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Following Bandung, Nasser officially adopted the "positive neutralism" of Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as a principal theme of Egyptian foreign policy regarding the Cold War. Nasser was welcomed by large crowds of people lining the streets of Cairo on his return to Egypt on 2 May and was widely heralded in the press for his achievements and leadership in the conference. Consequently, Nasser's prestige was greatly boosted as was his self-confidence and image.
In January 1956, the new Constitution of Egypt was drafted, entailing the establishment of a single-party system under the National Union (NU), a movement Nasser described as the "cadre through which we will realize our revolution". The NU was a reconfiguration of the Liberation Rally, which Nasser determined had failed in generating mass public participation. In the new movement, Nasser attempted to incorporate more citizens, approved by local-level party committees, in order to solidify popular backing for his government. The NU would select a nominee for the presidential election whose name would be provided for public approval.
Nasser's nomination for the post and the new constitution were put to public referendum on 23 June and each was approved by an overwhelming majority. A 350-member National Assembly was established, elections for which were held in July 1957. Nasser had ultimate approval over all the candidates. The constitution granted women's suffrage, prohibited gender-based discrimination, and entailed special protection for women in the workplace. Coinciding with the new constitution and Nasser's presidency, the RCC dissolved itself and its members resigned their military commissions as part of the transition to civilian rule. During the deliberations surrounding the establishment of a new government, Nasser began a process of sidelining his rivals among the original Free Officers, while elevating his closest allies to high-ranking positions in the cabinet.
After the three-year transition period ended with Nasser's official assumption of power, his domestic and independent foreign policies increasingly collided with the regional interests of the UK and France. The latter condemned his strong support for Algerian independence, and the UK's Eden government was agitated by Nasser's campaign against the Baghdad Pact. In addition, Nasser's adherence to neutralism regarding the Cold War, recognition of communist China, and arms deal with the Eastern bloc alienated the United States. On 19 July 1956, the US and UK abruptly withdrew their offer to finance construction of the Aswan Dam, citing concerns that Egypt's economy would be overwhelmed by the project.
Nasser was informed of the British–American withdrawal via a news statement while aboard a plane returning to Cairo from Belgrade, and took great offense. Although ideas for nationalizing the Suez Canal were in the offing after the UK agreed to withdraw its military from Egypt in 1954 (the last British troops left on 13 June 1956), journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal asserts that Nasser made the final decision to nationalize the waterway between 19 and 20 July. Nasser himself would later state that he decided on 23 July, after studying the issue and deliberating with some of his advisers from the dissolved RCC, namely Boghdadi and technical specialist Mahmoud Younis, beginning on 21 July. The rest of the RCC's former members were informed of the decision on 24 July, while the bulk of the cabinet was unaware of the nationalization scheme until hours before Nasser publicly announced it. According to Ramadan, Nasser's decision to nationalize the canal was a solitary decision, taken without consultation.
On 26 July 1956, Nasser gave a speech in Alexandria announcing the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company as a means to fund the Aswan Dam project in light of the British–American withdrawal. In the speech, he denounced British imperialism in Egypt and British control over the canal company's profits, and upheld that the Egyptian people had a right to sovereignty over the waterway, especially since "120,000 Egyptians had died (sic)" building it. The motion was technically in breach of the international agreement he had signed with the UK on 19 October 1954, although he ensured that all existing stockholders would be paid off.
The nationalization announcement was greeted very emotionally by the audience and, throughout the Arab world, thousands entered the streets shouting slogans of support. US ambassador Henry A. Byroade stated, "I cannot overemphasize [the] popularity of the Canal Company nationalization within Egypt, even among Nasser's enemies." Egyptian political scientist Mahmoud Hamad wrote that, prior to 1956, Nasser had consolidated control over Egypt's military and civilian bureaucracies, but it was only after the canal's nationalization that he gained near-total popular legitimacy and firmly established himself as the "charismatic leader" and "spokesman for the masses not only in Egypt, but all over the Third World". According to Aburish, this was Nasser's largest pan-Arab triumph at the time and "soon his pictures were to be found in the tents of Yemen, the souks of Marrakesh, and the posh villas of Syria". The official reason given for the nationalization was that funds from the canal would be used for the construction of the dam in Aswan. That same day, Egypt closed the canal to Israeli shipping.
France and the UK, the largest shareholders in the Suez Canal Company, saw its nationalization as yet another hostile measure aimed at them by the Egyptian government. Nasser was aware that the canal's nationalization would instigate an international crisis and believed the prospect of military intervention by the two countries was 80 per cent likely. He believed, however, that the UK would not be able to intervene militarily for at least two months after the announcement, and dismissed Israeli action as "impossible". In early October, the UN Security Council met on the matter of the canal's nationalization and adopted a resolution recognizing Egypt's right to control the canal as long as it continued to allow passage through it for foreign ships. According to Heikal, after this agreement, "Nasser estimated that the danger of invasion had dropped to 10 per cent". Shortly thereafter, however, the UK, France, and Israel made a secret agreement to take over the Suez Canal, occupy the Suez Canal zone, and topple Nasser.
On 29 October 1956, Israeli forces crossed the Sinai Peninsula, overwhelmed Egyptian army posts, and quickly advanced to their objectives. Two days later, British and French planes bombarded Egyptian airfields in the canal zone. Nasser ordered the military's high command to withdraw the Egyptian Army from Sinai to bolster the canal's defenses. Moreover, he feared that if the armored corps was dispatched to confront the Israeli invading force and the British and French subsequently landed in the canal city of Port Said, Egyptian armor in the Sinai would be cut off from the canal and destroyed by the combined tripartite forces. Amer strongly disagreed, insisting that Egyptian tanks meet the Israelis in battle. The two had a heated exchange on 3 November, and Amer conceded. Nasser also ordered blockage of the canal by sinking or otherwise disabling forty-nine ships at its entrance.
Despite the commanded withdrawal of Egyptian troops, about 2,000 Egyptian soldiers were killed during engagement with Israeli forces, and some 5,000 Egyptian soldiers were captured by the Israeli Army. Amer and Salah Salem proposed requesting a ceasefire, with Salem further recommending that Nasser surrender himself to British forces. Nasser berated Amer and Salem, and vowed, "Nobody is going to surrender." Nasser assumed military command. Despite the relative ease in which Sinai was occupied, Nasser's prestige at home and among Arabs was undamaged. To counterbalance the Egyptian Army's dismal performance, Nasser authorized the distribution of about 400,000 rifles to civilian volunteers and hundreds of militias were formed throughout Egypt, many led by Nasser's political opponents.
It was at Port Said that Nasser saw a confrontation with the invading forces as being the strategic and psychological focal point of Egypt's defense. A third infantry battalion and hundreds of national guardsmen were sent to the city as reinforcements, while two regular companies were dispatched to organize popular resistance. Nasser and Boghdadi traveled to the canal zone to boost the morale of the armed volunteers. According to Boghdadi's memoirs, Nasser described the Egyptian Army as "shattered" as he saw the wreckage of Egyptian military equipment en route. When British and French forces landed in Port Said on 5–6 November, its local militia put up a stiff resistance, resulting in street-to-street fighting. The Egyptian Army commander in the city was preparing to request terms for a ceasefire, but Nasser ordered him to desist. The British-French forces managed to largely secure the city by 7 November. Between 750 and 1,000 Egyptians were killed in the battle for Port Said.
