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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 4, 1981
PAGE 12
Will President Mubarak be able to "hold the fort?" From all indications,
yes, at least for a while. His support seems to be rather broadly based.
Unfortunately the late President Sadat had become aloof not only from the
opposition but from some of his own supporters. He had not even talked with
leaders of smaller parties supporting him for over a year.
Many people in Egypt, according to one of our drivers, felt that President
Sadat had been living like one of the Pharaohs of old. He and the First
Lady enjoyed the use of over a hundred former palaces and mansions.
President Mubarak is seeking to change the image of the presidency. The
palaces are to be closed again. He has ordered that no official pictures of
his wife are to appear in public.
He has already reopened lines of com
munication to other political parties who, in turn, have supported a fur
ther crackdown on religious extremism.
An Egyptian official, close to Sadat, remarked confidentially the other day
that Mr. Sadat's time to leave the scene had probably come. At any rate
Sadat had publically said he was considering retirement next year, after
Israel completed its military withdrawal from the Sinai in April.
After tne Faheys, Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Dean and my wife and I made the
required climb up into the Great Pyramid, it was off to Geneva and back to
London--with a hastily arranged stopover in Munich. Now what could that
entail? Aha. More on that, and surrounding world events unfolding in Bonn,
Geneva and London next time.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau