Yesterday's Arab Summit

Yesterday's Arab League Summit in Jordan, like most Arab Summits, was fairly unnewsworthy, reiterating its support for the Saudi peace plan. It did, however, begin with Lebanese President Michel ‘Aoun tripping and falling:

After that, this viral montage shows the exciting conference itself:

This is Not a Tableau at Madame Tussaud's, though that Might Look More Lifelike

This is one of the official photos from the opening of the Fourth Caspian Sea Summit in Astrakhan.

Wax figures? Action figures for international affairs wonks? Or just a bunch of guys who are really, really, uncomfortable with each other?

Aliyev of Azerbaijan (left), Putin, and Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan (2nd from right) look particularly unrealistic. Has Putin hired as his makeup man the guy who used to freshen up the Lenin tomb? He's stiff enough.

Rouhani and Turkmen President Gurbanguly almost look human by comparison.

The Man Who Isn't There: Oman and the GCC Summit

He sent his cousin to Kuwait ...

As the GCC Summit meets in Kuwait, more attention is being paid than in most years. For one thing, at least two of the Heads of State of the six member states are absent. King ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. who is 90 and ailing, sent his Crown Prince. But I want to talk about the absence of Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who sent his Deputy Prime Minister His Highness Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmud Al Sa‘id, shown above with Kuwait's Amir. (Sayyid Fahd is a member of the Royal Family who often represents the Sultan and is sometimes mentioned as a potential successor, so it is not exactly a snub of the Summit.

...but he went to Tehran

But many have noticed that in August, the Sultan visited Iran and was welcomed by President Rouhani, but has chosen to skip the GCC. And we now know, of course, that Oman hosted the secret backchannel through which US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns negotiated the Iran nuclear deal. A deal, of course, which is not that popular with most of the GCC states, particularly the Saudis.

And we also know that Oman has been the main nay-sayer to the Saudi project for turning the GCC into a true union; recently, it openly threatened to reconsider its GCC membership if the union plan goes through. Oman has also, along with the UAE, opposed projects for a joint GCC currency.

I don't want to overemphasize this as it isn't totally new. Oman, which has far more coastline on the Indian Ocean than on the Gulf, and once ruled an empire ranging from Zanzibar to India, has always marched to a somewhat different drummer than the other GCC states. It has always sought to keep lines open to Iran, even in the worst days of the Iran-Iraq war, which helped spur the birth of the GCC in 1981.

But at a time when Saudi Arabia is feuding with its US ally and dismayed by events in many parts of the region, it also finds the GCC disunited. (Qatar's new ruler may be a little less the maverick his father was, but it's still early.) In a time of major realignments, add Oman's recent assertiveness to the list.

Wrapping Up the 1943 Conferences: Second Cairo

Over the past few weeks we've gone into some detail about the first two of the three World War II summits held in Cairo and Tehran 70 years ago in November and December 1943; one remains to be mentioned, the Second Cairo Conference, held in Cairo between Roosevelt, Churchil, and Turkish President İsmet İnönü on December 4-6. I'd planned to post this Friday, nearer the actual dates, but felt the Mandela posts took precedence.

Second Cairo tends to be overlooked, but of the three it was the one with the most direct connection with the affairs of the Middle East, the venue but not the subject of the others. As İnönü's presence receals, this was an effort, though an unsuccessful one, to bring Turkey into the wa on the Allied side.

Churchill, whose preoccupation with Europe and with attacking the enemy through the "soft underbelly of Europe" dateed to his championing of the Gallipoli campaign in World War I, was eager to outflank the Axis-controlled Balkans and had been urging an Allied occupation of Rhodes; bringing Turkey into the war was an element in his plans. FDR and the US Chief of Staff were never enthusiastic about these schemes, seeing them as distractions from the invasion of France.

Churchill had met secretly with İnönüearlier in the year in Adana; İnönü, who had succeeded Kemal Atatürk as President in 1938, was dubious; he feared an attack from Axis Bulgaria, and he suspected (correctly) that Stalin still harbored the ancient Russian desire for Constantinople. At Tehran, Stalin pledged to FDR and Churchill his willingness to assure İnönü that if Bulgaria dclared war on Turkey, the Soviets would declare war on Bulgaria. But Turkey was not reassured.

Churchill had also, earlier, supported a huge financial package for Turkfey, but FDR and Stalin reduced the size of the package, feeling bringing Turkey in was less critical.

İnönü's party leaderswhip did not want him flying to Cairo; Turkey proposed a meeting in Adana, or across the border in Aleppo, but in the end it was Cairo, and he flew in US Army plane from Adana to Cairo.

In the end, Turkey remained neutral. The dmaller financial package was part of it, but FDR and the American Chiefs, suspicious of what thet saw as a Churchill obsession with the Turkish Straits (and remembering Gallipoli), were not all that disappointed.