The U.S. Eisenhower administration condemned the tripartite invasion, and supported UN resolutions demanding withdrawal and a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to be stationed in Sinai. Nasser commended Eisenhower, stating he played the "greatest and most decisive role" in stopping the "tripartite conspiracy". By the end of December, British and French forces had totally withdrawn from Egyptian territory, while Israel completed its withdrawal in March 1957 and released all Egyptian prisoners of war. As a result of the Suez Crisis, Nasser brought in a set of regulations imposing rigorous requirements for residency and citizenship as well as forced expulsions, mostly affecting British and French nationals and Jews with foreign nationality, as well as some Egyptian Jews.
By 1957, pan-Arabism was the dominant ideology of the Arab world, and the average Arab citizen considered Nasser his undisputed leader. Historian Adeed Dawisha credited Nasser's status to his "charisma, bolstered by his perceived victory in the Suez Crisis". The Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs radio station spread Nasser's ideas of united Arab action throughout the Arabic-speaking world and historian Eugene Rogan wrote, "Nasser conquered the Arab world by radio." Lebanese sympathizers of Nasser and the Egyptian embassy in Beirut—the press center of the Arab world—bought out Lebanese media outlets to further disseminate Nasser's ideals. Nasser also enjoyed the support of Arab nationalist organizations, both civilian and paramilitary, throughout the region. His followers were numerous and well-funded, but lacked any permanent structure and organization. They called themselves "Nasserites", despite Nasser's objection to the label (he preferred the term "Arab nationalists").
In January 1957, the US adopted the Eisenhower Doctrine and pledged to prevent the spread of communism and its perceived agents in the Middle East. Although Nasser was an opponent of communism in the region, his promotion of pan-Arabism was viewed as a threat by pro-Western states in the region. Eisenhower tried to isolate Nasser and reduce his regional influence by attempting to transform King Saud into a counterweight. Also in January, the elected Jordanian prime minister and Nasser supporter Sulayman al-Nabulsi brought Jordan into a military pact with Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
Relations between Nasser and King Hussein deteriorated in April when Hussein implicated Nasser in two coup attempts against him—although Nasser's involvement was never established—and dissolved al-Nabulsi's cabinet. Nasser subsequently slammed Hussein on Cairo radio as being "a tool of the imperialists". Relations with King Saud also became antagonistic as the latter began to fear that Nasser's increasing popularity in Saudi Arabia was a genuine threat to the royal family's survival. Despite opposition from the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Lebanon, Nasser maintained his prestige among their citizens and those of other Arab countries.
By the end of 1957, Nasser nationalized all remaining British and French assets in Egypt, including the tobacco, cement, pharmaceutical, and phosphate industries. When efforts to offer tax incentives and attract outside investments yielded no tangible results, he nationalized more companies and made them a part of his economic development organization. He stopped short of total government control: two-thirds of the economy was still in private hands. This effort achieved a measure of success, with increased agricultural production and investment in industrialization. Nasser initiated the Helwan steelworks, which subsequently became Egypt's largest enterprise, providing the country with product and tens of thousands of jobs. Nasser also decided to cooperate with the Soviet Union in the construction of the Aswan Dam to replace the withdrawal of US funds.
As political instability grew in Syria, delegations from the country were sent to Nasser demanding immediate unification with Egypt. Nasser initially turned down the request, citing the two countries' incompatible political and economic systems, lack of contiguity, the Syrian military's record of intervention in politics, and the deep factionalism among Syria's political forces. However, in January 1958, a second Syrian delegation managed to convince Nasser of an impending communist takeover and a consequent slide to civil strife. Nasser subsequently opted for union, albeit on the condition that it would be a total political merger with him as its president, to which the delegates and Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli agreed. On 1 February, the United Arab Republic (UAR) was proclaimed and, according to Dawisha, the Arab world reacted in "stunned amazement, which quickly turned into uncontrolled euphoria." Nasser ordered a crackdown against Syrian communists, dismissing many of them from their governmental posts.
While Nasser was in Syria, King Saud planned to have him assassinated on his return flight to Cairo. On 4 March, Nasser addressed the masses in Damascus and waved before them the Saudi check given to Syrian security chief and Nasser supporter Abdel Hamid Sarraj to shoot down Nasser's plane. As a consequence of Saud's scheme, he was forced by senior members of the Saudi royal family to informally cede most of his powers to his brother, King Faisal, a major opponent of Nasser and advocate for pan-Islamic unity over pan-Arabism.
A day after announcing the attempt on his life, Nasser established a new provisional constitution proclaiming a 600-member National Assembly (400 from Egypt and 200 from Syria) and the dissolution of all political parties. Nasser gave each of the provinces two vice-presidents: Boghdadi and Amer in Egypt, and Sabri al-Asali and Akram al-Hawrani in Syria. Nasser then left for Moscow to meet with Nikita Khrushchev. At the meeting, Khrushchev pressed Nasser to lift the ban on the Communist Party, but Nasser refused, stating it was an internal matter which was not a subject of discussion with outside powers. Khrushchev was reportedly taken aback and denied he had meant to interfere in the UAR's affairs. The matter was settled as both leaders sought to prevent a rift between their two countries.
In Lebanon, clashes between pro-Nasser factions and supporters of staunch Nasser opponent, then-President Camille Chamoun, culminated in civil strife by May. The former sought to unite with the UAR, while the latter sought Lebanon's continued independence. Nasser delegated oversight of the issue to Sarraj, who provided limited aid to Nasser's Lebanese supporters through money, light arms, and officer training—short of the large-scale support that Chamoun alleged. Nasser did not covet Lebanon, seeing it as a "special case", but sought to prevent Chamoun from a second presidential term.
On 14 July, Iraqi army officers Abdel Karim Qasim and Abdel Salam Aref overthrew the Iraqi monarchy and, the next day, Iraqi prime minister and Nasser's chief Arab antagonist, Nuri al-Said, was killed. Nasser recognized the new government and stated that "any attack on Iraq was tantamount to an attack on the UAR". On 15 July, US marines landed in Lebanon, and British special forces in Jordan, upon the request of those countries' governments to prevent them from falling to pro-Nasser forces. Nasser felt that the revolution in Iraq left the road for pan-Arab unity unblocked. On 19 July, for the first time, he declared that he was opting for full Arab union, although he had no plan to merge Iraq with the UAR. While most members of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) favored Iraqi-UAR unity, Qasim sought to keep Iraq independent and resented Nasser's large popular base in the country.
In the fall of 1958, Nasser formed a tripartite committee consisting of Zakaria Mohieddin, al-Hawrani, and Salah Bitar to oversee developments in Syria. By moving the latter two, who were Ba'athists, to Cairo, he neutralized important political figures who had their own ideas about how Syria should be run. He put Syria under Sarraj, who effectively reduced the province to a police state by imprisoning and exiling landholders who objected to the introduction of Egyptian agricultural reform in Syria, as well as communists. Following the Lebanese election of Fuad Chehab in September 1958, relations between Lebanon and the UAR improved considerably. On 25 March 1959, Chehab and Nasser met at the Lebanese–Syrian border and compromised on an end to the Lebanese crisis.
Relations between Nasser and Qasim grew increasingly bitter on 9 March, after Qasim's forces suppressed a rebellion in Mosul, launched a day earlier by a pro-Nasser Iraqi RCC officer backed by UAR authorities. Nasser had considered dispatching troops to aid his Iraqi sympathizers, but decided against it. He clamped down on Egyptian communist activity due to the key backing Iraqi communists provided Qasim. Several influential communists were arrested, including Nasser's old comrade Khaled Mohieddin, who had been allowed to re-enter Egypt in 1956.
