymous representative of the Egyptian al-Alamia Company met with the Soviet Commercial Attaché Victor Alexenko and asked him whether the Soviet Union would be willing to sell weapons to Egypt. The representative asked for tanks, planes, torpedo boats, machine guns, and other items, without mentioning specific quantities. The Egyptian desire for weapons, even from the Communist Bloc, was real enough. In 1951, the Wafd government, initially without British knowledge, sent a mission to Europe in search of arms. Further attempts to acquire weapons from Czechoslovakia were made in late January of 1952, just before the collapse of the last Wafd government. Gregor reported to Shiroky that on January 16, Henry Mirsa, who presented himself as the director of the Egyptian SOGENA Company, came to the trade ministry. He said he had been sent by the Egyptian Finance Minister, who was, according to Mirsa, a powerful man within the Egyptian government and for all practical purposes the actual Prime Minister. His mission, Mirsa added, was to probe the Czechoslovak government secretly on the possibility of an arms deal. Besides machine guns, Egypt was interested in cannons, anti-aircraft guns, and possibly airplanes. In a report that was sent to Shiroky four days later, Gregor's assistant Jan Souchek was able to record six other cases in which companies approached the Czechoslovak government in order to acquire weapons on Egypt's behalf. Souchek explained that because of a decision adopted at the end of 1951 these requests had been denied. The Egyptian Finance and Interior Minister at the time was Fu'ad Sirag al-Din, and indeed, as Henry Mirsa claimed, was a very powerful man in the Egyptian government. Later, Sirageddin testified that at the end of 1951 he approached several East European governments on behalf of Egypt in order to obtain weapons for Egyptian guerrilla warriors, who were fighting against British forces in Suez. Indeed, Czechoslovakia was known as a major exporter of arms to Third World countries; its massive arms deal with Israel in 1948 was thought to be crucial to Israel's victory in its war with the Arab states that year. Therefore, discussions were held with the Soviets and Czechoslovaks, increasing from 1951 onwards, but with little initial success. Stalin watched the events in the Middle East with great interest, but he was inclined to keep his hands out of the region for fear of British retaliation. The real change in the Soviet attitude towards the Third World would appear only with Khrushchev's rise to power in the years 1953-55. [email protected]