In the end. Turkey joined the Allies only in 1945, in the last weeks of the European war.

Tehran Conference 1943, Part II: The Young Shah Meets the Big Three

In yesterday's post on the Tehran Conference 70 years ago, I brought the narrative down through November 28, including the young Shah's meetings with the Big Three. (On the Iranian background see the previous post.

Let's start with a contemporary British newsreel of the conference, including the only video clip I've found of the Shah (meeting Churchill: stills with all three below.) Some of the videos I posted last week on the Cairo Conference also include the Tehran Conference.
An aside about Churchill's presentation of the "Sword of Stalingrad" to Stalin, shown in the video, though it's not really about the Middle East. The specially cast sword of Sheffield steel was a gift of King George VI to the heroic people of Stalingrad, was presented by Churchill to Stalin in a solemn ceremony on November 28. You will see in the video Chuirchill giving the sword to Stalin, and then Stalin passed it to Marshal Klimint Voroshilov, the senior Soviet military man at the conference and an old Stalin crony who had survived the military purges of the 1930s.

At which point Voroshilov immediately dropped the sword.

In the video,there is a cut-away after Stalin takes the sword, then you see Voroshilov, in uniform, handing it to an aide. The memoirs of Churchill and Harriman, the published parts of Hopkins' diary, the official Presidential log of the conference and George C. Marshall's official biography all omit this, but apparently Harold Nicholson's diary and some other witnesses noted it.

Back to the Middle East. Unlike Casablanca and First Cairo, Tehran addressed, at least briefly, two Middle Eastern questions: the future of Iran and the neutrality of Turkey. On the future of Iran, the Big Three pledged to respect Iranian independence when the war was over (following the toppling of Reza Shah and the occupation of Iran by Britain and the Soviets, the US had also established bases to facilitate the flow of Lend-Lease equipment to Russia, so none were noticeably respecting it in 1943). On Turkey, they discussed the meeting FDR and Churchill were about to have with Turkish President İsmet İnönü at the Second Cairo Conference. I'll discuss that more fully in my post on that conference, but Stalin agreed that if Turkey joined the Allies and Axis Bulgaria declared war on Turkey, the Soviets would declare war on Bulgaria.

Stalin, the Shah, V. Molotov (retouched)

I previously discussed the young Shah's accession to power under British and Soviet guns two years earlier. Normally, when three foreign leaders visit a country, protocol requires them to make a courtesy call on their country's leader, their (particularly nominal in this case) host. Instead, Roosevelt and Churchill entertained the young Shah at the Soviet Legation around noon on November 30.

But Stalin, presumably thinking in postwar terms, and previously unwilling to cross town to meet Roosevelt at the American Legation, was the only one to pay a formal visit to the Shah, where he assured him of Russia's respect for Iranian independence (though international pressure only got the last Soviet troops out of Iran in 1946).

The Shah and FDR

The Shah met with Roosevelt at noon, accompanied by his Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Chief of the Imperial Court. He gave the President an Isfahan carpet designed by the artist Imami measuring 18 by 30 feet.

The Shah and Churchill

The Shah also met with Churchill (though Churchill's six-volume memoirs don't seem to note it), seen at right and in the video above.

I'm leaving out all the meat of the conference. There was plenty of tension between the Big Three: Churchill and FDR over Mediterranean versus Western European strategy, and Churchill and Stalin over the postwar settlement and, given Churchill's deep anti-Communism and Stalin's Bolshevik history, Just Because. Things reportedly went better that evening when Churchill hosted a festive dinner in honor of his 69th birthday. That evening ended with jokes and even teasing among the principals. An explanation may lie in the story told by a Churchill aide that when the two men first met in Moscow in 1942, every meeting was rough going except their last, private lunch, with no one present but interpreters and multiple bottles of spirits and good Georgian wide. When the aides were readmitted, they found the two leaders in a good mood and getting along quite nicely, and the bottles emptied. This may have helped smooth things at the birthday dinner as well. Both Churchill and Stalin were known to like a drink. (This is untrue. Neither man liked a drink; both liked plentiful drinks. Roosevelt was no teetotaler, but he wasn't in the same league.)

On Wednesday morning, the first of December, the President's personal physician, Admiral Ross T. McIntire, expressed concern. He had approved the President flying to Tehran provided the aircraft did not have to climb too high, but learned Wednesday morning of a cold front that might interfere with the Zagros passes on Friday, rquiring the plane to climb to altitudes too high for the Presidrnt or some other members of his party. It was agreed to cut the conference short, with Wednesday, December 1, as the last day. The Combined Chiefs proceeded on to Cairo that day, leaving the Big Three to issue their Joint Declaration (affirming among other things Iranian independence). Roosevelt sent the Shah a silver-framed pictire and gave American chocolates and cigarettes to the staff of the Russian Legation. He departed and spent the night at a US Army base called Camp Amirabad, then proceeded the next morning to the Gale Morghe airfield and headed back to Cairo. Churchill traveled the same day.

