Plans and Dreams for Egypt

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is often ill at ease in his office in Cairo's Abdin Palace. Its confined formality, he tells visitors, reminds him of prisons he was sent to for revolutionary plotting in Egypt's "colonial "days. Sadat is far more relaxed when he stays at one of his presidential resthouses outside Cairo. Recently, over tea and Turkish coffee in a resthouse beside the pyramids, he discussed his plans and dreams for Egypt with TIME Correspondents Wilton Wynn and Karsten Prager. Among his points:

EGYPTIAN PRIDE. Nasser was the first true Egyptian to rule this country in more than 2,000 years. But in spite of all that foreign domination, our personality never dissolved. One of the principal elements in the success of our battle last October was the faith of every Egyptian, the pride he feels for his land, and the very name Egypt itself.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER ARAB STATES. If Egypt is powerful, the Arabs will be powerful. We are proud of our land, and maybe some critics see this as Egypt first. But I feel that I cannot make myself understood in the world today without using methods that people elsewhere understand. We Arabs are very hot. We flare up, and we cool down. But here in Egypt, we now are using language that can be understood all over the world. A man must be a man of his word. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say, and this is not based on sentimental factors or flaring emotionalism but on wise calculation. It is not correct to say that we are adopting ways that are different from the Arab world. We are trying to convince our brothers to adopt methods that can be understood in the whole world.

POLITICS IN EGYPT. I don't believe in the multiparty system in this era of our building. We had a multiparty system before, and it proved a great failure. When we finish the foundations for our new community, then we may be able to afford a multiparty system. But I don't think it is suitable now.

CIVIL LIBERTIES. I am proud that for the first time in 40 years we have no concentration camps. Since 1971 they have been shut down forever. Even during the October war we had no concentration camps.

THE ECONOMY. We shall retain the public sector. It was our backbone during the very dark years of humiliation and defeat [after 1967]. It will continue to exist because it can take responsibility for building what the private sector fears to build: industry that may not be very profitable but that must be built. But let the private sector also be active. It will not be an open capitalist system, and I don't share the fears of the extremists. We will welcome Arab and foreign capital to help us build our country.

POPULATION GROWTH. I think our population can be an asset if it is used and trained and educated in the proper way. We must enter the era of technology. We cannot continue being backward, or we will perish like the Indians in the U.S. If the Indians had mastered technology, they would have fought you until this century.

TOURISM. It was a political issue in the past. When [U.S. Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles put the squeeze on us, he stopped tourism to Egypt.* I hope tourism will not be a political instrument in the future, although I have no fear if Dr. Kissinger issues passports.

* The U.S. twice stopped travel to the Middle East for safety reasons, first during the 1956 war and during the 1958 crisis in Lebanon.

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