"O Sadat, Lead Us to Liberation"

As the latest round of Middle East peace talks got under way. Egypt's Anwar Sadat journeyed to the dusty Nile delta town of Tanta to address his first mass rally since becoming President three months ago. The 12,000 Tantans responded as if the late Gamal Abdel Nasser himself were speaking. "There will be no compromise," said Sadat, "and we will not give up one inch of our land. The battle will extend to our farms, our factories, in the towns, cities and on the streets." Then he demanded: "Are you really fed up? Are you really tired of fighting?" Roared the crowd: "We shall fight! We shall fight! O Sadat, lead us to liberation."

The belligerent harangue, like Sadat's calmer interviews with U.S. Newsmen James Reston and Walter Cronkite, was designed to show the world--and the Jarring negotiators--that Egypt is not war weary enough to beg for peace and negotiate away territory. The scene in Tanta was a far cry from Sadat's first executive address before the National Assembly last October, when he was so unsure of himself that he drew only a polite patter of handclaps. Sadat became the butt of jokes. Now the jokes are subsiding. "No doubt about it," says a U.S. State Department official, "Sadat is the leader of Egypt." "You know," adds a top Israeli diplomat, "I'm beginning to feel that we underestimated this fellow."

Available and Harmless. Critics could scarcely be blamed for underestimating Nasser's successor. Until Sadat became President, his chief accomplishment, other than his role in the 1952 officers' revolt that brought Nasser to power, was his survival. A former colonel, he edited the official newspaper Al Gumliouriya for a time and served as speaker of Nasser's rubber-stamp National Assembly. He lived quietly with his second wife Gehan, their three daughters and a son inevitably named Gamal (there are three older daughters, all married to army officers, by a first marriage that ended in divorce). He swam and played table tennis, practiced English and German until he spoke them fluently. He became Vice President of Egypt 13 months ago when Nasser decided that he ought to have a constitutional successor. Sadat, who was available and seemingly harmless, was chosen. When he assumed the presidency, no one expected much.

After Nasser's death, Sadat formed a workable consensus government. He persuaded veteran Diplomat Mahmoud Fawzi, 72, a widely respected moderate, to become Premier. Ali Sabry, Moscow's chief protege, was named a Vice President, but not First Vice President; that job went to Hussein Shafei, another participant in the 1952 revolt. Such important departments as Health, Education, Social Services and Police were placed under Interior Minister Shaarawi Gomaa, who is known mainly as a tough, hard-working administrator. Lieut. General Mohammed Fawzi, no kin to the Premier, assured Sadat of the army's support.

Egypt First. Nasser's picture continues to hang in government offices instead of Sadat's, but Sadat has quickly developed a style and emphasis of his own. He has begun to mute Nasser's stress on Pan-Arabism and concentrate on Egypt's internal problems. When one of United Arab Airlines' aging Comets crashed two weeks ago in Tripoli, killing 16, Sadat grounded the other four and UAA Chairman Ahmed Tewfik Bakry as well; Egypt then leased six Ilyushin 18s from Eastern European airlines. To revamp Cairo's creaking transit system, Sadat's 30-man Cabinet voted to spend $27 million on new buses and to hire Japanese consultants for a new subway-feasibility study.

Sadat has bid for popularity among the lower classes by cutting some food prices, invoking price controls and launching an attack on black-market operators. He has declared a truce with a hostile middle class by revoking the laws that Nasser instituted a decade ago to seize their property. He told a visitor last week that he intends to release some 600 political prisoners. Streets in Cairo are being repaired and swept for a change, new street lights are being installed, and sandbags protecting the Nile bridges are being replaced by shrubbery.

Tourism Campaign. Many of Sadat's ventures depend on an Egypt at peace--a hopeful portent for the negotiations with Israel. Aristotle Onassis flew into Cairo last week to check the possibilities of pumping oil through a proposed $250 million pipeline from the Gulf of Suez to Alexandria. Since the line would cross stretches of sand now dotted by Soviet missiles, Onassis said that he would return in six weeks, when the Jarring talks should be in better focus. The Suez Canal Co. has ordered a $2,400,000 Dutch dredger that could deepen the canal for 250,000-ton supertankers whenever it is reopened. Egypt has begun a new tourism campaign, and wants to attract Americans. The government has even dropped hints that it is considering the resumption of diplomatic relations with Washington, which were broken when the Six-Day War began. That may take some time, but one American tourist who may be arriving soon is Secretary of State William P. Rogers. He is eager to visit Cairo, and Sadat has reacted cordially.

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