The Tehran Conference 1943: 70 Years On

I'd planned to post this sooner, but gave precedence instead to my longish post remembering Ahmad Fuad Negm. Last week I had several posts on the First Cairo Conference, the first of three World War II leadership conferences held successively in the Middle East in November-December 1943, now marking their 70th anniversaries.

The Tehran Conference ran from November 27-December 2, its anniversry mostly coinciding with the past (US) holiday weekend.

To recap a bit for those who came in late: Soviet Premier Stalin had missed the Casablanca Conference in early 1943 because of the Battle of Stalingrad. The first Cairo Conference brought together Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt with Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek. But Stalin had  nonaggression pact with Japan and feared a Pacific front in his rear while he was still fighting back the German invasion of the USSR, so he declined to attend in Cairo.

Churchill had met with Stalin in Moscow in 1942. Roosevelt had not yet met Stalin; both leaders felt a personal meeting important prior to the invasion of Western Europe, set for May, 1944. (It would take place in June.) Churchill, FDR, and their staffs proceeded to Tehran to meet Stalin.

Iran at this point was under Soviet and British occupation. When the war broke out the Shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi, had declared Iranian neutrality and barred Allied use of Iran's railways; the Allies saw him as flirting with the Axis and were seeking a warm-weather route for the resupply of the Soviet Union. With Turkey also neutral, and the Balkans under the Axis, none was available. In August of 1941, the Soviets and British launched a surprise attack from multiple directions. The Iranian forces collapsed, and the Allies demanded Reza Shah abdicate, but offered him a chance to save his dynasty: abdicate in favor of his 21-year-old heir, Muhammad Reza.  He did so, and in September 1941 he became Shah a bit before his 22nd birthday.

On November 27, 1943, the Churchill and Roosevelt parties flew separately to Tehran. Roosevelt's pilot took a direct route over the city of Jerusalem, circling over the city and pointing out landmarks for the President and his guests. They crossed Iraq and proceeded to follow the Abadan-Tehran road, where the party could see American Lend-Lease equipment being transported toward the USSR.

Only two years after the overthrow of Reza Shah, the Allies still had considerable concern about Axis agents and sympathizers in Iran.  Churchill complained later that his route from the airport to the British Legation was lined by Iranian Cavalry:

It was clearly shown to any evil people that somebody of consequence was coming, and which way. The men on horseback advertised the route, but could provide no protection at all.

Roosevelt, in contrast, had a diversion: an armored  procession ostentatiously proceeded to Tehran, while FDR landed at a different airfield, a Russian field at Gale Morghe south of Tehran. He was not met by an honor delegation and was taken directly in an Army car to the US Legation.

Roosevelt had declined a Soviet invitation to stay at their Legation,but the next day Stalin noted that the Soviet and British Legations were close to each other, but the US Legation was across town and Stalin's security people did not want to risk him traveling so far in the open. On the 28th Roosevelt moved into a separate structure in the Soviet compound though the bulk of the US delegation apparently stayed at the US Legation. Also on the 28th Roosevelt and Stalin held their first meeting,

That evening, through some miracle on the part of FDR's mess crew from Shangri-La (now Camp David: the mess crew were Filipino), who arrived at the new quarters at 4 pm, the President managed to host a dinner for Churchill and Stalin at 8:30.

Tomorrow: The young Shah meets the Big Three.

Why King Farouq Missed the Conference: The First Cairo Conference, 1943, Part II

King Farouq Earlier in 1942

This is my second post on the 70th anniversary of the First Cairo Conference of 1943, the first of three continuous World War II summits held in the Middle East (First Cairo, Tehran, and Second Cairo). But this one is not about the conference itself, but about the absence of King Farouq. Although the local rulers were not participants in the Allied Conference, at the Casablanca Conference earlier in 1943, FDR had hosted a dinner for Sultan Muhammad V of Morocco, where he openly seemed to support Moroccan independence, in the presence of the local French authorities (most of whom were Vichy holdovers). But FDR did not meet Farouq on this trip to Egypt. (He did later though, on his way home after the Yalta Conference in 1945, when he met with Farouq and King "Ibn Saud" of Saudi Arabia aboard a ship in the Red Sea.)

Ahmad Hassanein Pasha

Instead, on November 24, Roosevelt received the Chief of Farouq's Royal Cabinet and Royal Chamberlain, Ahmad Hassanein Pasha (a powerful figure in his own right who may be the subject of a future blogpost) and with the Wafdist Prime Minister, Mustafa Nahhas Pasha. It is unclear if they also called on Winston Churchill; he doesn't seem to mention it in his memoirs.

