Beyond the Arab Cold War

OXFORD STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY

james j. sheehan, series advisor

The Wilsonian Moment

Self-​Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism
erez manela

In War’s Wake
Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order
gerard daniel cohen

Grounds of Judgment
Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-​Century
China and Japan
pär kristoffer cassel

The Acadian Diaspora

An Eighteenth-​Century History
christopher hodson

Gordian Knot
Apartheid and the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order
ryan irwin

The Global Offensive

The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Making
of the Post–Cold War Order
paul thomas chamberlin

Mecca of Revolution
Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order
jeffrey james byrne

Beyond the Arab Cold War

The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962–​68
asher orkaby
Beyond the Arab
Cold War
The International History of the
Yemen Civil War, 1962–​68

ASHER ORKABY

1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Orkaby, Asher, author.
Title: Beyond the Arab Cold war : the international history of the Yemen
  civil war, 1962–68 / Asher Orkaby.
Other titles: Oxford studies in international history.
Description: New York, New York : Oxford University Press, 2017. |
  Series: Oxford studies in international history |
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017000719 (print) | LCCN 2017007435 (ebook) |
  ISBN 9780190618445 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780190618452 (Updf) |
  ISBN 9780190618469 (Epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Civil war—Yemen (Republic)—History—20th century. |
  Yemen (Republic)—History—1962–1972. |
  Yemen (Arab Republic)—History—Revolution, 1962. | Cold War.
Classification: LCC DS247.Y45 O75 2017 (print) | LCC DS247.Y45 (ebook) |
  DDC 953.3205/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017000719

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
To my father, who taught me that the deserts of Yemen
are no impediment to success.
Contents

Acknowledgments  ix

Beyond Paradigms: An Introduction to the Yemen Civil War  1

1. International Intrigue and the Origins of September 1962  6

2. Recognizing the New Republic  30

3. Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy  58

4. The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM)  79

5. Nasser’s Cage  106

6. Chemical Warfare in Yemen  129

7. The Anglo-╉Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen  152

8. Yemen, Israel, and the Road to 1967  169

9. The Impact of Individuals  178

10. The Siege of Sana’a and the End of the Yemen Civil War  197

Epilogue: Echoes of a Civil War  207

Notes  215
Bibliography  269
Index  287
Acknowledgments

I CONSIDER MYSELF fortunate to have received the wisdom and guidance

from three pillars of the academic community while researching and writ-
ing this book: Roger Owen instilled upon me the wisdom of decades of
experience in the field of Middle East History; Erez Manela meticulously
and thoughtfully read through many drafts, helping me look beyond the
empirical analysis to the much broader world of international history;
Steven Caton served as a constant reminder that as international as this
narrative became, it was at its core a story about Yemen.
The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard and my mentor
Susan Kahn helped me grease the wheels of university complexities,
ensuring that I  was always funded and on track to finishing this book
on time. Bill Granara provided me with a supportive research home at
Harvard for as long as I needed to complete this project. Both Clive Jones
and Jesse Ferris offered invaluable help at each stage of my international
research and writing. I  would also like to thank Simon C.  Smith, Tore
Peterson, Charles Schmitz, J.E. Peterson, and Timothy Nunan for reading
selected book chapters. I am also indebted to Scott Walker at the Harvard
Map Department and all of Harvard’s librarians. This book could not have
been brought to publication without the careful attention of the Oxford
University Press editorial team.
The number of archivists and academics who have helped me along the
way in Britain, Canada, Israel, Russia, Switzerland, the United States, and
Yemen are too numerous to list individually, hardly justice for those who
devoted many hours facilitating my intensive archival schedule and pace.
This globetrotting research could not have been accomplished without the
generosity of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the John Anson
Kittredge Education Fund, the American Institute for Yemeni Studies, the
Society for the Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the
x Acknowledgments

Bradley Foundation, the Harvard Davis Center, the Institute of Historical

Research, the Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
Canada Program, and the LBJ Presidential Library.
All the research funds and advisers in the world would not have allowed
me to finish this book without my children, Binyamin, Eitan, Naftali, and
Atara, and their nightly reminders that there are more important things to
life. But mostly, without my loving wife Ariela, who has become an expert
in Yemen by this point, I  would have lost my sanity long ago in some
dimly lit archive halfway across the world.
Beyond the Arab Cold War
Beyond Paradigms
An Introduction to the Yemen Civil War

AS NIGHT FELL over the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a on September 19,
2014, a small convoy of pickup trucks carrying hundreds of heavily armed
tribesmen belonging to the Houthi rebel movement pulled to a stop in
front of the state-​run Yemen TV headquarters. Within hours, the world’s
main source of news from Yemen was in the hands of the Houthis. Within
days, the entire city was under Houthi control. These were the first north-
ern tribesmen to enter Sana’a as conquerors since 1962, when the repub-
lic replaced the country’s thousand-​year theocracy. The Houthi tribesmen
returned to Sana’a almost fifty-​two years to the date after the Yemeni
republic had been founded. They arrived along al-​Thawra Road, named
for the very revolution that overthrew the northern tribal order of the last
ruling imam of Yemen in 1962.
The events of September 1962 plunged Yemen into a protracted civil
war between the new republic and the deposed imam. This was a battle
between tribal and modern national identities, a conflict that continues
to define politics in Yemen. Over the next six years this local civil war
was transformed into an arena of global conflict that impacted the emerg-
ing modern Yemeni state and changed the course of Middle East history.
Throughout the civil war, no single power managed to dictate the course
of events. The belligerent parties were not allied along Cold War lines and
were not dominated by the stark divisions between the Saudi monarchy
and the Egyptian Arab nationalist movement. Nor, for that matter, were
Yemenis masters of their own destiny. Rather, during the 1960s, Yemen
became an open field for individuals, organizations, and countries to
peddle their agendas in this remote region of South Arabia, laying the
groundwork for subsequent decades of Yemeni and Arabian history.
2 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Deconstructing and Reconstructing

a Yemeni State
Yemen, located in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula, did not
exist as a distinct South Arabian state before the twentieth century.1 Harold
Ingrams, a British diplomat in the Yemeni port city of Aden, articulated
that “the normal state of al-​Yemen through history has been chaos. The
people and their country have been a regional entity in the Arab world,
but never a unified nation.”2 The country’s geographic position at the
crossroads of ancient spice roads and modern Red Sea routes ensured
that Yemen always landed in the midst of faraway regional and global con-
flicts. Since Roman times, when Yemen was referred to as Arabia Felix,
the region has been invaded, occupied, and subjugated by no fewer than
a dozen external powers. Between the ninth century and 1962, the succes-
sion of Yemeni imams, or religious leaders, adherent to the Zaydi branch
of Shi’a Islam, was the only constant among the changing rulers.
September 1962 saw the deposition of Muhammad al-​Badr, the last
imam of a thousand-​year-​old dynasty, and the foundation of a modern
Yemeni state. During the course of the ensuing civil war, which ran from
1962 to 1968, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were joined by over a dozen countries
and organizations in an international civil war that served as a microcosm
of global tensions. The Yemen Civil War was an international conflict at
a moment when the definition of “international” was radically changing.
The 1960s marked the end of an era of European colonialism and the
emergence of a new postcolonial order dominated by developing world
leaders and countries. Located across the border from the British Empire
in Aden, within the sphere of Egyptian expansionist influence, and along
one of the most important shipping lines in the world, Yemen found itself
at the epicenter of world events: the final days of British colonial order in
the Middle East, Cold War competition over imperial remnants, upheaval
in the United Nations, and the decline of Arab nationalism.
International intervention brought both destruction and modern
advancements to Yemen during the 1960s, establishing a modern political
bureaucracy, roads, transportation hubs, a national army, and an increase
in revenue with the expansion of existing taxation and postal networks.3
International organizations were able to cast an unprecedented degree of
influence in the absence of a dominant power, and introduced medical
care and newfound water resources to areas of the country that still prac-
ticed ancient Quranic medicine and where people walked for hours to
 Beyond Paradigms 3

fetch water. After six years of conflict, a new Yemen emerged as a modern
state, independent of three dominant forces in South Arabia: the Yemeni
imamate, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab nationalism,
and British Imperialism in South Arabia, all of which met their demise as
a consequence of the internationalized civil war.4
The economic and political burdens of Egypt’s intervention in Yemen
contributed to the downfall of Nasser and the Arab nationalist movement
in the Middle East.5 Egypt’s economy and agricultural production could
scarcely support its growing fellahin (peasant population) and certainly
could not bankroll other nationalist movements. As Egypt was reluctantly
drawn further into the conflict in Yemen, Nasser sought to fund his quasi-╉
occupation on the backs of local Yemenis and their puppet regime through
taxation, printing paper currency, issuing stamps, and exploiting local
resources. Nasser, who built his reputation as an anti-╉imperialist, ironi-
cally managed to construct his own model of non-╉Western colonialism.6
In North Yemen, he created a colony devoid of the financial resources and
investment often associated with European imperialism, yet rife with the
requisite corruption, sense of superiority, and boundless exercise of force
against both allies and enemies.
The emergence of Yemeni nationalism in the northern Yemen Arab
Republic (YAR) inspired similar sentiments in Aden and contributed to
Britain’s complete withdrawal from South Yemen in November 1967.
Violence spilled over the border as Egypt helped arm a growing anti-╉
British insurgency, transforming South Arabia into a new front for the
Arab nationalist struggle against imperialism, a battle that had won
Nasser public admiration during the 1950s. This final round of the Anglo-╉
Egyptian confrontation in Yemen during the 1960s brought about their
mutual defeat and simultaneous withdrawal from South Arabia.

Looking Beyond the Arab Cold War

The Arab Cold War, first published in 1965 by political scientist Malcolm
Kerr, conceptualized the Middle East in bipolar terms, divided between
Arab nationalists led by Nasser and traditional monarchies led by Saudi
Arabia. According to Kerr, the Yemen Civil War was a manifestation of
the Arab Cold War and is described as a proxy war between Egypt and
Saudi Arabia.7 Contemporary accounts of Middle East history and politics
employ this concept as an assumed paradigm for the 1960s without fur-
ther substantiating Kerr’s theory.8 Multiple authors continue to describe
4 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

other contemporaneous conflicts in the Middle East as the “Arab Cold

War,” such as the Egyptian-​Iraqi rivalry in the early 1960s.9 This term has
been further recycled in a twenty-​first-​century context. “The New Arab
Cold War” equates the Egypt-​Saudi rivalry of the 1960s to any number of
bipolar regional divisions, including the modern day Sunni-​Shi’ite divide,
tensions between Islamists and authoritarian regimes, the rift between
Iraq and the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Saudi-​Iranian rivalry.10
The term “Arab Cold War” has become so cliché as to render it nearly
meaningless, especially when the origins of its first use are not taken into
consideration.
The 1962 coup in Yemen culminated decades of indigenous political
and social movements driven by their desire to overthrow the autocratic
imamate. The Yemen Civil War was a struggle for Yemeni nationalism,
nation building, and pan-​Arab unity and rhetoric, rather than merely a
proxy war between two regional rivals.11 The Saudi-​Egyptian rivalry, at least
surrounding Yemen, was not as rigid or warlike as historic and contempo-
rary accounts maintain. Egyptian and Saudi policies toward Yemen were
not driven exclusively by the monarchy-​nationalist tenets of the Arab Cold
War. Instead, they were formulated by a combination of historical con-
flicts, geostrategic interests, religious grievances, local agency, and pure
happenstance.
The prevalence of the term “Arab Cold War” is far overshadowed
by the dominant paradigm categorizing half a century of conflict as a
Eurocentric “Cold War.”12 The Global Cold War, or the manifestation of
the Cold War in the developing world, depicts Soviets as committed to
“national liberation movements” in contrast to America’s promotion of
authoritarian regimes.13 The political situation in Yemen during the 1960s
contrasts with the prevailing notions of Cold War ideological tendencies
in the developing world. Prior to 1962, the Soviet Union invested a great
deal of time and money in an alliance with Muhammad al-​Badr, the heir
to one of the most authoritarian thrones in the world. Several months
after the September 1962 coup, the United States recognized the YAR and
its nascent nationalist movement, forsaking the requests to the contrary
of British allies. Ultimately both the United States and the USSR found
themselves supporting the same side in a civil war, a particularly strik-
ing policy convergence, as it occurred during one of the most contentious
decades of the Cold War.
The civil war in Yemen demonstrated the limits of ideologies, as
Egyptian-​ Saudi and US-​ USSR geopolitics were not as dominant as
 Beyond Paradigms 5

previously perceived. This international history of the Yemen Civil War

combines multinational archival sources in a broader understanding of
events on the ground and of a local conflict’s far-​reaching impact. Rather
than taking off the Cold War and Arab Cold War lenses entirely, however, a
new set of bifocal lenses incorporates both traditional and innovative per-
spectives.14 The newly enhanced vision reveals multiple layers of interac-
tions, conflicts, and themes that are otherwise obscured by the dominance
of US-​USSR and Egypt-​Saudi Arabia competition. Topics of modernity
and nationalism in South Arabia, Canadian policy in the Middle East,
regional peacekeeping funding crises, the Anglo-​Egyptian rivalry, phila-
telic development, and Israeli-​Egyptian confrontations beyond the Sinai
border are brought to the forefront of the narrative.
The Yemen Civil War was both a demonstration of the flexibility of US
and USSR foreign policy ideologies and of the role played by smaller pow-
ers and international organizations during the 1960s. The introduction of
additional actors complicates a bipolar understanding, suggesting that the
very absence of one or two dominant powers in the conflict left room for
others to exercise influence on the outcome, with even individual partici-
pants having the power to change the course of history.
1

International Intrigue and

the Origins of September 1962

on September 26, 1962, a small column of T-​34 tanks and

AT 1 1 : 0 0 P M
armored vehicles, led by a tank named Al-​Marid (“the Rebellious”) entered
the courtyard of Imam al-​Badr’s palace of Dar al-​Basha’ir (“House of Good
Tidings”).1 Al-​Badr was sitting in a meeting with Yemeni Colonel Abdullah
al-​Sallal, who excused himself at the predetermined time and stepped
outside.2 At Sallal’s command, the surrounding tanks fired and leveled
the top floors of the palace, sending al-​Badr and his guards into a panic.
Simultaneously, another group of Yemeni soldiers seized the Sana’a radio
station, announcing prematurely that Imam al-​Badr had been killed and
that Sallal and the military revolutionaries had declared the foundation of
the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR).3 In the ensuing chaos, al-​Badr fled the
palace and made his way north to gather tribal forces for a counter assault
on Sana’a.
The attack on the imam’s palace was not waged without trepidation.
Yahya al-​Mutawakil, a twenty-​year-​old from a prominent sayyid family
who had recently been promoted to second lieutenant and the head of a
fifteen-​man artillery unit, was commissioned with assaulting the palace,
and later spoke of the mood among his men the day before the coup. His
unit, and the rebelling soldiers in general, saw September 26 as Judgment
Day, given the historic taboo against attacking the imam. They saw before
their eyes the cadavers of men who had attacked a Yemeni imam littered
over centuries of Yemeni history. Believing that this was their last night
in this world, Yahya and many of his fellow officers spent their entire
month’s salary indulging in chocolates in the evening of September 25.4
 The Origins of September 1962 7

Riding on the shoulders of Yahya al-╉Mutawakil and his artillery unit

were two decades of a growing Yemeni nationalist movement. Opposition
to the institution of the imam and the increasing foreign investment in
Yemen prior to 1962 formed the foundations of a local civil war that was
overrun by foreign interests, interventions, and politics.

Whose revolution?
Throughout the civil war and in academic literature in the following
decades, the extent of Egyptian involvement in the planning and hatching
of the coup has been debated.5 There were certainly strategic advantages
to Egyptian intervention. By 1962, Egypt was politically isolated in the
Middle East, following the breakup of the United Arab Republic with Syria
and the formation of a Jordanian-╉Saudi alliance.6 Of the major Arab states,
only Algeria maintained friendly relations with Egypt, while Iraq, Jordan,
Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, and Saudi Arabia remained united in their dis-
dain for Nasser’s Middle East machinations.7 Khaled Mohieddin, a promi-
nent member of the Egyptian military admitted that “The Yemen war was
a response to the break with Syria … a sign that Egypt’s Arab role was
not over … as Syria was a blow to Egypt’s Arab leadership.”8 Mohieddin
long believed that “Egypt could achieve far more with propaganda than
with tanks” and lamented in retrospect at having “become trapped in so
humiliating a situation.”9 According to Anthony Nutting, with a quick and
decisive victory in Yemen, Nasser “might have been able to recover the
leadership of the Arab world for more than just a fleeting moment.”10
From a strategic perspective, it is not difficult to understand why
Nasser supported the Yemen republic. Backing Abdullah Sallal would give
Nasser a chance to regain his stature in the Arab World. Furthermore,
the geographic location of Yemen would place Nasser in an advantageous
position to pressure the Saudis for economic aid and support anti-╉British
nationalists in the south. Saddling the British with an internal colonial
uprising would discourage their Foreign Office from considering another
Suez mission and would give the Egyptians unchallenged military and
political preeminence over both sides of the Red Sea.11
British colonial officials and Yemeni royalists, in an attempt to dele-
gitimize the YAR as a foreign entity, predictably accused the Egyptians of
orchestrating the entire event. The British Colonial Office associated the
Yemeni coup with Nasser’s anti-╉British agenda on the Arabian Peninsula.
8 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

As early as nine months prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September,

British intelligence officials believed that there was increasing evidence
that Nasser was planning to undermine the Yemeni government. Italian
Minister Amedeo Guillet, a close confidant of the Yemeni Imam Ahmad,
informed High Commissioner of Aden Charles Johnston that according
to his sources, the Egyptians were proposing a “New Operation” in Sudan,
Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. The plans supposedly would be coordinated
by agents of the Egyptian Intelligence Service.12 Some British historical
accounts claim that the Soviet KGB and their British agent Kim Philby
played a role in the coup, although these claims are mostly speculative and
without sufficient evidence.13
In January 1962, a Yemeni assailant known only as Qunbula, or “the
grenade,” attacked and injured Ronald Bailey, the UK chargé d’affaires in
Ta’iz. Bailey recounted the story and described it as a harbinger of things
to come:

Not long before the Revolution … the very kind gentleman called
El-​qunbula or ‘the Bomb’ put a dagger into me. He knocked at the
legation door at about 1:00 in the morning … I opened the door
and a dagger was stuck straight into my chest… . My wife came out
of the bedroom in her nightie and she attacked him and threw him
down the stairs and he injured himself on his own dagger though
he managed to escape.14

Italian Minister Guillet concluded that the Egyptians had been behind
this attack.15 The fact that Radio Cairo dubbed Qunbula a “National
Hero” further corroborated the suspicions of Egyptian intervention.16
Qunbula was later found and identified by “two bruises on his buttocks.
The distance between the bruises was measured and found to be exactly
the same as the distance between the horns of the Consulate’s goat,
which was assumed to have helped the fellow on his way.” Qunbula was
imprisoned, released under amnesty, and murdered by an unidentified
assailant.17
An attack on the German chargé d’affaires on February 8, 1962, con-
tinued the spread of rumors that Egyptian intelligence organizations were
working to undermine foreign support of Imam Ahmad in preparation for
his overthrow.18 Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahhad, Egypt’s diplomat in Sana’a,
was believed to have been conspiring against al-​Badr and even misled the
new imam into allowing additional tanks and armored vehicles to “guard”
 The Origins of September 1962 9

his palace from a potential enemy.19 The increased presence of Egyptian

advisers and school teachers in major cities throughout Yemen, coupled
with militant verbal attacks on Imam Ahmad via Radio Cairo, were later
deemed a prelude to the Egyptian participation in the 1962 coup.20
In a 1967 interview, Egyptian deserter Qassim al-​Sherif further rein-
forced the British theory that Nasser had orchestrated Sallal’s coup
d’état in 1962 and sent Egyptian soldiers towards Yemen ahead of the
revolution date:

“The soldiers left Cairo on 19th September, 1962 and boarded a ship
called “The Sudan” on 21st September (4 days before the revolution
started) and told they were going to Algeria. We arrived at Hodeida
on 28th September (2 days after the Revolution) and disembarked.
Other ships—​the Nile, al Wadi and Cleopatra—​loaded with weap-
ons and ammunition also arrived in Hodeida on the same day. The
ships al Wadi, the Nile and the Sudan, each carried a full Brigade of
1,000 men. The Egyptians’ expeditionary force immediately headed
for Sanaa [sic] with two Brigades, while other Egyptian troops
remained in Hodeida and took control of Manakhah… . First fight-
ing broke out on 3rd or 4th October when an agreement with the
tribes was broken.”21

