King Farouk and the Wafd’s Relations with the United States After the 1952 Revolution (1952-1957)

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Tourism Guidance Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Sadat City University

Abstract

King Farouk was deposed and forced to leave Egypt after the 1952 Revolution. Under the demand of the political purification, the Wafd party was dissolved and its leaders were imprisoned or kept under house arrest. The year 1955 marked the first contact between the Farouk and Wafd with the United States. The tense relation between US and Nasser that year gave hope for both to return to power with US support. The study depended on the US State Department documents to represent these connections and to show the American opinion with it. Unlike the previous studies, the study approved that the first contact of Farouk to the US was in 1955 not in 1956; in which he commented on the Middle East situation, the US’s role in depositing him and described the new regime in Egypt. The Wafd also tried to gain the US support to return to power through two different approaches. One was ready to deal with Nasser but with parliamentary life depending on the Wafd’s popularity; the second was to depose Nasser and replace him with Naguib with the return of the Wafd party to the political scene.  The study concluded that these connections reflected the deep ideological difference between Farouk and Wafd and showed that the US’s foreign policy was determined by its interest which was not anymore with either the Wafd or Farouk.

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