On May 13, 1953, during a meeting between the Egyptian Ambassador Mohamed Abdul Moneim Mohamed and Vaclav David, the Czech Foreign Minister, Mohamed expressed the Egyptian government's wish to strengthen its commercial relations with Czechoslovakia and added that Egypt would like to implement the secret addition to the 1951 commercial agreement between the two states and buy as much weaponry as Czechoslovakia was prepared to sell. Another Czechoslovak report of Egyptian requests for arms arrived from Rome. The Egyptian Ambassador to Italy was evidently taking every opportunity to impress the Czechoslovak Ambassador, Oldzhich Kaiser. During May and June, 1953, the Egyptian Ambassador lectured Kaiser about Egypt's desire to free itself from the yoke of Western imperialism. He also spoke favourably on the policy of the ‘peace camp states' and explained that their policy conformed to the existential interests of his country. He wanted to draw Kaiser's attention to the fact that "as part of the austerity measures adopted by the new government, diplomatic missions were closed down all over the world; yet Egypt preserved two of its diplomatic missions in the ‘peace camp': Moscow and Prague." Still, the failure of these contacts did not weaken Mohamed Naguib's resolve. In late 1953 the Egyptian Foreign Ministry dispatched a formal trade delegation – headed by Hassan Ragab, the undersecretary for war factories at the War Ministry – to several Eastern European countries and the USSR. The delegation arrived in Prague in December, and during its stay conducted negotiations with the Czechoslovak government. Ragab told the local officials that he was sent to discuss the strengthening of trade ties between Egypt and Czechoslovakia. He said that the Egyptian government was interested in certain items listed in the commercial agreement of 1951 and, more specifically, in arms shipments. When Czechoslovak officials suggested that a team of experts and technicians be sent to Cairo to further discuss the details of such a transaction, Ragab welcomed it. However, when the idea was later discussed with unspecified ‘governmental authorities' in Cairo, they stated that the time was not right for the arrival of the Czechoslovak delegation. These authorities reacted in the same manner to similar offers from the Hungarian and Polish governments. All in all, this behaviour did not leave a good impression on the Czechoslovak officials who met with the delegation. Therefore, the anonymous Czechoslovak official who wrote the report concluded it thus: "The Egyptian visit was mainly a propaganda trip meant to impress the West and to inspect our industrial facilities. It is interesting to note that a request for 100 tanks, was first enunciated by Naguib in his conversation with Caffery in November 1952. It is safe to assume that what hampered the Ragab mission to Czechoslovakia was the rivalry between Naguib and Nasser, the unofficial leader of the Free Officers. Clearly Nasser, who at the time supported a pro-Western policy, had the upper hand. When Nasser replaced Naguib in 1954, the relations between Cairo and Moscow seemed to stall. [email protected]
