The Free Officers had originally set the target date for their coup as late as 1955. Gamal Abdel Nasser did not plan to strike until he was absolutely certain of success. "As a matter of principle"' he explained to the others, "I never act. I only react." Events were now playing into their hands. But they realized that even if they were to be successful in seizing power, a group of unknown officers might very well fail to win over public opinion and general acceptance either in Egypt or abroad. The British army, after all, was only just down the road. It was known that British detachments had been alerted to move into Cairo at a moment's notice had the riots escalated. The British army had always been a last ditch insurance policy for the Palace. In desperation the King might call them in if the throne was in danger. On the other hand, the conspirators argued, the British themselves were known to be sick to death with Farouq and his clique, and would very likely welcome an army dictatorship, provided it seemed respectable. (This assessment was absolutely true: GHQ always regarded the army as the most reliable factor in the country, perhaps because they felt it was largely British trained). What the Free Officers obviously needed most of all was someone with prestige as a figure-head - an army man who would command widespread respect.

The first name to be considered for the job was their former patron, the old venerate Aziz el Masri, who had tried to help Rommel during the war. But they had to admit that he was too elderly and had been in retirement much too long. The next on the list was General Fouad Sadeq, who had made his mark in Palestine. But hardly had they decided to approach him than the news came through that Farouq had appointed him to be chief of staff. Upon which Abdel Hakim Amer suggested his own boss, General Mohammed Naguib, and Nasser agreed immediately that this was an excellent choice. The good natured, pipe-smoking Commander of the Frontier Corps was something of a hero in the army. He had been wounded three times so seriously in Palestine that he had been left for dead, and he was the only man in the army to wear three wound stripes on his breast. Moreover he was already in touch with the Free Officers' movement through Amer, his ADC. Nasser's one misgiving was whether this ranking general would submit to being merely a figurehead; but Amer reassured him on this point.

The Free Officers were beginning to come more and more into the open; since late 1951, indeed, the movement was clandestine only in the sense that its leaders were unknown. Some of the participants, more organization-minded perhaps than Nasser, wanted to establish themselves as a formal body, with committees, plans and programmes, but this Nasser absolutely rejected. As a concession, he agreed to become the head of an executive committee which, although its members changed from time to time, was usually known as "The Nine". However there was never anything formal about this, and indeed the only committee members who knew the names of all the Free Officers were Nasser and Amer. The tracks were covered so stealthily that neither the King's secret police nor the Ministry of the Interior had the slightest suspicion until the very day of the revolution that Nasser himself had any part in the movement.

Since it was impossible to hold mass meetings or operate at all in the open, they began to circulate pamphlets attacking the excesses of the King and the government. These were painstakingly tapped out with two fingers on ZaKaria Mohy Eddin's portable typewriter, mimeographed, and carried into army messes under the seats of officers' cars. After a while they were boldly distributed through the open mail though always dispatched from different post-boxes. Copies were even sent to the Palace and the Ministry of the Interior, whose job it was to stamp out tile conspiracy. 

Such activities were all very well, but Nasser knew that something more substantial was necessary to test the real stature of the Free Officers. There were perhaps a thousand of them in all, but the army as a whole had to be sounded to gauge what overall support a mutiny would have. And so Naguib was put up as a candidate for the politically sensitive position of President of the Officers' Club in Zamalek, and the word went round to vote for the man with the 3 on his chest. The King's nominee was General Hussein Sirry Amer, who was much detested because of his part in some scurrilous arms deals. The election proceedings opened unexpectedly with a request for three minutes silence in tribute to one of the Free Officers who had been killed by the secret police. Then the vote was taken. Naguib was elected by over eighty per cent of the ballot.

It was a bitter rebuff for the King, who promptly cancelled the election, but it showed quite clearly how the wind was blowing. Farouq could no longer count on the loyalty of the army. This was even more strongly emphasized by an assassination attempt on General Sirry Amer, and the appearance of a dagger with a note pinned to his own desk at Abdin Palace (soon, said the note, the target will be yourself - and not in the back either). But equally it was impossible for Nasser to delay action much longer if he were to escape the dragnet which was being prepared by the Palace secret police. Indeed Mortagha el Maraghi, now the strong man at the Ministry of Interior, seemed to be on the verge of sniffing out the real hard core of the Free Officers' movement, and the King was manoeuvring to appoint his brother in law, Ismail Sherine, as Minister of War. All of which pointed to disaster. As it was, a number of the inside ring of Free Officers had been transferred to units away from Cairo. The screw was tightening. It was now becoming a matter of days. At any moment, the blow might fall.

