Big Brother

Behind the outbursts of violence and beneath the smoldering hatreds of the Middle East, the lines of motivation lead in many and sometimes conflicting directions. But almost all the disputes have one thing in common: help from Cairo.

Last week Egypt's Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser completed a little "parley at the summit" with his fellow Arabs of Syria and Saudi Arabia. Their announced achievements were few, but they underlined Nasser's aspiration to establish Egypt as the leader of a united Araby and even, if possible, over all Africa. His undeclared aim: to force the West out of the whole area. Nasser's radio, "Voice of the Arabs," reaches from Morocco to Iran, from Cyprus to Portuguese Mozambique, preaching subversion, rebellion, intransigence and hatred of "imperialists." In Cairo he has gathered together a kind of sleazy cominform of renegades and exiles, some (like Jerusalem's ex-Muft) in quiescent asylum, others in active intrigue. Since 38-year-old Gamal Nasser is perhaps the Arabs' ablest leader, the West has tended to ignore or to discount Cairo's busy factory of revolt--or, in the case of the U.S., to sympathize with the demands of dependent peoples and to soft-pedal some of its ugly overtones.

Captured Evidence. In the French Assembly fortnight ago, former Governor General of Algeria Jacques Soustelle produced evidence that the rebellions in North Africa are coordinated from abroad, and named names: "The country which is the center of this spider's web is Egypt." A rebel lieutenant captured in Algeria had admitted to interrogators that all war operations in Algeria are directed by a committee of Algerian nationalists in Cairo headed by one Mohammed ben Bella. Soustelle flourished a copy of orders drawn up in Cairo by Ben Bella directing the assassination of any Algerian who tried to negotiate with the French. The document was headed: "Done with the Approval of Big Brother." Who was Big Brother? "All fellagha to whom we have put this question have answered with the name of Nasser."

Nasser has scarcely bothered to hide it. Through Cairo's cafes, and with easy access to government offices, swarm the Middle East's biggest concentration of exiled terrorists and (depending on the point of view) troublemakers or patriots. In 1946 North African exiles set up the Committee for North African Liberation. The Egyptian government provided offices and funds for their support, had their representatives sit in on Arab League councils as advisers. Funds were raised, commandos recruited, trained and shipped off to the battlefronts.

Mohammed ben Bella, military chief for Algeria, is a big, good-looking ex-sergeant of the French army. The French believe he transmits his orders by radio to fighters in the Aures and Kabylie Mountains. Political chief for Algeria is 43-year-old Mohammed Khidir, 43, onetime French Deputy who got disgusted in 1946 and went underground, emerging only long enough to help Ben Bella rob the Oran post office of 3,000,000 francs. In both Morocco and Tunisia, Cairo's conspirators have been set back by the victory of the moderates, whom they seem to resent as bitterly as they do the French. Morocco's Cairo leader is Allal el Fassi, chief of the Istiqlal Party, who was exiled by the French 18 years ago. Last week, despite France's belated granting of independence to Sultan ben Youssef, rebels in Morocco's Rif Mountains fought on, reportedly at El Fassi's command, while El Fassi himself flew to Madrid to discuss Arab claims on Spanish Morocco.

Tunisia is represented in Cairo by Salah ben Youssef, exiled leader of the extremist wing of the Neo-Destour, who hates his fellow Party Leader Habib Bourguiba for accepting "interdependence" with France. Last week France granted Tunisia independence, and next week Tunisia will hold its first election. But in Tunisia's south ern mountains Salah ben Youssef's supporters flared into revived rebellion.

France is not the only target of Nasser's artful efforts. There is a group from Aden that plots busily at cafe tables against British rule there. Iraq (Egypt's chief Arab rival) caught an Egyptian army officer masquerading as an Egyptian embassy butler and convicted him of conspiracy. In neighboring and impoverished Libya, where the U.S. has a big air base. Egyptian Ambassador Ahmed Hassan el Faki connives busily with his good friend Russian Ambassador Nikolai Generaloff to root Western influence out of the country. In the words of one correspondent, they are "closer than worms in a bait can." Cairo has also given asylum to Colonel Abdullah el Tel, onetime Arab Legion commander in Jerusalem, who fled Jordan to escape imprisonment for complicity in the assassination of King Abdullah. He busies himself with the "Free Officers" Club of dissident Arab Legion officers in Cairo. Abd el Krim, the old Berber warrior who once kept 20,000 French troops on the run, is maintained as a decorative figurehead, was trotted out last week to urge all North African rebels to scorn France's "honeyed promises."

But Nasser's chief instrument of propaganda is the Voice of the Arabs. On four wave lengths, the Voice pours out a stream of stirring Arab songs, inflammatory news summaries and incendiary comment with the hypnotic insistence of a kind of political muezzin. It alleges "imperialist" plots, fictitious massacres, Zionist "conspiracies." It recommends riots in Jordan, rebellion in Morocco, revenge in Algeria. Blaring from loudspeakers in cafes and hovels throughout the Middle East, it is for a vast number of illiterate Arabs the only news they get. By relay stations up the Nile, it also aims at all Africa, beaming broadcasts in Swahili to Kenya (where it supported the Mau Mau), Somaliland and Uganda. Explained the Voice: "Egypt's geographical position requires her to work for the liberation of the African continent from all forms of imperialism." It helped get Glubb fired in Jordan, is now at work urging Arabs in Zanzibar to refuse a British offer of self-government. Nasser shrugs off all protests with the plea that the Voice is an independent organization, though it is housed in a government building, and its director, Ahmed Said, reports to the government Director of Information.

Last week France's Foreign Minister Christian Pineau, returning from the SEATO meeting in Karachi, called on Nasser to ask for his cooperation in ending France's agony in North Africa. Cairo newspapers were elated and inflated by the visit of so important a Western statesman on such a mission. In Cairo Pineau also saw Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud and Syria's President Shukri el Kuwatly, whose Radio Damascus works closely with the Voice of the Arabs and not long ago was urging Moroccan rebels to "kill those who are killing you. Spare not their women and children, for they spare not yours." In recent months, following some 40 protests by France, Nasser has toned down the broadcasts to French North Africa. But now Nasser wanted to know: Why is France sending jets to Israel? Nasser assured Pineau: "No commando destined for Algeria has been trained in an Egyptian camp during the past several months." Said Pineau wanly: "A very interesting assurance."

Nasser's Arab underground makes its appeal to a universal distaste for colonialism. But the struggle for freedom is one thing; campaigns of terror against the moderates who try to negotiate that freedom is another. Nasser's agitators have scored a certain success, but so far it is principally the all too easy success of destruction.

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