Some Riddles for the Sphinx

EGYPT Some Riddles for the Sphinx

King Farouk I was worried. He had just turned 25, and the problems of the modern world were pressing peremptorily upon him and upon the ancient land of Egypt. There was the question of airfields.

Cairo was sure to become the great air junction for airlines between Europe, Asia and Africa. Now or never, Egypt must decide what role she wished to play in the air age. Outside Cairo the U.S. had already built and equipped the finest air field in the Middle East.

Last week a stormy Chamber of Deputies wanted to know when the U.S. would get out. Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha soothed its chafed nationalism with a sweeping challenge : "Foreign airfields must be delivered to us or they must not exist in Egypt." Behind his bravado was the Premier's knowledge that a joint Anglo-Egyptian company was in the making to operate Egypt's airfields after the war. With well-timed tact the British Government had sent King Farouk his handsomest birthday gift: a twin-engined, air-conditioned cabin plane from the Royal Air Force.

A New Director? There was also the problem of the Suez Canal. Like Egypt, King Farouk was still making political payments on a predecessor's sins. The world was indebted to them too. For 75 years ago Khedive Ismail Pasha had defrayed the costs of his irrepressible gallantries by selling a European company the right to construct and operate the canal across the Isthmus of Suez. Great Britain (militarily) and France (administratively) controlled the canal. If not exactly friends, these powers had become old familiars with whom Egypt could quarrel cozily whenever it became necessary to assert her dignity. Now a new, incalculable factor threatened to complicate the Suez Canal problem. The Soviet Union was reported to have quietly acquired a sizable block of Suez Canal shares seized by the Germans from Jews. At the next board meeting Russia might well demand that henceforth one of the canal's 32 directors be a Russian.

What were Russia's interests in the Middle East? This was the biggest problem of all. If King Farouk doubted that Russia had any such interests, his brother-in-law, Iran's Shah Reza Pahlevi, could quickly undeceive him. Scarcely three months ago Russia had overturned a Teheran government that refused the Kremlin oil concessions in Iran (TIME, Nov. 20). And at 25, King Farouk was politically old enough to know that the question of Russia was related to the permanent problem of Egypt's ragged, underfed population. Most of them had never seen a Russian in their lives. But why had they taken to cheering madly whenever Marshal Stalin's picture was thrown on the newsreel screens?

On his 25th birthday King Farouk had some new riddles for the old Sphinx.

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