The author of the Arabic-language book from which these excerpts are derived from is Ahmad Hamrush (1921-2011). Involved in the Free Officers’ coup of July 23, 1952, Hamrush left the army in 1955, but stayed a regime insider. He became a historian who wrote a multi-volume history of the coup, among other books; he edited several journals including the army’s al-Tahrir and the famous political magazine Rose al-Yusuf; he was Secretary General of the Egyptian Committee for Afro-Asian Solidarity in the 1960s; and he was a travel writer, as this book shows. It recounts a journey in 1968 to the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and North Vietnam.

Although in the 1950s and deep into the 1960s, African decolonization struggles had attracted much attention in the Arab world and perhaps especially in Arab North Africa, Asia was a key concern, too—in the 1960s especially Vietnam. This was of course not exceptional. As books like Quinn Slobodian’s Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany (2012) have shown, Vietnam as a cause—and some Vietnamese as actors—helped midwife the German student movement in the 1960s. (In Germany, the shah’s Iran and Iranian activists mattered greatly, too, however.) To take two more examples, Vietnam as a mode and model of reference mattered to anti-Soviet Lebanese leftists in the 1960s, as Laure Guirguis’ “La référence au Vietnam et l’émergence des gauches radicales au Liban, 1962-1975” (2018) has shown, and Iranians—leftists and others—followed developments in Vietnam closely, as Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet has noted in “The Anti-Aryan Moment: Decolonization, Diplomacy, and Race in Late Pahlavi Iran” (2021).

What distinguishes this text is its timing. Hamrush reflects on a journey he made soon after the Six-Day War of June 1967. That month Israel inflicted a humiliating defeat on Arab armies, including Egypt’s, the most powerful Arab state. This drastically amplified concerns some already had had about President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s (1918-1970) regime and triggered much self-critique in books like Al-naqd al-dhati ba‘da al-hazima (1968; in 2021 translated as Self-Criticism after the Defeat) by the Syrian Marxist political thinker Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm (1934-2016).

Mao echoes a recent statement from Ho Chi Minh, opposing American imperialist aggression in South Vietnam. He urges revolutionaries around to support South Vietnamese [communists] in their struggle against the Americans and Ngo Dinh Diem. (Note: Originally published in the People's Daily on August 30, 1963.)

Zhou Enlai and Ho Chi Minh discuss preparations for the second Asian-African Conference and the potential participation of countries such as the Soviet Union, Malaysia, and India.

The Chinese Embassy in Vietnam reports on the alleged maneuvers of Ngo Dinh Nhu, North Vietnamese diplomacy, and France's attitudes toward Vietnam.

Polish official, Jerzy Michalowski, discusses the Vietnamese situation after meeting with several high ranking officials there. He asserts that the Vietnamese misguided in their belief that the US is not willing to fight a broadened war. He also notes that, although Vietnamese allies recognize this, they discourage Vietnam from opening negotiations.

Bulgarian report on the conversations between Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh. According to the report, Mao agrees with Ho Chi Minh that they should officially recognize the NLF as the government of South Vietnam, while expressing his reservations about asking for volunteers from other countries. He again fully opposes any negotiations with the United States.

A note on the conversations between Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong in Beijing. Mao stressed the importance of Vietnamese opposition to Soviet revisionism. He also argues that a larger percentage of Chinese aid should be spread amongst the Southeast Asia region, and not simply given to Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh discussed the American military escalation: The deployment of troops in South Vietnam, the use of chemical poisons and napalm, the bombing of the North, etc. He said that the only way peace can be achieved is by the US pulling out from Vietnam and accepting the DRV's 4 points and the NLF's 5 points. Ho Chi Minh then called on the Vietnamese nation to keep on fighting until victory.

This is a telegram from the 1st Secretary of the Party of Labor of Albania Enver Hoxha to President Ho Chi Minh delivered via the Albanian Ambassador to Moscow Gac Mazi. This telegram discusses the possible visit of Ho Chi Minh to Tirana. Hoxha orders Mazi to contact Ho Chi Minh urgently and deliver a copy of the telegram to him. Enver Hoxha believes that the disputes between the various leaders of the socialist countries in Europe and the Party of Labor in Albania are serious and cannot be resolved simply or immediately. He assigns the blame for these disputes to the leaders of the other socialist countries. Hoxha asks Ho Chi Minh to talk to these leaders about these disputes before coming to Tirana. The reason for this is that other European communist leaders have begun denigrating the Party of Labor of Albania, the Albanian government, and the Albanian people. Hoxha writes that the Albanian leadership is still carefully analyzing the causes of the disputes. Lastly, he informs Ho Chi Minh that he will be ready to discuss the Tirana trip further in the second half of November of 1961.

Excerpt in which Zhou Enlai recounts his and Mao Zedong’s trip to China in 1945