Resignation

Moving fast to consolidate the power he won after a six-week seesaw battle with Mohammed Naguib, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser turned last week to the problem of a faithless friend. During the years he risked his neck plotting the overthrow of King Farouk, Nasser handpicked every one of the 14 original members of the Revolutionary Command Council, including Major Khaled Mohed-dine. Nasser knew that husky, young (33) Moheddine had been a Communist, but he accepted his oath of loyalty and his pledge to quit the Communist Party.

When the showdown with Naguib started last February, however, Khaled Moheddine showed that his true color was still red. He led a group of cavalry officers who demanded that Nasser turn over all power to Naguib. Moheddine seemed to look upon Naguib as a kind of Kerensky of the Egyptian revolution, while imagining himself to be the eventual Lenin.

Nasser had to bow for a time to the Moheddine group. But by last week Mo hammed Naguib lay abed with a nervous breakdown, and Nasser was strong enough once more to exact payment for the broken pledge of ex-friend Moheddine. After a meeting of the R.C.C., it was revealed that Khaled Moheddine had resigned and would leave soon for Italy on a government mission, would thereafter take an extended European vacation. It was another measure of the gentleness which has so far marked Egypt's 21-month-old revolution. Had Major Moheddine and his Communist friends come out on top, General Nasser would probably have ended up in some place far less pleasant than Italy in the spring.

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