Opposition to the union mounted among some of Syria's key elements, namely the socioeconomic, political, and military elites. In response to Syria's worsening economy, which Nasser attributed to its control by the bourgeoisie, in July 1961, Nasser decreed socialist measures that nationalized wide-ranging sectors of the Syrian economy. He also dismissed Sarraj in September to curb the growing political crisis. Aburish states that Nasser was not fully capable of addressing Syrian problems because they were "foreign to him". In Egypt, the economic situation was more positive, with a GNP growth of 4.5 percent and a rapid growth of industry. In 1960, Nasser nationalized the Egyptian press, which had already been cooperating with his government, in order to steer coverage towards the country's socioeconomic issues and galvanize public support for his socialist measures.
On 28 September 1961, secessionist army units launched a coup in Damascus, declaring Syria's secession from the UAR. In response, pro-union army units in northern Syria revolted and pro-Nasser protests occurred in major Syrian cities. Nasser sent Egyptian special forces to Latakia to bolster his allies, but withdrew them two days later, citing a refusal to allow inter-Arab fighting. Addressing the UAR's breakup on 5 October, Nasser accepted personal responsibility and declared that Egypt would recognize an elected Syrian government. He privately blamed interference by hostile Arab governments. According to Heikal, Nasser suffered something resembling a nervous breakdown after the dissolution of the union; he began to smoke more heavily and his health began to deteriorate.
Nasser's regional position changed unexpectedly when Yemeni officers led by Nasser supporter Abdullah al-Sallal overthrew Imam Badr of North Yemen on 27 September 1962. Al-Badr and his tribal partisans began receiving increasing support from Saudi Arabia to help reinstate the kingdom, while Nasser subsequently accepted a request by Sallal to militarily aid the new government on 30 September. Consequently, Egypt became increasingly embroiled in the drawn-out civil war until it withdrew its forces in 1967. Most of Nasser's old colleagues had questioned the wisdom of continuing the war, but Amer reassured Nasser of their coming victory. Nasser later remarked in 1968 that intervention in Yemen was a "miscalculation".
On 8 February 1963, a military coup in Iraq led by a Ba'athist–Nasserist alliance toppled Qasim, who was subsequently shot dead. Abdel Salam Aref, a Nasserist, was chosen to be the new president. A similar alliance toppled the Syrian government on 8 March. On 14 March, the new Iraqi and Syrian governments sent Nasser delegations to push for a new Arab union. At the meeting, Nasser lambasted the Ba'athists for "facilitating" Syria's split from the UAR, and asserted that he was the "leader of the Arabs". A transitional unity agreement stipulating a federal system was signed by the parties on 17 April and the new union was set to be established in May 1965. However, the agreement fell apart weeks later when Syria's Ba'athists purged Nasser's supporters from the officers corps. A failed counter-coup by a Nasserist colonel followed, after which Nasser condemned the Ba'athists as "fascists".
In January 1964, Nasser called for an Arab League summit in Cairo to establish a unified Arab response against Israel's plans to divert the Jordan River's waters for economic purposes, which Syria and Jordan deemed an act of war. Nasser blamed Arab divisions for what he deemed "the disastrous situation". He discouraged Syria and Palestinian guerrillas from provoking the Israelis, conceding that he had no plans for war with Israel. During the summit, Nasser developed cordial relations with King Hussein, and ties were mended with the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Morocco. In May, Nasser moved to formally share his leadership position over the Palestine issue by initiating the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In practice, Nasser used the PLO to wield control over the Palestinian fedayeen. Its head was to be Ahmad Shukeiri, Nasser's personal nominee.
After years of foreign policy coordination and developing ties, Nasser, President Sukarno of Indonesia, President Tito of Yugoslavia, and Prime Minister Nehru of India founded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961. Its declared purpose was to solidify international non-alignment and promote world peace amid the Cold War, end colonization, and increase economic cooperation among developing countries. In 1964, Nasser was made president of the NAM and held the second conference of the organization in Cairo.
Nasser played a significant part in the strengthening of African solidarity in the late 1950s and early 1960s, although his continental leadership role had increasingly passed to Algeria since 1962. During this period, Nasser made Egypt a refuge for anti-colonial leaders from several African countries and allowed the broadcast of anti-colonial propaganda from Cairo. Beginning in 1958, Nasser had a key role in the discussions among African leaders that led to the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963.
In 1961, Nasser sought to firmly establish Egypt as the leader of the Arab world and to promote a second revolution in Egypt with the purpose of merging Islamic and socialist thinking. To achieve this, he initiated several reforms to modernize al-Azhar, which serves as the de facto leading authority in Sunni Islam, and to ensure its prominence over the Muslim Brotherhood and the more conservative Wahhabism promoted by Saudi Arabia. Nasser had used al-Azhar's most willing ulema (scholars) as a counterweight to the Brotherhood's Islamic influence, starting in 1953.
Following Syria's secession, Nasser grew concerned with Amer's inability to train and modernize the army, and with the state within a state Amer had created in the military command and intelligence apparatus. In late 1961, Nasser established the Presidential Council and decreed it the authority to approve all senior military appointments, instead of leaving this responsibility solely to Amer. Moreover, he instructed that the primary criterion for promotion should be merit and not personal loyalties. Nasser retracted the initiative after Amer's allies in the officers corps threatened to mobilize against him.
In early 1962 Nasser again attempted to wrest control of the military command from Amer. Amer responded by directly confronting Nasser for the first time and secretly rallying his loyalist officers. Nasser ultimately backed down, wary of a possible violent confrontation between the military and his civilian government. According to Boghdadi, the stress caused by the UAR's collapse and Amer's increasing autonomy forced Nasser, who already had diabetes, to practically live on painkillers from then on.
In October 1961, Nasser embarked on a major nationalization program for Egypt, believing the total adoption of socialism was the answer to his country's problems and would have prevented Syria's secession. In order to organize and solidify his popular base with Egypt's citizens and counter the army's influence, Nasser introduced the National Charter in 1962 and a new constitution. The charter called for universal health care, affordable housing, vocational schools, greater women's rights and a family planning program, as well as widening the Suez Canal.
Nasser also attempted to maintain oversight of the country's civil service to prevent it from inflating and consequently becoming a burden to the state. New laws provided workers with a minimum wage, profit shares, free education, free health care, reduced working hours, and encouragement to participate in management. Land reforms guaranteed the security of tenant farmers, promoted agricultural growth, and reduced rural poverty. As a result of the 1962 measures, government ownership of Egyptian business reached 51 percent, and the National Union was renamed the Arab Socialist Union (ASU). With these measures came more domestic repression, as thousands of Islamists were imprisoned, including dozens of military officers. Nasser's tilt toward a Soviet-style system led his aides Boghdadi and Hussein el-Shafei to submit their resignations in protest.
During the presidential referendum in Egypt, Nasser was re-elected to a second term as UAR president and took his oath on 25 March 1965. He was the only candidate for the position, with virtually all of his political opponents forbidden by law from running for office, and his fellow party members reduced to mere followers. That same year, Nasser had the Muslim Brotherhood chief ideologue Sayyed Qutb imprisoned. Qutb was charged and found guilty by the court of plotting to assassinate Nasser, and was executed in 1966. Beginning in 1966, as Egypt's economy slowed and government debt became increasingly burdensome, Nasser began to ease state control over the private sector, encouraging state-owned bank loans to private business and introducing incentives to increase exports. During the 60's, the Egyptian economy went from sluggishness to the verge of collapse, the society became less free, and Nasser's appeal waned considerably.
In mid May 1967, the Soviet Union issued warnings to Nasser of an impending Israeli attack on Syria, although Chief of Staff Mohamed Fawzi considered the warnings to be "baseless". According to Kandil, without Nasser's authorization, Amer used the Soviet warnings as a pretext to dispatch troops to Sinai on 14 May, and Nasser subsequently demanded UNEF's withdrawal. Earlier that day, Nasser received a warning from King Hussein of Israeli-American collusion to drag Egypt into war. The message had been originally received by Amer on 2 May, but was withheld from Nasser until the Sinai deployment on 14 May. Although in the preceding months, Hussein and Nasser had been accusing each other of avoiding a fight with Israel, Hussein was nonetheless wary that an Egyptian-Israeli war would risk the West Bank's occupation by Israel. Nasser still felt that the US would restrain Israel from attacking due to assurances that he received from the US and Soviet Union. In turn, he also reassured both powers that Egypt would only act defensively.
On 21 May, Amer asked Nasser to order the Straits of Tiran blockaded, a move Nasser believed Israel would use as a casus belli. Amer reassured him that the army was prepared for confrontation, but Nasser doubted Amer's assessment of the military's readiness. According to Nasser's vice president Zakaria Mohieddin, although "Amer had absolute authority over the armed forces, Nasser had his ways of knowing what was really going on". Moreover, Amer anticipated an impending Israeli attack and advocated a preemptive strike. Nasser refused the call upon determination that the air force lacked pilots and Amer's handpicked officers were incompetent. Still, Nasser concluded that if Israel attacked, Egypt's quantitative advantage in manpower and arms could stave off Israeli forces for at least two weeks, allowing for diplomacy towards a ceasefire. Towards the end of May, Nasser increasingly exchanged his positions of deterrence for deference to the inevitability of war, under increased pressure to act by both the general Arab populace and various Arab governments. On 26 May Nasser declared, "our basic objective will be to destroy Israel". On 30 May, King Hussein committed Jordan in an alliance with Egypt and Syria.
According to Sadat, it was only when the Israelis cut off the Egyptian garrison at Sharm el-Sheikh that Nasser became aware of the situation's gravity. After hearing of the attack, he rushed to army headquarters to inquire about the military situation. The simmering conflict between Nasser and Amer subsequently came to the fore, and officers present reported the pair burst into "a nonstop shouting match". The Supreme Executive Committee, set up by Nasser to oversee the conduct of the war, attributed the repeated Egyptian defeats to the Nasser–Amer rivalry and Amer's overall incompetence. According to Egyptian diplomat Ismail Fahmi, who became foreign minister during Sadat's presidency, the Israeli invasion and Egypt's consequent defeat was a result of Nasser's dismissal of all rational analysis of the situation and his undertaking of a series of irrational decisions.
During the first four days of the war, the general population of the Arab world believed Arab radio station fabrications of imminent Arab victory. On 9 June, Nasser appeared on television to inform Egypt's citizens of their country's defeat. He announced his resignation on television later that day, and ceded all presidential powers to his then-Vice President Zakaria Mohieddin, who had no prior information of this decision and refused to accept the post. Hundreds of thousands of sympathizers poured into the streets in mass demonstrations throughout Egypt and across the Arab world rejecting his resignation, chanting, "We are your soldiers, Gamal!" Nasser retracted his decision the next day.
On 11 July, Nasser replaced Amer with Mohamed Fawzi as general commander, over the protestations of Amer's loyalists in the military, 600 of whom marched on army headquarters and demanded Amer's reinstatement. After Nasser sacked thirty of the loyalists in response, Amer and his allies devised a plan to topple him on 27 August. Nasser was tipped off about their activities and, after several invitations, he convinced Amer to meet him at his home on 24 August. Nasser confronted Amer about the coup plot, which he denied before being arrested by Mohieddin. Amer committed suicide on 14 September. Despite his souring relationship with Amer, Nasser spoke of losing "the person closest to [him]". Thereafter, Nasser began a process of depoliticizing the armed forces, arresting dozens of leading military and intelligence figures loyal to Amer.
At the 29 August Arab League summit in Khartoum, Nasser's usual commanding position had receded as the attending heads of state expected Saudi King Faisal to lead. A ceasefire in the Yemen War was declared and the summit concluded with the Khartoum Resolution. The Soviet Union soon resupplied the Egyptian military with about half of its former arsenals and broke diplomatic relations with Israel. Nasser cut relations with the US following the war, and, according to Aburish, his policy of "playing the superpowers against each other" ended. In November, Nasser accepted UN Resolution 242, which called for Israel's withdrawal from territories acquired in the war. His supporters claimed Nasser's move was meant to buy time to prepare for another confrontation with Israel, while his detractors believed his acceptance of the resolution signaled a waning interest in Palestinian independence.
Nasser appointed himself the additional roles of prime minister and supreme commander of the armed forces on 19 June 1967. Angry at the military court's perceived leniency with air force officers charged with negligence during the 1967 war, workers and students launched protests calling for major political reforms in late February 1968. Nasser responded to the demonstrations, the most significant public challenge to his rule since workers' protests in March 1954, by removing most military figures from his cabinet and appointing eight civilians in place of several high-ranking members of the Arab Socialist Union (ASU). By 3 March, Nasser directed Egypt's intelligence apparatus to focus on external rather than domestic espionage, and declared the "fall of the mukhabarat state".
On 30 March, Nasser proclaimed a manifesto stipulating the restoration of civil liberties, greater parliamentary independence from the executive, major structural changes to the ASU, and a campaign to rid the government of corrupt elements. A public referendum approved the proposed measures in May, and held subsequent elections for the Supreme Executive Committee, the ASU's highest decision-making body. Observers noted that the declaration signaled an important shift from political repression to liberalization, although its promises would largely go unfulfilled.
Meanwhile, in January 1968, Nasser commenced the War of Attrition to reclaim territory captured by Israel, ordering attacks against Israeli positions east of the then-blockaded Suez Canal. In March, Nasser offered Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement arms and funds after their performance against Israeli forces in the Battle of Karameh that month. He also advised Arafat to think of peace with Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Nasser effectively ceded his leadership of the "Palestine issue" to Arafat.
Israel retaliated against Egyptian shelling with commando raids, artillery shelling and air strikes. This resulted in an exodus of civilians from Egyptian cities along the Suez Canal's western bank. Nasser ceased all military activities and began a program to build a network of internal defenses, while receiving the financial backing of various Arab states. The war resumed in March 1969. In November, Nasser brokered an agreement between the PLO and the Lebanese military that granted Palestinian guerrillas the right to use Lebanese territory to attack Israel.
In June 1970, Nasser accepted the US-sponsored Rogers Plan, which called for an end to hostilities and an Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory, but it was rejected by Israel, the PLO, and most Arab states except Jordan. Nasser had initially rejected the plan, but conceded under pressure from the Soviet Union, which feared that escalating regional conflict could drag it into a war with the US. He also determined that a ceasefire could serve as a tactical step toward the strategic goal of recapturing the Suez Canal. Nasser forestalled any movement toward direct negotiations with Israel. In dozens of speeches and statements, Nasser posited the equation that any direct peace talks with Israel were tantamount to surrender. Following Nasser's acceptance, Israel agreed to a ceasefire and Nasser used the lull in fighting to move SAM missiles towards the canal zone.
As the summit closed on 28 September 1970, hours after escorting the last Arab leader to leave, Nasser suffered a heart attack. He was immediately transported to his house, where his physicians tended to him. Nasser died several hours later, around 6:00 p.m. Heikal, Sadat, and Nasser's wife Tahia were at his deathbed. According to his doctor, al-Sawi Habibi, Nasser's likely cause of death was arteriosclerosis, varicose veins, and complications from long-standing diabetes. Nasser was a heavy smoker with a family history of heart disease—two of his brothers died in their fifties from the same condition. The state of Nasser's health was not known to the public prior to his death. He had previously suffered heart attacks in 1966 and September 1969.
Following the announcement of Nasser's death, Egypt and the Arab world were in a state of shock. Nasser's funeral procession through Cairo on 1 October was attended by at least five million mourners. The 10-kilometer (6.2 mi) procession to his burial site began at the old RCC headquarters with a flyover by MiG-21 jets. His flag-draped coffin was attached to a gun carriage pulled by six horses and led by a column of cavalrymen. All Arab heads of state attended, with the exception of Saudi King Faisal. King Hussein and Arafat cried openly, and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya fainted from emotional distress twice. A few major non-Arab dignitaries were present, including Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin and French Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas.
Because of his ability to motivate nationalistic passions, "men, women, and children wept and wailed in the streets" after hearing of his death, according to Nutting. The general Arab reaction was one of mourning, with thousands of people pouring onto the streets of major cities throughout the Arab world. Over a dozen people were killed in Beirut as a result of the chaos, and in Jerusalem, roughly 75,000 Arabs marched through the Old City chanting, "Nasser will never die." As a testament to his unchallenged leadership of the Arab people, following his death, the headline of the Lebanese Le Jour read, "One hundred million human beings—the Arabs—are orphans." Sherif Hetata, a former political prisoner and later member Nasser's ASU, said that "Nasser's greatest achievement was his funeral. The world will never again see five million people crying together."
Nasser made Egypt fully independent of British influence, and the country became a major power in the developing world under his leadership. One of Nasser's main domestic efforts was to establish social justice, which he deemed a prerequisite to liberal democracy. During his presidency, ordinary citizens enjoyed unprecedented access to housing, education, jobs, health services and nourishment, as well as other forms of social welfare, while feudalistic influence waned. By the end of his presidency, employment and working conditions improved considerably, although poverty was still high in the country and substantial resources allocated for social welfare had been diverted to the war effort.
The national economy grew significantly through agrarian reform, major modernization projects such as the Helwan steel works and the Aswan Dam, and nationalization schemes such as that of the Suez Canal. However, the marked economic growth of the early 1960s took a downturn for the remainder of the decade, only recovering in 1970. Egypt experienced a "golden age" of culture during Nasser's presidency, according to historian Joel Gordon, particularly in film, television, theater, radio, literature, fine arts, comedy, poetry, and music. Egypt under Nasser dominated the Arab world in these fields, producing cultural icons.
During Mubarak's presidency, Nasserist political parties began to emerge in Egypt, the first being the Arab Democratic Nasserist Party (ADNP). The party carried minor political influence, and splits between its members beginning in 1995 resulted in the gradual establishment of splinter parties, including Hamdeen Sabahi's 1997 founding of Al-Karama. Sabahi came in third place during the 2012 presidential election. Nasserist activists were among the founders of Kefaya, a major opposition force during Mubarak's rule. On 19 September 2012, four Nasserist parties (the ADNP, Karama, the National Conciliation Party, and the Popular Nasserist Congress Party) merged to form the United Nasserist Party.
Nasser was known for his intimate relationship with ordinary Egyptians. His availability to the public, despite assassination attempts against him, was unparalleled among his successors. A skilled orator, Nasser gave 1,359 speeches between 1953 and 1970, a record for any Egyptian head of state. Historian Elie Podeh wrote that a constant theme of Nasser's image was "his ability to represent Egyptian authenticity, in triumph or defeat". The national press also helped to foster his popularity and profile—more so after the nationalization of state media. Historian Tarek Osman wrote:
While Nasser was increasingly criticized by Egyptian intellectuals following the Six-Day War and his death in 1970, the general public was persistently sympathetic both during and after Nasser's life. According to political scientist Mahmoud Hamad, writing in 2008, "nostalgia for Nasser is easily sensed in Egypt and all Arab countries today". General malaise in Egyptian society, particularly during the Mubarak era, augmented nostalgia for Nasser's presidency, which increasingly became associated with the ideals of national purpose, hope, social cohesion, and vibrant culture.
Nasser's Egyptian detractors considered him a dictator who thwarted democratic progress, imprisoned thousands of dissidents, and led a repressive administration responsible for numerous human rights violations. Islamists in Egypt, particularly members of the politically persecuted Brotherhood, viewed Nasser as oppressive, tyrannical, and demonic. Liberal writer Tawfiq al-Hakim described Nasser as a "confused Sultan" who employed stirring rhetoric, but had no actual plan to achieve his stated goals.
Some of Nasser's liberal and Islamist critics in Egypt, including the founding members of the New Wafd Party and writer Jamal Badawi, dismissed Nasser's popular appeal with the Egyptian masses during his presidency as being the product of successful manipulation and demagoguery. Egyptian political scientist Alaa al-Din Desouki blamed the 1952 revolution's shortcomings on Nasser's concentration of power, and Egypt's lack of democracy on Nasser's political style and his government's limitations on freedom of expression and political participation.
American political scientist Mark Cooper asserted that Nasser's charisma and his direct relationship with the Egyptian people "rendered intermediaries (organizations and individuals) unnecessary". He opined that Nasser's legacy was a "guarantee of instability" due to Nasser's reliance on personal power and the absence of strong political institutions under his rule. Historian Abd al-Azim Ramadan wrote that Nasser was an irrational and irresponsible leader, blaming his inclination to solitary decision-making for Egypt's losses during the Suez War, among other events. Miles Copeland, Jr. , once described as Nasser's closest Western adviser, said that the barriers between Nasser and the outside world have grown so thick that all but the information that attest to his infallibility, indispensability, and immortality has been filtered out.
Zakaria Mohieddin, who was Nasser's vice president, said that Nasser gradually changed during his reign. He ceased consulting his colleagues and made more and more of the decisions himself. Although Nasser repeatedly said that a war with Israel will start at a time of his, or Arab, choosing, on 1967 he started a bluffing game "but a successful bluff means your opponent must not know which cards you are holding. In this case Nasser's opponent could see his hand in the mirror and knew he was only holding a pair of deuces" and Nasser knew that his army is not prepared yet. "All of this was out of character...His tendencies in this regard may have been accentuated by diabetes... That was the only rational explanation for his actions in 1967".
Through his actions and speeches, and because he was able to symbolize the popular Arab will, Nasser inspired several nationalist revolutions in the Arab world. He defined the politics of his generation and communicated directly with the public masses of the Arab world, bypassing the various heads of states of those countries—an accomplishment not repeated by other Arab leaders. The extent of Nasser's centrality in the region made it a priority for incoming Arab nationalist heads of state to seek good relations with Egypt, in order to gain popular legitimacy from their own citizens.
To varying degrees, Nasser's statist system of government was continued in Egypt and emulated by virtually all Arab republics, namely Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan, and Libya. Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria's first president, was a staunch Nasserist. Abdullah al-Sallal drove out the king of North Yemen in the name of Nasser's pan-Arabism. Other coups influenced by Nasser included those that occurred in Iraq in July 1958 and Syria in 1963. Muammar Gaddafi, who overthrew the Libyan monarchy in 1969, considered Nasser his hero and sought to succeed him as "leader of the Arabs". Also in 1969, Colonel Gaafar Nimeiry, a supporter of Nasser, took power in Sudan. The Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) helped spread Nasser's pan-Arabist ideas throughout the Arab world, particularly among the Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese, and in South Yemen, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq. While many regional heads of state tried to emulate Nasser, Podeh opined that the "parochialism" of successive Arab leaders "transformed imitation [of Nasser] into parody".
In 1963, Egyptian director Youssef Chahine produced the film El Nasser Salah El Dine ("Saladin The Victorious"), which intentionally drew parallels between Saladin, considered a hero in the Arab world, and Nasser and his pan-Arabist policies. Nasser is played by Ahmed Zaki in Mohamed Fadel's 1996 Nasser 56. The film set the Egyptian box office record at the time, and focused on Nasser during the Suez Crisis. It is also considered a milestone in Egyptian and Arab cinema as the first film to dramatize the role of a modern-day Arab leader. Together with the 1999 Syrian biopic Gamal Abdel Nasser, the films marked the first biographical movies about contemporary public figures produced in the Arab world.
In 1944, Nasser married Tahia Kazem, the 22-year-old daughter of a wealthy Iranian father and an Egyptian mother, both of whom died when she was young. She was introduced to Nasser through her brother, Abdel Hamid Kazim, a merchant friend of Nasser's, in 1943. After their wedding, the couple moved into a house in Manshiyat al-Bakri, a suburb of Cairo, where they would live for the rest of their lives. Nasser's entry into the officer corps in 1937 secured him relatively well-paid employment in a society where most people lived in poverty.
Nasser had few personal vices other than chain smoking. He maintained 18-hour workdays and rarely took time off for vacations. The combination of smoking and working long hours contributed to his poor health. He was diagnosed with diabetes in the early 1960s and by the time of his death in 1970, he also had arteriosclerosis, heart disease, and high blood pressure. He suffered two major heart attacks (in 1966 and 1969), and was on bed rest for six weeks after the second episode. State media reported that Nasser's absence from the public view at that time was a result of influenza.
Pope Saint John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes XXIII; Italian: Giovanni XXIII) born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli,[a] Italian pronunciation: [ˈandʒelo dʒuˈzɛppe roŋˈkalli]; 25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963) reigned as Pope from 28 October 1958 to his death in 1963 and was canonized on 27 April 2014. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was the fourth of fourteen children born to a family of sharecroppers who lived in a village in Lombardy. He was ordained to the priesthood on 10 August 1904 and served in a number of posts, including papal nuncio in France and a delegate to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In a consistory on 12 January 1953 Pope Pius XII made Roncalli a cardinal as the Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prisca in addition to naming him as the Patriarch of Venice.
Roncalli was elected pope on 28 October 1958 at age 76 after 11 ballots. His selection was unexpected, and Roncalli himself had come to Rome with a return train ticket to Venice. He was the first pope to take the pontifical name of "John" upon election in more than 500 years, and his choice settled the complicated question of official numbering attached to this papal name due to the antipope of this name. Pope John XXIII surprised those who expected him to be a caretaker pope by calling the historic Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the first session opening on 11 October 1962. His passionate views on equality were summed up in his famous statement, "We were all made in God's image, and thus, we are all Godly alike." John XXIII made many passionate speeches during his pontificate, one of which was on the day that he opened the Second Vatican Council in the middle of the night to the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square: "Dear children, returning home, you will find children: give your children a hug and say: This is a hug from the Pope!"
Pope John XXIII did not live to see the Vatican Council to completion. He died of stomach cancer on 3 June 1963, four and a half years after his election and two months after the completion of his final and famed encyclical, Pacem in terris. He was buried in the Vatican grottoes beneath Saint Peter's Basilica on 6 June 1963 and his cause for canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 by his successor, Pope Paul VI, who declared him a Servant of God. In addition to being named Venerable on 20 December 1999, he was beatified on 3 September 2000 by Pope John Paul II alongside Pope Pius IX and three others. Following his beatification, his body was moved on 3 June 2001 from its original place to the altar of Saint Jerome where it could be seen by the faithful. On 5 July 2013, Pope Francis – bypassing the traditionally required second miracle – declared John XXIII a saint, after unanimous agreement by a consistory, or meeting, of the College of Cardinals, based on the fact that he was considered to have lived a virtuous, model lifestyle, and because of the good for the Church which had come from his having opened the Second Vatican Council. He was canonised alongside Pope Saint John Paul II on 27 April 2014. John XXIII today is affectionately known as the "Good Pope" and in Italian, "il Papa buono".
The Roman Catholic Church celebrates his feast day not on the date of his death, June 3, as is usual, nor even on the day of his papal inauguration (as is sometimes done with Popes who are Saints, such as with John Paul II) but on 11 October, the day of the first session of the Second Vatican Council. This is understandable, since he was the one who had had the idea for it and had convened it. On Thursday, 11 September 2014, Pope Francis added his optional memorial to the worldwide General Roman Calendar of saints' feast days, in response to global requests. He is commemorated on the date of his death, 3 June, by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and on the following day, 4 June, by the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church (United States).
In February 1925, the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri summoned him to the Vatican and informed him of Pope Pius XI's decision to appoint him as the Apostolic Visitor to Bulgaria (1925–35). On 3 March, Pius XI also named him for consecration as titular archbishop of Areopolis, Jordan. Roncalli was initially reluctant about a mission to Bulgaria, but he would soon relent. His nomination as apostolic visitor was made official on 19 March. Roncalli was consecrated by Giovanni Tacci Porcelli in the church of San Carlo alla Corso in Rome. After he was consecrated, he introduced his family to Pope Pius XI. He chose as his episcopal motto Obedientia et Pax ("Obedience and Peace"), which became his guiding motto. While he was in Bulgaria, an earthquake struck in a town not too far from where he was. Unaffected, he wrote to his sisters Ancilla and Maria and told them both that he was fine.
On 30 November 1934, he was appointed Apostolic Delegate to Turkey and Greece and titular archbishop of Mesembria, Bulgaria. Thus, he is known as "the Turcophile Pope," by the Turkish society which is predominantly Muslim. Roncalli took up this post in 1935 and used his office to help the Jewish underground in saving thousands of refugees in Europe, leading some to consider him to be a Righteous Gentile (see Pope John XXIII and Judaism). In October 1935, he led Bulgarian pilgrims to Rome and introduced them to Pope Pius XI on 14 October.
In February 1939, he received news from his sisters that his mother was dying. On 10 February 1939, Pope Pius XI died. Roncalli was unable to see his mother for the end as the death of a pontiff meant that he would have to stay at his post until the election of a new pontiff. Unfortunately, she died on 20 February 1939, during the nine days of mourning for the late Pius XI. He was sent a letter by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, and Roncalli later recalled that it was probably the last letter Pacelli sent until his election as Pope Pius XII on 2 March 1939. Roncalli expressed happiness that Pacelli was elected, and, on radio, listened to the coronation of the new pontiff.
On 12 January 1953, he was appointed Patriarch of Venice and, accordingly, raised to the rank of Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prisca by Pope Pius XII. Roncalli left France for Venice on 23 February 1953 stopping briefly in Milan and then to Rome. On 15 March 1953, he took possession of his new diocese in Venice. As a sign of his esteem, the President of France, Vincent Auriol, claimed the ancient privilege possessed by French monarchs and bestowed the red biretta on Roncalli at a ceremony in the Élysée Palace. It was around this time that he, with the aid of Monsignor Bruno Heim, formed his coat of arms with a lion of Saint Mark on a white ground. Auriol also awarded Roncalli three months later with the award of Commander of the Legion of Honour.
