SMITH ANSWERS LILIENTHAL

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I deeply regret that Mr. Lilienthal thinks that I "was just playing with words" last Wednesday night, since I challenged his statement only because he was abusing the English language in an attempt to arouse the emotions of his audience. I am neither pre-Arab nor pre-Israell, and I pity both groups because they have shortsightedly failed to cooperate with the United Nations mediators. It is unfortunate that there is no international Judiciary which can equitably decide the dispute on the basis of a sound body of international law and then have its decision enforced. I do not use the term "military dictatorship" derogatorily in reference to the government of Egypt, and I commend that government highly for the reforms which it has instituted in Egypt. Considering the Egyptian situation, it was and is the best possible government for the time, far superior to the corrupt constitutional monarchy which it supplanted. However, although I stand corrected in one respect--Egypt became a military dictatorship in 1953; and the facts speak for themselves:

On July 23, 1952, a group of Egyptian army officers, the Revolutionary Command Council led by Mohammed Naguib, ousted the government, making Aly Maher the Premier; and three days later, the RCC forced Farouk to abdicate. On September 7, Naguib forced Maher to resign and arrested several wealthy leaders of the nationalist Wafd party, because Maher had opposed the RCC's land reform program which would have deprived the Wafd leaders of pwer; Nagub became Premier. (The Parliament was not convened after the coup.) In January, 1953, Naguib outlawed all Egyptian political parties and proclaimed a three-year transitional period without elections; and in June, 1953, Naguib proclaimed the Republic of Egypt with himself as President and Gamal Nasser as Minister of the Interior. Naguib was deposed on February 25, 1954 by Nasser; but the Communists and the puritanical Moslem Brotherhood starts drots, while the armored corps of the army supported him against the RCC; and he was reinstated on February 27, Nasser gagreeing to his demand that election be held in June, 1954 for a 250-member assembly with legislative powers. In March, after Nasser had weeded the elections. On November 14, 1954, Naguib--by then a more figurehead--was quietly deposed by Nasser, after being implicated in a Moslem Brotherhood plot to kill Nasser; and many leaders of the Brotherhood joined leaders of the Walf in jail.

A republic in a state in which the sovereign power resides in certain body of the people and is exercised by representatives elected by, and responsible to, them. A military dictatorship is a state in which the sovereign power resides in an individual (or in a very small group of individuals who act as advisers to one of their number whom they recognize as their leader) who is a member of an army which he controls, and which he uses to maintain his sovereign power. Egypt was a military dictatorship in 1953, a sit is at present. Mr. Lilienthal would be wise not to perform like the loudspeakers in Orwell's "1984" spouting such things as "War is Peace." The Bussian publics; yet who wold be so naive or malicious as to call Russia a republic. I am proud that the united State is a republic; and if Mr. Lilienthal wants to serve his country as much as he says he does he would do well to refrain from besmirching that word. I care nothing for the money involved in this argument, but I would feel amply rewarded if Mr. Lilienthal would stop waving the bloody turban and present his point of view with as little cheap demagoguery as possible. Taylor J. Smith '56