Former Yemeni revolutionaries claimed, based on circumstantial evi-

dence, that the coup was part of an Egyptian conspiracy orchestrated
by Nasser’s vice president Anwar Sadat and his brother-​in-​law, the half-​
Egyptian, half-​Yemeni ‘Abd al-​Rahman al-​Baydani, who was working with
Yemeni revolutionaries in Sana’a. In a 2004 interview, Baydani told an
elaborate tale of acting as an intermediary between Sadat, Nasser, and
the Yemeni revolutionaries, using a system of codes for secure commu-
nication. He claimed to have sent a message on September 26, 1962,
to signal the start of the revolution of which he had been at the center.
In explaining the reasoning for his supposed central role in the Yemeni
revolution, Baydani pointed to his Egyptian connections as Sallal’s insur-
ance policy against rogue revolutionary elements.22 Baydani’s story seems
highly unlikely, which is unsurprising considering the description of him
offered by Robert Stookey, US counsel in Ta’iz:  “Baydani is an incorri-
gible publicity hound and prone to distort facts and some elements.”23
Seemingly having lost patience with Baydani’s penchant for mischief,
Nasser arranged to have him arrested during a trip to Cairo in January
10 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

1963, keeping him away from Yemeni politics for several months. Baydani
was officially accused of “suspicious contacts” with British counterparts
during an earlier trip to Aden.24
Memoirs of Egyptian officials and military personnel argue that Egypt
played at most a minimal role in orchestrating events in September 1962.
Instead, Egyptian troops and support arrived, purportedly, in support of
a genuine national revolution in Yemen. ‘Abd al-​Latif al-​Baghdadi, an
original member of Nasser’s Free Officer’s movement who had broken
with Nasser politically over the intervention in Yemen, argued that war in
Yemen came as a surprise. Furthermore, Nasser’s decision to send a small
contingent of troops was made only after he received the false reports of
al-​Badr’s death and assumed there were no other viable political leaders
to support.25
Differing from Baghdadi’s interpretation, Salah al-​Din al-​Hadidi, the
head of Egyptian intelligence and an early critic of Nasser, claimed to have
known about the revolution, but that Egypt made it their official policy
not to interfere. Perhaps in an attempt to maintain the innocence of the
Egyptian intelligence community, Hadidi claimed that Baydani, acting at
the behest of the Egyptians, waited until September 29, 1962, to arrive in
Sana’a with a small contingent of Egyptian officers with a direct wireless
transmitter link to Cairo.26
A particular point of contention between British and Egyptian ver-
sions of the events was in regard to the Egyptian ship Sudan and the
timing of its arrival in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah. According to
British sources, four Egyptian ships, the Nile, al-​Wadi, Cleopatra, and
Sudan set sail four days prior to the coup.27 Salah al-​Din al-​Hadidi,
however, claims that the Sudan did not set sail prior to the coup. It
was waiting in the port of Suez on the night of October 2 under “con-
fidential orders to be equipped with everything deemed necessary by
Marshal Amer.” The ship set sail as soon as word was received and
reached Hodeidah three days later.28 Hadidi’s version of the Sudan epi-
sode supports his argument that the Egyptian intelligence knew of the
plans but consciously declined to intervene, allowing the Yemeni coup
to take its course.
British accounts are motivated by a disdain for Nasser and his Yemeni
intervention, while Egyptian accounts aim to absolve participants of com-
mandeering a nationalist revolution. Less than three years after the begin-
ning of the civil war in 1962, the number of Egyptian soldiers in Yemen
reached an apex of 70,000. The large-​scale Egyptian intervention in the
 The Origins of September 1962 11

civil war has clouded the debate over the origins and organizers of the
September coup. The massive number of Egyptian soldiers at the height
of the civil war does not presuppose Nasser’s role in planning and carry-
ing out the coup. The Yemeni 1962 coup was, in actuality, the culmina-
tion of two decades of anti-╉imam sentiments from a new generation of
Yemeni intelligentsia that preceded the rise of Nasser and the Egyptian
Free Officers in 1952. A few guns and perhaps some logistical training by
Egyptian officers were relatively minor when compared with the histori-
cally Yemeni roots of September 1962.

The Famous Forty
In 1934, Yemen and the newly formed state of Saudi Arabia fought a brief
war over disputed border territories claimed by both countries. After
Yemen’s military failure and the loss of the Jizan, Najran, and ‘Asir territo-
ries, Imam Yahya undertook a project to create a national army, lessening
his reliance on tribal militias in the time of war. Taking advantage of a
Yemeni Treaty of Friendship with Iraq, Yahya sent students to the Military
Academy in Baghdad. Abdullah al-╉Sallal, the first President of the YAR,
along with other members of this group, would later serve as the core of
the Free Yemeni Movement (FYM).29
Sallal recalled that his time in Baghdad had a great influence on the
decision to be involved in revolution in Yemen: “We talked about Arabism
and the future of the Arab struggle. And I was thinking while listening to
these discussions about my country … which was ruled by despotism, in
ignorance, backwardness and underdevelopment. Hope began to stir in
my chest… . Why don’t we spread the call for progress when we return
to Yemen.”30
According to historian J.  Leigh Douglas, although the FYM can be
traced functionally to a few small and scattered groups, it was in reality
the embodiment of a new generation of Yemeni urban intellectuals. These
were individuals “who held a privileged position in Yemeni society by vir-
tue of their relative wealth, social position and education which allowed
them the time and the opportunity to sit and debate questions arising
from the foreign literature they were able to obtain.”31 These young edu-
cated Yemenis saw that “no country was more in need of enlightenment
than their own.”32 The group’s designation as a haraka, or “movement,”
connotes a diffuse intellectual force and spread of ideas rather than a tan-
gible political organization.33
12 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

In addition to the main group of the FYM, several additional Yemeni

opposition groups were formed. In 1935 Hay’at al-​Nidal (the Committee
of the Struggle) met in secret to discuss the need to reforms the imam’s
government and took the time to recite Arab poetry and literature that
had been formally banned from Yemen.34 Paul Dresch describes Hay’at
al-Nidal as the first “modernist” opposition to Imam Yahya as they were
a reflection of the young generation’s desire to debate the succession of
the next imam.35 Under the same pretext, Fatat al-Fulayhi (the Youth of
Fulayhi) met in the al-​Fulayhi mosque in Sana’a to discuss concepts of
Arab nationalism. Members of this group were known as the shabbab,
or young men. They formed the core of the young generation’s dissatis-
faction with rule under the Imam.36 In the late 1930s, Majallat al-​Hikma
al-​Yamaniyya (The Yemeni Review of Wisdom), the only local magazine
published at the time other than Yahya’s Al-​Iyman (The Faith), further
spread the call for reforms.37
In Aden, Baghdad, and Cairo, groups of Yemeni émigrés founded
dissident organizations. Among the most prominent of these was the al-​
Jamiyya al-​Yamaniyya al-​Kubra (the Grand Yemeni Association), which
was formed in Cairo in January 1946 by Ahmad Nu’man and Muhammad
al-​Zubayri. The two leaders would continue to be prominent revolutionary
intellectuals throughout the 1960s.38 Yemeni émigrés were joined by sev-
eral hundred young Yemeni men who traveled abroad for secondary and
higher education between the years of 1947 and 1959. The “chain migra-
tion” from Yemen was encouraged by Yemeni family and tribal networks
that had already been established in Aden and Cairo and that facilitated
this study abroad.39
At the core of these numbers was the Famous Forty, a group of Yemeni
students who would return to Yemen in 1962 to lead the republic as
government officials, military officers, and cabinet ministers to the new
YAR.40 Imam Ahmad, while still a crown prince in 1947, commissioned
scholarships for forty teenage Yemeni students to study abroad. Following
Yahya’s earlier example, Ahmad understood the necessity of educating a
core group of leaders to modernize Yemen’s army and domestic infra-
structure. One of the students, Mohsin al-​‘Ayni, was considered a leader of
the group, and would rise to become the YAR’s first foreign minister and
four-​time prime minister. Several other students would gain prominence
as members of the FYM and the Yemen republic, including Abdullah al-​
Kurshami, a future prime minister, Abdullah Juzaylan, the future deputy
commander of the armed forces during the civil war, and Muhammad
 The Origins of September 1962 13

al-​Ahnumi, a future republican revolutionary officer.41 Hassan Makki, a

future prime minister, was separated from the rest of the group and sent
to pursue a doctorate in Italy.42 According to Robert Burrowes, the Famous
Forty constituted the “first-​generation modernists” of Yemen.43
In the 1940s, leaders of the FYM resolved, albeit reluctantly, to main-
tain the imamate as it was, in their eyes, more legitimate than a republic.
They hoped, however, to decentralize the imam’s power through a mod-
ern administration, with more power given to the tribes to govern them-
selves.44 In February 1948, Abdullah Ahmad al-​Wazir, a rival tribal sayyid,
or descendent of the Prophet Muhammad, of Imam Yahya’s Hamid al-​Din
family, orchestrated the assassination of Imam Yahya with the intention
of seizing power. ‘Ali Nasir al-​Qarda’i and members of the Bani Hushaysh
tribes killed Imam Yahya but the plan to simultaneously murder Crown
Prince Ahmad in Ta’iz was not carried out.45 Jamal Jamil, the Director
of Public Security and the Deputy Minister of Defense in the post-​Yahya
regime of al-​Wazir, entered Yahya’s palace with 2,800 soldiers, killing two
of his remaining sons, and carrying out what was considered among the
first military coups in the Middle East.46 By the end of the month, however,
the northern tribes, in alliance with the crown prince, looted the city of
Sana’a and arrested the perpetrators.
The 1948 coup failed to maintain a lasting new government for a num-
ber of reasons. The assassination of Imam Yahya was undignified in the
eyes of traditional Yemeni society, particularly when they recalled the
elderly imam’s last act: diving in front of his young grandson to protect
him from a barrage of bullets. Although Jamal Jamil killed two of Yahya’s
sons, Crown Prince Ahmad escaped the hands of the conspirators and was
able to gather tribal support in Yemen’s northern highlands. According to
Muhammad al-​Fusayyil, a veteran of Yemen’s revolutions, the 1948 coup
failed because the general population did not understand the concepts of
“constitutionalism.” The core leadership of the coup was elitist and did
not engage the local population in the way that it would in 1962.47 The final
missing element of a successful coup was international support, of which
al-​Wazir received none.
Those conspirators who were not executed following the coup were
incarcerated for a number of years at the Hajjah prison located northwest
of Sana’a. Prisoners in Hajjah, and in the Middle East in general, were
rarely kept in solitary confinement but often met each other on a daily
basis. A 1953 list of political prisoners in Hajjah mirrored the list of senior
members of the Revolutionary Command less than a decade later as it
14 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

included Abdullah al-Sallal; Hassan al-​‘Amri, who served as prime min-

ister; and Qadi ‘Abd al-​Rahman al-​Iryani, the republic’s second president,
among many other ministers and prominent officials.48 Sallal later referred
to the prison as “the university of Hajja[h]‌” because of all the political dis-
cussions amongst the educated revolutionaries.49 Among Sallal’s reading
list in the prison were a number of books on the French Revolution and
Nasser’s Philosophy of the Revolution.50
During the 1950s, the FYM continued to operate through its inter-
national branches of the Yemeni Union, drawing on the support of the
diaspora Yemeni population. For example, Muhammad Abd al-​Salih al-​
Shurjabi founded the Yemeni Young Men’s Association in Aden and later
published the Saba newspaper, a publication focused on anti-​imam rheto-
ric.51 Muhammad, Ahmad Nu’man’s son, and Zubayri published a popular
pamphlet called Matalib al-​Sha’b (The Demands of the People): “Poverty
has driven hundreds of thousands abroad. The rulers of the country have
been evil, false, and ignorant… . No-​one is left in towns and villages. All
live in fear of robbery, bloodshed and rebellion. Foreign powers hope to
occupy, colonise and enslave the Yemen, seeing that the Yemenis have no
government …”52
In 1952, Zubayri, who had been in exile in Pakistan following the
1948 coup, moved to Cairo where he founded a branch of the Aden-​based
Yemeni Union along with student members of the Famous Forty. Zubayri
used members of the student group, including al-​‘Ayni, as couriers to
Yemen to deliver his letters to local FYM supporters.53 Nu’man joined the
group in 1955 after his release from the imam’s prison in Hajjah.
On April 2, 1955, Prince Abdullah, the seventh of Imam Yahya’s four-
teen sons, and Lieutenant-​Colonel Ahmad al-​Thalaya organized a coup
against Ahmad along with six officers and 600 soldiers. On April 4, 1955,
when the cars arrived for the imprisoned imam and his family, Ahmad
marched from the entrance of the palace carrying a gun in one hand and a
sword in the other. He quickly regained the support of his personal body-
guards, commandeered three military cars, and took 80,000 riyals out of
the treasury. With these resources in hand, Ahmad managed to rally sup-
porters and reestablish power. Ahmad beheaded the coup leaders along
with his own brother, Abdullah.54
Although both the 1948 and 1955 attempted coups failed to overthrow
Imam Ahmad, the foundation of the FYM would remain at the core of
the 1962 coup. The most influential contingent of the Yemeni Union
branches was located in Cairo, which constituted the majority of Yemenis
 The Origins of September 1962 15

studying abroad. Between 1958 and 1961, while Yemen was a member
of the UAR along with Egypt and Syria, Nasser curtailed support for the
anti-╉imam Yemeni Union in Cairo. Following the breakup of the union
and Nasser’s disenchantment with Ahmad, Nasser allowed them to pre-
pare for the September 1962 coup from Egyptian territory. The Cairo and
Aden branches of the Yemeni Union worked with dissident elements
of domestic military and political circles to prepare for the nationalist
coup in Yemen. The most obvious element of cooperation was through
Egyptian media. On May 12, 1962, Baydani broadcasted a speech calling
for social justice and economic development in Yemen entitled “Blueprint
for a Yemeni Republic.” In July and August, he gave a series of talks on
Cairo radio entitled “The Secrets of Yemen.” The popular Egyptian maga-
zine Ruz al Youssef published a series of Baydani’s anti-╉imam articles in
the month before the revolution.55 While Baydani and other Free Yemenis
made use of Egyptian media, the aid was limited for the most part to
broadcast and print.
For those who questioned the extent of Nasser’s involvement in orches-
trating the coup in Yemen, perhaps it is necessary to reconsider this line of
reasoning. The FYM laid the foundations of September 1962 well before
Nasser came to power, and it was primarily responsible for its own nation-
alist revolution. According to the Yemeni revolutionary government’s Al
Thawra newspaper, the 1962 revolution was a third stage of a process that
began in 1948 and continued in 1955.56 Others have gone even further and
argued that by September 1962 the traditional Yemeni society had already
begun to break down as a social system, and that even without the coup
against the imamate the process of disintegration would doubtless have
occurred.57 Egyptian intervention in the Yemeni coup was only one part of
a broader local and international involvement in South Arabia that began
nearly two decades before the 1962 revolution.

Al-╉Badr and the Soviets

While the FYM was working to undermine Imam Ahmad’s authority,
Soviet economic delegations were cultivating a close relationship with
Crown Prince al-╉Badr. Al-╉Badr was a man of great dreams living in a world
of Yemeni poverty, with a lack of modern infrastructure, and international
political irrelevance. Desperate to advance his own political interests and
his vision for a modern Yemeni state, al-╉Badr was naively inclined to ally
with any nation or organization that promised great things for his country.
16 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Predictably, al-​Badr became a self-​declared Nasserite, having been cor-

ralled by the ideological rhetoric of Arab nationalism and Nasser’s person-
ality and charisma. When the Soviets approached him with promises of
economic development, he was an enthusiastic recipient.58
Even his own family members harbored negative opinions of al-​Badr’s
royal qualities and his designation as crown prince. His cousin Abdullah
ibn al-​Hussein regarded al-​Badr as “dissolute, incompetent, and gullible.”59
Al-​Badr’s character flaws were overshadowed only by his display of pomp
and hubris. V. A. Galkin, a Soviet doctor practicing in Yemen in 1961,
described a scene in Sana’a of a large retinue of Yemeni soldiers on horse-
back followed by tanks in honor of Prince al-​Badr, whom he describes as
“tall, surrounded by a dense ring of bodyguards dressed in blue who did not
step aside even for one minute.”60
Soviet strategy in Yemen during the 1950s was small scale, long
term, and low risk. In 1955, the USSR signed a Treaty of Friendship with
Yemen. Imam Ahmad received enough small arms to encourage more
hostile anti-​British action, but not enough to start a large-​scale war that
would drag Soviets into the conflict. Moscow’s logic in this agreement
was that the continued use of Soviet weapons would increase Yemen’s
dependence on Soviet technicians, spare parts, and additional ship-
ments for the foreseeable future. In supplying Yemen’s army, the Soviets
encouraged Ahmad to attack the British, a position that he likely would
have taken regardless of Soviet support. There was little chance for a
British victory and a high likelihood that Yemeni attacks would weaken
the British position in Arabia.61
Furthermore, Moscow envisioned Yemen as a staging ground for
Soviet expansion into the Arabian Peninsula at the expense of Western
interests.62 Vladimir Sakharov, a Soviet diplomat to the YAR who defected
to the United States in 1971, explained that Moscow had no diplomatic
relations with Saudi Arabia or any of the other oil sheikhdoms at the time.
North Yemen, and South Arabia more generally, were envisioned as a
Soviet entry point into both the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea.63
In 1956, as per the terms of the Yemeni-​Soviet trade agreement, planned
projects were launched for cement, leather, juice, and metal packaging
factories; a depot for oil storage; and a new port at Hodeidah. Soviet trade
delegations in January and March of that year oversaw the implementa-
tion of these projects.64 In addition, a credit of $3.5 million was granted
to Yemen. In July 1956, al-​Badr led a well-​publicized Yemeni delegation
of twelve Yemeni ministers to visit Moscow and formalize military and
 The Origins of September 1962 17

economic cooperation, marking the first visit of an Arab leader to the

USSR.65 Al-​Badr received “permission” from his father to embark on a
world tour to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the USSR, and other
Eastern European countries only after he proved his worthiness by rally-
ing tribal allies after the 1955 coup.66
The first Soviet mission opened in Ta’iz in January 1958 and the ambas-
sador to the UAR was asked to serve as chargé d’affaires for Yemen as
well, warranting a second Yemeni delegation to the USSR in 1959.67 In
the months following the second visit, China sent engineers and labor-
ers to build roads in Yemen, while the Soviets sent specialists to begin
work on the port in Hodeidah.68 In 1957 there were only 50 Soviet and
Chinese specialists in Yemen, while in 1959 there were 600 Chinese and
several hundred Russians, and by 1960 there were over 1,100 Chinese
laborers working on Yemeni roads.69 The Hodeidah port, named Port
Ahmad, required 300,000 tons of modern construction material for the
port and facilities to create the capacity for storing 9,000 tons of oil. The
area around the port was to be equipped with electricity, mechanized
factories, cars, and Soviet technicians and specialists. In addition, the
Yemenis were granted $2 million credit to facilitate these projects.70 Soviet
media covering the arrival of tractors, excavators, and other heavy machin-
ery to the port construction site noted that: “While working together, the
Soviet-​Yemeni friendship widened, fraternal cooperation is growing, and
they have achieved together a new brightness in the completion of Port
Ahmad—​a port of peace and friendship.”71
The Soviets had given their support to Ahmad despite his “feudal”
country and absolute theocracy. His personal character trait of frugality
and good intentions were exemplified by the state of his palace, which
the Soviets deemed “modest,” and his sincere efforts to improve public
health. The real target for Soviet foreign policy, however, was al-​Badr, who
preferred rapid Soviet-​supported modernization.72 In the spring of 1962,
al-​Badr organized another trade delegation to Moscow, this time to accept
a Soviet agreement to use Yemen as a transit point for oil shipments to
Africa.73 Al-​Badr’s affinity for the Soviets was apparent during a speech
that he gave in June 1962 at the opening ceremony of the Ahmad Port
in Hodeidah, less than four months before the start of the Yemeni revo-
lution. He opened with lengthy poetic verses about the triumph of the
Yemen people in the construction of the port. Amidst this long oration,
he dedicated several elaborate sentences of praise and gratitude to the
Soviet Union for their aid in funding and constructing the port: “We and
18 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

the Soviet People—​Brothers, you are the most true and faithful of our
friends … Many thanks to the Soviet government for their generous help
to Yemen.”74 Several pages of text later, al-​Badr returned to the subject of
the Soviet-​Yemeni cooperation in greater detail:

