"Dam-Bid-Dam"

The young man lounging in the lobby of Cairo's Ministry of Interior was wearing the uniform of a police first lieutenant, but he looked more like a student. A few minutes before 10 a.m. he glanced up. Across the lobby came Egypt's 60-year-old Premier, Mahmoud Fahmy El Nokrashy Pasha. As he approached the elevators, the young man saluted. Then he whipped out a revolver and fired five bullets into the Premier's body, killing him.

A Phone Call. The assassin, hustled off to jail, was a 21-year-old veterinary student named Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan. He was also a member of the Moslem Brotherhood, a fanatical religious-political organization, a million strong, of whom half are Egyptians. Nokrashy Pasha had won its sworn enmity. A few weeks ago a telephone call brought him news that the brotherhood had assassinated Cairo's police chief. As he put down the phone, Nokrashy paled and clutched at his heart. Promptly he banned the brotherhood, knowing that his action might bring about his own assassination.

Why had Ahmed killed the Premier? He explained: "Because he caused Egypt to lose the Sudan, surrendered Palestine to the Jews, and dissolved the Moslem Brotherhood . . . the only organization fighting for Islam in the past 20 years."

By 10 o'clock that night Egypt had a new Premier: tall, stocky Abdel Hadi Pasha, former cabinet chief to King Farouk and onetime Foreign Minister. Like his old friend Nokrashy, he is a strong nationalist and leader of the Saadist Party, is expected to push the war in Palestine and continue the clean-up of the Moslem Brotherhood.

Drumbeats. One of his first duties, however, was to join with the rest of Cairo in honoring his dead friend. The day after his appointment, he took his place in the mile-long procession behind Nokrashy's immediate family and the gun carriage that bore the flagdraped coffin. The coffin was preceded by a magnificent Arab stallion whose rider tolled the funeral step on two giant, richly brocaded drums. Behind came units of Egypt's armed forces, members of the diplomatic corps wearing bright tarbooshes and sashes, and notable sheiks in brocaded turbans and gowns glistening with gold and silver. Last of all came the vengeful members of Nokrashy's Saadist Party, carrying their leaders on their shoulders. "Dam-Bid-Dam" (blood for blood), they shouted, in rhythm with the drums.

The line of march ended at Abbasiya, a suburb of Cairo, where Nokrashy was laid to rest in a mausoleum side by side with his old friend, Ahmed Maher Pasha, who as Egypt's Premier in 1945 had also gone down under an assassin's bullet.

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