The Angel Read online

  WE CANNOT KNOW just how much of Nasser’s legendary status affected his family life or how it affected the way he raised his children. As opposed to other Arab rulers, especially his predecessor King Farouk, Nasser never took advantage of his status for personal gain. His family continued living in the same house they bought in Manshiyat al-Bakri immediately after he married Tahia in 1944, and Tahia continued to run the household on her husband’s relatively modest government salary. The family continued driving the same little Austin that Nasser bought when he was still a teacher at the military academy. In 1954, when the car was on its last legs, they replaced it with a Ford they bought on installments.

  In a society where graft was the grease that made the whole machine run, Nasser was a paragon of probity. At the same time, he clearly knew that his colleagues in the Egyptian leadership, especially his good friend Abdel Hakim Amer, had their hands in the till, and he saw their corruption as a weakness that he could take advantage of for his own ends. Nasser, moreover, felt a sincere revulsion toward the very wealthy. He once paid a visit to the al-Jezira Sporting Club, a preferred hangout for Egyptian aristocrats, but the atmosphere there was so repugnant to him that he refused ever to return. He also was unwilling to give his children any unusual privileges, and he always reminded them of their origins in the village of Beni Mur on the banks of the Nile. “I am very proud that I come from a poor villager family,” he told them, “and history will bear witness to the fact that Nasser was born to a poor family, and I promise that he will live and die as a poor man.” His elder daughter recalls that her life was “an ordinary life of an Egyptian girl of her generation.” His son Khaled insisted that he never received any special consideration in his own political career.3

  Of course, there can be no doubt that Nasser’s children were acutely aware of their changed status when their father came to power. True, they continued to attend the Kawmeya school in Giza, where children of the new elites went, and to play with the same friends. But because Nasser preferred working at home and receiving foreign dignitaries there rather than at the palaces of Cairo, life in their house was anything but normal. They built additions to the house more than once, both to make room for their growing family and to make it easier for foreign leaders and their staffs to work effectively. The house soon gained a tennis court, a library, and more. On occasion, when the guests were especially interesting, Nasser’s children met them as well. One photograph showing Khaled with the world boxing champion, Muhammad Ali, offers a snapshot of their life. Obviously their father’s status had some impact on the children’s lives, but clearly the impact was limited and varied from child to child. That emerges most clearly in the different experiences of Mona, Marwan’s beloved, and her older sister, Hoda.

  Hoda was, by all accounts, the more serious and intelligent of the two. Her schoolteachers, who on Nasser’s orders denied her any preferential treatment, later recalled her innate smarts, dedication, and work ethic, which enabled her to finish at the top of her class. Hoda’s life story took what must have appeared to many as its most natural course: a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science, and then a doctorate in political science, from Cairo University. During her studies, she and her husband, Hatem Sadeq, started working at the Center for Strategic Studies established at the Al-Ahram newspaper in 1968. Her family ties clearly helped her get the job, but her personal achievements justified it as well. Because she was so talented, and because of the career path she chose, many saw her as a natural successor to her father—an Egyptian answer to Indira Gandhi. But Hoda, it turned out, had other plans: She preferred the academic life, and her political potential was never realized.

  Mona, on the other hand, was not as bright as her older sister, and a few people who knew her during that period remember her as a frivolous girl who, more than anything else, enjoyed a good party. She showed little interest in politics or anything requiring intellectual effort. As opposed to her sister, whose grades in high school cut her path to an academic career at the top university in Egypt, Mona’s grades were mediocre. Nevertheless, after high school, she wished to join her sister and study economics and political science at Cairo University but did not have the required grades. Although the minister of higher education and the university’s authorities agreed to accept Mona, Nasser rejected any favors for his daughter and sent her to study at the American University in Cairo.4 He had little choice: During the 1960s, it was a private institution with a relatively poor reputation, and the students who enrolled there were those with parents of means but who lacked the grades needed to get into Cairo University. Nasser himself, so he claimed, had trouble covering Mona’s tuition. Mona’s habits changed little when she got to college. Friends of hers from that period recall that she spent at least as much time at the Heliopolis Sporting Club’s tennis courts and in coffee shops as she did in class.