“I am happy to be among you on behalf of his Majesty the King …

at the opening of port Ahmad. This immortal project was until
recent times a dream of many and it seems a utopia far from imple-
mentation … and here this port that speaks for itself, here this high
building ascends to the heaven, and here is mastery and mecha-
nism. This great work continued day and night. Colossal efforts
given by our Yemeni sons and brothers in a joint operation with
our Russian friends cause us great respect and wonder. I send you a
thousand welcomes and respect. Port Ahmad is the first of projects
that are needed to carry out the service for the benefit of our own
country … thank our dear friends, to share in the opening of our
first grand project … ”75

Al-​Badr’s Port Ahmad speech referred to this as merely the first of

many future Yemeni-​Soviet projects, a clear indication of his visions for
a long-​term relationship between the two countries. In a speech eulogiz-
ing his father, the late Imam Ahmad on September 21, 1962, al-​Badr even
claimed that his father’s dying wish was to “adopt socialist economic, mili-
tary, and political standards for the people.”76 Khrushchev echoed al-​Badr’s
sentiment and described Ahmad in his condolences as having “made a
worthy contribution to the cause of consolidating the political and eco-
nomic independence of Yemen.”77
Armin Meyer, the former American ambassador to Iran, best described
the plight of al-​Badr, whom he referred to as the “red prince”:  “He had
been impatient with [the] West, had gone to Moscow, been wined and
dined, and delightedly embarked on arms procurement road with Soviets.
Months later, when he was murdered by recipients [of ] those arms, Soviets
shed no tears but cynically and quickly recognized his successors.”78 David
Holden, the Middle East correspondent for the Guardian, described al-​
Badr in equally unflattering terms:  “Al-​Badr was, in fact, what is usu-
ally described as a wooly-​minded liberal, sincerely anxious to reform his
country without much idea of how to set about it or what passions reform
might release. He was full of good intentions which ultimately, and appro-
priately, paved the way to his downfall.”79
 The Origins of September 1962 19

Al-╉Badr and Nasser
Anti-╉Ahmad plots were not limited to the fringe members of tribal opposi-
tion or the FYM, but may have included al-╉Badr himself.80 According to
al-╉Badr’s account of events, he was recruited by Nasser to overthrow the
leadership of his own father and establish an Egyptian hub on the Arabian
Peninsula.81 In a long conversation with British MP and mercenary Neil
McLean during the Yemen Civil War, al-╉Badr confessed to the extent that
his naiveté, trustworthiness, and hubris almost caused him to sacrifice his
father and the independence of his country for empty promises. During
al-╉Badr’s many trips to Cairo, Nasser had been cultivating him as a pro-
tégé, hoping to secure a Nasserist ally in South Arabia.
In all likelihood, some details of al-╉Badr’s personal accounts were
exaggerated and intended as a justification of his former pro-╉Egypt and
pro-╉Soviet positions. The fact that these stories were told at length to
British MP Neil McLean, and intended for transmission to the rest of the
British mercenary network operating in Yemen, was further evidence of
al-╉Badr’s intentions to justify his past misdeeds. Nonetheless, al-╉Badr’s
“confession,” as McLean termed it, clearly matches his travel itinerary and
provides context for meetings that certainly took place, but for which no
official transcript is available. More important than the accuracy of every
utterance is the dual significance of this confession in delving into the
psyche of Imam al-╉Badr and his British supporters. Al-╉Badr preferred to
present himself as an unwitting victim of Nasser’s scheming, while the
British endeavored to convince critics of their policies that their imperfect
ally had whole-╉heartedly repented for his previous sins of anti-╉British and
pro-╉Nasser policy and was now worthy of their support.
Al-╉Badr and Nasser first met in 1954 during a two-╉month visit to Cairo
after which Nasser announced a large aid program for Yemen. During a
subsequent trip to Cairo in 1955, al-╉Badr met with the local branch of the
Yemeni Union, developing a contingent of supporters among the FYM.82
During his third visit to Cairo to sign the Jeddah Defense Pact with Egypt
in 1956, al-╉Badr promoted thirteen Yemeni cadets from the Egyptian
military school to first lieutenants. Following graduation several months
later, the newly promoted cadets set out for Yemen and were greeted per-
sonally by al-╉Badr at the Hodeidah port. ‘Abd al-╉Latif Dayfallah, a future
Yemeni prime minister and one of the thirteen returning, remarked: “The
thirteen Yemeni officers—╉by the way the same number as the Egyptian
Free Officers—╉was quickly being molded into the Egyptian model. The
20 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Egyptian Free Officers movement which overthrew the monarchy in Egypt

was something we emulated.”83 Dayfallah and Abdullah Juzaylan, who
was also one of the thirteen, were instrumental in forming the Yemeni
Free Officer movement in 1960. The group of young officers would be at
the core of the September 1962 overthrow of the imam.84
After Yemen officially joined the UAR in 1958, al-​Badr made a trip to
Damascus to meet with Tito, Nasser, Syrian President Shukri al-​Quwatli,
and a cohort of Egyptian officials including Ali Sabri, ‘Abd al-Hakim Amer,
and Anwar Sadat, among others, to discuss the planning of a revolution
against his father, Imam Ahmad. Nasser explained that he envisioned
turning Yemen into a base for Arab nationalism and anti-​imperialism
in Arabia. He promised to send al-​Badr two cases of pistols, Egyptian
£25,000 (approximately $79,000), and an additional £50,000 sterling
after completion.
Later that year, Nasser called al-​Badr on the private wireless transmitter
that Nasser had installed in al-​Badr’s palace in Sana’a, and instructed him
to meet ‘Abd al-​Salam ‘Arif, the Iraqi Arab nationalist leader and Nasser
supporter in Baghdad, for further instructions. In a series of comical epi-
sodes, Iraqi Prime Minister ‘Abd al-​Karim Qasim incessantly interrupted
al-​Badr’s meetings with ‘Arif, refusing to leave them alone for even five
minutes, perhaps fearing that they were conniving against his own rule.
‘Arif’s final attempt at passing a letter to al-​Badr was intercepted person-
ally by Qasim, punctuating an unproductive visit to Baghdad.85
In 1959, al-​Badr was again called to Alexandria, where he was spir-
ited off on a lengthy car ride to an isolated house near the town of Borg
el-​Arab.86 Al-​Badr arrived in time to see off a group of men who Nasser
explained were Saudi dissidents looking to overthrow King Saud. In what
was no doubt a planned charade, Nasser led al-​Badr to believe that he had
plans for overthrowing the Saudi royal family and perhaps restoring the
honor and land that the Yemenis had lost in 1934. Al-​Badr and Nasser then
returned to Cairo to meet with leaders of the Algerian FLN, Ferhat Abbas
and Benyoucef Benkhedda, who explained the role envisioned for Algerian
commandoes and saboteurs. The plot thickened when Soviet naval agents
proposed sending a fleet to Hodeidah to block off any attempts at American
or British intervention during the Yemeni revolution.87
According to Neil McLean, Nasser came to an agreement with the
Algerian FLN to send volunteers to Yemen and organize terrorist activi-
ties against Aden through extensive training camps in Egypt. In the first
phase of his plan, he would occupy Yemen and set up a government ready
 The Origins of September 1962 21

to become a member in the UAR.88 Then, as part of the second phase, he

would undermine Saudi monarchs and arm opposition parties in Aden
and Saudi Arabia, thereby fomenting an Arab Socialist revolution on the
Arabian Peninsula. For the third and final phase, Egypt would occupy the
Persian Gulf, thus gaining access to oil money. The Russians and Chinese
had purportedly approved this plan, as it suited their own idea of weaken-
ing Arab-​Western ties.89 Portions of this version were later corroborated in
October 1962 by a wounded Egyptian paratrooper who had been told by
Nasser that they were going to Yemen to fight the British in Aden.90
At the urging of al-​Badr, Imam Ahmad’s Italian doctors declared him
incapacitated because of a morphine drug addiction.91 From April to August
in 1959, the ailing imam flew to Rome for medical treatment, leaving his
son al-​Badr in charge. Al-​Badr invited Egyptian advisers and technicians
to the country92 and made promises of a substantial pay raise to army offi-
cials. These promises precipitated a political crisis once the Yemeni offi-
cers realized that al-​Badr did not have sufficient funds in his possession to
meet these promises. Ahmad flew back and ordered the withdrawal of all
Egyptian advisers, fearing that they had orchestrated a coup against al-​Badr
in his absence. He called Ahmad Abu-​Zeid, the Egyptian Ambassador to
Yemen, and warned him that unless the Egyptians ceased their plotting
against him, he would forcibly remove Egyptians from the country perma-
nently, as his father Imam Yahya had done before him. To punctuate the
statement, during a face-​to-​face meeting with Abu-​Zeid, Ahmad tore up
the civil air agreement recently signed between the two countries, which
has allowed Egyptian airlines to fly over Yemeni airspace.93 He also tried
to secure the repayment of bribes given by al-​Badr to the tribes, but man-
aged only to further alienate his tribal alliance, which had become more
amenable to the tenets of the FYM.
The remaining years of Ahmad’s life were punctuated by multiple
unsuccessful attempts to assassinate him. The imam had managed dur-
ing the last year of his life to make enemies of both local tribes and Nasser,
a combination that would be disastrous for his unprepared crownrince.94
Making matters worse for al-​Badr, following his failed attempt at reform
and based on suspicious evidence of al-​Badr’s dealings with the Soviets,
Ahmad essentially grounded his son and refused to grant him permission
for international travel.
According to al-​Badr’s confession, as documented by McLean, in
late 1961, al-​Badr again spoke with Nasser, explaining that he was
grounded, monitored by his father’s confidants, and not at liberty to
22 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

coordinate the revolution. Nasser responded that he would “take care of

it” and arranged for Chinese laborers to ship unmarked boxes of guns
and explosives disguised as construction equipment for one of the road
building projects. In the spring of 1962, the Egyptians prematurely
spread a rumor that a plot against the Yemeni Imam was impending.
Nasser sent an urgent telegram to al-​Badr asking him to kill his father
Ahmad. In way over his head, al-​Badr finally confessed the details of
the intrigue to his father, who forgave him, but instructed him to leave
his relationship with Egypt behind. Instead, he should invest his ener-
gies into improving Yemeni relations with Saudi Arabia and Jordan
and perhaps join the Pact of Ta’if recently signed between the two
kings. Several weeks prior to Imam Ahmad’s death, al-​Badr did, in fact,
lead a Yemeni delegation to Saudi Arabia to negotiate Yemen’s entry
into the Ta’if Pact. Meanwhile, Ahmad expelled the Egyptian ambas-
sador, leaving only the Egyptian diplomat Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahhad
behind. On the day of his father’s death, al-​Badr received an ultimatum
from Nasser and a personal visit from ‘Abd al-Wahhad demanding an
immediate union with Egypt. Before al-​Badr had time to consider his
options, however, his palace was shelled; the time for his naiveté had
expired.95
According to Ali ‘Abd al-​Rahman Rahmy, an Egyptian officer who
served in the Yemen Civil War, “In Cairo, al-​Badr was attracted by Nasser,
to a point where he was convinced he had Nasser’s personal friendship
… and wished to emulate the Egyptian leader as much as possible.”96
Similarly, Aden High Commissioner Kennedy Trevaskis remarked in
1961 that al-​Badr was seen by both British colonial officials and Zaydi
tribal authorities as a protégé of Nasser.97
Al-​Badr developed an open diplomatic policy of what he referred to as
“positive neutrality”, or as Rahmy explained it, “a modernist on friendly
terms with Russia.”98 Prior to September 1962, it was apparent to any
observer that Imam Ahmad’s son, Crown Prince al-​Badr, was sympa-
thetic to both Soviet machinations and Nasser’s Arab nationalist plans in
Yemen. From the perspective of the Soviet Union, al-​Badr was an Arabian
leader who expressed enthusiasm for Soviet construction and develop-
ment efforts and had functionally granted them the keys to the Red Sea
through the port of Hodeidah. Given the potential and actual benefits of a
closer relationship with the Yemeni royal family, it mattered little whether
al-​Badr was a communist, a capitalist, or an autocratic dictator. From the
vantage point of the Soviet Union on the Arabian Peninsula, economic
 The Origins of September 1962 23

and political strategy were more significant than ideology in determin-

ing their foreign policy. Nasser viewed al-╉Badr as a naive and spineless
ruler who could be cajoled into supporting even the most outlandish of his
Arab nationalist schemes. Al-╉Badr himself was both hubristic and trust-
ing, as was evident from his confession of globetrotting and plotting at the
behest of Nasser’s Arab nationalist vision. While one might add “fanciful
story telling”to his repertoire, there is no denying that both the Soviets
and the Egyptian were tempted by the malleability of al-╉Badr’s leadership
in Yemen. Their eventual support of Sallal and the YAR, however, was
mainly a product of circumstances in the days following the outbreak of
the Yemeni revolution in September 1962 rather than a preordained plot
to overthrow both Imam Ahmad and al-╉Badr, as will be detailed in the next
chapter.

The US Attempt to “Locate” Yemen

At the same time that the Soviets were investing economic and political
capital in Crown Prince al-╉Badr, their US counterparts could scarcely find
Yemen on a map. President Dwight Eisenhower’s Middle East policy,
known as the Eisenhower Doctrine, supported and united the conserva-
tive Arab regimes of Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia,
placing them as an ideological counter to “Nasserism.” By June 1957,
Eisenhower succeeded in polarizing the Arab world and creating a “royal-
ist axis” of conservative regimes that were willing to counter and criticize
Egypt and Syria.99 The 1958 coup in Iraq and the US military interven-
tion in Lebanon conversely discredited US intentions in the Middle East
and strengthened Nasser as the anti-╉imperialist. After abandoning the
failed Eisenhower Doctrine in 1958, the administration decided to seek
political accommodation with the Nasserist movement. Toward the end of
the Eisenhower presidency, Soviet-╉Egyptian tensions arose over Nasser’s
policies targeting domestic communist parties, presenting an opening
in US-╉Egyptian relations.100 Upon entering office in 1961, President John
F. Kennedy was therefore inclined to consider not only US obligations
toward Saudi Arabia, but a continuing effort to court Nasser’s friendship.
Gulf oil exports and the stability of the Saudi Arabian government lent an
added level of importance to every policy decision made in the region.101
The United States had no comparable strategic interests in Yemen.102 Prior
to the civil war, relatively few Foreign Service officers and Arabic speakers
had served in Yemen.103
24 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

The following demonstrative episode occurred during a meeting

between Chester L.  Cooper, the CIA liaison officer to National Security
Council staff; Allen Dulles, the director of Central Intelligence; and
William Putnam “Bill” Bundy, a member of the CIA and Kennedy’s for-
eign affairs advisor, best illustrates the importance, or lack thereof, of
Yemen in the eyes of US officials:

“When Bundy and I were discussing the next day’s NSC meeting,
we were interrupted by an unexpected visitor …
Dulles’s secretary came in to say that the head of the Middle East
Division was calling. “He says it’s urgent.” Allen reached for the
phone. I crossed my fingers. Bill rolled his eyes.
“Yemen?” Dulles asked. “Who’s he? … Oh. Is it really impor-
tant? … Well, send him up.” And up he came …
“Well?” Dulles stared at the obviously frightened analyst.
“Yemen?” he asked again. “What’s the Yemen? … A country? …
Never heard of it. Where is it?”
The expert pointed with a shaking finger to a small speck on the
edge of the Red Sea. “There, Mr. Dulles.”
“I can’t see it. But what’s happening there that’s so important?”
“It’s the Imam sir.”
“Imam? Never heard of that either.”
“It’s a person, sir. A  religious person. He’s the head of the
government—​the imam of Yemen.”
Dulles’s eyes were wandering. He looked first at Bundy, who
shrugged. Then at me, who was trying to keep a straight face. Then
at his watch. “All right. What about him?”
“He’s leaving the country, sir. The first this has ever happened—​
the imam leaving Yemen. There may be a coup.”
“Where’s he going? Moscow? Beijing?”
“No, sir. He’s going to Switzerland. Zurich.”
“Very nice. A holiday?”
“No, Mr. Dulles. He’s going to see a doctor. A specialist.”
Dulles suddenly became interested. “Oh, why?”
“He has syphilis, sir.”
“Well,” sighed Dulles, “you’ve finally told me something that
will interest members of the NSC. Thank you. Good night.”104

Yemen was barely on the radar of US foreign relations in the begin-

ning of the 1960s. In fact, even on November 14, 1962, during a meeting
 The Origins of September 1962 25

regarding the Yemeni Civil War, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
recorded in his diary that President Kennedy had said, “I don’t even know
where [Yemen] is.”105 The ignorance of world leaders and what they do not
know is as important as what they claim to know when it comes to deci-
sion making.
Despite the relative obscurity of Yemen in American foreign policy cir-
cles, there was an American presence in Yemen prior to the Yemeni coup,
albeit through the operations of private oil companies. The extent of Soviet
investment in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah and the Soviets’ developing
relationship with al-​Badr set off a flurry of activity focused primarily on
understanding Soviet plans for the Arabian Peninsula. During the 1950s,
American diplomatic officials had virtually no presence in Yemen under
the rule of Imam Ahmad, who prided himself on limiting the penetration
of foreign powers in his country.
The first significant contacts with the Yemeni royal family were made
in December 1955 by the Yemen Development Corporation (YDC), a
small oil exploration company formed in cooperation with the CIA for
the express purpose of infiltrating North Yemen. At the core of the YDC
were veteran Texas oilman John Alston Crichton, a former US intelligence
officer with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II; Walter
S. Gabler, a Washington, D.C. investment banker consultant; and George
Wadsworth, US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Gabler, who had
previously negotiated American oil concessions in Egypt in 1951, raised
$20 million to purchase oil and mineral exploration rights from Imam
Ahmad.106 Aside from this agreement with the YDC, a German oil com-
pany stationed in the country’s Tihama costal region was the only other
foreign entity to have secured exploration rights in Yemen. In a subsequent
meeting with Imam Ahmad, Ambassador Wadsworth noted that Ahmad
assumed this agreement would lead to further agreements for economic
cooperation between the two countries, specifically in regard to expanded
road networks and privately financed factory projects. Ahmad threatened
to otherwise accept the Soviet overtures of economic assistance.107
Crichton later explained that the company had the explicit support of
the State Department, which expressed a sincere interest in American
commercial activity in Yemen to counter the rising Soviet interests in
Arabia. In November 1955, the YDC signed a thirty-​year agreement with
Imam Ahmad giving him a 50 percent stake in an oil profits.108 In return
for the concessions, Crichton recounts that Ahmad was given “$300,000
in bonus payments and a bullet-​proof Cadillac so he could take the ladies
of the harem for rides.”109
26 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Founded as a base for American intelligence gathering, the YDC

unsurprisingly accomplished very little actual oil exploration. By 1957,
they had run out of money and were sold off to Resource Associates, an
investment group that included Wallace Whitaker, the president of the
Intercontinental Hotel chain, and William Casey, who later became the
director of the CIA. Hatem al-​Khalide, an American-​educated Lebanese
geologist, remained with the company in Yemen throughout its transition
and later wrote his own book based on his experience with the company,
divulging the company’s supposed involvement with the US intelligence
community.110
The State Department was reluctant to relinquish control over the
Yemeni oil concessions for fear that it would be open to the Soviet techni-
cians already present in the country and that the United States would lose
a vital intelligence source in the region. The actual prospects of finding oil
were exceedingly remote and operating a mission in the inaccessible areas
of eastern Yemen where oil deposits were most likely to have been found
was cost prohibitive. Nonetheless, British reports agreed that the mere
presence of either American or British oil companies in Yemen offered
“an additional avenue for infiltration” into Imam Ahmad’s closed society.
Their absence would only serve to present similar opportunities to Soviet
oil engineers.111 The British Foreign Office declined to grant exploration
rights to British Petroleum or Shell for fear that they would be presenting
Imam Ahmad with easy hostages in the event of a border conflict with the
Aden Protectorates.112
When other options such as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey
remained reluctant to resume oil exploration in Yemen, the US State
Department admitted that maintaining the oil concession “was only to
preserve the US position on the Arabian Peninsula and not for commer-
cial reasons.113 After the departure of the YDC team, the State Department
convinced John Mecom Oil, based in Houston, Texas, to assume responsi-
bility for oil exploration in Yemen. John Mecom (see Fig. 1.1), a prominent
Texas oilman, was well known for pioneering commercial oil exploration
in the Middle East in countries including Libya, Jordan, and Yemen.
Perhaps at the behest of the American Overseas Investment
Corporation, which was funding the expedition, Mecom Oil’s exploration
team moved to a location only thirty-​four miles north of Hodeidah, near
where the Soviets were currently constructing Port Ahmad.114 British offi-
cials were asked by the US State Department to vouch for Mecom’s oil
 The Origins of September 1962 27

