'AN ACT OF INFAMY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605720007-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: October 19, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605720007-6
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NEWSWEEK
19 October 1981
Anwar Sadat loved the pageantry of a military parade. He was so jubilant Arab shopkeepers passed out candy. In Beirut, le
certain of the loyalty of his troops that on parade days he often told militiamen honked car horns and fired automatic rifles into the!
his security guards "Please go away--I am with my children." On In Tripoli, crowds waving the green flag of Libya danced in
the eighth anniversary of his surprise attack on Israel last week, streets, in what one Western envoy called "ghastly jubilation.'
Sadat was presiding over an extravagant military show in Cairo Everyone studied Mubarak anxiously. In Cairo, the Egyp
when ajunior lieutenant in crisp khakis andblue beret stepped from Parliament formally nominated him for President by a vote
a truck and walked toward him. Sadat rose, expecting a salute. 330-0, clearing the way for his official election in a pro fa
Instead, the young officer tossed a grenade. A band of accomplices national referendum early this week. Mubarak's interim gov
then scrambled from the back of the truck, flinging concussion and ment moved quickly to maintain order, imposing a one-year s
fragmentation grenades and firing submachine guns. Sadat gasped of emergency and ordering the arrest and interrogation 4
and fell, mortally wounded, in a bloody jumble of overturned number of leftists and radical Islamic fundamentalists. In Ass
chairs. 240 miles south of Cairo, religious fundamentalists opened fir
The assassination left the Mideast facing a dangerous political a police building, killing two officers and leaving scores of of
void, and it left the world without one of the few leaders whose bold dead and wounded in a 30-hour battle. Later, gunmen
imagination and personal courage seemed to have made a differ- speeding automobile raked a police station in Cairo itself, ki]
ence to history. Americans, in particular, felt a sharp sense of loss. at least one officer.
"You can count on me," Sadat had told Reagan only last August. Invitation to Washington: Mubarak's first days on the
To a nation that had learned to count on him, the murder brought reassured Washington. In an effort to cement the relationL,
back a flood of images: Sadat bear-hugging Henry Kissinger in the Reagan invited the new Egyptian President to visit the Ui
days of shuttle diplomacy; Sadat laughing with Golda Meir on his States next year. Mubarak and Begin also agreed to hold a sun
historic trip to Jerusalem; Sadat, hands triple clenched with Jimmy of their own. But Sadat's murder further exposed the vulneral
Carter and Menachem Begin after the exuberant descent from of a U.S. Mideast policy that has relied heavily on understanc
Camp David. Stepping out on the North Portico of the White with such vulnerable autocrats as the Shah of Iran, Presi
House, Ronald Reagan, misty-eyed, Mohammed Zia ul-Haq of Pak
mourned him. "Anwar Sadat was ad- _ and the Saudi royal family. The
mired and loved by the people of j' ma in Cairo could only cast
America," Reagan said. "His death Sadat s murder shocks doubts over thealready tattered
,today, an act of infamy, cowardly r of the Palestinian autonomy talk
infamy, fills us with horror." the world and `eaves tween Egypt and Israel and over
For security reasons, Reagan did el's final withdrawal from the
not attend Sadat's funeral. Instead, desert, scheduled fornext April.
he invited Richard Nixon, Gerald a dangerous void it further clouded the debate in
Ford and Jimmy Carter, the other gress over whether to sell sophis
three presidents who had worked in the Middle East. ed AWACS radar planes to
with Sadat through the years, to rep- Arabia: the Administration con
resent the United,-States in a delega-- ed that Sadat's death meant tl
tion led by Secretary of State Alex- was more important than ever ti
ander Haig. In Cairo, the mourners joined French President cate and bolster the Saudis; opponents said the murder arguw
Francois Mitterrand, -Britain's Prince Charles,. West Germany's more powerfully for keeping sensitive American military tee
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and other dignitaries from the West. ogy out of a region of newly demonstrated instability.
Amid tight security, a caisson drawn by six horses bore Sadat's The assassination was a nightmare that U.S. officials had
casket 900 yards toasaraophagusinEgypt'sTomboftheUnknown dreaded. Over the years, the United States had contributed r
Soldier-directly, opposite the reviewing stand in which he died. $25 million toward Sadat's security. Beginning in 1974, the
Menachem Begin was there for the funeral. But among the Arab Secret Service had trained Egyptian security men in skills ra
states, only the Sudan, Oman and Somalia sent representatives. from evasive driving to crowd control. In 1974 Richard Nixoz
Other Arab leaders stayed home in one final rebuke for Sadat's Sadat a $2 million Sikorsky CH-53E armored helicopter-
lonely peace with Israel. Sadat praised its quiet ride during a flight with Nixon over
Radical Pressure: The assassination cost Israel its only friend in The Central Intelligence Agency chipped in advanced commi
the Arab world. The immediate question was whether Sadat's bons uz ment esi to protect messages between S.
entente with Israel would survive him, or whether his handpicked a t znterce tion by other Egyptian milita
successor, Hosni Mubarak, 53, would yield to the pressure of po ce orces. Last year Jimmy Carter dispatched an AWACS
radical Arabs and the more friendly persuasion of Saudi Arabia. rom Saudi Arabia to scan the skies and warn Sadat of any cha
Mubarak pledged thai Egypt would proceed down the track Sadat from Libyan fighters during one of the Egyptian President's 1
had cleared. "Camp David is Camp David," he told NHwswm: _ to the Sudan.
"We are going to respect our word, thepeacetreaty and normalize-
tion." In Jerusalem, Begin lamented Sadat's "criminal assassina jEx
lion." "The peace process. will continue, as we know President
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605720007-6 titan NSSCtot