Abdel Latif Boghdadi

Abdel Latif Baghdadi (; 20 September 1917 – 9 September 1999) was an Egyptian politician, senior air force officer, and judge. An original member of the Free Officers Movement which overthrew the monarchy in Egypt in the 1952 Revolution, Boghdadi later served as Gamal Abdel Nasser's vice president. The French author Jean Lacouture called Boghdadi "a robust manager" who only lacked "stature comparable to Nasser's."

Free Officers and the revolution The Free Officers in Cairo, 1952. Boghdadi is shown on the left next to Nasser. alt=Four men in military uniform, wearing buttoned jackets, wide-rimmed hats, black shoes, and carrying briefcases. They are ascending the stairs of a building.

Boghdadi later became one of the original ten members of the Free Officers Movement. During the 1952 revolution led by the Free Officers, Boghdadi commanded jet fighter units to circle around Cairo to prevent possible outside interference in the coup against King Farouk. After the Free Officers assumed power, Gamal Abdel Nasser—the principal leader of the coup and the new Prime Minister of Egypt—made Boghdadi chairman of a special court established to try members of the monarchy, sentencing former general Hussein Sirri Amer and a Wafd Party leader Fouad Serageddin, among others, to long-term prison sentences. Most sentences were commuted, however. In 1953, he was appointed inspector-general of the revolution's first political organization, the Liberation Rally. To remove and replace Muhammad Naguib, the President of Egypt who had been installed by the Free Officers, with Nasser, Nasser replaced the defence minister, a pro-Naguib officer, with Boghdadi for a brief period from 1953 to 1954. When Naguib was removed from his post and arrested in late 1954, Nasser was still prime minister and transferred Boghdadi to municipal affairs minister. During this time, he was responsible for the construction of the Nile Corniche road in Cairo, as well as the construction of many other new roads throughout Egypt.

Role in Suez Crisis When Israeli forces backed by British and French fighter planes drove out Egyptian forces from the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Canal—which had been nationalised by Nasser—in 1956, the commander of the Egyptian armed forces, Abdel Hakim Amer, panicked and suggested surrendering. Nasser refused and put Boghdadi in charge of organising Egyptian resistance along the canal. After the Suez War, he was appointed general administrator for the reconstruction of the canal area and according to author Said Aburish, "performed admirably." He was also made minister of communications and, along with Zakaria Mohieddine and Amer, was placed on a committee that screened the candidates of the newly established 350-member National Assembly. Boghdadi was elected as Speaker of the First National Assembly.

Resignation and aftermath

Boghdadi accompanied Nasser on his trip to Damascus on 24 February 1958, after the unification of Syria and Egypt to form the United Arab Republic (UAR). His role in the new republic was, along with Amer, vice president of the Egypt province. In the early 1960s Boghdadi held the additional post of planning minister, and minister responsible for finance. In 1962, shortly after the UAR's collapse, Nasser adopted a more Soviet (USSR)-style economic system for Egypt to which Boghdadi disapproved. He was utterly opposed to the extensive socialist measures and the new system altogether. He announced his resignation, claiming Nasser's behaviour amounted to a loss of direction. Boghdadi also preferred closer relations with the United States, rather than the USSR. In 1963 Boghdadi warned Nasser about Amer—whose relationship with Nasser was particularly close, but eroding at the time—wiretapping his and Nasser's telephones, a situation which he blamed Nasser for allowing.

Boghdadi submitted his resignation again on 16 May 1964,

Later life and death As a result of the fallout, Boghdadi withdrew from political life, although the rift between him and Nasser was reconciled before 1970.

In 1972, during Sadat's presidency, Boghdadi and nine other prominent former members of the Egyptian government sent a note to Sadat, criticising his government for "over-dependence on the Soviet Union". Boghdadi opposed Sadat's peace treaty with Israel in 1978, as did all the other then-living former RCC members.

On 8 September 1999 Boghdadi was hospitalised with complications from liver cancer. He was pronounced dead at the age of 81 the next day. A state funeral for Boghdadi was held on 10 September in a Cairo suburb. The ceremonies were attended by Egypt's then president, Hosni Mubarak, and other high-ranking government figures. Mubarak issued a statement saying that Boghdadi had "served his country with devotion".

List of published works

Abdel Latif Boghdadi: Diaries. (1982). Cairo: el-Maktab al-Masri al-Hadith.