Figure  1.1  John Mecom Sr. standing to the right of King Hussein of Jordan in
1964. (This photograph currently hangs on a Mecom Oil office wall in Houston,
TX, and was shared with the author by his grandson John Mecom Jr.)

business, which they did despite harboring reservations as to the sincer-

ity of the exploration.115 On April 17, 1961, Imam Ahmad met with John
Mecom Sr., the president of Mecom Oil, and granted his company per-
mission to conduct explorations for oil in the region of Salifa and in other
regions of Tihama.116
Despite John Mecom’s high expectations, no oil was found, much to
the ire of Imam Ahmad, who had grown jealous of Saudi oil riches.117
In an interview on May 3, 1962, Mecom was forced to account for the
delays in the progress of the search for oil in the region of Tihama: “He
explained that the delay in the exploration was due to natural conditions
and promises to resume drilling after the arrival in Yemen of a new more
powerful drilling rig.”118 John Mecom did not have much time to fulfill or
renege on these promises as the country was thrown into turmoil four
months later, making oil exploration impossible for the rest of the decade.
Oil was finally discovered in 1981 in the very same locations where YDC
and Mecom Oil teams had explored in the 1950s and 1960s. The arrest of
Muhammad Galeb Farakh, a Yemeni university student and an employee
28 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

of Mecom Oil, on charges of spying for the United States, served to further
suspicions of the presence of American intelligence agents amongst the
oil exploration teams.119
Throughout his six-​year flourishing relationship with Nasser and the
Soviets, al-​Badr formulated a policy of socialist reform and anti-​British
rhetoric. US onlookers were concerned that al-​Badr would consciously or
unconsciously open the doors of the Arabian Peninsula to Soviet penetra-
tion. Prince Hassan, al-​Badr’s uncle and Imam Ahmad’s brother who was
deemed to have been “less militantly anti-​Western,” was the ideal Anglo-​
American choice as a successor to Ahmad. According to a 1958 CIA intel-
ligence assessment, in the event of a succession crisis al-​Badr was likely
to receive the military support of the Egyptians and perhaps Soviet inter-
vention as well.120 British observers were particularly alarmed by al-​Badr’s
claim to the Aden Protectorate and his declared interest in expanding the
anti-​British border attacks that had begun under his father Imam Ahmad.
Alan Lennox-​Boyd, the first Viscount Boyd of Merton, briefed British
Prime Minister Macmillan on joint British-​American plans for a Yemeni
coup to replace Imam Ahmad with his brother Hassan, thereby preventing
the anti-​British al-​Badr from coming to power.121 Hatem al-​Khalide as well
makes reference to American attempts at befriending Hassan and orches-
trating the assassination of Ahmad and al-​Badr.122 Imam Ahmad had long
suspected that the US government was supporting his brother Hassan as
an alternative to his son.123 Even after Imam Ahmad’s death, however, the
US Foreign Office refused to intervene in support of Prince Hassan lest
“Yemen should veer too far in the direction of the Soviet Union.”124
The events of September 26, 1962, were the culmination of decades
of popular anti-​Imam sentiment, planning, and failed coups at the hands
of the Free Yemeni Movement and their affiliates. Two decades earlier
what began as struggle between Yemeni traditionalists and modernists
by the end of 1962 had become an armed conflict that drew the interests
and involvement of major powers. Behind the scenes of national Yemeni
revolutionary politics Egypt, the USSR, and the United States were mak-
ing political inroads into Yemen, forming alliances with members of the
royal family. With the success of the 1962 coup and the foundation of
the YAR, the broader international community was pulled into Yemeni
power politics by a weak revolutionary central government that sought to
replace its lack of tribal legitimacy with international support. In so doing,
the Americans, British, Egyptians, Saudis, and Soviets found themselves
supporting sides in the conflict they would not have considered only days
 The Origins of September 1962 29

earlier. What followed was a series of political divisions and alliances dom-
inated by historical irony and ad hoc diplomatic decisions. As will be dis-
cussed in the next chapter, the fateful decisions made by Abdullah al-​Sallal
in the first days of the coup and the ensuing international divide over the
recognition of the new republic set the stage for a lengthy and costly inter-
nationalized civil war in Yemen.
2

Recognizing the New Republic

Sallal must have realized relatively quickly that

YA R P R E S I D E N T A B D U L L A H
al-​Badr’s body was not among the rubble of his palace when midnight
struck on September 26, 1962. He committed the errors of his rebel pre-
decessors from the 1948 and 1955 coups by failing to carry out the com-
plete regicide of the Hamid al-​Din family. By this point, al-​Badr was on his
way north to rally tribal support for an assault on Sana’a. The YAR could
last no more than a few weeks unless Sallal could elicit foreign assistance.
Given al-​Badr’s popularity with Nasser and the Soviet Union, it seemed
unlikely that Sallal would receive their recognition if either power knew
that the imam was still alive.
Although he failed to kill al-​Badr, Sallal’s forces managed to capture
the Sana’a radio station and telephone exchange, a success that was key to
the survival of the fledgling republic.1 Upon hearing the first shots fired,
Yemeni revolutionary officer Hassan al-​‘Amri led an assault team to seize
the communication stations and inform groups of co-​conspirators in
Ta’iz, future YAR prime minister Hamoud al-​Jaifi in Hodeidah, and other
urban centers that the coup had been successfully launched.2 With the
radio and telephone in Sana’a in his possession, Sallal controlled domestic
and global access to information about events on the ground in Yemen.
Furthermore, his supporters captured al-​Wusul palace, a reception area
for foreign dignitaries who had been waiting for an audience with the new
Imam. In the weeks following the coup, Sallal and his revolutionary coun-
cil would conceal the truth of the events on September 26 in an attempt to
secure international recognition and support prior to the organization of
an opposition to the republic.
Yahya al-​Mutawakil, who commanded one of the artillery units sur-
rounding the palace, explained that al-​Badr was saved by the heroic efforts
 Recognizing the New Republic 31

of one of his guards. Upon hearing the first tank shells hit the palace, the
guard “managed to climb onto the roof and pour petrol onto the lead tank
in the column heading towards the palace. It burst into flames in a narrow
lane, and stopped the other tanks from moving forward. Everybody began
to panic with the road to the palace blocked… . Adrenaline pumping, we
threw everything we had at the palace. Within a few minutes we had gone
through our entire stock of 45 shells.”3 Al-​Badr took advantage of the mis-
takes made by the anxious artillery men and escaped the palace through
the rear exit.
According to al-​Badr’s version of the night’s events, he had been presid-
ing over the new Council of Ministers in the royal palace compound. When
he stepped out into the hallway, Hussein al-​Shukeiri, the deputy to Sallal,
attempted to shoot him from behind, but the rifle trigger jammed. He
ended up shooting himself in the chin while al-​Badr’s guards were trying
to arrest him. The palace’s electricity was cut off, followed by an exchange
of gunfire. Al-​Badr claimed that the resistance lasted for twenty four hours,
during which time he escaped from a hidden passageway out of the build-
ing. Al-​Badr’s account adds that a Yemeni officer named ‘Abd al-​Ghani was
the principal ringleader and the main contact for the Egyptian Embassy.
Conveniently for al-​ Badr’s tale, al-​
Ghani was killed during the initial
exchange of fire and Sallal was given command of the coup.4
Amedeo Guillet, the official Italian representative to Imam ​Ahmad’s
funeral a week earlier, was staying in al-​Badr’s palace as an honored guest
while the coup was taking place. After having been awoken by the shelling
of the palace, Guillet ventured into the hallway just in time to see al-​Badr
and several of his half-​dressed followers running in his direction, franti-
cally loading their weapons. Al-​Badr led his followers through Guillet’s
open door, and jumped down from his balcony window, which led directly
to the back of the palace grounds and the garden below. Guillet misled
Sallal’s guards, informing them that al-​Badr was under the rubble in the
front section of the palace. With a sense of irony, Guillet recalled hearing
news reports of his own death in addition to the death of al-​Badr in the
days following the coup. Guillet, who was a dear friend and confidant of
both Imams Ahmad and Yahya, recalled losing many close friends from
the imam’s circle on that day, and immediately took a position in opposi-
tion to Sallal and the new republic.5
Claude Deffarge and Gordian Troeller, two French journalists who
witnessed the first stages of the Yemen Civil War, summarized Sallal’s
September 26, 1962 radio broadcast: “Armored units and tanks, acting on
32 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

the orders of the military high command, have surrounded the royal pal-
ace and asked the tyrannical dictator to surrender. Upon his refusal, artil-
lery opened fire on the palace. The next morning, the monarchy collapsed.
The tyrant was dead, crushed under the rubble of his palace.”6
As the newly appointed deputy prime minister of the YAR, ‘Abd al-​
Rahman al-​Baydani managed to dig a deeper political hole for the new
republic with his penchant for storytelling. During a radio address on
October 11, Baydani declared that Yemeni forces had defeated Hassan’s
supporters in the city of Sa’dah and had seized all the national territory
of Yemen. He boldly stated that any aggressive action on the part of Saudi
Arabia would be construed as an act of war.7 Deffarge and Troeller pressed
Baydani on the issue of confirming al-​Badr’s death during an interview
one week after the coup. He emphatically dismissed rumors that al-​Badr
was still alive. Baydani explained that “Yemenites like stories. They will
grow weary of them quickly.”8
Baydani was not alone in stretching the truth of facts on the battlefield.
During an October 15 rally in Sana’a, Sallal declared: “We have defeated
the rotten monarchy. The revolutionary regime is recognized by 20 coun-
tries. Anyone who tries to restore the monarchy in Yemen is the enemy.
Our troops entered Sa’dah. They have defeated the enemy and send King
Saud and King Hussein retreating.”9 Later that month Sallal reiterated
his ambition to establish a “Republic of the Arabian Peninsula,” further
increasing Saudi suspicions of the new republic’s aims.10
To make matters worse, on October 19, Sana’a radio announced the
death of Crown Prince Hassan, who had assumed the role of imam after
the reported death of al-​Badr. The YAR government ordered his property
and that of fifteen other members of the royal family confiscated, in all
approximately 40,000 acres.11 As the world soon found out, aside from
requisitioning royal property, none of these pronouncements was true.
Baydani and Sallal’s declarations did not last beyond November 12,
1962, when there was an official media confirmation that al-​Badr was alive
and leading the counterrevolutionary forces in the north. French journal-
ist Jean-​Francois Chauvel conducted a public interview with al-​Badr, dur-
ing which al-​Badr was photographed, confirming that he was alive and
along the Saudi border.12 In the interim, however, both Egyptian and Soviet
sources believed that al-​Badr, their once stalwart ally in South Arabia, was
presumed dead. In the confusion of the coup, al-​Badr’s relatively pro-​
American Uncle Hassan declared himself imam of the exiled monarchy.
Egypt and the Soviet Union were further persuaded to recognize the new
 Recognizing the New Republic 33

Yemeni republic, in place of their former “red prince” al-╉Badr, and sal-
vage what they could from their previous foreign policy investments and
visions for the region. The Saudis, on the other hand, were compelled by
historical and strategic circumstances to support Hassan and the Yemeni
imamate.
Within months, Egypt and the USSR found themselves supporting
a weak and unproven state, while Saudi Arabia was supporting a loose
coalition of stateless tribes along its border. The US intervened in a
situation rife with historical and political irony, offering the Saudis and
Egyptians a diplomatic solution to their mutual strategic conundrums.
Negotiating the withdrawal of reluctant foreign support for the Yemen
Civil War would become the dominant theme throughout the next two
years of the conflict.

The Egyptian Pledge of Support

Although Nasser played a supportive role in overthrowing Imam Ahmad,
the decision to support the YAR was not inevitable. Nasser and the Egyptian
population did not have favorable opinions of the Yemenis, whom they
generally regarded as violent and uneducated bedouins.13 The following
satirical story illustrates the skepticism that many Egyptians held toward
the new Yemeni government:

“The story went around Cairo that Sallal sent a telegram to the
Egyptian government saying, now that the war is succeeding the
greatest need of revolutionary Yemen is education. Please send us
500 schoolteachers. The next week came another telegram saying,
the greatest need in revolutionary Yemen is still education. Please
send us 20,000 schoolbooks. The third week there was another
telegram saying, the greatest need in revolutionary Yemen remains
education. Please send us 50,000 students at once.”14

Between September 29 and October 4, 1962, a series of actual tele-

grams were exchanged between Sallal and Nasser, which included a
formal request for recognition, the UAR recognition itself, subsequent
offers of aid, and finally a YAR response thanking Egypt for recognition
and aid.15 Egyptian General Ali ‘Abd al-╉Hameed was dispatched to Sana’a
for an investigative mission on September 29. After seeing the alarming
state of the revolutionary council and the armed forces supporting the
34 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

state, Hameed asked Nasser for a sa’aqah, or special force battalion, which
arrived on October 5 and acted as Sallal’s personal bodyguard.16
In the midst of, or perhaps in response to this correspondence, on
October 1 Muhammad Zubayri, the new YAR minister of education, and
‘Abd al-​Rahman al-​Baydani made an important trip to Cairo to enlist
Nasser’s help.17 It was clear from the urgency of this first foreign trip for
the new republic and the timing of it so near to the start of the revolution
that Nasser’s support for Arab revolutionaries was not taken for granted.
It took until October 6 for an Egyptian steamer to arrive in the Soviet-​
constructed port of Hodeidah with soldiers in uniform.18 While there was
certainly speculation that Egyptian soldiers had arrived in Yemen within
hours of the revolution, the October 6 arrival was the first widely docu-
mented demonstration of Egyptian support and might well have been a
reaction to Zubayri and Baydani’s visit several days earlier.
In a cable sent to Nasser on October 3 Sallal declared that, as a rep-
resentative of the Yemeni government, he was invoking the collec-
tive defense clause of the tripartite Jeddah Military Pact of 1956 made
between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. In his response Nasser assured
Sallal that “the UAR is pledged to live up to every pact it has concluded
and moreover, emphasize that the UAR put the Jeddah Pact into effect at
the very moment it received news of the Yemeni people’s revolution.”19
Mahmoud Riad, Egyptian Ambassador to the United Nations, explained
that the Egyptian intervention was a response to Saudi assistance given to
royalists rather than an Egyptian invasion.20 In justifying Egyptian inter-
vention in Yemen, Nasser cited the collective defense clause in Article 2
of the Jeddah Pact:

“The contracting states consider that any armed aggression upon

any one of them, or upon its forces, is an aggression directed against
all of them, and hence, in conformity with the legal right of indi-
vidual and collective defense for their existence, they are all bound
to hasten to the relief of the country aggressed upon, and to take at
once all necessary measures, by contributing resources and armed
forces to repel the attack, and re-​establish security and peace.”21

Using the Jeddah Pact as justification for Egyptian intervention

in Yemen was both halfhearted and in contradiction to the wording of
the pact. First, when Nasser issued a declaration of military support on
October 3 there was no foreign presence in Yemen. In fact, the supporters
 Recognizing the New Republic 35

of the imam had not even publicly declared their opposition until two days
after Nasser’s own declaration of support. Furthermore, the pact called for
the collective action and agreement of all three parties, including Saudi
Arabia, which Nasser did not consult prior to making his declaration.22
Muhammad Heikal further elaborated on this justification in a November
1962 Al Ahram article: “We did not go to Yemen to start a war but to pre-
vent a conflict.”23
The identification of the legal Yemeni state that was party to the Jeddah
agreement was an added layer of difficulty. In justifying Nasser’s legal
right to intervene in Yemen, historian Alf Ross explains that “although
the military occupation of one state by another is a violation of the law
of nations, the prior or simultaneous consent of the existing government
legitimates the intervention.” This means that Nasser referred to earlier
agreements made with the imam’s government, despite the fact that Egypt
was supporting the imam’s deposers.24
Nasser might have offered legal justifications for military intervention
and support of the new Yemeni republic, but the truth is that Baydani and
Zubayri simply showed up at the right time. Defarge and Troeller claimed
that “the Yemeni operation was a miracle for Nasser,” and may have tem-
porarily saved his political isolation in the Arab world.25 As the historian
Eli Podeh explains, origins of Nasser’s intervention in Yemen were found
during the Iraq crisis in 1961. On June 25, 1961, ‘Abd al-​Karim Qasim, the
prime minister of Iraq following his coup d’état against the monarchy in
1958, declared his intentions to incorporate Kuwait as part of Iraq. This
announcement, six days after the British granted Kuwait independence,
precipitated a regional crisis as British and Arab armies dispatched troops
to protect Kuwait’s sovereignty. According to Podeh, the 1961 Kuwait-​Iraq
Crisis was the first Arab dispute “neither initiated by Nasser nor in which
he played a leading role … Iraq’s bid for Kuwait may be construed as a
bid for Arab leadership as well, though Qasim would have not necessarily
admitted it.” Following a military coup d’état in Syria in September 1961,
the new Syrian military regime withdrew from the UAR. Ostensibly to
prepare his troops for a possible intervention in Syria, Nasser prematurely
withdrew Egyptian soldiers from Kuwait on December 20, 1961, leaving
him politically isolated in the Arab world.26 Although Egypt remained the
only member of the UAR after 1961, Nasser continued referring to his
country as the UAR until his death in 1970.
The Yemen Civil War was a foreign policy opportunity for Nasser
to become relevant once again. Khaled Mohieddin, a member of the
36 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Egyptian Free Officers Movement and a close confidant of Nasser, stated

emphatically that “The Yemen war was a response to the break with
Syria … a sign that Egypt’s Arab role was not over.”27 Nasser’s inten-
tions in Yemen were not limited to mere support for the YAR. Rather, he
envisioned Sana’a as a base through which he could extort economic aid
from the United States, Saudis, and Soviets while scoring political points
against the British in Aden.28 The relationship between Egypt and the
YAR was formalized when a five-​year mutual defense pact was signed
by Sallal and Anwar Sadat in Sana’a on November 10, 1962, and ratified
by Nasser the next day.29 According to an Al Thawra article in December
1962, even Yemeni republicans began to view their own revolution as part
of Nasser’s grand vision.30 This vision was codified in the April 17, 1963,
Cairo Charter signed by Iraq, Syria, the UAR, and the YAR that outlined
the process for forming a unified “fertile-​crescent” and larger “Arab fed-
eral state.”31
Nasser made the decision to support the YAR and Sallal under the
assumption that al-​Badr was dead. In later years, ‘Abd al-​Latif al-​Baghdadi
argued that Nasser would not have supported Sallal and the YAR if al-​Badr
had been confirmed alive at an earlier date.32 Mahmoud Riad, Egypt’s rep-
resentative to the UN and Minister of Foreign Affairs during the 1960s,
concurred and added that “Egypt would not have intervened in Yemen
because al-​Badr was an open-​minded Imam and wanted to bring about a
real change in Yemen.”33 While Baghdadi and Riad may have been advo-
cating a self-​serving analysis of Egypt’s decision to intervene, it certainly
seems likely that had Nasser received word from al-​Badr during his meet-
ing with Baydani and Zubayri, he would not have offered his support to an
untested leader and to a republic that had yet to exhibit popular and tribal
support. On this matter, Riad readily blamed Baydani for intentionally
feeding Egyptian officials with misinformation. Anwar Sadat, Baydani’s
brother-​in-​law, particularly “relied on Baydani’s analysis of the situation
in Yemen.” Riad explained that “because Sadat did not like to read, al-​
Baydani was able to control his mind.”34
John Badeau, US ambassador to Cairo under Kennedy, provided his own
interpretation of Nasser’s opportunistic intervention in Yemen: “There is
some reason to think that the revolutionary groups both within and out-
side Yemen may have expected Egyptian support if they mounted a poten-
tially successful coup d’état. Yet the decision to enter the Yemen struggle
was largely a pragmatic one, made at the time of the revolt and in the light
of its particular character.”35
 Recognizing the New Republic 37

Initially, Nasser sent a small contingent of forces to support the YAR

with the intention to maintain only a short and limited Egyptian presence.
Former Egyptian General Muhammad Fawzi, who served as minister of
defense during the 1960s, explained that Egyptian support was originally
conceived as “a limited action comprising political, moral and material
support—╉by no means was it envisaged as an action that could drain our
resources.” Nasser sent two battalions of special forces and an aircraft
squadron, a force that he described as “symbolic.” However, by 1965 the
Egyptian commitment to Sallal had expanded to some 70,000 troops on
the ground.36

