Egyptian Chronicles: Cover boy 4

Ok I promise you this will be insh Allah the last one in that series until another Egyptian appears on the time cover :)

We stopped at the death of President Sadat in 1981 , President Sadat as you know all was followed by President Mubarak who is ruling from 1981 till now 2007. President Mubarak ruled Egypt more than anyone in the 20th century , beating the record of King Fouad I who ruled Egypt for 19 years where as Mubarak reached his 26th year in the presidency this year 2007 !! Yet after all those years ,he appeared just like King Fouad I only Once on the time cover , in fact King Fouad I was much luckier than Mubarak as he appeared on the cover of the magazine alone but Mubarak who appeared after 4 years of his rule on the 28th of October 1985 accompanied with other three leaders not to mention the cover story was not about him

President Mubarak photo appeared with the photos of late Arafat ,late American President Reagan and Prime minister Craxi of Italy

The Cover story was about the famous Achille Lauro hijacking incident .That terrible incident caused an international crisis at that time , in fact if you review it in a perfect world ,it will cause an international crisis , the Reagan's cabinet who was just won for another time in the white house handled it in a very dangerous way that made Reagan pay a big price.

Why it was dangerous at least for the Egyptian side , well check again the story , at first the demands of the So-called PLOs hijackers* "who did it during the early peace talks between Israel from a side and Jordan and PLO from another side" were refused especially after throwing the old man from the ship in a terrible way. Then after two days of negotiations the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner, Egypt Air Boeing 737 yet during the flight with no previous announcement to Cairo Reagan was proud that the plane was intercepted by United States Navy fighters " F-14" on October 10 and directed to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella, a N.A.T.O. base in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested by the Italians after a disagreement between U.S. and Italian authorities and the rest of the passengers continued their journey to Tunisia, of course the C.I.A director at that time William Casey saw the interception was a positive turning pointing ,already Mubarak in the previous issue had an interview with the magazine concerning the famous crisis

As you see two diplomatic problems with Egypt from one side and from Italy from another side . In a very rare move according to today's Egyptian -American relations , Egypt was so angry , very angry that we demanded an official apology from the United States , a request that has not been fulfilled till now . There was a very huge anger on the public level that was expressed in huge protests in Universities and on the official level that was expressed in both the demand for official apology and the angry statement of Mubarak which seemed to be taken seriously at that time ,may be because at that time he was still powerful strong player , the legacy of Sadat and Nasser that kept Egypt as major power in the area was still there

That would be the last time Mubarak would be on the magazine till writing these lines , yes there were hundreds of reports about him in the magazines and dozens of interviews till now yet he did not appear except that time , of course it is very interesting considering Mubarak as a very close friend to the Americans , still it is not by friendship Chinese,Russian and Iranian leaders appeared frequently ,I mean President Sadat appeared 10 times in his 10 years rule, president Nasser appeared 6 times in his 16 years rule while Mubarak in his 26 years that had seen several international and national crisis from wars in the region to war on terrorism in Egypt did not even make it once !!

Anyhow he was not the last Egyptian leader /Ruler to appear on the cover of the time as a very old ruler appeared on the cover on May 29,1995 King Ramesses II was cover story ,the discovery of the tomb of his sons was an is still raising questions about the life and death of that ruler who had ruled Egypt for a whole 30 years and is said to be the Pharaoh of Exodus, a belief which is shared by many Jews and Muslims too

And that's folks our journey comes to an end , at least for now because as soon as another Egyptian makes it for the time cover , I will mention it here

As you see all the Egyptian rulers in the 20th century since the issue of the magazine in 1923 appeared on the cover of the magazine ,even Ramesses II appeared on it. King Fouad "1" , King Farouk "2",President Naguib "1",President Nasser"6" ,President Sadat "10" ,President Mubarak "1" and Ramesses II "1"

President Sadat is number one for the times appeared on the magazine then President Nasser then King Farouk