  In the summer of 1965, after completing her first year of college, she met Ashraf Marwan. Within a year, they were married.5

  IT WAS NOT a chance encounter. Marwan’s younger sister Azza, with whom he was very close, was Mona’s age and a good friend of hers, and she made the introduction after telling Mona all about her handsome and talented brother. According to the memoirs of Tahia, Mona’s mother, they first met at the Heliopolis Sporting Club, which at the time was one of the most trendy meeting spots for Egyptian youths from good families.6 According to Mona herself, however, she met Marwan on the beach, apparently in Alexandria.7 Wherever it was, two things are clear. First, Mona fell in love with Marwan right then and there. The girl’s heart was swept away by his tall and trim figure, his fine features, and his expensive clothes.8 Second, what attracted the handsome and ambitious young man was not Mona’s looks, her wit, or any other personal qualities. It was, simply, her family. He was twenty-one years old, hungry and ambitious, and had set his sights on greatness. A marriage to the daughter of Nasser would put him directly on course to fulfill his destiny.9 Yet while most of our sources see this as his main reason for dating Mona, there are those, however, who insist that Marwan genuinely fell in love with her.10

  Mona told her father about her new boyfriend not long after they started dating. She apparently did not hide her desire to marry and start a family with him. Nasser received by this stage many requests for the hands of his daughters from the sons of rich and noble persons. He refused them all.11 He suspected anyone who showed romantic interest in Mona, and he wanted to hear more. She told him about Marwan, about how he came from a “Saidi” family (that is, from the best Egyptian lineage), and that his father, Abu al-Wafa Marwan, was an army colonel.

  Nasser had heard enough. He immediately ordered a comprehensive inquiry into Ashraf Marwan.12 The man responsible was Sami Sharaf, Nasser’s chief of staff and one of the most powerful men in Egypt—and who, in years to come, would play a crucial role in Marwan’s story.

  The report Sharaf sent to Nasser was not flattering. It emphasized Marwan’s ambitiousness and his love for the high life, while doubting the sincerity of his feelings for Mona. For Nasser, a puritan in his personal life who was already worried about his daughter’s lifestyle, this sort of suitor was not a positive choice, to say the least. Nasser was about to marry Hoda off to a serious, learned, modest gentleman, and her groom was clearly a better model for the kind of man he would want Mona to marry as well.13 Having received Sharaf’s report, Nasser sat Mona down for a heart-to-heart talk, with the aim of convincing her not to marry Ashraf Marwan.

  Mona refused to listen. She had made up her mind and insisted that Nasser enter into negotiations with Marwan’s father over the terms of their engagement. Nasser rebuffed her repeated requests, but in the end, the greatest Arab leader since Saladin was bested by his even more stubborn daughter. He agreed to meet Ashraf Marwan’s father.14

  THE ENGAGEMENT AGREEMENT reached between the two families did not strictly follow tradition. The groom’s family would pay a dowry of 1,000 Egyptian pounds (about $100), but no amount was set t
o be paid in the event of a divorce. Neither did the groom’s family buy jewelry for the bride, as tradition would have it. Instead, Marwan gave Mona a diamond ring that had previously belonged to his mother, and to her mother before her.15

  The wedding was held in July 1966 in the Nassers’ home. As opposed to other family events, this was a grand affair. Years later Mona recalled that her father had felt a need to host a large event because Hoda’s wedding the previous year had been more modest, with many important people left off the invitation list. This time, invitations were extended not only to close family members but also to classmates of the bride and groom, as well as the entire top political echelon of Egypt, including members of the Revolutionary Council. The marriage contract was written by the madhun (the official who handles marriages and divorces) of Cairo, who in 1944 had officiated at the wedding of Mona’s parents. War Minister Abdel Hakim Amer, an old friend of Nasser’s, signed as a witness to the marriage contract, as did Prime Minister Zakaria Mohieddin, who was one of the leaders of the Free Officers Movement.