Saudi Arabia and Tribal Loyalties

The 1934 Treaty of Ta’if between Saudi Arabia and Yemen brought an end
to the first modern conflict between the two Arabian states. The Saudi war
effort in Yemen had been led by Crown Prince Saud ibn ‘Abd al-╉Aziz, who
served as king during the outbreak of the Yemen Civil War. The first article
of the treaty brought hostilities to an end and created the foundation for
a peaceful coexistence between the two countries. Article 18 added on to
those foundations and guaranteed that both parties would not support or
recognize any armed opposition to either monarchy.
Article 18: In the event of insurrection or hostilities taking place within
the country of one of the high contracting parties, both of them mutually
undertake:

a) To take all necessary effective measures to prevent aggressors or reb-

els from making use of their territories.
b) To prevent fugitives from taking refuge in their countries, and to
expel them if they do enter.
c) To prevent his subjects from joining the rebels and to refrain from
encouraging or supplying them.
d) To prevent assistance, supplies, arms and ammunition reaching the
enemy or rebels.37

In 1937, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iraq, the first three independent
Arab states, signed a mutual defense pact further solidifying the relation-
ship established by the 1934 Ta’if Agreement. During both the 1948 and
1955 coups in Yemen, the opposition to the Hamid al-╉Din family asked
Saudi Arabia for aid and recognition. In both instances the Saudis refused
38 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

to recognize their new regime, citing the first and eighteenth articles of
the Ta’if Agreement.38 During the 1950s, King Saud and Imam Ahmad
forged a close relationship, punctuated by the 1956 Jeddah agreement and
a continuously expanding trade relationship across a porous border to
the north.
As part of the Ta’if agreement, Imam Yahya ceded the northern Yemeni
territories of Najran, ‘Asir, and Jizan to Saudi Arabia for a period of sixty
years (see Fig.  2.1). Although Sunni Arabs constituted the majority of
these territories, a significant minority consisted of Shi’ite Zaydi Arabs
who were ethnically Yemeni and who adhered to the authority of the Zaydi
Yemeni imam.39
According to Article 22 of the Ta’if Treaty, the tenets of the agreement
would be in effect for twenty lunar years, after which either Yemen or
Saudi Arabia would be able to demand arbitration in the case of a bor-
der dispute. In 1954, Imam Ahmad allowed the twenty-​year limitation to
lapse without introducing arbitration. Upon ascension to the throne, al-​
Badr had no intentions of calling for arbitration, either. It was not until
the founding of the YAR that Sallal made a public declaration calling for
an arbitration of the border dispute.40 The YAR government announced
its specific intentions to regain the former Yemeni province of ‘Asir. The
Egyptian air force began flying missions over Saudi Arabia, dropping
caches of small arms for use by local “freedom fighters.” Rather than use
the weapons against their government, however, local Bedouins sold the
arms on the market or directly to the ‘Asir Government.41
Parker Hart, US ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 1963, retold a similar
story describing Nasser’s anti-​Saudi intrigues:

“One of the highlights of this episode was the dropping of 108 bun-
dles of ammunition and weaponry on the Saudi coast in February of
’63 in the expectation on Cairo’s side that the Bedouins and others
would pick these weapons up and go after the government. They
misestimated the whole situation—​the Bedouins turned the weap-
ons in to the police. And there was no party of revolutionaries to
pick up the enormous quantity of weaponry, ready-​to-​go-​weapons,
put the clips right in and start firing. I saw them, inspected them
myself… . This weapons drop deepened, of course, the feeling of
distrust in Washington of Nasser’s intentions.”42
 0 km 200 S A U D I
A R A B I A

18°N

Najran

Jizan
Wad’lah

16°

San’a
Marib Y E M E N
1934 Treaty of Taif line
1935 Riyadh line
Straightened-out Philby line as claimed during
14° recent times by the Yemen Arab Republic
October 18th 1955 Saudi Arabia claim
1935 Hamza line
1914 Violet line
Final agreement line (approximate)
ADEN
Peaks

42°E 44° 46° 48° 50° 52°

Figure  2.1  The Saudi-​Yemeni border. (John Roberts, “The Saudi-​Yemeni Boundary Treaty,” IBRU Boundary and
Security Bulletin [2000])
40 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

YAR Deputy Prime Minister Baydani, having also spread false rumors
about al-​Badr and Hassans’ deaths, broadened his path of rhetorical
destruction by declaring a state of war against Saudi Arabia. He ordered
the closure of the Yemeni legation in Saudi Arabia and publicized a hostile
stance toward the Saudi monarchy: “We have taken all measures to move
the battle to the Saudi territory itself and to Riyadh itself, if necessary.”43
On December 27 Sallal echoed Baydani during a parade in Sana’a and
declared that “the Yemeni National army would liberate the entire Arabian
Peninsula.”44
According to a US intelligence bulletin, Baydani “charged that Saudi
actions in the present situation were tantamount to aggression, and stated
that Yemen therefore considers itself to be in a state of war with Saudi
Arabia.” According to the CIA analysis, “this statement, while certain to
add to the tensions in the area, appears to be primarily an attempt to jus-
tify the presence in Yemen of Egyptian forces. It follows frequent recent
assertions by Cairo that the UAR, under the old “Jidda Pact” signed in
1956 by Egypt, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, would defend Yemen against
outside aggression.”45
Yemeni Prince Hassan and Saudi Prince Faisal were sitting together in
New York at a UN meeting when news of the coup arrived. Faisal imme-
diately told Hassan, al-​Badr’s uncle who was appointed interim imam fol-
lowing the announcement of his nephew al-​Badr’s death, to fly straight to
Saudi Arabia and appeal to King Saud for aid in defending in the imam-
ate.46 As members of the Hamid al-​Din family began crossing the border
into Saudi Arabia, King Saud and his brother Prince Faisal did not turn
them away. The official Saudi position was described as an adherence to
the Muslim and Arabian honorable custom of sharaf, offering refuge to
the deposed imam’s family. This response was further grounded in the
historical tenets of both the Treaty of Ta’if and the Jeddah Pact. Similar
to Nasser’s legal approach, the Saudis claimed they were adhering to the
military alliances stipulated in both agreements. Nasser and the Saudis
differed only in the identity of the legitimate Yemeni state, whether it was
the YAR or the imam.
From the Saudi perspective, supporting the imam had two major stra-
tegic advantages over similar support for the YAR. The northern tribes,
bordering Saudi Arabia, were staunch advocates of the Yemeni imam and
were not likely to support the republic. The northern highlands them-
selves were a particularly difficult terrain for Nasser’s mechanized army
and would likely serve as a partial buffer between Egyptian troops and
 Recognizing the New Republic 41

Saudi territory.47 Additionally, by supporting al-╉Badr the Saudis avoided

domestic tensions in the border regions of ‘Asir, Najran, and Jizan, where
there was a sizable minority of Zaydi tribesmen tracing their ethnic ori-
gins to pre-╉1934 Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s southern border was further desta-
bilized by an unspecified number of Yemeni refugees who crossed into
the border regions as a result of the conflict.48 Avoiding internal tribal con-
flict was particularly important as the ruling structure was entering a two-╉
year succession crisis that lasted from 1962 to 1964.49
In January 1963, Egyptian military commanders Field-╉Marshal ‘Abd
al-╉Hakim Amer and General Ali Amer made an extended visit to Sana’a,
where they discovered a failing republican military campaign. Royalist
forces were moving southward, threatening republican positions. Nasser
responded with a bombing campaign on the Saudi border in spring 1963,
in an attempt to destabilize royalist bases in Jizan, Khamis Mushayt, and
Abha. One of the bombs was reportedly dropped on a hospital in Abha, kill-
ing thirty-╉six patients. Egyptian targeting of Saudi border regions caused
further unease and alarm among the members of the Saudi royal family.50
The Egyptian bombing campaign was accompanied by anti-╉ Saudi
propaganda. During the Aswan High Dam Celebrations in January 1963,
Nasser shared embellished accusations, rivaling only Baydani’s fanci-
ful tales. According to Nasser, Saudis and royalists were being armed by
Pakistan who was providing planes and daily shipments of 500 guns to
the Ta’if airport. This trope epitomized the first months of Nasser’s anti-╉
Saudi propaganda, a campaign of rhetoric that would continue through-
out the war.51

The Formation of an Opposition

During the shelling of his palace, al-╉Badr slipped out of Sana’a to the
nearby village of Hamdan. Following the precedence of his forefathers
and his own actions after the 1948 and 1955 coups, al-╉Badr fled north to
rally the tribal militias. In 1948, his father Ahmad had fled to the northern
village of Hajjah, where he rallied the tribal armies for a successful assault
on Sana’a within three weeks of the coup.52 In 1962, however, Abdullah
Hussein al-╉Ahmar and Sinan Abu Luhum, principal sheikhs of the pow-
erful Hashid and Bakil Federations, supported the republic despite their
traditional allegiance with the imamate. Imam Ahmad had overseen
the execution of their close family members, garnering a great deal of
recent animosity between them and the Hamid al-╉Din family.53 Al-╉Badr’s
42 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

northward journey, therefore, took a somewhat different path as he was

pursued by bands of republican supporters for the entire journey, an addi-
tional sign that Sallal and Baydani must have known he was not killed in
the shelling of his palace.
When word arrived that al-​ Badr had been killed, Mujahid Abu
Shawareb, a prominent tribal leader from the town of Kharif, gathered 500
men and headed for Sana’a. His tale gives additional details as to al-​Badr’s
northward journey: “Halfway there a messenger met us to report that it
seemed al-​Badr had not died after all. He said the Imam had managed to
flee the palace dressed as a woman and was making his way north to Saudi
Arabia. We turned northeast in order to find him and prevent him from
rallying support to his cause. Marching from village to village, they told
us in one place that al-​Badr and his supporters had passed through only
five hours earlier. We tracked him for two weeks, without success, and he
finally made it to Saudi Arabia.”54
However, according to the earliest known account, al-​Badr did not make
it to Saudi Arabia until October 8. In his absence, opposition to the YAR
was declared. On October 6, the same day that the first official Egyptian
troops arrived in Yemen, a royalist radio station operated by Hassan and
his supporters on Saudi territory broadcast an announcement that mem-
bers of the royal family had fled to Saudi Arabia and were organizing an
armed opposition to Sallal and the YAR.55
In forming the opposition, al-​Badr convinced many of the northern
Zaydi tribes to declare their support for his anti-​Egyptian efforts. He
declared that “Yemen would be a graveyard for the Egyptians just as it
was a graveyard for the Turkish.”56 Muhammad Sa’id al-​Attar, a French-​
educated Yemeni who founded the Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and
Development and served as the YAR Minister of Economics, explained
the historical and political reasoning behind the formation of a north-
ern opposition to the republic. Historically, given the difficulty of the ter-
rain, the northern highlands could not be conquered by a foreign army,
whether Egyptian, Turkish, or Saudi. Although the core of the allegiance
to al-​Badr was religious, as the number of Egyptian soldiers increased, the
northern tribes fought for independence against what they perceived as a
foreign invader.57
Al-​Badr’s supporters were dubbed “royalists,” a designation with which
al-​Badr did not agree, as he made clear in a later interview: “Royalists …
I do not like that word, because it causes false associations. We fight for
our beliefs, for our tradition, for our home—​not for the crown, but for
 Recognizing the New Republic 43

a new world order. Who can lead our people and our suffering people
from [Nasser’s] war to freedom? Have a look at us, my brothers and I,
we live with our people.”58 There is no consensus as to the origins of the
term “royalists,” although perhaps it was conceived by the British, who
had developed their own alliance with the “feudal” sheikhs and sultans in
South Arabia.59 The term “royalist” may have been an attempt by British
media to link US support for Saudi monarchs (royalists) to their coun-
terparts in Yemen. Imam al-​Badr’s supporters referred to themselves,
instead, as “loyalists” and their territory as “Free Yemen.”
Once al-​Badr was confirmed alive, Sallal’s claim of legitimacy in the
absence of a significant royalist opposition was no longer viable. According
to a report from the Soviet embassy in Yemen, the Yemeni revolution itself
was in danger of being lost entirely and Sallal was trying desperately to go
on the defensive: “Al-​Sallal said that the goal of Saud, Hassan, and British
imperialists was the restoration of the reactionary regime in Yemen… .
The Prime Minister had previously refuted the rumors that Prince Hassan
was in Sa’dah and al-​Badr of the Hamid al Din family was in Hajjah. He
said that the Yemeni revolution had already destroyed the reactionary
Hamid al Din dynasty.”60
The initial momentum of al-​Badr’s opposition and the relative weak-
ness of Sallal’s military effort and political support drew an increasing
number of Egyptian soldiers and resources into the conflict. Despite
Nasser’s commitment of troops and resources, he was confounded by
Yemeni tribal politics. In the first weeks and months of the civil war, tribal
sheikhs were continuously switching allegiances, accepting bribes from
either the royalist or the republican camps, and forming their own inter-​
tribal truces. Although fighting was at times intensified and casualties
were exacerbated by the presence of the Egyptian army, certain necessities
of life trumped all other political considerations. For example, the Hajjah
region village of al-​Ahnum’s qat (a wildly popular narcotic leaf) trade con-
tinued unabated throughout the war, “under agreements guaranteed in
common by men who on other grounds were at daggers drawn.”61 Much
to Nasser’s chagrin, the success of the YAR began to encapsulate the suc-
cess of Nasser and his vision of Arab nationalism. Having declared his
public support for the YAR, Nasser could not forsake his powerless ally,
even after al-​Badr was discovered alive.
Deffarge and Troeller argue that Sallal was a last-​minute addition to
the revolutionary council that was led primarily by young officers without
comparable revolutionary qualifications and history. “His personality is
44 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

not the decisive element of this revolution, for it was not intended that
he be made the leader of the group … he was only a last minute choice.”
Furthermore, with the Republic only a week old, Sallal had been dubbed
by foreign media with nicknames such as the “dictator,” “Moscow’s
man,” or “Nasser’s agent.”62 To be fair, Deffarge and Troeller held simi-
larly condescending opinions of al-╉Badr: “Everyone knows that al-╉Badr is
an idiot…  . Every time his father turned his back, he was going to the
Egyptians. Was it not he who appointed Sallal the commander in chief of
the Yemeni army?”63 In the following years of conflict, the two parties of
the Yemen Civil War came to be dominated by ineffectual and unpopular
leaders, who in turn were dominated and overshadowed by the interests
of regional and international powers.

Soviet Relations with the YAR

Prior to 1962, the Soviets had invested a great deal of political, economic,
and industrial capital into cultivating a relationship with Yemen. Soviet
presence in South Arabia was an important element in the USSR’s grand
strategy for the Red Sea and the Middle East in general. In an attempt to
explain the Soviet vision for South Arabia the French journal Perspective
printed a prophetic observation of Soviet efforts in Yemen and its place
within their overall Middle East strategy: “Since the North African phase
of Soviet expansion was completed, now begins the new stage which will
lie in the complete subjugation of the entire Arabian Peninsula and espe-
cially out towards the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. This is a much
more reasonable goal than Cuba.”64
The historian P.J. Vatikiotis described Soviet relations with Egypt and
by extension in Yemen in similar terms: “The Soviets throughout the six-
ties considered Egypt, whether under Nasser or his successor, the essen-
tial center of their hoped-╉for power position in the Mediterranean. This,
in turn, is linked to their emerging global naval strategy that encompasses
the Indian Ocean. It gives them not only a deterrent against the US Sixth
Fleet, but affords them also several potential political advantages, apart
from the Middle East, in southern and western Europe and Africa.”65
As noted in the previous chapter, Crown Prince al-╉Badr was open to
greater Soviet penetration and was an advocate of socialist reforms in
Yemen. While the French journal Perspective might not have compared
al-╉Badr (or Sallal for that matter) with Fidel Castro in the same fashion
that Yemen was equated with Cuba, it is likely that the USSR would have
 Recognizing the New Republic 45

maintained its relationship and support of al-​Badr, had they known he

was still alive. For the entire month of October, both Izvestia and Pravda
referred to al-​Badr’s death in dozens of articles and did not even enter-
tain the notion that he might still be alive. With the pronouncement of
al-​Badr’s death, the Soviets rushed to be the first (arguably the second,
behind Egypt, although this was a point of mutual contention) country to
recognize the new republic. While the continued cultivation of a relation-
ship with the Yemeni people could potentially secure Soviet investment in
the port of Hodeidah, the speed and degree of the Soviet reversal in policy
from supporting al-​Badr to vilifying the imamate was remarkable.
During 1961 and 1962 articles published in Izvestia and Pravda made
every effort to praise Imam Ahmad and the blossoming relationship
between the USSR and Yemen. Published letters between Khrushchev
and Ahmad praised Soviet-​Yemeni friendship, port Ahmad, and Ahmad’s
progress in fighting colonialism and advancing reforms.66 On October 10,
1962, however, Izvestia began portraying Prince Hassan, the Hamid al-​
Din family, and the royalists as tools of the Saudis and Western oil compa-
nies like ARAMCO.67 Indeed from the ease with which Soviets switched
allegiances, it appears that their objectives in Yemen were opportunistic
and pragmatic rather than guided by an overarching national ideology.68
Soviet Premier Khrushchev’s initial telegram recognized the YAR on
October 1, 1962, and offered moral and political support, but was reluc-
tant to include a military commitment. The Soviets, who understood the
important problems that could arise from the local war and the difficul-
ties of achieving peace and complete disarmament, preferred to avoid a
military commitment, investing instead in non-​military areas of Yemeni
society. According to a pre-​revolutionary study, most Yemenis lived on less
than $100 a year, 95 percent of the populace was illiterate, and there were
serious deficiencies in the national health care.69 This concise description
of severe problems in Yemeni society would become the Soviet “to-​do list”
in order to garner the loyalty and appreciation of the local populace and
the ruling class.
Beginning in early 1961, teams of Soviet engineers and technicians
began to open schools, factories, hospitals, and other vital infrastructure,
garnering a great deal of fanfare at each stage. In doing so, the Soviets
treated Yemen as another of the politically neutral countries of Africa and
Asia that participated in the 1955 Bandung Conference, focusing their aid
on social welfare, an area that would “win the hearts and minds” of the
general populace. The USSR staffed a large contingent of technological
46 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

advisors and providing political, military, and economic aid while funding
these national projects. When Sallal assumed the presidency of the YAR,
he continuously maintained an outwardly positive view of the USSR in
rhetoric as well as action.70 During his first trip to Cairo, Sallal spoke highly
of peaceful Soviet initiatives and expressed support for Khrushchev’s
message.
According to a CIA intelligence report, by October 19, 1962, the Soviets
had in turn placed their full support behind the YAR, calling the coup a
“national liberation movement” rather than a “people’s revolution,” as it
had originally been termed. A Soviet official described the Yemeni people
to Sallal as “struggling selflessly for the freedom and independence of their
motherland.” This semantic upgrade in Yemen’s status was a response
to the USSR-​YAR “technical-​aid agreement” signed just two days earlier,
and announced publicly by Sana’a radio.71 From the Soviet perspective, it
seemed that Sallal might be able to, at least temporarily, fill al-​Badr’s role
in Yemen as an ally of the USSR.
On November 8, 1962, a Yemeni delegation traveled to Moscow and
returned without an official Soviet military commitment to the YAR as the
USSR. The Soviets were initially reluctant to issue an open aid package
to the YAR, preferring instead to “extend its long-​range reconnaissance
capacity.” In as such, the Soviets invested in the construction of an air-
port near Sana’a large enough to handle the Egyptian TU-​16 bombers.72
At the time there did not seem to be a need for a major airport in Sana’a.
The Yemeni air force had been inaugurated less than one year before and
there were only a minimal number of nonmilitary flights. The Soviets had
conceived the new Yemeni airport as a significant strategic asset in South
Arabia, rather than simply a service to Yemeni civilian aviation.73 Without
an official guarantee from the USSR, Sallal signed a defense pact with
UAR on November 10. “The USSR could rest assured that they would
have relatively unimpeded access to Hodeidah and Sana’a airport as long
as the UAR was governing Yemen, and the UAR certainly remained the
dominant force in that country.”74
During the reign of Imam Ahmad, the USSR provided Yemen with
economic and military aid, as detailed in the previous chapter. Under
Sallal, however, any direct Soviet military presence in Yemen receded to
an advisory role after the Egyptian army intervened. Although weaponry
continued to be supplied from Soviet sources, Egypt acted as a middle-
man supplier and trainer of Yemeni troops. There remained, however,
a core group of 75 Soviet military advisors designated to train a modern
 Recognizing the New Republic 47

Yemeni army and modern technological specialists as well as thirty-╉two

Soviet advisors for economic development.75 In March 1963, nine Soviet
specialists in hydrology and agricultural specialists along with twenty doc-
tors (fourteen to Hodeidah, four to Sana’a, and two to Ta’iz—╉mostly used
for Soviet personnel) arrived in Hodeidah. In addition, the USSR sent
specialists and teachers in higher education. A total credit of $60 million
was granted to Yemen, for which the Soviets agreed to delay repayment
for five years. In 1963 there were $2.3 million worth of Soviet exports to
Yemen (such as technology, sugar, cement, soap, matches, oil products,
and machines) and $1.5 million of Yemeni export to the USSR (including
coffee and cotton).76 In essence, the post-╉coup saw a significant expansion
of Soviet-╉Yemeni relations, even without an official commitment from
Khrushchev.