His sister Ancilla would soon be diagnosed with stomach cancer in the early 1950s. Roncalli's last letter to her was dated on 8 November 1953 where he promised to visit her within the next week. He could not keep that promise, as Ancilla died on 11 November 1953 at the time when he was consecrating a new church in Venice. He attended her funeral back in his hometown. In his will around this time, he mentioned that he wished to be buried in the crypt of Saint Mark's in Venice with some of his predecessors rather than with the family in Sotto il Monte.
Following the death of Pope Pius XII on 9 October 1958, Roncalli watched the live funeral on his last full day in Venice on 11 October. His journal was specifically concerned with the funeral and the abused state of the late pontiff's corpse. Roncalli left Venice for the conclave in Rome well aware that he was papabile,[b] and after eleven ballots, was elected to succeed the late Pius XII, so it came as no surprise to him, though he had arrived at the Vatican with a return train ticket to Venice.[citation needed]
Many had considered Giovanni Battista Montini, the Archbishop of Milan, a possible candidate, but, although he was the archbishop of one of the most ancient and prominent sees in Italy, he had not yet been made a cardinal. Though his absence from the 1958 conclave did not make him ineligible – under Canon Law any Catholic male who is capable of receiving priestly ordination and episcopal consecration may be elected – the College of Cardinals usually chose the new pontiff from among the Cardinals who head archdioceses or departments of the Roman Curia that attend the papal conclave. At the time, as opposed to contemporary practice, the participating Cardinals did not have to be below age 80 to vote, there were few Eastern-rite Cardinals, and no Cardinals who were just priests at the time of their elevation.
Roncalli was summoned to the final ballot of the conclave at 4:00 pm. He was elected pope at 4:30 pm with a total of 38 votes. After the long pontificate of Pope Pius XII, the cardinals chose a man who – it was presumed because of his advanced age – would be a short-term or "stop-gap" pope. They wished to choose a candidate who would do little during the new pontificate. Upon his election, Cardinal Eugene Tisserant asked him the ritual questions of whether he would accept and if so, what name he would take for himself. Roncalli gave the first of his many surprises when he chose "John" as his regnal name. Roncalli's exact words were "I will be called John". This was the first time in over 500 years that this name had been chosen; previous popes had avoided its use since the time of the Antipope John XXIII during the Western Schism several centuries before.
Far from being a mere "stopgap" pope, to great excitement, John XXIII called for an ecumenical council fewer than ninety years after the First Vatican Council (Vatican I's predecessor, the Council of Trent, had been held in the 16th century). This decision was announced on 29 January 1959 at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, who later became Pope Paul VI, remarked to Giulio Bevilacqua that "this holy old boy doesn't realise what a hornet's nest he's stirring up". From the Second Vatican Council came changes that reshaped the face of Catholicism: a comprehensively revised liturgy, a stronger emphasis on ecumenism, and a new approach to the world.
John XXIII was an advocate for human rights which included the unborn and the elderly. He wrote about human rights in his Pacem in terris. He wrote, "Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services. In consequence, he has the right to be looked after in the event of ill health; disability stemming from his work; widowhood; old age; enforced unemployment; or whenever through no fault of his own he is deprived of the means of livelihood."
Maintaining continuity with his predecessors, John XXIII continued the gradual reform of the Roman liturgy, and published changes that resulted in the 1962 Roman Missal, the last typical edition containing the Tridentine Mass established in 1570 by Pope Pius V at the request of the Council of Trent and whose continued use Pope Benedict XVI authorized in 2007, under the conditions indicated in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. In response to the directives of the Second Vatican Council, later editions of the Roman Missal present the 1970 form of the Roman Rite.
On 11 October 1962, the first session of the Second Vatican Council was held in the Vatican. He gave the Gaudet Mater Ecclesia speech, which served as the opening address for the council. The day was basically electing members for several council commissions that would work on the issues presented in the council. On that same night following the conclusion of the first session, the people in Saint Peter's Square chanted and yelled with the sole objective of getting John XXIII to appear at the window to address them.
The first session ended in a solemn ceremony on 8 December 1962 with the next session scheduled to occur in 1963 from 12 May to 29 June – this was announced on 12 November 1962. John XXIII's closing speech made subtle references to Pope Pius IX, and he had expressed the desire to see Pius IX beatified and eventually canonized. In his journal in 1959 during a spiritual retreat, John XXIII made this remark: "I always think of Pius IX of holy and glorious memory, and by imitating him in his sacrifices, I would like to be worthy to celebrate his canonization".
Pope John XXIII offered to mediate between US President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Both men applauded the pope for his deep commitment to peace. Khrushchev would later send a message via Norman Cousins and the letter expressed his best wishes for the pontiff's ailing health. John XXIII personally typed and sent a message back to him, thanking him for his letter. Cousins, meanwhile, travelled to New York City and ensured that John would become Time magazine's 'Man of the Year'. John XXIII became the first Pope to receive the title, followed by John Paul II in 1994 and Francis in 2013.
On 10 May 1963, John XXIII received the Balzan Prize in private at the Vatican but deflected achievements of himself to the five popes of his lifetime, Pope Leo XIII to Pius XII. On 11 May, the Italian President Antonio Segni officially awarded Pope John XXIII with the Balzan Prize for his engagement for peace. While in the car en route to the official ceremony, he suffered great stomach pains but insisted on meeting with Segni to receive the award in the Quirinal Palace, refusing to do so within the Vatican. He stated that it would have been an insult to honour a pontiff on the remains of the crucified Saint Peter. It was the pope's last public appearance.
On 25 May 1963, the pope suffered another haemorrhage and required several blood transfusions, but the cancer had perforated the stomach wall and peritonitis soon set in. The doctors conferred in a decision regarding this matter and John XXIII's aide Loris F. Capovilla broke the news to him saying that the cancer had done its work and nothing could be done for him. Around this time, his remaining siblings arrived to be with him. By 31 May, it had become clear that the cancer had overcome the resistance of John XXIII – it had left him confined to his bed.
"At 11 am Petrus Canisius Van Lierde as Papal Sacristan was at the bedside of the dying pope, ready to anoint him. The pope began to speak for the very last time: "I had the great grace to be born into a Christian family, modest and poor, but with the fear of the Lord. My time on earth is drawing to a close. But Christ lives on and continues his work in the Church. Souls, souls, ut omnes unum sint."[c] Van Lierde then anointed his eyes, ears, mouth, hands and feet. Overcome by emotion, Van Lierde forgot the right order of anointing. John XXIII gently helped him before bidding those present a last farewell.
John XXIII died of peritonitis caused by a perforated stomach at 19:49 local time on 3 June 1963 at the age of 81, ending a historic pontificate of four years and seven months. He died just as a Mass for him finished in Saint Peter's Square below, celebrated by Luigi Traglia. After he died, his brow was ritually tapped to see if he was dead, and those with him in the room said prayers. Then the room was illuminated, thus informing the people of what had happened. He was buried on 6 June in the Vatican grottos. Two wreaths, placed on the two sides of his tomb, were donated by the prisoners of the Regina Coeli prison and the Mantova jail in Verona. On 22 June 1963, one day after his friend and successor Pope Paul VI was elected, the latter prayed at his tomb.