  Photos and movies from the ceremony show Nasser sitting with his wife to his right, his son Khaled to his left, and Khaled’s younger brother Abdel Hakim to Khaled’s left. Ashraf and Mona sat opposite her parents, next to Hoda and her husband. After hearing the recitation of the first sura of the Quran and a few other texts, Nasser gave his blessing to the young couple. Marwan, in his dapper gray suit, sky-blue tie, and white shirt, stood up and embraced his new father-in-law. But not everything was rosy: In the middle of the ceremony, Mona suddenly turned to her father and demanded a pair of earrings as a wedding gift. When Nasser balked, Field Marshal Amer took matters into his own hands, tracked down a pair of earrings, and handed them to the beaming bride.16

  The entertainment was world-class, with performances by two of the Arab world’s top singers, Abdel Halim Hafez and Umm Kulthum. Hafez was a movie star at the peak of his career, and very close with Nasser’s chief of staff, Sami Sharaf. Hafez would often visit the President’s Office just to take in the revolutionary air—which he would then weave into his patriotic songs.17 Among his other hits, he sang “The Wanderer” (“al-Sawah”), which was one of Nasser’s favorites.

  Umm Kulthum was the greatest female Arab vocalist of the twentieth century. She had known Nasser for years. A few days after the coup of July 1952, Nasser called her on the phone and promised her that if until then she had been the voice of Egypt, now she would become the voice of the whole Arab world. He also told her that he had deliberately scheduled the Revolutionary Council’s secret meetings to coincide with live broadcasts of her concerts on Egyptian radio because he knew that the whole country was listening to her, and the council could meet without interruption.18 Nasser’s words had filled her with pride. And indeed, Kulthum’s concerts, broadcast on the first Thursday of every month across the Arab world via the Voice of Cairo, were a cultural event of the first order, stopping the entire Arab Middle East in its tracks as millions of listeners, from the poorest fallah to the wealthiest sheikh, were glued to radio sets at home or transistors on the street corners, listening to her magical voice. Kulthum’s repertoire included nationalistic songs as well as love songs. She sang “The New Dawn” in praise of the short-lived United Arab Republic, which joined Egypt with Syria from 1958 to 1961; her song “Baghdad, the Lions’ Fortress” was written after the overthrow of Iraq’s monarchy in 1958. But at a wedding in Nasser’s own home, she sang none of these. At Mona’s request, she sang “You Are the Love” (“Ant Al-Hub”), which she first sang in 1965 and had become one of her greatest hits ever.19

  Radio Cairo reported on the wedding, stressing the joyful atmosphere and the loving glances that the couple and their parents exchanged, in the best romantic tradition of Egyptian movies of that time. Newspapers ran photographs of the event as well, showing Ashraf Marwan, dressed to the nines, standing with his young bride in her traditional wedding gown, as she held her father’s hand.

  Needless to say, not a word was mentioned about Nasser’s dissatisfaction with his daughter’s choice, even though the president was far from alone in his suspicions. One of Marwan’s friends recalled, years later, that his “marriage to Mona did not surprise anyone who knew him, and testified to his lofty ambitions.”20

  THE NEWLYWEDS MOVED into a small apartment purchased for them in Cairo. Nasser, who had married off two daughters in less than a year, wanted to buy both of them apartments. He knew little about the real estate market in Cairo, however, and had never paid much attention to his own finances, so he had no idea that he didn’t have anything close to the necessary funds. A number of his friends got together and paid a major part of the cost, without Nasser’s ever finding out.21 Just as he helped Hoda and her husband get jobs with the Al-Ahram newspaper conglomerate, so did Nasser help Mona. But while Hoda and Hatem were talented enough to work at the paper’s prestigious strategic studies center, Mona worked at the children’s books division.22 Some people saw their jobs as a fitting expression of the difference between the abilities and talents of the two sisters.23

  Ashraf Marwan’s own life went through changes then as well. His marriage to Mona dramatically improved his status and brought him closer to the main centers of power in Egypt, much as he had hoped. He was soon transferred from the chemical plants of the Egyptian military industry to the Republican Guards, a military division whose main purpose was to protect sensitive facilities on the home front. Yet while Marwan probably viewed the transfer as a step up, it was also a sign of Nasser’s fragile faith in his son-in-law. He wanted to keep him close.