Komer’s War
The United States was a latecomer to the emerging international arena in
Yemen. President Kennedy and his Foreign Office had previously given
little thought to this remote, impoverished region and were perfectly con-
tent to allow a motley group of oilmen and intelligence agents to represent
US interests in Yemen. Ironically, it was this lack of interest in Yemen that
allowed US decision makers to forestall recognition of the regimeas they
weighed both local factors and the interests of British and Saudi allies. By
the time the United States was ready to recognize the regime, al-╉Badr was
discovered alive, further complicating the Yemeni situation. The uncom-
mitted position of the United States in Yemen allowed its Foreign Office
to act as a mediator between Egyptian, Saudi, and Yemeni interests during
the first months of the conflict. Peter Somerville-╉Large, an Irish journalist
reporting from Yemen during the civil war, observed that, despite the offi-
cial recognition of the YAR, Americans were equally as popular with royal-
ists because the tanks and military hardware used by Egyptians were all
Russian, not American. He explained that “because the Americans did not
openly help the republicans it was assumed among the [r]â•„oyalists that they
secretly supported the Imam, and had only recognized the new regime for
devious diplomatic motives.”77
During the Yemen Civil War, decision making on the Yemeni situa-
tion was moved from the State Department to the White House. Concern
regarding the possible repercussions of the Yemen Civil War for US
oil interests in Saudi Arabia gave this local conflict an inflated sense of
48 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

importance for the Kennedy administration. Kennedy soon became so

heavily engaged in forming Middle East policy that senior staff member
of the National Security Council Robert W. Komer claimed that Kennedy
was functioning as his own Secretary of State.78
Robert Komer collected all the information disseminated from the
Saudi and Egyptian Foreign Offices and local intelligence relating to the
Yemeni crisis. In this role, he formulated US policy with the full approval
of Kennedy and sent the president summaries detailing events in Yemen
several times a week. As nearly every piece of material that came in or
out of the White House relating to Yemen had Komer’s “RWK” signature
affixed to it, members of the Kennedy administration often referred to the
Yemen Civil War as “Komer’s War.” Phillips Talbot, the assistant secretary
of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, gave his assessment of
Komer and the extent of his influence: “Komer is a tremendously vigor-
ous man… . He was the key man over in the White House on Middle East
things. Mac Bundy, I believe, worked basically from Komer’s analyses and
recommendations, and these went to the President in that direction.”79
In his biography of Komer, Frank Leith Jones explained that Komer was
nicknamed “Blowtorch Bob” because his “resolute determination to have
the direction of his superiors carried out was akin to having a blowtorch
aimed at the seat of one’s pants.”80
Komer himself admitted, however, that he was appointed to this posi-
tion by sheer coincidence of being in the room when the conflict first
broke out, having had no previous exposure or knowledge of Yemen.81 The
fact that Komer was not an expert on Yemen specifically, but was rather
“more a coordinator with a special eye for Kennedy,” underscores the
broader scope of the Yemen Civil War in the eyes of American policy mak-
ers in the 1960s.82 Komer’s lack of experience regarding Yemen was by no
means the exception in the Kennedy administration. Kennedy was very
clear from the beginning of the civil war that from the US perspective,
Yemen itself was not particularly significant. Komer, in very illustrative
terms, summed up how Kennedy felt about Yemen, that is, once he was
able to locate it on the map: “If this place was on the moon or the center
of Africa and the Russians or Egyptians or other people were not involved,
we couldn’t care less what went on in Yemen. It could be a head-​hunter
fight in the depths of New Guinea. As long as it didn’t impinge on our
interests, no problem.”83
Although prominent American politicians did not give thought to
Yemen prior to the revolution, Soviet machinations in Hodeidah were
 Recognizing the New Republic 49

clearly noticed. US policy throughout the Yemen Civil War consisted of a

single word: containment. The only question was how best to prevent an
escalation of the civil war that could potentially engulf the entire region.
Official US aims in Yemen were outlined by Phillips Talbot:

1. To keep the Yemeni conflict and its repercussions from spreading and
endangering vital US and Western interests in the Middle East, outside
of Yemen, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
2. To prevent the development by the Soviet bloc of a predominant posi-
tion in Yemen.
3. To encourage the prospects for a relatively stable and independent
Yemen.84

Imams Ahmad and al-​Badr did not have many fans in the Kennedy
administration. The CIA had become concerned by the increasing num-
ber of arms shipments and the amount of economic aid arriving in Yemeni
ports from Soviet and Communist Chinese sources during the 1950s.85
Sallal’s coup, on the other hand, seemed to have genuine intentions to
modernize Yemen. Robert Stookey, the US chargés d’affaires ad interim
to Yemen in 1962, was of the firm belief that the Yemeni imamate was
“ignorant, bigoted, venal, and avaricious.”86 In a telegram to the secretary
of state’s office in October 1962, Stookey justified US support for the revo-
lutionaries: “If ever a country needed revolution, that country is Yemen.
Its new regime’s stated policies we cannot possibly quarrel with. We have
opportunity here [to] align ourselves only reluctantly with forces of justice,
reform and progress. Let us seize it.”87
In isolation, the new regime would have been hailed as a great
achievement. The Egyptian support of the revolution, however, com-
plicated the matter. King Saud of Saudi Arabia justifiably believed that
Nasser’s presence in the Persian Gulf presented a direct threat to the
Saudi seat of power. On October 23, 1962, Cairo Radio warned Crown
Prince Faisal: “the sons of all the Arabian Peninsula lie in wait for you
and your family … Faisal, nothing but death awaits you”.88 Additionally,
Saud voiced fears that the success of Nasser’s revolution might inspire
a similar Nasserist coup in Saudi Arabia, possibly orchestrated by the
large Yemeni workforce in Saudi Arabia; a potential fifth column. King
Hussein of Jordan was equally concerned with the stability of his own
regime and feared a Nasser-​supported Palestinian revolution in his own
country.89 Although the Saudi and Jordanian concerns may have been
50 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

somewhat exaggerated, they managed to garner the attention of US pol-

icy makers in the Middle East.
The Soviet recognition of the YAR, followed in turn by the rest of the
Eastern bloc, brought the question of recognizing the YAR to the fore-
front of US foreign policy.90 The potential repercussions of US recogni-
tion were summarized by McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy’s National Security
Advisor:  “Our immediate concern is less with what transpires inside
Yemen than the prospect that our failure to recognize the new regime will
lead to [an] escalation of the conflict endangering the stability of the whole
Arabian Peninsula. Likewise, failure to recognize will result in termina-
tion of an American presence in Yemen and is likely to lead to a consider-
able increase in Soviet influence.”91
Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Sayyid Umar al-​Saqqaf expressed his
personal concern for the repercussions of Saudi support for al-​Badr to
Parker Hart on October 25, 1962. The deposed imam lacked both the
popular and military support to bring the civil war to an end, and would
only attract a more protracted Egyptian attack against the royalists and
their Saudi backers.92 It was unlikely that Saudi Arabia’s poorly trained
15,000 troops would stand a chance against Nasser’s 13,000 troops, who
had arrived in Yemen within one month of the coup.93 Under these cir-
cumstances, it appeared that recognition of the YAR and a diplomatic
agreement for the withdrawal of Saudi and Egyptian forces from Yemen
would be instrumental in securing the Saudi regime. Saudi Arabia needed
an exit strategy that would allow King Saud and his brother Faisal to with-
draw from the conflict without giving the perception of being defeated by
Nasser. As John Badeau recounted in his memoirs, lacking another real-
istic option, the Kennedy administration resigned to supporting Nasser
after slightly ameliorating their perception of his communist leanings:
“Nasser was not an ideologue. He was a highly pragmatic man indeed; he
took some things from the communist system and some things from the
capitalist. At that time it was quite strongly represented in the Department
that this was kind of a vaccination, if you will, against a real onslaught of
a worse disease.”94
It was determined that Nasser’s support for the revolutionary state
would obviate Sallal’s need to turn to the Soviets.95 Mahmoud Riad, a
prominent Egyptian diplomat and ambassador to the UN from 1962 to
1964, noted that “during the Yemen Crisis, the Russians did not offer any
opinions, and did not bargain with us [Egypt]. Their main goal was to
find a foothold in Yemen.”96 Riad’s perspective, while certainly tinged with
 Recognizing the New Republic 51

elements of self-​interest, highlighted a disconnect between the Egyptian

offensive and Soviet policy. Although continuing to give Nasser a blank
check in their support of the YAR, the Soviets did not seek to control the
Egyptian policy. Rather, they were waiting for the opportunity, presumably
during the political instability which would follow Nasser’s withdrawal
from Yemen, to assume a dominant role in the YAR. Nasser “jealously
guarded his clients, thereby preventing the Soviet Union from gaining
any credit for their efforts” and shielding the Yemen Civil War from Soviet
dominance.97
Nasser was accepted by the United States as the lesser of two evils and
even as a potential obstacle to a Soviet Republic of North Yemen. While
Foreign Offices and media outlets attempted to decipher the Egyptian
rationale in Yemen, the French La Gazette made the observation less than
two weeks after the start of the revolution that “[i]‌t may be that Gamal
Abdel Nasser is fighting a battle at once in the vast distances of Saudi
Arabia, England, and Russia.”98 While certainly not intending to fight a
three-​front battle, Nasser’s very presence in Yemen essentially discouraged
Saudi Arabia, the British in Aden, and the Soviet Union from expanding
their influence over South Arabia.
Following the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, neither Kennedy
nor the US public had much patience for further brinksmanship in the
Middle East. Both Nasser and Sallal managed to placate US foreign pol-
icy concerns by publicly announcing their intentions to adhere to the
US vision for the resolution of the conflict. On December 17, 1962, Sallal
announced that the YAR intended to honor its international obligations
and live in peace with its neighbors. The following day Nasser made a
pledge to withdraw Egyptian troops from Yemen gradually, but only once
Saudi Arabia and Jordan withdrew their own support for royalists.99
The December 19, 1962, US recognition of the YAR, unsurprisingly,
did not stabilize the conflict. Although agreeing in theory to disengage
Egyptian troops from Yemen in exchange for US recognition of the new
regime, in January 1963, Nasser claimed that a “token force” of 30,000
troops was necessary to ensure the stability of the new regime.100 Jordanian
officials were upset with US recognition and threatened to “reconsider the
utility of dealing with Communist bloc nations … Jordan might accept
Soviet aid missions as a prelude to the establishment of formal diplomatic
relations with the USSR.” While this scenario was unlikely, the Jordanians
believed it was essential to increase their “nuisance value” to get the United
States to pay attention to their views.101
52 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Komer optimistically suggested a continuation of the current course of

diplomacy: “I conclude that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Advantages of trying to keep war from flaring up again in first place out-
weigh those of getting out from under a faltering disengagement scheme.
More preventative diplomacy just looks better than risking another
blow-​up.”102
Reports of Egyptian and YAR incursions into Saudi territory and the
British-​administered Aden Protectorate continued to arrive at the State
Department throughout the first few months of 1963, threatening the
spread of conflict into neighboring territories.103 Nasser began contin-
gency military preparations, which included placing naval units, includ-
ing submarines, motor torpedo boats, and destroyers, in an advanced state
of readiness. The UAR was also continuously moving military equipment
and personnel to Yemen in preparation for air and naval attacks on towns
along the Saudi Red Sea Cost and the Saudi-​Yemeni border. The Egyptian
airfield Rad Banas, less than 300 miles across the Red Sea from Jeddah,
was modified to accommodate MIGs and IL-​28s. The Saudis also pre-
pared for a military confrontation by ordering troops to Red Sea coast posi-
tions, improving anti-​aircraft defenses for towns and airfields and shifting
nationalguard positions to southern border area.104
Internally, the YAR was in serious financial trouble, needing significant
aid “until it can get house in order and begin to satisfy revolutionary prom-
ises.”105 The “house,” however, was in complete disarray. A military stale-
mate necessitated additional Egyptian reinforcements, as Sallal’s regime
was not able to subdue the royalist force in the north and northeast tribal
areas. The rising frequency of Egyptian air raids on royalist strongholds
continued to foster virulent anti-​Nasser sentiments among the northern
tribes. It seemed reasonable to conclude that Sallal’s regime could not
survive without continual Egyptian military intervention. According to a
CIA estimate, with a premature UAR exit the Soviets were poised to gain
unrestricted access to Yemeni airfields, and so set up a staging ground for
communist penetration in Africa.106 The instability of Sallal’s regime cast
further doubt on the ability of Yemenis to govern Yemen, leading some
members of the Kennedy administration to advocate a permanent Saudi
presence in Yemen as an obstacle to Soviet expansion.107
Despite the bleak CIA assessment, Komer, representative of the minor-
ity opinion in the administration by that point, maintained a level of tepid
optimism, declaring: “I’m convinced that if we can keep the Saudis turned
off and the Egyptians from being stupid, we have a controllable situation
 Recognizing the New Republic 53

which can be gradually damped down.” US policy objectives were sub-

sequently restated as:  “preventing Yemen war from spreading into full-​
fledged intra-​Arab conflict (with risk of overt US/​USSR involvement), and
protecting our Saudi clients from their own folly while still not compromis-
ing our overall UAR policy.”108
The US mission to the UN at first suggested dispatching to Yemen the
Italian diplomat Pier Pasquale Spinelli, former UN representative to the
Middle East in 1958. UN Secretary General U Thant rejected the request
because he did not want to seem too closely aligned with US interests.
U Thant’s developing-​world proclivity and predilection for nations such
as the UAR and YAR would continue to serve as an impediment to UN
operations during the Yemeni conflict. He feared being accused by Soviets
of supporting his predecessor’s (Dag Hammarskjöld’s) pro-​ American
policy. In as such, U Thant insisted that the entire Security Council
(the United States and USSR included) agree to any UN action taken in
Yemen. Following the UN refusal to act, the United States then sent its
own mission led by James Terry Duce, the vice president of ARAMCO
and a personal friend of Saudi Crown Prince Faisal. Faisal refused to
agree to a withdrawal of support for royalists, citing worries over Egyptian
meddling.109
From February through April of 1963, Ellsworth Bunker, the seasoned
US mediator and Kennedy’s special emissary, dedicated an intense six
weeks of “shuttle diplomacy” between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and New York
to negotiate a disengagement settlement.110 Diplomacy during this conflict
was no easy task given the diverging Egyptian, Saudi, and Yemeni national
policy goals. Nasser wanted the Saudis to cease their aid to the royalists
immediately and promised a gradual withdrawal at some time thereafter.
Nasser’s logic in forcing the Saudis to withdraw support first was to fin-
ish off pockets of royalist resistance prior to his own withdrawal, thereby
securing the YAR.111 The Saudis demanded Nasser’s simultaneous with-
drawal specifically to avoid this scenario.
Sallal, who had been consulted by UN representative Ralph Bunche,
wished for the sky by asking for a complete Saudi withdrawal, the exile of
the entire Hamid al-​Din family from the Peninsula, and firm assurance
that Britain and Saudi Arabia would withdraw all “rebel” infiltrators from
Yemen and recognize the YAR, all which essentially amounted to win-
ning the Yemen Civil War on his behalf. In return, Sallal would not inter-
vene in Saudi Arabia or Aden, actions that his fledgling republican army
was hardly in a condition to carry out in any event.112 Further negotiations
54 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

avoided consulting with the YAR as a reaction to both Sallal’s audacious

requests and the Saudi protests over the unwillingness of mediators to
speak with the Imam al-​Badr and his royalist opposition. To make mat-
ters worse, Bunche’s meetings in Yemen had gotten off to a bad start in
February 1963 when a “qat-​chewing crowd of Yemenis” began to rock his
car in protest upon his entry to the city of Ta’iz.113
Kennedy’s updated policy, outlined by National Security Memorandum
227 issued on February 27, 1963, called for a special presidential emis-
sary to the region and the dispatch of a US Air Force squadron to Saudi
Arabia.114 In an effort to placate Saudi security fears, Kennedy commis-
sioned Operation Hard Surface, a squadron of eight US planes stationed
in Dharan, a major oil administrative center in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern
Province and the headquarters for ARAMCO.115 Komer explained that the
presence of the US squadron, although under strict orders not to be used
in combat, was meant to send a clear message to Nasser that the United
States would not tolerate continued incursions into Saudi territory.116
Nonetheless, Kennedy told Komer, “I don’t want the squadron out there
until after we are 99 percent certain it won’t have to be used.”117 Secretary
of State Dean Rusk concurred when he told Bunker before he left to the
Yemen mission: “Be sure to tell Faisal that we will not be dragged into his
little war in the Yemen.”118
In the beginning of April 1963, during a meeting in Nasser’s home
in Manshiyat al-​Bakri, Badeau and Bunker secured Nasser’s commit-
ment to gradually disengage the Egyptian military from Yemen with a
simultaneous Saudi cessation of aid to the royalists, although he insisted
on leaving some remaining Egyptian “military advisors.”119 Bunker con-
ferred the success of his diplomatic mission to U Thant and stressed
the importance of an immediate UN mission to oversee the disengage-
ment process.120 Having secured Nasser’s commitment to the interim
withdrawal agreement, Bunker flew to Riyadh where he received Faisal’s
approval on an eight-​point proposal. This included the termination of
support and territorial refuge to royalist troops in exchange for the UAR’s
simultaneous withdrawal of an undetermined number of troops. The
UAR would be barred from taking any punitive actions against remain-
ing royalists as a punishment for previous resistance and a demilitarized
zone of twenty kilometers would be established along the Yemen-​Saudi
border with impartial observers on both sides.121 The Bunker agreements
were signed on April 10, 1963, and were subsequently passed on to the
UN for mediation.
 Recognizing the New Republic 55