On 3 December 1963, US President Lyndon B. Johnson posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award, in recognition of the good relationship between Pope John XXIII and the United States of America. In his speech on 6 December 1963, Johnson said: "I have also determined to confer the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously on another noble man whose death we mourned 6 months ago: His Holiness, Pope John XXIII. He was a man of simple origins, of simple faith, of simple charity. In this exalted office he was still the gentle pastor. He believed in discussion and persuasion. He profoundly respected the dignity of man. He gave the world immortal statements of the rights of man, of the obligations of men to each other, of their duty to strive for a world community in which all can live in peace and fraternal friendship. His goodness reached across temporal boundaries to warm the hearts of men of all nations and of all faiths".
He was known affectionately as "Good Pope John". His cause for canonization was opened under Pope Paul VI during the final session of the Second Vatican Council on 18 November 1965, along with the cause of Pope Pius XII. On 3 September 2000, John XXIII was declared "Blessed" alongside Pope Pius IX by Pope John Paul II, the penultimate step on the road to sainthood after a miracle of curing an ill woman was discovered. He was the first pope since Pope Pius X to receive this honour. Following his beatification, his body was moved from its original burial place in the grottoes below the Vatican to the altar of St. Jerome and displayed for the veneration of the faithful.[citation needed]
The 50th anniversary of his death was celebrated on 3 June 2013 by Pope Francis, who visited his tomb and prayed there, then addressing the gathered crowd and spoke about the late pope. The people that gathered there at the tomb were from Bergamo, the province where the late pope came from. A month later, on 5 July 2013, Francis approved Pope John XXIII for canonization, along with Pope John Paul II without the traditional second miracle required. Instead, Francis based this decision on John XXIII's merits for the Second Vatican Council. On Sunday, 27 April 2014, John XXIII and Pope John Paul II were declared saints on Divine Mercy Sunday.
Time has long been a major subject of study in religion, philosophy, and science, but defining it in a manner applicable to all fields without circularity has consistently eluded scholars. Nevertheless, diverse fields such as business, industry, sports, the sciences, and the performing arts all incorporate some notion of time into their respective measuring systems. Some simple definitions of time include "time is what clocks measure", which is a problematically vague and self-referential definition that utilizes the device used to measure the subject as the definition of the subject, and "time is what keeps everything from happening at once", which is without substantive meaning in the absence of the definition of simultaneity in the context of the limitations of human sensation, observation of events, and the perception of such events.
Two contrasting viewpoints on time divide many prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe—a dimension independent of events, in which events occur in sequence. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time. The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant, holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be travelled.
Time is one of the seven fundamental physical quantities in both the International System of Units and International System of Quantities. Time is used to define other quantities—such as velocity—so defining time in terms of such quantities would result in circularity of definition. An operational definition of time, wherein one says that observing a certain number of repetitions of one or another standard cyclical event (such as the passage of a free-swinging pendulum) constitutes one standard unit such as the second, is highly useful in the conduct of both advanced experiments and everyday affairs of life. The operational definition leaves aside the question whether there is something called time, apart from the counting activity just mentioned, that flows and that can be measured. Investigations of a single continuum called spacetime bring questions about space into questions about time, questions that have their roots in the works of early students of natural philosophy.
Temporal measurement has occupied scientists and technologists, and was a prime motivation in navigation and astronomy. Periodic events and periodic motion have long served as standards for units of time. Examples include the apparent motion of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum, and the beat of a heart. Currently, the international unit of time, the second, is defined by measuring the electronic transition frequency of caesium atoms (see below). Time is also of significant social importance, having economic value ("time is money") as well as personal value, due to an awareness of the limited time in each day and in human life spans.
Temporal measurement, chronometry, takes two distinct period forms: the calendar, a mathematical tool for organizing intervals of time, and the clock, a physical mechanism that counts the passage of time. In day-to-day life, the clock is consulted for periods less than a day whereas the calendar is consulted for periods longer than a day. Increasingly, personal electronic devices display both calendars and clocks simultaneously. The number (as on a clock dial or calendar) that marks the occurrence of a specified event as to hour or date is obtained by counting from a fiducial epoch—a central reference point.
Artifacts from the Paleolithic suggest that the moon was used to reckon time as early as 6,000 years ago. Lunar calendars were among the first to appear, either 12 or 13 lunar months (either 354 or 384 days). Without intercalation to add days or months to some years, seasons quickly drift in a calendar based solely on twelve lunar months. Lunisolar calendars have a thirteenth month added to some years to make up for the difference between a full year (now known to be about 365.24 days) and a year of just twelve lunar months. The numbers twelve and thirteen came to feature prominently in many cultures, at least partly due to this relationship of months to years. Other early forms of calendars originated in Mesoamerica, particularly in ancient Mayan civilization. These calendars were religiously and astronomically based, with 18 months in a year and 20 days in a month.
The most precise timekeeping device of the ancient world was the water clock, or clepsydra, one of which was found in the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I (1525–1504 BC). They could be used to measure the hours even at night, but required manual upkeep to replenish the flow of water. The Ancient Greeks and the people from Chaldea (southeastern Mesopotamia) regularly maintained timekeeping records as an essential part of their astronomical observations. Arab inventors and engineers in particular made improvements on the use of water clocks up to the Middle Ages. In the 11th century, Chinese inventors and engineers invented the first mechanical clocks driven by an escapement mechanism.
The hourglass uses the flow of sand to measure the flow of time. They were used in navigation. Ferdinand Magellan used 18 glasses on each ship for his circumnavigation of the globe (1522). Incense sticks and candles were, and are, commonly used to measure time in temples and churches across the globe. Waterclocks, and later, mechanical clocks, were used to mark the events of the abbeys and monasteries of the Middle Ages. Richard of Wallingford (1292–1336), abbot of St. Alban's abbey, famously built a mechanical clock as an astronomical orrery about 1330. Great advances in accurate time-keeping were made by Galileo Galilei and especially Christiaan Huygens with the invention of pendulum driven clocks along with the invention of the minute hand by Jost Burgi.
The most accurate timekeeping devices are atomic clocks, which are accurate to seconds in many millions of years, and are used to calibrate other clocks and timekeeping instruments. Atomic clocks use the frequency of electronic transitions in certain atoms to measure the second. One of the most common atoms used is caesium, most modern atomic clocks probe caesium with microwaves to determine the frequency of these electron vibrations. Since 1967, the International System of Measurements bases its unit of time, the second, on the properties of caesium atoms. SI defines the second as 9,192,631,770 cycles of the radiation that corresponds to the transition between two electron spin energy levels of the ground state of the 133Cs atom.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is an older standard, adopted starting with British railways in 1847. Using telescopes instead of atomic clocks, GMT was calibrated to the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in the UK. Universal Time (UT) is the modern term for the international telescope-based system, adopted to replace "Greenwich Mean Time" in 1928 by the International Astronomical Union. Observations at the Greenwich Observatory itself ceased in 1954, though the location is still used as the basis for the coordinate system. Because the rotational period of Earth is not perfectly constant, the duration of a second would vary if calibrated to a telescope-based standard like GMT or UT—in which a second was defined as a fraction of a day or year. The terms "GMT" and "Greenwich Mean Time" are sometimes used informally to refer to UT or UTC.
Two distinct viewpoints on time divide many prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time. An opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of actually existing dimension that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead an intellectual concept (together with space and number) that enables humans to sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant, holds that space and time "do not exist in and of themselves, but ... are the product of the way we represent things", because we can know objects only as they appear to us.

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