So where was the King? Improbably enough, he was in an ordinary Army hospital bed in an obscure British Army field hospital at a British camp in the small town of Qassasin on the eastern edge of the Delta, midway between Cairo and Ismailia, and had been there nearly 10 days.

Needless to say, therein lies a good story, and needless to say, I'm going to tell it.

But first let me set the political context of the time. In 1936, Egypt and Britain signed a treaty which was supposed to end Britain's military occupation of Egypt, except for the Suez Canal Zone, and make Egypt (nominally independent since 1922) recognizing Egypt as fully sovereign with a right to join the League of Nations. The treaty was also a treaty of alliance, allowing Britain to reoccupy the rest of Egypt in order to protect its Ally Egypt and the Canal in time of war. And in 1939, Britain found itself at war. With first the Italians and then Rommel threatening Egypt from Libya, the British built up their forces in the country, and became concerned by what they perceived as a pro-Axis tilt in the Palace itself.

Sir Miles Lampson's title was Ambassador to Egypt and High Commissioner of the Sudan, but once the British had reoccupied Egypt he, with the backing of the British Army, began acting much more like a colonial viceroy. The King had surrounded himself with a number of Italian cronies who were, in British eyes, enemy aliens and perhaps Mussolini's spies; Lampson demanded the King get rid of them. (He never did. Lampson's own wife was the daughter of an Italian aristocrat, and the King supposedly quipped, not to Lampson's face, that "I'll get rid of my Italians when he gets rid of his.")

I did a post last year on the ‘Abdin Incident of February 4, 1942. After the fall of Prime Minister Hussein Hussein Sirri Pasha's pro-British government, the British decided to insist on a Wafdist Prime Minister. It's conventional to analyze Egypt in this period as a three-way power struggle between the King, the British, and the nationalist Wafd Party; usually the British were anti-Wafd, but this time they insisted on the King naming Wafd leader Nahhas Pasha as Prime Minister. When the King resisted, Lampson and his military counterpart showed up at the gates of ‘Abdin Palace accompanied by tanks and carrying an instrument of abdication drawn up by Sir Walter Monckton. who had done the same for King Edward VIII and was now at the Embassy in Cairo. He offered the King a choice: abdicate or appoint Nahhas.

Lampson and Nahhas in 1936 

The ‘Abdin incident is notorious among Egyptians to this day; at least in folklore, Lampson asked, "Where's the boy?" (Farouq was 22) and "I know the way" when someone tried to lead him to the King. Any British hope that forcing the King to name Nahhas would strengthen their own popularity was misguided; instead, Egyptians considered that the once nationalist Nahhas had been installed in power by British arms. And the King despised both Lampson and Nahhas.

In the 21 months between the ‘Abdin Incident and the First Cairo Conference, the once svelte young King of the late 1930s had begun to put on weight and indulge his appetites, both gastronomic and sexual, and had reached nearly 250 pounds. He had continued to feud with Nahhas, seeking to replace him, but unable to do so. Though Rommel had been stopped at El ‘Alamein, the British still suspected the King's real sympathies.

Meanwhile, Sir Miles Lampson's popularity in Egypt might be nil, Britain felt otherwise and had elevated him to the peerage as Lord Killearn. (One of those perhaps apocryphal stories that has to be told, even if untrue, claims that Noel Coward supposedly told Lord Killearn that "I understand that you are much more popular than your predecessor, Lampson.")

That brings us to November 1943. Now the King loved cars. Like some other royalty he loved fast cars. (King Ghazi of Iraq had died in a car accident in 1939 at age 29.) And Farouq loved red cars, so much so that he's reported to have banned importers from importing and selling red cars in Egypt except for the King. He had hundreds of cars at various times. All seem to have been red, though a Mercedes given to him for his 1938 wedding by Adolf Hitler seems to have started out black and been repainted a dark shade of red. (Even in his post-1952nEuropean exile, Farouq's cars would be red.)

Now back to our story. On November 15, 1943, the King decided to get out of Cairo and head to one of his other palaces, gathered some of his aides and cronies, and got one of his red Cadillacs ready, and headed out on the Cairo to Ismailia road. In open country the King was said to drive normally at least 80 mph, and along the way apparently became frustrated by finding himself stuck behind a British Army lorry (truck). apparently, the King decided to pass the truck on the two-lane road and, once in the other lane, saw oncoming traffic, and veered into the truck. (Or, if you prefer conspiracy theories, the whole thing was of course a British plot.) The car swerved off the road and hit a tree.

The King suffered two cracked ribs and a cracked pelvic bone. (There are stories the stretcher-bearers dropped the overweight King, which wouldn't have helped.) There was no concussion. Nothing life-threatening, but the pelvic injury would keep him off his feet.