Robert Komer advocated continuing the slow-​ moving negotiations

between the Saudis and the Egyptians, saying that “while they’re talking
they’ll at least be less inclined to start shooting.”122 George Ball, Kennedy’s
undersecretary of state for economic affairs, and Averell Harriman,
Kennedy’s assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, both expressed
concern that “forcing substantial UAR withdrawals would leave Yemen in
chaos with Soviets waiting to fill the vacuum.”123 In fact, in March 1963,
the Soviets had signed an aid agreement with the YAR worth approxi-
mately $20 million and offered the Yemenis education grants to study in
the USSR.124 The Italian minister to Yemen claimed to have counted 147
Soviet personnel and Soviet-​sponsored agricultural and industrial projects
in the port city of Hodeidah.125
Nasser himself assessed that his premature departure would jeop-
ardize Sallal’s government because 30,000 Egyptian troops alone
could not completely subdue the royalist imam supporters.126 Even a
partial reduction in the number of Egyptian troops would have been
interpreted as a withdrawal of UAR support for the revolutionary
state, potentially shifting Yemeni support to the royalists.127 Nasser’s
adamant efforts to remain in full force in Yemen were sanctioned by
US foreign policy. Kennedy still harbored visions of extending a hand
in friendship to Nasser, although there were ulterior motives in keep-
ing Nasser intensely involved in Yemen. It appears evident from the
exchanges in the Kennedy administration that no one actually thought
they could negotiate the withdrawal of Egyptian forces from Yemen. As
will be discussed in later chapters, allowing Nasser to remain in full
force in Yemen was in fact the underlying rationale behind US policy
in Yemen. Not only would the Yemeni conflict be confined to Yemen,
but Nasser’s army and activities would be confined to Yemen as well,
preventing him from undertaking concerted military effort elsewhere
in the region.
Robert Komer eloquently described Nasser’s plight in Yemen from the
US perspective. “Nasser is trapped in Yemen. It’s bleeding him, but he
can’t afford either the sharp loss of face in letting go or the risk of con-
fronting us by starting on the Saudis again… . On top of this, Nasser has
deep economic trouble at home, and now an open fight with the British.
Nasser cornered is a dangerous animal, and we want to be mighty careful
how we handle him.”128
Komer’s assessment of the Egyptian economy was not entirely accu-
rate. In 1963 Egypt was still in the midst of a five-​year plan for rapid
56 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

modernization.129 The cost of the Yemen Civil War and the foreign-​service
pay for 70,000 soldiers certainly contributed to the growing Egyptian
deficit during a period that saw an increase in Egyptian GDP and over-
all higher living standards. Nonetheless, Yemen was only one of multiple
aggressive Nasserite policies, which included agricultural and industrial
expansion, a massive propaganda machine, and an expansive social wel-
fare network.130
Economist John Waterbury further dismisses the widespread notion
that the Yemen misadventure led to economic disaster in Egypt, pointing
out that no official accounting of Egypt’s military expenditure in Yemen
has been made public. Furthermore, the Yemen intervention had little
bearing on the 1962 payment crisis, although it did have an impact upon
similar crises in 1965 and 1966. The major culprit of Egypt’s economic
troubles was the trade imbalance that continued to deteriorate during the
1960s, with falling rates of Egyptian export and “the gross inefficiencies of
a public sector called upon to do too many things: sell products at cost or at
a loss, take on labor unrelated to production needs, earn foreign exchange,
and satisfy local demand.”131
Komer’s expertise as an economist aside, he explained his optimism
about eventually resolving the Yemen crisis: “Let them all bleed to death.
Egyptians are having their forces bogged down, Saudis are spending their
money, and the Yemenis are suffering. When worn out, they will finally
reach a settlement.”132
During the fog of war that characterized the first weeks of the Yemeni
conflict, information was at a premium. Sallal’s capture of the radio sta-
tion allowed him to recover from his initial blunder of letting al-​Badr
escape Sana’a alive. Sallal and Baydani proceeded to propagate an inter-
national charade claiming al-​Badr’s death and the imminent victory of the
Yemeni republican forces. Nasser and Khrushchev wasted little time in
recognizing the YAR, under the assumption that their stalwart ally was
dead. The Saudis cited treaty agreements, tribal politics, Arabian sharaf,
and strategic advantages in declaring their support for the Hamid al-​Din
family that showed up at their border. Al-​Badr’s miraculous resurrection
and the momentum of the royalist opposition movement, however, turned
a domestic succession crisis into a global conflict. Saudi and Jordanian
alarm at Nasser’s intentions and their own domestic instability drew the
United States into the conflict as the mediator intent on pleasing all par-
ties involved.
 Recognizing the New Republic 57

The unfolding scene in Yemen was not one that could have been pre-
dicted by the ideological proclivities of either the United States and the
USSR or Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Nasser and the Soviets offered support
to an untested nationalist regime after forsaking their Nasserist and pro-​
communist ally al-​Badr. After careful consideration, Kennedy declared
support for a nationalist government, joining ranks with the USSR and
the Eastern Bloc, while at the same time London and Riyadh withheld
their recognition. No single foreign power or political entity in Yemen
exercised decisive control over local events; each party peddled its own
agenda. Foreign conflicts were transposed onto Yemen, further exacerbat-
ing the civil war and complicating the world’s comprehension of events
in South Arabia. This global political baggage continued to burden diplo-
matic efforts in the subsequent years.
3

Local Hostilities and International

Diplomacy

which grew in size over the course of the civil war,

T H E E G Y P T I A N A R M Y,
peaking at 70,000 soldiers, was the largest and most significant presence
when compared with the long list of countries, organizations, and individ-
uals who played major roles in the Yemeni conflict. Nasser’s military staff
quickly understood that the northern highlands of Yemen were indeed the
“graveyard of empires,” reminiscent of similarly difficult topography in
the foreboding Khyber Pass in Afghanistan.1 The successes and failures
of Nasser’s counterinsurgency efforts in Yemen and subsequent royalist
counterattacks reverberated among the parties involved, the impact of
which was felt most pointedly in international diplomatic efforts. While
Egypt fought with royalist forces and their allies on the local level, a sec-
ond civil war was being waged in the global arena, where local events and
foreign agendas competed for prominence in South Arabia.
During the first two and a half years of the conflict Egypt developed
a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. Egyptian military manuals
captured by Israel in 1967 and the publications of Bruce Condé, a news
correspondent aiding the royalists, provide the basis for the analysis in
this chapter. With every victory in the battlefield, Nasser appealed for inter-
national diplomacy and a ceasefire to secure the gains made by republican
and Egyptian forces. Egyptian attempts to determine the terms of disen-
gagement from Yemen commenced almost as soon as the first Egyptian
battalion arrived, and remained a constant part of the regional politico-​
military process.2 Significant efforts were made by the US and UN over
that period to bring the UAR and Saudi Arabia to a diplomatic agreement
and a withdrawal from Yemen. Imam al-​Badr and the royalists, on the
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 59

other hand, were not recognized as a state and not included in interna-
tional diplomatic negotiations. As a nonstate entity, the royalist tribal
armies were able to continue military operations unabated and without
fear of international sanctions or retribution. Appeals for international
diplomacy were followed by royalist counter-​offensives that rolled back
many of the Egyptian territorial gains and imperiled the sustainability
of Sallal’s regime. Nasser’s ultimate about-​face and refusal to withdraw
Egyptian troops in accordance with multiple international agreements
was a response to the reality of the battlefield rather than a premeditated
diplomatic ploy to buy time for his troops.3 This depiction of events in
Yemen runs counter to the narrative of the civil war from US, British, and
UN perspectives, which instead accused Nasser of manipulating interna-
tional parties with false promises of withdrawal.4

Mutual Limitations and the First

Weeks of the War
The first Egyptian soldiers to arrive in Yemen in October 1962 landed at the
Red Sea port of Hodeidah with no maps, no previous military experience
in mountainous terrain, and no understanding of the tribal opposition to
the republic. What Nasser did understand was that without Egyptian help
the YAR army and tribal supporters of the republic would not be able to
secure the capital city for longer than a few weeks.
Upon their arrival, the Egyptians validated rumors of the decrepit state
of Imam Ahmad’s weapons supplies and armed forces. Yemen’s navy con-
sisted of only two motor boats in Hodeidah. A reported fifty Yemeni cadets
were training in Italy as paratroopers or pilots, but at that point they had
not graduated into regular service in the Yemeni army. Imam Ahmad had
ordered the dismantling of the few Yemeni planes that had been shipped,
and stored the various parts in caves around Sana’a.5 The airports in
Sana’a, Hodeidah, Ta’iz, and Sa’dah (see Fig. 3.1) were little more than dirt
runways and in need of serious modernization.6
Fearing they would be used against him, Imam Ahmad had ordered
artillery shells hidden in practically inaccessible large caves on the top
of Jabal Nuqum, the tallest mountain near Sana’a. The supplies could
only be transferred down by camel, which could carry only two cases of
ammunition on two round trips per day, maximum, down the mountain.7
Had the Egyptians not arrived with their own munitions, this would have
been the only method, albeit laborious and time consuming, to arm the
60 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Saudi Arabia

Oman

Sa’dah

Yemen
Red Sea Hajjah
Ma’rib
Sanaa
Eritrea Hodeidah

Ta’izz

Gulf of Aden
Ethiopia
Djibouti

Somalia 0 100 mi

Somaliland 0 100 km

Figure 3.1  Map of Egypt’s strategic triangle. Created by author.

republic’s armored units consisting of thirty-​one tanks and ninety-​five

armored vehicles, which had already used much of their ammunition in
the shelling of Imam al-​Badr’s palace. Egyptian technicians were equally
surprised to discover that the spare parts for artillery pieces in Sana’a were
stored in a warehouse 200 miles away in Ta’iz. Large-​scale UAR efforts
were underway to locate, document, and repair these artillery pieces to
working condition. Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Army, Field Marshal
Muhammad ‘Abd al-​Hakim Amer, founded artillery schools in Sana’a
and Hodeidah to train Yemeni soldiers in artillery use, as the majority
of the YAR army had little experience with such weaponry. The Yemeni
army was deemed antiquated and far behind the rest of the Arab world,
and in need of significant Egyptian military aid, with the eventual goal of
transferring security responsibilities to a modernized Yemeni republican
military.8
During the first phase of the war, urban areas were the focus of repub-
lican and Egyptian attention for multiple reasons. The Free Yemeni
Movement and the 1962 coup were fomented and supported by a largely
urban population. Rural and village areas, on the other hand, tended to
associate more readily with the religiously conservative allegiance to the
imam. Cities in Yemen were built on mountaintops with outer houses
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 61

built of stone with slots for firing, a defensive asset to forces holding the
city. Large villages and cities were located near significant sources of drink-
ing water, of utmost importance to the increasing size of the Egyptian
military presence. In order to secure an urban network, road engineering
projects were needed to connect the cities and villages and prepare them
for motorized military transport, as most of the roads in Yemen were then
only capable of supporting animal transport.9 The three cities of Sana’a,
Hodeidah, and Ta’iz constituted the “strategic triangle” at the crux of
Egyptian military control and Sallal’s political and economic strength. All
other offensive and defensive strategies focused on the security of this
triangle and the maintenance of its interconnected road network.

Battle for Sa’dah
The republican forces entered the first weeks of the revolution with a clear
military plan in what would amount to a race against the clock until Imam
al-╉Badr was able to gather a sufficiently organized tribal opposition to
Sallal. The northern cities of Sa’dah and Hajjah were traditionally the epi-
centers of the Imam’s support during times of political crisis. Following
the 1948 and 1955 coups, Imam Ahmad and his supporters established a
strategic base in the Hajjah fortress and from there led a tribal army in an
attack on the capital city of Sana’a. Given the importance of these two cit-
ies to the counter-╉revolutionary movement, they became among the most
important targets of the first republican offensives and were essential to
garnering early support for the YAR in 1962.
Within two weeks of the coup, Prince Hassan captured Sa’dah, Ma’rib
and other centers in the northern region of al-╉Jawf. Following numerous
royalist military triumphs, additional tribes announced their opposition
to the republic and their allegiance to the imam. Hassan continued mov-
ing his troops southward, preparing for an attack on Sana’a and on the
republican ruling apparatus. Egyptian intervention and the arrival of aer-
ial support for republican troops turned the tide of the battle, stemming
the royalist advance on the capital.10 The most representative battle for
the military significance of the Egyptian army occurred in Sa’dah in the
second half of October 1962.
At the end of October 1962, a unit of Egyptian paratroopers arrived in
Sa’dah to establish an airfield and secure roads for Egyptian troop move-
ments to the northern city. Part of the 18th Egyptian paratrooper brigade
arrived in Sa’dah without incident and established an Egyptian base. On
62 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

the way back toward Sana’a to link up with Egyptian ground troops, the
paratroopers were ambushed by tribesmen from the Hashid federation
and were forced to return to the relative safety of Sa’dah. Within days,
tribal militias loyal to the imamate placed a siege around the Egyptians
in the city. Aided by Sa’dah locals who had declared their support for the
YAR, the paratroopers repelled numerous royalist attacks on the city.11
On November 8, 1962, the rest of the 18th paratrooper brigade arrived
from the coast to reinforce the Egyptian position in Sa’dah. Royalist forces,
however, took control of the main roads, thus preventing reinforcements
from reaching the city, and concentrated artillery fire on the Sa’dah airport
in an attempt to cut off the Egyptian air supply as well. The royalist coordi-
nation and tactics were more organized than the paratroopers had antici-
pated, causing one Egyptian officer to claim:  “The enemy’s tactics were
based on sound military reasoning; evidence of foreign leadership behind
it, planning its missions, providing it with funds, weapons, ammunition
personnel, and specialists.”12 In reality, foreign mercenaries fighting for
the royalists did not arrive in Yemen until many weeks later.
On November 27, the 18th brigade, supported by an Egyptian armored
division that had arrived from Sana’a, launched an offensive to retake the
main road into Sa’dah and break the siege. The brigade was split into four
groups equipped with three-​ton trucks carrying 37mm cannons and 1.5-​ton
trucks equipped with machine guns. The first group secured two shoul-
ders of the main road in a nighttime raid that relied on heavy fire from
82mm mortars. The group’s progress was halted when they found four
barriers two hundred to three hundred meters apart with rows of antitank
spikes in between. Engineers attempted to disable the barriers, but when
one armored 4x4 vehicle exploded from a roadside bomb, the air force
was called in to strafe the road and destroy the barriers. By the afternoon,
the group managed to secure a hilltop fortress overlooking the city, where
they established a defensive position. The next evening, the second group
of Egyptians was forced to halt midway on the evening of November 28,
in the face of heavy fire from the royalist-​held pass of al-​Amasiya, manned
by 500 tribesmen armed with guns, cannons, mortars, and 75mm recoil-
less rifles. Heavy Egyptian return fire forced the tribesmen to retreat from
their position to the nearby mountains. Egyptian troops then made the
error of chasing tribesmen into the mountains and were ambushed; they
suffered heavy losses. Egyptian commanders again blamed the losses on
foreigners serving the imam, claiming to have found dead foreign sol-
diers, foreign papers, gold lira, and foreign currency—​evidently proof that
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 63

foreigners were behind royalist success.13 They were not willing to believe
that Yemeni commoners could outdo the Egyptian army. In reality, Egypt’s
army, trained for desert warfare, was ill-​equipped to conduct mountainous
combat.
The third and fourth groups were sent to subdue the estimated 1,500
royalist forces guarding the al-​San’ara pass, a winding and narrow road
that was the only approach to the city of Sa’dah from the south. As the
Egyptian scouts approached the pass, they came under heavy fire that cut
off their wireless connection with the rest of the brigade. Another scout-
ing unit was sent and suffered casualties, losing several armored vehicles
in the process. Although unable to establish a wireless connection with
the two frontline scout units, the Egyptian officers were, to their great for-
tune, able to make contact with the besieged paratroopers in Sa’dah, who
described the location and strength of the tribesmen from behind enemy
lines. With this timely positioning information, Egyptians bombarded
enemy positions with artillery fire, forcing them to retreat and open the
pass.14 With the al-​San’ara pass open, Egyptian heavy artillery were trans-
ported to frontline positions, overwhelming the southern remnants of the
Sa’dah siege and delivering a blow to the royalist attempt at securing the
northern capital. On the morning of November 30, UAR troops entered
Sa’dah and established a defensive perimeter.15
The battle of Sa’dah ended in a virtual stalemate. Egyptian troops held
a garrison in the city itself and on an overlooking hilltop. Royalist tribes-
men held several other overlooking hills, with neither side able to drive
the other from their defensive positions. At this early stage in the war,
the royalist tribes were able to confront the Egyptian army directly in the
battlefield, as both sides had access to heavy artillery and munitions. For
the Egyptian army, it became clear that success on the battlefield in Yemen
was contingent upon their ability to amass a greater advantage in muni-
tions and to utilize air cover as often as possible. The lessons learned in
the Sa’dah battlefield factored into a more concentrated Egyptian attack as
part of the Ramadan Offensive in 1963.
From the perspective of the United States and Western European
nations, the initial gains made by republican and Egyptian forces were
sufficient to recognize the new Yemeni republic on December 19, 1962,
as it seemed that the YAR was in control of the majority of the country
with the exception of a few border areas. US officials noted in particular
that the republicans were in possession of the major urban areas and the
majority of Yemen’s population. Although royalists held larger swaths of
64 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

territory, these constituted mostly tribal, rural, and desert areas of sparse
population.16 In December 1962, Nasser agreed to disengage Egyptian
troops from Yemen in exchange for US recognition of the new regime.
His commitment would, however, be short-​lived.

Royalist Counteroffensive:
December 1962–​January 1963
Imam al-​ Badr’s “resurrection” in November 1962 inspired northern
Yemeni tribes to contribute to a royalist offensive against Egyptian troops.
Al-​Badr’s uncle, Hassan, along with other members of the Hamid al-​Din
family (see Fig.  3.2), led tribal militias in recapturing Ma’rib and Harib
pushing the frontlines westward towards Sana’a. The royalist military
effort was supported by monetary aid and arms shipments from the Saudi
monarchy to the north.
The main Hamid al-​Din royalist generals were uncles and first cousins
to al-​Badr. Hussein, one of former Imam Yahya’s sons, had six sons of
his own: Muhammad, Abdullah, Hassan, Ahmad, Ali, and Yahya, with
the surname “al-​Hussein.” Abdullah, who was a third-​year student at the
American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1962, led the battle in al-Jawf. His
brothers Ahmad, who trained in an Egyptian military school, and Ali, who
was studying political science at AUB and drafted al-​Badr’s constitution,
were killed in action. Al-​Badr controlled the royalist army in Yemen’s north-
west regions, while his uncle Hassan controlled the northeast. Hassan’s
six sons each took leadership roles in the royalist army.17 The hereditary
slave guards of the royal household, supposed descendants of Christian
Ethiopians who were cut off from retreat across the Red Sea after the failed
fifth-​and sixth-​century occupation of Yemen, were the most trustworthy
supporters of the imam. They were in charge of the royal motor pool and
transporting supplies and soldiers to front lines.18
Two battles marked a shift in the momentum of the battlefield in the
imam’s favor from the end of 1962 through the beginning of 1963. In
Sirwah, located twenty-​five miles west of Ma’rib, royalist eyewitnesses
described the slaughter of the 180-​man Egyptian parachute jump (three
planes of sixty each) near the Sirwah battlefield. Many paratroopers missed
their mark entirely while others were shot in midair by royalist tribesmen
on the ground.19 In Arhab, twenty miles north of Sana’a, twelve Egyptian
tanks attacked royalist lines of communication. The Egyptian armored
 Mutawakkilite Family Members of Direct Relevance to the Civil War

Imam Yahya
(died 1948)

Ali Isma’il ‘Abd al-Rahman

Imam Ahmad Abdullah Ibrahim Abbas
Hassan (killed in Hussein (Killed in coup, (Deputy royalist
(died 1962) (executed 1955) (Executed 1955) (Executed 1955)
coup 1962) 1962) PM, 1962–65)

Imam
Muhammad al- Hassan Hassan Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad Abdullah Ayman
Badr

Abbas Abdullah Hussein Abdullah ‘Ali Hassan Al-Muhsin

Abdullah Hussein ‘Ali Hassan Abbas

Ahmad Ahmad Yahya

Abbas ‘Ali Hussein

Muhammad Yahya

Figure 3.2  Hamid al-​Din Family tree in 1962. Created by author.

