Anwar Al-Sadat, President of Egypt

Anwar al-Sadat, President of Egypt

Anwar al-Sadat was born into a family of 13 children in 1918.

He grew up among average Egyptian villagers in the town of Mit Abul Kom 64 km to the north of Cairo.
At the time of his birth Egypt had become a British colony.
In 1936 as part of a deal between the British and the Wafd party, the British agreed to create a military school in Egypt, and Sadat was among its first students.
Each student learned to analyse battles as well as maths and science.
Upon graduating from the school, the government posted Sadat to a distant outpost. There he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, beginning a long political association which eventually led to the Egyptian presidency. At this outpost, Sadat, Nasser and the other young officers formed a revolutionary group destined to overthrow British rule.
Commitment to their revolution led Sadat to jail twice. During his second stay in jail, Sadat taught himself French and English.
On July 23, 1952, the Free Officers Organization staged a coup overthrowing the monarchy. From the moment of the coup, Sadat began as Nasser's public relations minister and trusted lieutenant. Nasser assigned Sadat the task of overseeing the official abdication of King Farouk.
Following the Six-day war in 1967 Internal squabbling among Arab nations and the growing Palestinian movement eventually strained Nasser's abilities to the limit.
He succeeded Nasser and over the next 11 years, Sadat proved his leadership abilities.
His first trial on the international scene involved the aftermath of the Six Days War. Sadat openly offered the Israelis a peace treaty in exchange for the return of the Siani lands taken in the attack.
The Egyptian economy continued to suffer from war with Israel and the Egyptian's continuing relationship with the Soviet Union deteriorated as the Soviet's proved unreliable allies.
When pressed for more military support to replace the devastation of the Six Days War, the Soviets simply ignored Sadat's requests. In a bold move, which soon became his trademark, Sadat expelled the Soviets. This grand gesture solidified Egyptian internal support at a time when the average Egyptian suffered greatly.
Behind the scenes, however, Sadat plotted to retake the Egyptian Siani if the Israelis continued to refuse the Egyptian peace initiative. On 6 October 1973, Sadat struck. With exceptional military precision, the Egyptian army crossed the Suez back into the Sinai and began driving the Israeli army into the desert. Though short-lived, the attack created a new momentum for peace both in Egypt and in Israel. These pressures coincided with continued domestic problems in Egypt.
The deteriorating economy in Egypt, accompanied by a growing distance between rich and poor, led to internal strife, riots, strikes, attacks on the rich. These internal pressures raised the attention of the international community, particularly the United States, concerned that internal strife would weaken Sadat's moderate policies.
In a speech to the Egyptian parliament in 1977, Sadat initiated his most important diplomatic ploy. He affirmed his desire to go anywhere to negotiate a peace with the Israelis.
The Israeli's responded with an invitation to do just that and Sadat's speech to the Israeli Knesset initiated a new momentum for peace that would eventually culminate in the 1978 Camp David Accords and a final peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
For his efforts, Sadat won the Nobel Prize for Peace.
At home, Sadat's new relationship with the west and his peace treaty generated considerable domestic opposition, especially among fundamentalist Muslim groups.
In 1980 and in 1981, Sadat took desperate gambles to respond to these new internal problems. He negotiated a number of loans to support improvements in everyday life.
He enacted laws outlawing protest and declared that the Shari'a would be the basis of all new Egyptian law.
October 6, 1981, Sadat died at the hands of fundamentalists assassins during a military review celebrating the 1973 Suez crossing.