NASSER'S PROMISES

Gamal Abdel Nasser, no longer talking about "a role wandering the Arab world looking for a hero," last week issued a conciliatory statement designed to show that he 1) is not a Russian pawn, 2) is willing to respect international law (though he did not mention the Suez Canal) and 3) has no ambitions to dominate an Arab empire. Excerpts:

THE policy of Egypt is a policy of national independence. Egypt and Egyptians value this independence more than life itself.

I will not become the stooge or satellite or pawn or hireling of anybody. Just as Egypt is determined to have political independence, so also Egypt is determined to have and maintain ideological independence from all foreign ideologies such as Marxism, fascism, racism, colonialism, imperialism and atheism, all of which, incidentally, are European in origin.

Egypt is profoundly aware of the necessity of the cooperation of nations. Situated where it is in one of the historic crossroads of the world, Egypt could not lack this awareness. Egypt desires to cooperate--an honorable cooperation--with other countries.

Concretely and specially, Egypt stands for international law. I pledge myself to the strict observance of all the international law which now exists.

More than that, I desire the expansion of international law to meet the needs of the complex modern world.

Egypt, like all other nations, has a special fellow feeling for those nations which share its cultural traditions and for those ex-colonial nations which are in a similar phase of transition to independent democracy and economic progress. But the idea of trying to create an Arab empire or of attempting to dominate such an empire is repugnant to Egypt and to me.

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