Early in July the King and his entourage moved off for the summer recess to the cool breezes of Alexandria, followed by the ministers and the diplomatic corps. By long tradition this meant a period of inertia, with government business reduced to a minimum. But this year incessant ministerial changes kept everyone on edge. In Cairo, the steaming summer atmosphere seemed charged with menace.

5 August was the date he chose, mainly to allow them all to collect their pay at the end of July. Yet barely had the decision been taken than Nasser was plagued with misgivings. He was worried in particular by the fact that so many of his key men had been dispersed or were away. They were still in this hesitant mood when the phone rang on 20 July with a long distance call from Alexandria. " It was my brother-inlaw, Ahmed Aboul Fath (the editor of Al-Misri)" Sarwat Okasha goes on to relate, "He told me that Hussein Sirry was resigning as Prime Minister, that the King was going to impose General Sirry Amer on the cabinet as Minister of War, and that fourteen of us were booked to be arrested."

There was no alternative now. They had to act immediately.

Curiously enough, the government was still not fully aware of what was afoot, even at this late stage. On 20 July, in fact, Hussein Sirry remarked to his military ADC in half bantering terms: " hear that there's some trouble in the army. Is this so?" The aide was genuinely surprised. "I haven't noticed anything myself, Your Excellency" he replied, and has never stopped wondering ever since how he could have been so mistaken.

The Revoltion was planned in two stages. The first objective was to seize control of the army itself by occupying the general headquarters with the 13th battalion of the infantry, while tank and armoured car units took over such nerve centres as the airport, the radio station, the telephone exchange, and other key points. Once this had been achieved, the King would be dealt with. Sa3et el-Sefr' (zero hour) was set for 1 am on 23 July, when the streets of the capital would be clear, and senior army officers safely asleep in their beds.

As so often happens to the best laid plans, a number of last moment hitches cropped up. The events of 22 July 1952 run like the script for a thriller.

The heat that afternoon was torrid; the temperature rose to 117° F and the whole of Cairo felt like a turkish bath. Mohammed Naguib, who, because he was so obviously under surveillance by the secret police, was not due to take any part in the actual coup, spent the afternoon at the Rowing Club on the Nile. As the sun began to sink behind the pyramids and a breath of cool air floated down the river, a newspaperman brought him alarming news. He had just heard from Alexandria that Hilali Pasha was forming a new cabinet, and that it was intended to arrest what was described as "a group of conspirators of which Naguib was the chief".

In another part of the city a young officer was knocking at the door of Abdel Nasser's flat, just as Gamal had slipped back to change into uniform. Captain Saad Tewfik was one of the Free Officers, but not one of the seventy actually involved in the coup. He explained that he was on duty at the Ministry of Interior and he thought he had better slip over and warn him. News had just come through from Alexandria. The King had learned that a coup d'etat was being planned and had been on the phone to his chief of staff. All divisional and brigade commanders had been ordered at once to GHQ at Koubbeh.

Their next destination was the house of the Free Officer who was storing their weapons. He too was out. Nasser swore under his breath. Were all his efforts, the ten years of careful planning, to be upset at the last moment? In front of Kasr el Nil barracks he could see the white uniformed police forming up. This was not part of his plan. The little black car raced on to its next port of call.

Suddenly a couple of motorized policemen loomed up and ordered them to pull over to the side of the road. Then one of them asked gruffly for the occupants' papers. "What's the trouble?" asked Nasser. "You are driving without lights" snapped the policeman."Don't you know that's forbidden?"

Nasser said nothing. It was quite true. He had forgotten to turn on his side-lights. The other police officer peered suspiciously into the car and asked why it was that he was driving without lights. Had they been up to something wrong? Were they running away from something?

For a few lunatic instants the fate of the Revolution was in the balance. It would have been the height of absurdity at this particular moment for the two leaders to be hauled off to the police station for a trivial traffic offence. The policeman continued to stare at their papers. At last, after a long-winded reprimand, the police got back on their motorcycles, and the revolutionaries, exchanging a nervous smile, drove off towards Heliopolis to meet up with their fellow conspirators.

Minutes later, they saw a column of headlights coming down the broad, tree-lined boulevard from the direction of the barracks. At a distance, it was impossible to know who they were - their own troops, or units suddenly mobilized by the King. Nasser parked the car off the road to make sure. The first khaki vehicles passed; then a staff car stopped. A platoon of machine-gunners surrounded the Austin. A young lieutenant pointed his revolver at Colonel Nasser. "You can go" he said, motioning to Major Amer and Captain Tewfik. "But you, you're a Colonel. All senior officers are being taken in tonight. I'm sorry, but you must consider yourself under military arrest !"'

