Anwar Sadat

Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer, the third president of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination in 1981. His name reached every Egyptian and Arab home through television and radio: his voice announced the first statement of the 1952 revolution, his life ended on camera at the 6 October military parade, and in between he led the October War of 1973, visited Jerusalem in 1977, and signed the first peace treaty between an Arab state and Israel in 1979. ^{1 2}

A member of the Free Officers movement, he was vice president under Gamal Abdel Nasser on two occasions and succeeded him on his death in 1970. In his eleven years as president he changed Egypt's trajectory: he reinstituted a multi-party system, launched the Infitah economic opening, and moved Egypt's alliance from the Soviet Union to the United States. ¹

Sadat was born in the village of Mit Abu El Kom in Monufia Governorate to a poor family; he had fourteen siblings, his mother Sit Al-Berain was born to an Egyptian mother and a Sudanese father, and his father was a medical officer who had been posted in Sudan. ^{1 3}

He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938, was appointed to the Signal Corps, and served in Sudan, where he met Gamal Abdel Nasser and other junior officers who formed the Free Officers, an organisation committed to overthrowing British rule in Egypt and eliminating state corruption. ¹

During the Second World War Sadat collaborated with Germany against the British in Egypt and was arrested and imprisoned for much of the war; he moved in secret circles that planned the 1946 assassination of the pro-British minister Amin Osman. With his fellow Free Officers he took part in the coup of 23 July 1952 that overthrew King Farouk, and it was Sadat who gave the first statement of the revolution over the radio to the Egyptian people. ¹

Under Nasser he was appointed minister of state in 1954, edited the newly founded daily Al Gomhuria, served as president of the National Assembly (1960–1968), and was vice president in 1964 and again in December 1969, until he succeeded Nasser after his death in October 1970. ¹

On 15 May 1971 Sadat announced his "Corrective Revolution", purging the most ardent Nasserists from the government and security establishments, cutting back the powers of the secret police, expelling Soviet military advisers, and reforming the army for a renewed confrontation with Israel. ¹

In October 1973 he led Egypt in the war to regain the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since 1967, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab world. ¹

Law 43 of 1974 launched the Infitah, "opening the door" to foreign and domestic private investment, ending the domination of the economy by the public sector, and replacing the Soviet Union with the United States as ally and aid-giver. The policy drew social criticism, and in January 1977 the "Bread Riots" protested the lifting of price controls on basic necessities; they ended with the deployment of the army and the restoration of subsidies. ¹

In November 1977 Sadat visited Jerusalem — the first official visit by an Arab leader to Israeli-controlled territory — and spoke before the Knesset, calling for a comprehensive peace based on the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. ¹

Following the Camp David Accords, Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin signed the peace treaty in Washington on 26 March 1979, and both were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for it. Egypt became the first Arab country to officially recognise Israel, and Israel withdrew from Sinai in phases under the treaty, completing the withdrawal in 1982. ¹

Reaction among Egyptians was generally favourable because Sinai returned, but the Muslim Brotherhood and the left rejected the treaty as abandoning the effort to ensure a Palestinian state; the Arab League suspended Egypt from 1979 to 1989 and moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. ¹

In September 1981 Sadat ordered a roundup of more than 1,500 opposition figures of all ideological stripes and banned all non-government press. On 6 October 1981, militants led by Lieutenant Khalid Al-Islambuli shot him during the annual victory parade in Cairo; eleven others were killed, Vice President Hosni Mubarak was wounded and succeeded him, and Sadat was buried in the Unknown Soldier memorial in Cairo, across the street from the stand where he was assassinated. ^{1 2}

This section presents differing views as reported in the sources; it is not the museum's verdict.

His supporters hold that he recovered Sinai first by war and then by negotiation, ended Egypt's economic isolation, and note that the peace treaty he signed has remained in effect since it was signed. ¹

His critics — Arab and Palestinian opponents accused him of making a separate peace without prior consultation with the Arab states; domestic opponents charged him with repressing freedoms in the September 1981 roundup, and with an opening that left millions who had joined the middle class under Nasser through education and public-sector jobs in an increasingly marginalised, low-paying public sector. ¹

Sadat wrote several books, including "The Full Story of the Revolution" (1954), "Revolt on the Nile" (1957), and his autobiography "In Search of Identity" (1978). ¹

He was born to an Egyptian father who served as a medical officer in Sudan and a mother of Sudanese and Egyptian parentage; his brother Atef Sadat became a pilot and was killed in action in the October War of 1973. The museum publishes no family detail beyond what understanding his public career needs. ¹

Sadat redirected Egypt politically and economically for decades: the 1979 treaty remains in force, and the multi-party system and economic opening he launched shaped the Egypt that followed. His media presence was exceptional, from the revolution statement he read on the radio in 1952 to an assassination that happened before television cameras in 1981; his life was portrayed in an American miniseries in 1983 and in the Egyptian film "The Days of Sadat" (2001). ¹

• The defined sources cited above, registered in data/source/.
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