An Egyptian Magazine Visits the Hospital

The nearest hospital was Military Hospital Number 6 at a British Army camp at nearby Qassasin. The King was treated by both British and Egyptian doctors; his weight seems to have been one obstacle to his being moved immediately to Cairo, but as the days went on, he seems to have been recovering well. For whatever reasons, however, the King decided he was going to enjoy a leisurely recovery in a military hospital rather than a Palace in Cairo. He was still there at the time of the First Cairo Conference; he was still there during the Second Cairo Conference; he only returned home December 7, three weeks after the accident. Why? He claimed, supposedly, he wanted to be sure he was in good shape. Some have suspected he wanted to stay well away from the Court (and perhaps his mother, Queen Nazli.) Perhaps he was even avoiding the Cairo Conferences?

This being the Middle East, the long delay fueled conspiracy theories. After the accident, the King's descent into obesity and libertinism continued, and though there was evidence of these before the accident, a theory emerged that either the pelvic accident or the British treatment had altered the King's hormonal balance and perhaps his mind in some way. The doctors said that wasn't possible, but conspiracy theories never need evidence, do they?

And that is where the King was during the Cairo Conference.

The Great Powers Gather at Mena House: 70 Years Since the First Cairo Conference, Part I

Chiang, FDR, Churchill, Madame Chiang in Cairo

Unless you spent the day in a coma or an alien solar system, you know that today was he 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. But this November 22 (late as this post is) marks another anniversary as well: November 22, 1943, 70 years ago, was the first day of the First Cairo Conference, the first in a string of three World War II summits one after the other, all involving Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill: First Cairo (Churchill, FDR, China's Chiang Kai-shek), Tehran (Churchill, FDR, Stalin), and Second Cairo (Churchill, FDR, and Turkish President İsmet İnönü). Though all were held in Middle Eastern cities, they were, like the Casablanca Conference earlier in the same year, in but largely not of the region or even about it.  Of the three, only the third actually addressed an issue substantively involving the Middle East (attempting to persuade İnönü to bring Turkey into the War on the Allied side).

As I did with the earlier summit in Casablanca, this will be the first of a number of posts about First Cairo, followed by discussions of the two subsequent conferences, over the couple of weeks to come. This first post sets the scene and context of the summit. Subsequent posts will deal with why King Farouq did not meet the foreign leaders (whereas FDR hosted a dinner for Sultan Muhammad V at Casablanca) (hint: Farouq was in the hospital, but that is a tale of its own worth retelling in the next post), followed by details of the proceedings, including FDR's hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for the attendees.

Meanwhile this post will introduce the setting, context, and dramatis personae.

The reasons for having three summits rather than one were diplomatic. With the invasion of Europe looming in 1944, Roosevelt had never yet met with Soviet Premier/General Secretary Stalin. Stalin had missed Casablanca because the Battle of Stalingrad was still under way. Roosevelt Churchill and their military staffs had also not held a full-scale conference on the strategy against Japan.

Meanwhile, after a mostly-forgotten border war in 1939 (known to Japan as Nomonhan and the Russians as Khalkhyn-gol) along the Russian-Manchurian-Mongolian border areas, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Japan at the time of the German invasion in 1941. Accordingly, unlike his British and American allies, Stalin was not at war with Japan. As a result, he chose not to attend the Cairo summit, mostly devoted to the war against Japan and including Chiang Kai-shek (Stalin was of course a supporter of the Chinese Communists, though they were in a truce with the Nationalists to fight the common Japanese enemy.). So it was decided to split the Cairo Conference (codenamed SEXTANT) from the one with Stalin in Tehran (EUREKA). first Cairo Conference ran from November 22-26; Tehran from November 28-December 1, and Second Cairo December 4-6. Roosevelt brought Ambassador Harriman, a trusted friend, down from Moscow to interpret Russian intentions. Russia sent no official delegate for the reasons stated, but its Assistant Foreign Minister Andrei Vishynsky was in town en route to Algiers to join an Allied commission on post-Mussolini Italy, and did take the opportunity to make courtesy calls on the principals.

The inclusion of Chiang was at Roosevelt's insistence. He was seeking to build up Chiang's image as an ally against Japan. Roosevelt was also much more determined to push the British to do more in the China-Burma-India ("CBI) Theater. Churchill was clearly unhappy (even in his memoirs after the war) with the American focus on Chiang. To Churchill, Britain's interests in Asia were the recovery of Hong Kong and Singapore (and Malaya) from Japan, and the protection of India (the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire) against Japanese invasion. To him, the war in Burma was to protect India; to the US, it was a bridge via the Burma Road to supply Chiang.  (Fortunately for both countries, the British had one of their very best generals in the war, William Slim, in Burma, though Churchill underestimated him).

You may note, above, that the photo above includes not only the three leaders but also, seated alongside them, Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Soong Mei-ling), while Eleanor Roosevelt and Clementine Churchill are not only not in evidence, but were back in Washington and London.