They remonstrated, but it was no use. This was the penalty of being so secret a leader. "Take him into custody" snapped the young lieutenant.

But at this moment a jeep bounced up, and the commander of the machine-gun battalion got out. It was Colonel Youssef Sadiq, one of Nasser's closest friends.

"What on earth's going on?" he shouted.

"I've been arrested by your men" replied Nasser with a grin. Quickly he sketched out the position and the meeting that was going on at GHQ. "Let's go right in and catch the whole bunch of them" he said.

The column moved off towards Army headquarters at Qoubbeh. Outside GHQ, Abdel Hakim Amer took charge of the operation. The low squat building was swiftly surrounded. For a few minutes, the guards put up a token resistance. Then the shooting ceased. Amer, Sadeq and Nasser ran up the stairs, revolvers in hand, and burst into the chief of staff's office. Only one of the generals inside made any attempt at resistance, firing three shots from behind a screen in the corner. The others put up their hands without a word.

Meanwhile, Hussein el Shafi's tanks were occupying the broadcasting station and the airport, while Khaled Mohy Eddin's squadrons took possession of the huge military depot at Abbassiah. They were now ready to strike. Apart from the brief skirmish at GHQ, in which two guards were killed - the only casualties in the coup - Cairo and the nerve centres of the army itself fell into the Free Officers' hands without a shot being fired. Despite all the last moment hitches, the operation went through like clockwork. 

The success, achieved with such incredible ease in the very nick of time, had now to be consolidated. Two officers were sent off in an armoured car to fetch Mohammad Naguib. At three o'clock the general strode in with a broad smile on his face. "Mabrouk, mabrouk ! Congratulations!" He kept on repeating as he shook hands all round, until someone passed over the telephone. It was Hilali Pasha, the Prime Minister, calling from Alexandria. For half an hour he argued with Naguib, offering every sort of inducement if he would call off the coup. Hilali had thought he was dealing with a simple mutiny of malcontents whose grievances could be solved by a few concessions. By the time he hung up he realized that it was much more than this.

On the upper floor of the Egyptian Army headquarters building, the lights blazed throughout the night, and in the excited atmosphere of bustle and congratulation, the first decisions were taken. Naguib, it was agreed, should be styled "Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Egypt". The Revolution should be announced in his name. Amer scribbled out the text of a proclamation on some loose pages of an exercise book. Copies were rushed to the newspapers, and at six o'clock in the morning Anwar el Sadat read it over the air from the captured studios of Egyptian State Broadcasting. So much for the first phase. Next came the question of civil government. Ali Maher Pasha, who had so often held office in times of emergency, seemed the ideal man to handle affairs smoothly and deal with the king. Naguib, at his first press conference, was able to announce that Ali Maher would head the Council of Ministers.

Mohammed Naguib and Anwar el Sadat flew down to Alexandria, and handed the army's ultimatum to Ali Maher. There was no beating about the bush in it. "In view of your misrule, your violations of the constitution, your contempt of the will of the nation . . ." ran the text, ". . . the Army, which represents the strength of the people, has ordered that Your Majesty abdicate in favour of the heir to the throne, His Highness Prince Ahmed Fouad, on this day, 26 July, and that you quit the country on the same day before six o'clock."

The Prime Minister went as pale as death as he read it recalls Sadat, " He murmured, almost under his breath, " Farouq never listened to what I told him. He is only getting what he deserves."

A few minutes before six o'clock, dressed in the full uniform of Admiral of the Fleet, Farouq came slowly down the steps of Ras el Tin palace, followed by Queen Narriman, and the infant king in her arms. All afternoon had been spent packing whatever he could lay hands on

204 suitcases and trunks had already been loaded on to the royal yacht. At his request, the American ambassador accompanied him into the safety of the vessel. Then four officers joined the ex-monarch on the bridge. They were Mohammed Naguib, Gamal Salem, Hussein Shafei and Ahmed Shawky. Whatever emotions Farouq felt were hidden behind the dark lenses of his glasses. But his voice was husky. "What you have done to me, I was on the point of doing to you " he said to Naguib, as they shook hands, "You will find out in due course that it is not an easy thing to govern Egypt."

A few minutes later, the majestic shape of the Mahroussa edged out of the harbour, and to the booming of a 21-gun salute, disappeared slowly into the vivid hues of the summer sunset.

Itwas not just the end of a reign, of the dynasty that Mohammed Ali had founded: it rang down the curtain on a whole epoch in Egypt.

By one-thirty in the morning of 27 July, the thirty four year-old Nasser, who had plotted revolution for over ten years and taken barely 3 days  to carry it through, sat at the chief of staff's desk with a handful of colleagues and faced up to the looming, unexplored problem of running a nation.