  It wasn’t close enough. Additional information concerning Marwan’s ambitions that reached the Egyptian leader convinced him that another move was needed. In 1968, Ashraf Marwan was transferred to work in the President’s Office, under the direct supervision of the chief of staff, Sami Sharaf.24

  SHARAF WAS WIDELY known as a consummate schemer and one of the most ambitious men in Nasser’s entourage. He was one of those shadowy types who wend their way into the corridors of power in every dictatorial regime. Born in Heliopolis to a doctor of means, Sharaf finished his studies with honors at the military academy in 1949 and joined the artillery corps. After the revolution, rumors surfaced that he was plotting against the new regime, together with other officers. At a certain point, he turned on the other conspirators, handing them over to Interior Minister Zakaria Mohieddin, who oversaw the internal security apparatus (Mukhabarat). Mohieddin was impressed with the young officer’s talents and took him on board at his intelligence unit. The interior minister would eventually cool to Sharaf, however, and when Nasser asked him in 1961 to find him a new presidential chief of staff, Mohieddin sent Sharaf to the President’s Office.

  In this new post, the former artillery officer brought out his biggest guns. He quickly assembled a whole new intelligence operation. The agency’s main task was to collect both secret and public information on every senior member of the regime. Sharaf became Nasser’s eyes and ears in the top levels of Egyptian society.25

  Under Sharaf’s direction, the President’s Office became the nerve center of Egypt, as well as the filter through which information reached the president. Anything of diplomatic, political, or military significance, even ordinary gossip collected by the security agencies, went through him, and he personally edited the intelligence reports written exclusively for Nasser. At around the same time, the Egyptian leader began cutting himself off, avoiding direct meetings with top figures in the regime. It wasn’t long before there remained only a small number of people—such as his close friend Mohamed Hassannein Heikal, editor of Al-Ahram—who could meet Nasser without the chief of staff’s prior approval. Sharaf made sure not only to isolate Nasser but also to sully the reputations of various individuals as the need arose. Anyone who had lost favor with Nasser quickly found themselves out of a job, and sometimes in prison. Sharaf quickly amassed immense power, becoming one of the most feared men in Egypt.26

  When Ashraf Marwan
was transferred to the President’s Office, he was not unknown to Sami Sharaf. By this point, Sharaf must have had a thick dossier on Nasser’s new son-in-law.

  Marwan began working at the President’s Office soon after the birth of his first son—Nasser’s first grandson—Gamal. The president dedicated some of his extremely limited free time to his grandson, as well as to his new granddaughter that Hoda had given him at around the same time. Ashraf Marwan, however, felt neglected. Fully aware of his father-in-law’s mistrust, he failed to develop any significant relationship with him. Instead of mitigating the sense of distance and hesitation coming from Nasser, time had only made things worse. People who overheard exchanges between the two recall a young Marwan standing tense before his father-in-law, sometimes even quaking in his presence, stammering when he had to speak with him directly.27

  This was not what Marwan had in mind when he married Mona. Proximity to the core of power in Egypt certainly advanced his personal and political goals, but life in the shadow of a father-in-law who had no trust in him, and under a manipulative and aggressive boss who was constantly watching over him, was oppressive. Given that Marwan knew full well what kind of fate awaited people who crossed Sami Sharaf, he may have actually been afraid as well. The close supervision also prevented the young couple from enjoying life the way they had in college. Marwan’s salary was a pittance. Abdel Majid Farid, who worked with him in the President’s Office and wrote an important book about Nasser’s final years, writes that Marwan earned 70 Egyptian pounds per month—the lowest salary of anyone in the office.28 According to another source, he was a “level-6 employee,” with a salary of 32 pounds per month. Either way, his minuscule pay reflected his inconsequential position. According to the same source, Mona, while working in the children’s books division of Al-Ahram, earned 35 pounds per month.29 While the couple’s income was reasonable for a middle-class family, it didn’t match their expectations for a better life. What was more, Cairo in the years after the defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War was not the hopping town it had once been, with a much greater focus on the growing conflict with Israel, including a military buildup that would allow Egypt to restore what had been lost (namely, honor and the Sinai Peninsula); there was also a focus on correcting fundamental weaknesses such as the poor quality of the army’s manpower as well as corruption at all levels, including the level of the minister of war, that the war had laid bare.