Only one person here speaks no English

Officially, she served as her husband's translator. She was definitely that: she spoke fluent, colloquial and American accented English (having spent some years in Macon, Georgia, it's said she had a pronounced Georgia accent, though she later attended Wellesley), while Chiang, even in his long years in American-protected exile on Taiwan, never bothered to learn any. Note, in the photo at right, that she is chatting up Churchill animatedly while Chiang is staring straight at the camera, perhaps unsure what's going on.

But she was much more. The three Soong sisters married well: one married H.H. Kung, the richest businessman in China; the other became the second wife of Sun Yat-sen, leader of the 1911 Chinese Revolution. The latter remained in China under Mao, rising to senior posts in the Communist Party (mostly for who she was), even while her sister was the First Lady of Taiwan.

While Chiang spoke no English, Madame Chiang was thoroughly Americanized. Raised a Christian in American Methodist missionary schools in China, she studied in the US from 1907 through her graduation from Wellesley in 1917. She was not just the interpreter of Chiang's words but of his ideas, and probably more. Many believed that Chiang, the military officer trained in military schools, speaking only Chinese and largely ignorant of the outside world, was protected by Mei-ling, who filtered out his more naive and ignorant notions from his conversations, Many Westerners were convinced she was the brains of the outfit. Madame Chiang lived until 2003, dying at the age of 105, outliving, well, most everybody (105!). The Soong sisters were formidable, and forgive this long aside, but that's why Madame Chiang is in the photo.

The Venue

Mena House Hotel

The primary venue of the Cairo Conference was the Mena House Hotel at the foot of and just across the road from the pyramids of Giza. It's one of the grand old colonial hotels, a longtime favorite of Churchill's, though he stayed in a private villa and only attended several sessions at the hotel on this trip. The Mena House is a grand old hotel in the British colonial manner, and still operating, though the Indian-owned  Oberoi chain which had run it for several decades ended its ownership in 2012. Currently undergoing renovation and run by Egypt, it is nevertheless still open, according to its website. Though they bill their Churchill Suite online as where he stayed during the Cairo Conference, he was sleeping in a private villa; perhaps he kept this suite for his own use during his private visits, or stayed there on his many other trips.

The View from Mena House

By the testimony of Churchill's own war memoirs, he stayed at a villa. Churchill had sailed from Plymouth in HMS Renown on November 12, not to return to Britain for nearly three months. He stopped in Algiers to meet with Eisenhower and British General Alexander, then sailed on to Malta, where he learned Roosevelt had proposed Khartoum instead of Cairo as less susceptible to air attack. Churchill was having none of that and considered Malta instead (overlooking that it was much more susceptible to air attack than Cairo?) He sailed from Malta on the 19th arrived in Alexandria November 21. From there he flew to "the desert landing ground near the pyramids," (presumably the Cairo West airfield, still a major Egyptian Air Base, and where FDR would land the next morning). He took up residence for the duration at a villa near the pyramids occupied by Richard Gardiner Casey, the British Minister of State Resident in the Middle East (not to be confused with the British Ambassador, Lord Killearn, until recently Sir Miles Lampson).

Chiang Kai-shek was already there. He had left his wartime capital at Chungking on November 18 and was already in  Cairo by the 21st, staying at a villa a half mile from Churchill's, though I'm unclear about his air route from Chungking to Cairo (obviously not nonstop) or in whose villa he stayed.

Roosevelt for his part sailed on November 13 from Hampton Roads (Norfolk), Virginia, on the new  USS Iowa, lead ship on a new US battleship class and only just commissioned earlier in 1943. (She was only finally decommissioned in 1990. She was the only battleship to have both a bathtub and an elevator aboard, both added specifically for FDR.  On the second day out there was a tricky moment during a submarine drill when an American destroyer, USS William D. Porter, mistakenly launched a torpedo towards the Iowa, which thankfully was able to outmaneuver the torpedo. Almost accidentally sinking the Navy's newest battleship would be bad enough; at least at the time the escort ships did not yet know that the President was aboard. That didn't last long: for the first time (Note in US Navy history, the entire officers and crew of the  Porter were placed under arrest).

Having survived what may be the ultimate "oops" moment, the Iowa sailed on while the Porter crew were hauled off to Bermuda. On November 20, Iowa arrived at Mers el-Kebir, the naval base at Oran in Algeria. Roosevelt then flew on in his favorite C-54 (military version of the DC-3), dubbed the "Sacred Cow," to Tunis, where he met with his sons Elliot and FDR Jr., serving in the theater, and toured the Tunisian battlefields.

