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1969

Ahmad Hamrush, 'An Egyptian in Vietnam, Korea, and China' (Excerpts)

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).

November 8, 1976

Cable, US Embassy Seoul to the Secretary of State, 'Egypt Reportedly Expels North Korean Diplomats'

This cable discusses unconfirmed rumors that Egypt secretly expelled North Korean diplomats accused of selling black market goods as well as the possibility that the South Korean government might attempt to have the story published through some Middle Eastern news outlet.

April 19, 1965

Minutes of Conversation between Premier Zhou Enlai and Premier Kim Il Sung

The United Arab Republic and Algeria do not support Vietnam, and Sukarno agrees to speak at the Asian-African Conference.

April 14, 1969

Record of a Conversation with Kim Il Sung, General Secretary of the KWP CC and Chairman of the DPRK Cabinet of Ministers

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sought the help of Kim Il Sung in influencing China, which was in a border dispute with the Soviet Union. Requesting that they "exercise political influence on Peking."

February 15, 1972

Report from Etre Sándor, 'Foreign visits of the DPRK’s governmental delegations. Visit of Comrade Pak Seong-cheol to Hungary'

A report by Etre Sandor providing details about five North Korean governmental delegations to Africa and Middle East and the visit of Pak Seong-cheol to Hungary.

November 11, 1965

Record of Second Conversation of Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice Premier Chen Yi with Foreign Minister Pak Seong-cheol

Chen Yi, Zhou Enlai, Pak Seong-cheol, and Ri Ju-yeon have a detailed conversation about the situations in Indonesia, Algeria, Uganda, Mali, Guinea, and members of the Third World.

May 17, 1978

TELEGRAM 027.411 from the Romanian Embassy in Cairo to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Romanian Embassy in Cairo reports on the DPRK's recent efforts to establish relations with Cyprus, Egypt and Morocco.

September 22, 1978

TELEGRAM 066.918 from the Romanian Embassy in Pyongyang to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The DPRK supports the position of Egypt on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

September 20, 1978

TELEGRAM 027.923 from the Romanian Embassy in Cairo to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Egyptian government would be grateful if the DPRK would adopt an official declaration supporting the Camp David Agreements.

May 13, 1978

TELEGRAM 027.498 from the Romanian Embassy in Cairo to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The DPRK Ambassador to Cairo explains Egypt President Sadat's intentions and expresses dissatisfaction with the development of ROK-Egypt relations.

Pagination