CHAPTER 7
Strange things had been happening in Cairo in July, 1954. Bombs were exploding in cinemas and post offices, and later in the American Embassy and information offices. The Police were upset. Relations between the new regime in Egypt and the United States had been improving and were now in danger. Agents of the secret police were posted all over town.
One evening a man appeared to have caught on fire at the entrance to a Cairo cinema. Among the people who rushed to put out the flames was a Secret Police officer, who noticed that the flames seemed to emanate from a packet in the man's pocket. His suspicions were aroused.
This was how an extraordinary spy story came to light, an affair that was to rock Israel for many years, cause the final resignation of David Ben-Gurion nine years later and drive such men as Moshe Dayan out of the government coalition. It was also the climax of a year of fateful events, 1954, a year worth analyzing because it illustrates more than any other how the principle of the vicious circle operates in Israeli-Arab relations.
This period actually started late in 1953 with the voluntary exile of David Ben-Gurion, and ended with the massive attack of Israeli paratroopers on an Egyptian Army camp in Gaza on the last night of February, 1955.
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On July 19, 1953, a small news item appeared in the papers which caused no great excitement. It said that Ben-