Then the President flew on to Cairo. The second plane in the President's party arrived at Cairo West some two and a half hours before the President's plane (which the official log shows as landing at 9:35 AM). Two groups of fighter escorts scheduled to accompany the plane never saw it, and there was obviously conceen about the President's safety. In fact the :President's plane had dropped southward to around 28 degeees of latitude, intercepting the Nile well south of Cairo, and finally following the Nile Valley northward, bringing the President in right over the pyramids and Sphinx.

Roosevelt's villa belonged to the then US Ambassador to Cairo, Alexander C. Kirk, known for his elegance of style, rich taste in interior decorating, but not apparently for his diplomatic skills. Egypt was not a major US interest.

We now have the dramatis personae assembled.  Enjoy your weekend and we'll tell more stories on Monday.

Well, This is Also MY Reaction to Most Arab Summits . . .

Egyptian President Morsi and the rest of the Egyptian delegation at the Arab Summit in Doha, via Al-Arabiya.

I thought it was just me who thought Arab summits tended toward the soporific.

A Summit without Kings

Fewer than half of all Arab leaders are attending the Arab Summit in Baghdad. All the Gulf monarchs except for Kuwait failed to show, as did the Kings of Jordan and Morocco.  And note the irony in the previous sentence: except for Kuwait. Which, 21 years ago, was occupied by a rather different Iraq.

So the summit designed to mark the new Iraq's acceptance by the Arab world, isn't. The bloc of Sunni monarchies sent lower ranking figures. The Sunni jitters over Iran and conviction that Shi‘ite Iraq is a stalking horse for Iran is clearly showing.

Rami Khouri on the Baghdad Summit

Tomorrow's Arab League SAummit in Baghdad will be a showcase moment for post-occupation Iraq, but despite its focus on Syria and the importance of the moment following a year of dramatic change in the Arab world, it's a rare observer who gets excited over Arab Summits. Even the once-dependable entertainment value once provided by the late Mu‘ammar al-Qadhafi, with his penchant for denouncing his hosts, attacking the Saudi King, and making outrageous statements is no more, and missed, I'm sure, by none of the surviving attendees.

But one commentator who can usually be counted on for intelligent comment is Rami Khouri, in "Four Arab Worlds Will Meet in Baghdad," (differentiated by the effects of the Arab Awakening on them), so read what he has to say. I probably won't post on the Summit again unless something actually happens, which would be precedent-shattering in its own right.

Arab Summit Postponed; Leaders Busy

The Arab Summit scheduled for Baghdad on March 29 has been postponed, at the request of the Arab League, until at least May 15. Since I'm not as bitter or angry as As'ad AbuKhalil, The Angry Arab, I probably shouldn't quote his simple explanation, "No Arab leader dares leave his country."

Except, when you're right, you're right.

Again, Mauritania Gets No Respect: President is Unperson of Khartoum Summit

Yesterday, Presidents Husni Mubarak of Egypt, Leader of the Revolution Qadhafi of Libya, and President Muhammad Ould ‘Abd al-‘Aziz of Mauritania, met in Khartoum with President ‘Umar al-Bashir of Sudan and his First Vice President (for now), Salva Kiir of southern Sudan, which will vote January 9 on whether to secede. They all promised to respect the results. (We'll see.)

But two key Egyptian papers' differing coverage struck me as interesting. Al-Ahram, government mouthpiece but also the paper of record, mentioned them all and shows them all (link is in Arabic):


Salva Kiir is the one wearing the cool hat.

But Al-Masry al-Youm, an independent and usually a better paper for actual news, reports a four-way summit as if it's between Mubarak, Qadhafi, Bashir, and Salva Kiir. (Article is in Arabic.) Their English page does the same and adds insult to injury by cropping the photo to exclude not only the Mauritanian but Salva Kiir as well:


(Note I'm dependent on the websites for now; the hard copy might be different.) Oddly, both Arabic articles call it a four-way summit in their headlines, but from one you'd assume they mean the four Presidents, and from the other three Presidents and a Vice President.

Now, General Ould ‘Abd al-‘Aziz is no hero of mine; he came to power in a coup and is no great democrat. But he's a fellow Arab head of state: why has he disappeared down the memory hole? I'm sure that a great many Egyptians are not even aware that Mauritania is an Arab country, and few think its leader ranks with Mubarak or Qadhafi. But to make him an unperson in the story? To ignore him completely?

I fear Mauritania, far from the experience of most eastern Arabs, is easily forgotten. Once my wife and I attended a reception for Arab military attaches. The Mauritanian attache was in a corner by himself, so we chatted him up. He was pleased we both knew where his country even was, though neither of us had been there. But clearly Mauritania gets no respect. (Except from Qadhafi, whose attentions are not always welcome.) Why the Mauritanian President was there is of course another question (I suspect Qadhafi is part of the answer), but even if he was a fifth wheel at the summit, at least acknowledge he was there.

Why Are These Men Smiling? Day Two of Ahmadinejad's Excellent Adventure

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Lebanese Prime Minister Sa‘d al-Hariri; Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad (below): it's pretend-you-aren't-ancient-enemies day!

Seriously though, the visit of Ahmadinejad to Lebanon (he's been speaking in the South, and saying the usual inflammatory stuff about Israel) and of Maliki to Damascus will both be seen as boosts for the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah alliance, because, well, they are. Somehow this doesn't look much like Beirut Spring, or that new, democratic, utopian Middle East the neocons promised.

And yes, everyone is smiling, but does anyone else think Maliki is looking to see if Asad has something up his sleeve?

Then there's this:
I guess he's throwing kisses to the crowd, or something. The blogger Abu Arqala at Suq al-Mal has taken a variant of that picture and riffed on it, here.

But are they the Earps or the Clantons?

The continuing debate over this photo and its Photoshopped version made me look at the original more closely and made me notice something new (though I'd subconsciously thought it reminded me of something): The way they're striding earnestly forward, with serious expressions and their hands hanging free at their sides like they're ready to slap leather: it's the Gunfight at the OK Corral! But who's on the other side? Hamas, Hizbullah, and Ahmadinejad?

And are these guys the Earps or the Clantons?

Mubarak Takes the Lead, Via Photoshop

From an Egyptian blogger, via the always readable The Arabist, some Photoshopping by Al-Ahram.

First, the original White House photo:


Natural enough. Obama leads the way in his White House, and since these are Israeli and Palesintinian peace talks, Netanyahu and ‘Abbas come next, and then Mubarak and King ‘Abdullah.

But that's not good enough for Al-Ahram. Egypt must lead, even if only via Photoshop:


Do they think nobody will notice, or do they just not really care if they do?

The Talks

They say young folk don't carry watches anymore, since cellphones tell the time. Conclusion: these guys are not young folk. (Apparently they were checking the time before last night's dinner, to make sure they could break the fast.)

Peace talks are always a triumph of hope over experience, and to expect too much would be unrealistic; I wish them well, of oourse, but unless Netanyahu is prepared to jettison part of his present coalition, even such minimal moves as exending th settlement freeze seem hard to achieve.

Is Gamal Coming to the Summit?

Ha'aretz is reporting that Gamal Mubarak is accompanying his father to the Israeli-Palestinian direct talks in Washington this week, which Husni Mubarak and King ‘Abdullah of Jordan are attending. If this occurs, and particularly if Gamal meets with the Israeli delegates, it would seem to confirm that his father intends for him to succeed. Certrainly the proxy campaign for Gamal, the appearance of pro-Gamal posters, etc. have all seemed to point the same way, but officially there has been no indication that the elder Mubarak will not seek another term. If this is true, it could be the point where the denials stop.

Major Summit to Avert "Explosion" in Lebanon?

There's talk of a major Arab summit, including both King ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Bashar al-Asad of Syria, assembling in Beirut Friday to avert a major "explosion" in Lebanon.

This is all about the Special Tribunal on Lebanon (STL), which has been assembling evidence on the assassination of Rafiq Hariri. Over the past year the main finger of suspicion has shifted from the Syrian government to Hizbullah, and that could blow the Lebanese government apart, to the point that even Sa‘d Hariri has been talking about defusing things.

It's a complicated subject, byzantine even by Lebanese standards, but you should read the analyses by Qifa Nabki and the multiple posts by Nick Noe at The Mideastwire Blog, including the text of Hasan Nasrallah's speech. Also I note that the Al-Manar website (Hizbullah TV) is sounding conciliatory rather than confrontational. (They include a photo of Ahmadinejad along with ‘Abdullah, Bashar and the Amir of Qatar, also said to be coming.)

I suspect that if indeed the STL blames Hizbullah, but the Lebanese government soft-pedals the matter, there will be some in the US who will be totally puzzled by why even the Hariris might look the other way rather than provoke a new explosion. (And some will no doubt be outraged.) Part of it is the Lebanese tradition of trying to find consensus, rather than structuring political debate in a zero-sum, two-party game. And one is the degree to which the geopolitical chessboard has has shifted since 2005. In any event, this summit is an interesting development, especially in Saudi-Syrian relations, since they seem to be singing the same tune on this one.

Part of it, too, is a real nervousness that Lebanon, if it were to descend into chaos, could provoke a new Israeli intervention and a spiraling escalation.

Netanyahu Invited to Washington? For Next Tuesday

Ha'aretz is reporting (exclusively, they say) that President Obama has invited Binyamin Netanyahu to come to Washington following his visit to the OECD session in Europe and a previously scheduled visit to Canada. The European visit marks Israel's joining th4e Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.

Interesting since lately there's been some pressure in the US for Obama to visit Israel: by inviting Netanyahu he may be emphasizing who's the superpower and who's the client.

I'm posting this tonight rather late since, if it's true, it'll probably be in the US press by morning.