66 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

units did not position accompanying troops to protect their tanks, leav-
ing the tanks’ blind side open to attack. Arhabi tribesmen approached the
unguarded tanks and physically overturned them with tree trunk levers,
then burned them and the soldiers inside. The accompanying soldiers fled
in terror back to Sana’a, cutting the assault short.20 The royalist offensive
demonstrated to Nasser early in 1963 that the war was far from over.
In some instances, outdated Ottoman cannons were brought out of
storage in a last-​ditch effort to repel an Egyptian offensive. Shaharah, a
large mountaintop village in the northern district of ‘Amran, was the loca-
tion of an early clash with Egyptian soldiers. The hilltop town was armed
only with Ottoman-​era weaponry captured by Imam Yahya after destroying
an Ottoman army of 15,000 led by General Faidhi Pasha in 1919. The 1904
oversized Ottoman field gun known as “al-​Bisbas” (the pepper) had a large
supply of shells stored in the village. Al-​Bisbas was brought out of retire-
ment to repel an Egyptian attack in December 1962. Observers remarked
on the historical significance of using an Ottoman-​era gun against a
modern enemy: “The Turks were the best soldiers in the world, and the
Egyptians are about the worst.”21 Foreign observers described Egyptians
as “inept, and helpless to cope with guerilla mountain warfare conditions,
suffering losses of ten to one man-​to-​man infantry engagements.”22
What made matters even more difficult for Nasser was that Yemeni
tribesmen loyal to the republic could not be counted on to support Egyptian
military plans. Although local tribes were given bribes in exchange for
their continued allegiance to the republic and small arms in exchange for
their military service, few of the tribesmen or arms ever made it onto the
battlefield, and when they did, they were disorganized and hardly consid-
ered an asset.23 Mark Millburn, one of the British mercenaries who aided
the royalists, ridiculed the republican army: “I am fairly certain that the
Republicans do not notice anything short of an army passing through,
unless their Egyptian masters are around.” On another occasion he
remarked: “Gone are all my illusions about the lean, hawk-​eyed warrior
defending his all against the aggressor. In his place arises a picture of a
shifty idle character, brutal to weaker beings and inferiors, out for what he
can get, yet servile and cringing when his bluff is called.”24
Tribal sheikhs and militia (see Fig. 3.3) preferred to hoard the weapons
for their own use and under their own terms of engagement. For exam-
ple, during an early 1963 campaign to uproot a royalist position along the
Sana’a-​Hodeidah road, a group of a thousand Hashid tribesmen under the
command of Sheikh Abdullah al-​Ahmar, along with thirty-​five Egyptian
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 67

soldiers, were given the responsibility of capturing an outpost on Jabal

Masur. Even after aerial bombardment and artillery fire on the position
for an entire week, the republican tribesmen were reluctant to attack the
weakened royalist position. Rather than follow the Egyptian-​led battle
plan, they were more interested in attacking one house at a time and pil-
laging the local population. The UAR army was forced to assume the sole
responsibility of reconquering Jabal Masur and its environs.25
While royalists paid the tribesmen one dollar per day of fighting, the
Egyptians expended a great deal more to secure the tenuous alliances with
profiteering sheikhs who often collected bribes from both sides. One tribe
was reported to have collected two million dollars from Egyptian authori-
ties for their military assistance, yet “before every battle sent messages
assuring the Imam they would shoot to miss.” An Egyptian officer was
quoted complaining that “we can never trust the Yemenis who come to
fight on our side… . [t]‌hey’re always likely to turn their fire suddenly

Figure  3.3  Prominent republican Sheikh Sinan Abu Luhum, the leader of the
Nahm tribe in the Bakil confederation. (JFK Library, NSF, Yemen, 9/​63 Box 209)
68 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

against us.”26 Republican tribesmen were not even allowed to ride in

armored vehicles with Egyptians.27
Patrick Seale, a correspondent for the New Republic, shared a descrip-
tion of the tribal stance toward the war that helps explain the difference
between tribal loyalties to the imam and those to Egypt:

“Whereas the Egyptians seem uncertain why they are there, the
Yemeni tribes are … enjoying opportunities for loot on a scale
probably unparalleled since the incense caravans of Sheba. I met a
man who had acquired 80 Egyptian blankets; another had a couple
of hundred cans of excellent Egyptian beans; children were dressed
in rags of parachute silk and every royalist camp was littered with
captured weapons, bazooka bombs, boxes of grenades and Egyptian
cigarettes.”28

Despite his commitment to withdrawal, in January 1963 Nasser claimed

that 30,000 troops were necessary to ensure the stability of the new
regime.29 Although Nasser was accused of deluding the United States with
promises of withdrawal, a superficial analysis of the map of Yemen in the
beginning of December 1962 may have led Nasser to conclude that the
civil war was indeed over and that the YAR could survive without heavy
Egyptian military presence. The strength and organization of al-╉Badr’s
opposition was, however, greatly underestimated, as was the significance
of the nonurban terrain and rural population of Yemen.

Egyptian Strategy and the Ramadan Offensive

To raise the morale of Egyptian troops fighting in Yemen, Nasser offered
higher compensation for service and the ability to purchase products
through the tariff-╉free Aden port and transport them to their families in
Egypt, duty-╉free. Soldiers and officers returning from Yemen would often
bring refrigerators, gas ranges, and televisions along with them. Higher
salaries for service in Yemen provided Egyptian troops with additional dis-
posable income to purchase goods on the black market. Upon returning
to Egypt those soldiers who had served in Yemen would be given privi-
leged positions in the government for themselves and their relatives.30
New hotels, upscale accommodations, and grandiose shopping centers
were constructed in Hodeidah to accommodate Egyptian officers and their
comparatively lavish lifestyles.31 The fringe benefits offered for service in
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 69

Yemen perhaps lends truth to Nasser’s claim to have received many letters
from military officers, with requests to transfer to Yemen, purportedly “for
the sake of fighting for Arab nationalism in Yemen.”32
The chief of staff of the Egyptian army, Field Marshal ‘Abd al-​Hakim
Amer, envisioned Yemen as his own “military fiefdom,” away from Nasser’s
oversight in Egypt. Service in Yemen among senior officers became a rite
of passage to higher echelons in the Egyptian government. Anwar Sadat,
President of Egypt from 1970-​1981, for example, was a central planner
of the Egyptian occupation of Yemen from the first days of the repub-
lic through his connections with Baydani. Hosni Mubarak, President of
Egypt from 1981-​2011, headed an air force squadron with troop transport
and long-​range bombing responsibilities in Yemen.33 Omar Suleiman,
Mubarak’s short-​lived vice president in 2011, also served as a senior offi-
cer during the Yemen Civil War. General Anwar al-​Qadi, the Director of
Operations during the 1967 War with Israel, first commanded Egyptian
forces in Yemen from October 1962 through November 1963 and was
instrumental in reconceiving Egyptian military strategy in Yemen.34 Al-​
Qadi had originally envisioned a five-​year mission to Yemen to secure the
revolution and create a stable Yemeni national army.35
There were other elements of political intrigue lurking behind Amer’s
“fiefdom” and the growing Egyptian military presence in Yemen. Amer’s
rapid rise in the Egyptian military and ruling revolutionary council consti-
tuted a potential threat to Nasser.36 The outbreak of the Yemen Civil War
presented Nasser with an opportunity to send Amer and his most loyal
commanders into the midst of an unwinnable guerilla war from which
there could be no political benefit to Amer. Nasser thus presented Amer
with an untenable position, as the sought-​after stability in Yemen could
not, realistically, be achieved, and an ignominious retreat would have
ended Amer’s political career. By perpetuating the quagmire in Yemen,
Nasser managed to keep his most powerful rival at a distance.
Despite the potential political pitfalls, over a two-​month period from
February through March 1963, Amer began to construct a counter-​gue-
rilla strategy called the Ramadan Offensive. This campaign consisted of
trial-​and-​error tactics aimed at securing the strategic urban triangle of
Sana’a, Ta’iz, and Hodeidah, and responding to the royalist counter-​offen-
sive. The Egyptian army increased the troop numbers to over 30,000
and embarked on a bold campaign to regain areas ceded to the imam in
the previous weeks. Royalist positions were to be pushed further north
and east of the triangle, specifically to target the imam’s supply lines and
70 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

mountainous strongholds. The tactics, supply lines, and overwhelming

artillery and aerial power made the Ramadan Offensive the most suc-
cessful of the Egyptian occupation and a future model for international
counterinsurgency operations.
The indiscriminate use of artillery shells and air power required end-
less shipping and transport of munitions and fuel from bases twelve hun-
dred miles away in Egypt. The main port of entry for the country was in
Hodeidah, where large cranes, storage facilities, and a capacity of 4,500
tons of fuel were used continuously by the Egyptian military. Two to three
weekly shipments carrying three thousand to eight thousand tons of sup-
plies set out from the Egyptian port of al-​Adabiya to Hodeidah. Aerial
transport by Ukrainian Antonov planes carrying five to seven tons (aside
from the weight of fuel) arrived in Yemen twice a day in addition to peri-
odic Ilyushin-​14 shipments. Once unloaded at the port or the airport, a
large number of trucks and pack animals carried the supplies to areas
north and east of Hodeidah and Sana’a. Supplies were delivered to inac-
cessible areas by helicopter, parachute, or small aircraft. During the first
year of the war, eighteen Egyptian vessels (aside from fuel tankers) con-
ducted 122 shipments—​an average of 2.34 per week.
The Hodeidah port entrance could only accommodate one ship at a
time, while the pier had room for four small ships or three medium-​sized
ships with a separate area for fuel shipment. The Hodeidah port had
three cranes, each with a five ton capacity. Smaller twenty-​five to thirty-​
ton ships carried supplies from the larger vessels to the smaller ports
north of Hodeidah. Deliveries from Hodeidah to Sana’a consisted of forty
trucks operating on a three day cycle: two days for a roundtrip and one
day rest and repair. Forty trucks, carrying forty-​five tons, on average, over
thirty days translated into an average of fifty thousand tons of equipment
being transported from Hodeidah to Sana’a each month. Trucks carrying
twenty-​three tons each made daily trips to other secondary outposts from
Hodeidah in the same manner.37
Frequent use of the Red Sea to transport equipment necessitated
a sizeable navy to patrol the 1,200 miles from the al-​Adabiya Egyptian
naval base to the Hodeidah port and the 200 miles of YAR coastline from
Bab al-​Mandeb northwards. Naval responsibilities included patrolling
shipping lanes, monitoring coastal security in Yemen, particularly in the
north, where royalists tried running supplies along the shore, and main-
taining a security perimeter around the Hodeidah port. In essence, the
Egyptian position in Yemen extended the Suez Canal security zone over
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 71

1,200 miles south to the Gulf of Aden. Large numbers of patrols around
port areas and up and down Red Sea coast and the required naval escort
for each military and commercial vessel constituted a substantial num-
ber of ships in the Hodeidah port. The Hodeidah port, however, had
limited capacity, thus creating long lines of military and civilian ships.38
The Hodeidah radar base monitored approaching aircraft and coor-
dinated the increasing sea traffic related to Egypt’s war effort. Major
hydrographic surveys of the Yemeni coastline provided the first mod-
ern detailed maps and of sea lanes along the Red Sea coast, facilitat-
ing smaller-​scale naval operations in the ports of Mocha, Midi in Hajjah
province, and al-​Luhayyah.39
The Egyptian air force was equally as important to the success of the
Egyptian occupation of Yemen as was the navy. Most UAR missions used
Russian MiGs from airfields initially based in Hodeidah and then in Sana’a
by 1964. Russian-​manufactured Tupolev Tu-​16 bombers flew twelve hun-
dred miles from bases in Egypt to bomb buildings and fortifications in
Yemen ahead of UAR offensives. Several Ilyushin-​28 jet bomber aircraft
were stationed in a small airport nine miles north of Sa’dah with a 1.5
mile runway, but were forced to relocate to Hodeidah because of the con-
stant danger of attack near Sa’dah. The Egyptian air force took to dropping
time bombs, as the delayed detonation frightened the locals who under-
stood these only as random explosions without planes in the vicinity.40
Taking further advantage of the tribal unfamiliarity with planes, Egyptians
equipped twelve Yak-​11 single engine planes with the standard four rockets
and two additional .303 caliber machine guns. Tribesmen would count the
rockets and unknowingly assume the danger had passed after the fourth
bomb was dropped. The planes would then make a second turn strafing
the enemy tribesmen who had come out to inspect the damage with a
barrage of gunfire significantly increasing the deadliness of Egyptian air
raids.41
Antonov An-​ 12 four-​
engine transport aircraft served as an “aerial
bridge” between Egypt and Yemen. The planes originally shipped to the
Sana’a civilian airport before shifting direction and transporting supplies
directly to the Sa’dah airport. Given the tenacity of the intense fighting in
the Sa’dah region, the airport would need to be “reconquered” every night
in order to secure the landing strip for morning shipments. The fuel sup-
ply in Sa’dah was low and the Antonovs were required to carry sufficient
fuel for a roundtrip flight from Aswan, to avoid depleting the local supply
in Sa’dah.42
72 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

During the first months of the war, four temporary airport facilitates
and seven heliports were constructed. Given the dearth of proper maps and
unfamiliarity with the terrain, pilots were reliant on navigational equip-
ment and radio communication. In order to accommodate the increasing
number of aircraft in Yemen, a massive effort was undertaken to pave new
runways and light them in order to facilitate use in day and night and even
after rain storms. In addition to the main airports in Sana’a, Hodeidah,
Ta’iz, and Sa’dah, eight additional airports of smaller size were placed
strategically within range of contentious fronts. Helicopters with 12.7mm
machine guns were stationed at each landing strip and airport and proved
decisive on many battlefronts.43
The first examples of this new battle strategy which featured over-
whelming firepower occurred in al-​Jawf, a neighboring region north-
west of Sana’a. Al-​Jawf had traditionally been a refuge for mercenaries
and brigands and in December 1962 became a source of munitions for
royalist troops. UAR troops encamped in al-​Hamidah, a village north of
Sana’a, in preparation for an attack on al-​Jawf with three battalions and
one armored unit. The first attempt at conquering the al-​Fajra pass into
the al-​Jawf region was a disaster, as the secondary forces lost their way.
Subsequent overflights pinpointed the enemy location, and the night was
spent bombarding the enemy by air and with heavy artillery. The next
morning tanks and troops with flamethrowers followed behind to extract
enemy troops from cave hideouts. The Egyptian offensive continued south
of al-​Jawf, conquering the city of Ma’rib as well, intimidating local tribes
with a display of heavy artillery along the way. In the process the imam’s
army learned quickly the degree of inadequacy of their artillery pieces.44
Part of the Egyptian strategy involved deceiving royalist units into
exposing their hidden location. For example, Egyptians soldiers lit fires
two kilometers from a royalist mountain outpost near Ma’rib and shined
lights as if there were a full assault on their position from that direction.
The royalist unit began feverishly firing their cannons and mortars in the
direction of the oncoming “assault,” divulging the location of their artil-
lery and subjecting themselves to subsequent Egyptian bombardment. In
the capture of al-​Hazm, the capital of Jawf, the Egyptians even managed
a successful thousand-​man parachute drop to capture the city in February
1963.45 This successful parachute drop was in stark contrast to the failed
Sirwah mission only a few weeks earlier.
Even with the advantage of aerial reconnaissance, pinpointing the
exact location of these outposts was difficult. As a result, Egyptian artillery
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 73

teams were instructed to excessively bomb a wide area with long-​range

artillery and smoke grenades.46 Collateral damage was not a consideration.
While large-​scale bombing certainly had a demoralizing effect on enemy
troops, the real and tangible utility of the artillery fire was actually hit-
ting the target. The key, according to the Egyptian strategy, was to draw
premature fire from royalist positions, note the coordinates, and com-
municate the positions to supporting aircraft and artillery. In February
1963, for example, Egyptian intelligence received word that the imam’s
forces had obtained shipments of 75mm cannons and mortars to Arhab
in preparation for an assault on a major Sana’a corridor. Two companies
of paratroopers equipped with sizable artillery units were sent to verify
the approximate location and destroy the enemy. During the first night,
a small group of scouts detached two headlights from a truck, attached
them to batteries, and placed the lights in a wooden box half a mile from
the approximate enemy base. The scout group, standing under cover a
fair distance from the headlights, flashed them on and off intermittently,
giving the impression that there was an approaching vehicle. Surprised to
see the “vehicle,” the enemy bombed the area, revealing to the Egyptians a
count of at least four 81mm mortars and one cannon. When the royalists
sent a patrol party to investigate, the Egyptians quickly left the area, having
noted the approximate location of the artillery.
The following night scouts planted four diversionary sets of vehicle
headlights in a similar fashion. This time, however, four armored vehi-
cles, with headlights off, were to approach from a different direction.
A second group, with two 120mm mortars that had a maximum range of
7200 meters, camped a mile from Arhab. Once the location was reestab-
lished using the headlight deception tactic, Egyptian artillery bombarded
the royalist artillery location and the four armored cars approached Arhab
with their lights off. As enemy fire began to subside, perhaps after one or
two artillery units were damaged, Egyptian 120mm mortars began firing
beyond the enemy position, giving the impression that they were miss-
ing the location while also covering the movement of the four vehicles.
Assuming it was safe to emerge for a moment, members of the royal-
ist artillery unit exposed themselves and were captured or killed by the
armored vehicles that had by that point reached the royalist defensive
position in Arhab.47
This developing strategy of heavy artillery was not without its diffi-
culties and inadequacies. Moving artillery between stations was a chal-
lenge, and there was a preference for artillery with greater range, albeit
74 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

inferior accuracy. Heavy artillery, for instance, would often get stuck in
the road to Sa’dah, where the 25mm cannons needed to be pulled by rope.
Even when the Egyptians were able to move the cannons freely along the
road, the shaking was so incredible that it would cause damage to the
artillery pieces. The forward progress of artillery shipments was therefore
limited to six to nine miles per hour, leaving the slow-​moving units vul-
nerable to sniper fire and ambush. The 120mm mortar could only ride
on the back of a truck for this reason. At least half the artillery movement
was dependent upon air travel and trucks, increasing the expense and dif-
ficulty of transport, especially given the difficult terrain.48 In order to avoid
excessive transport over unfriendly terrain, the Egyptian army adopted a
policy of decentralization of arms depots, which ensured supply and inde-
pendence of action by local commanders.49
While Yemen’s mountainous terrain was an obstacle to heavy trans-
port for the Egyptian army, it was an asset for the imam’s army, whose
soldiers spread themselves thin in hidden outposts situated strategically
in caves along the sides of the transport arteries. Stone barriers twenty to
twenty-​eight inches wide, designed to deflect shrapnel, were constructed
in circular form on mountaintops or as straight walls in open fields, and
surrounded by pits.50 The royalists moved their artillery pieces and can-
nons out of hidden locations and caves only for a short period of time
to fire and then hid them away again, moving the weapons freely from
place to place, making them very hard targets for Egyptian fire.51 The UAR
planned nightly sporadic bombardments with incendiary munitions,
phosphorous shells, and flare launchers to frighten locals, draw groups
of fighters from hiding, and deprive enemy troops of rest before a major
confrontation.52
Egypt’s counter​insurgency, superior firepower, and impressive dem-
onstration of large-​scale naval and air logistics translated into significant
victories and territorial expansions. Armed with confidence following the
successful Ramadan Offensive, Nasser agreed to the Bunker agreements
and committed to withdraw Egyptian forces in April 1963. This success
did not last long, however, as many of the YAR gains were lost during
Saudi-​aided royalist offensives in the subsequent months. This forced
Nasser to maintain troop levels despite commitments to the United
States and UN. Even when his own Lieutenant General Anwar al-​Qadi,
an early proponent of a lengthy occupation, approached him in May 1963
and recommended that Egypt withdraw from Yemen, Nasser dismissed
the suggestion.53
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 75

Modified Royalist Tactics

The Egyptian army was trained to fight in an open desert; guerilla war
with an elusive enemy in a mountainous setting proved a challenge.
Heavy artillery and aerial bombardment may have succeeded in tempo-
rarily scattering the enemy, but when the Egyptians withdrew, royalist
forces emerged from hiding and retook the lost territory.54 The Ramadan
Offensive forced the royalist tribesmen to modify their tactics, particularly
in mountainous regions, and avoid structured military assaults against an
enemy with far superior aerial and artillery firepower. The imam’s army
preferred to cut Egyptian communications and ambush convoys, saving
frontal assaults for advantageous terrain and superior numbers.
The royalist base in al-╉Qarah, located in the al-╉Jawf region, was named
Camp Mansur, and the “Free Yemen Loyalist” (royalist) armies were
named “Mansur Armies,” which matched al-╉Badr’s adopted title of “al-╉
Mansur Bi’allah” (victorious through God). From Camp Mansur, al-╉Badr
communicated with troops on the front lines through coded radio mes-
sages from his bomb-╉proof bunkers.55 Many of them were trained as
snipers and marksmen, and so preferred small arms to heavy artillery.56
Farm-╉
boy tribal volunteers learned to use Degtyarev-╉ Shpagin 12.7mm
Soviet anti-╉aircraft (50-╉calibre) machine guns either captured from mas-
sacred Egyptian forces, bought from republican soldiers, or received as
gifts from “defector elite units of Sallal’s ‘National Guard.’â•›”57 Yemeni
tribal sharpshooters were rumored to have “picked off fifty Egyptians with
fifty rationed bullets in a single day.”58 They were stationed in groups of
six, and occupied outposts along the road; they communicated by lighting
bonfires, drumming sounds, or firing guns.59 Their small units, subsis-
tence rations of barley and raisins, and light munitions allowed royalist
commanders to maintain a mobile and barely discernible armed force
with the ability to inflict heavy casualties on Egyptian armed forces. The
impact of aerial bombing on royalist positions was not as potent as the
Egyptians had intended. The dispersed nature of the royalist bases and
their ability to hide in a vast network of mountainous caves made the
imam’s tribesmen difficult targets for the UAR air force. For example, the
Egyptian bombing of al-╉Qarah never came closer than a mile to hitting
the imam’s base and cave, despite reportedly dropping sixty-╉five bombs
in the area. Royalist witnesses claimed the total damage was only “one
stray dog killed and one farm wall knocked down.” The inaccuracy of
Egyptian bombing campaigns was partly attributed to the three-╉thousand
76 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

foot altitude observed by most planes for fear of anti-​aircraft ground fire.
Royalists have derisively referred to the Egyptian bombing raids as the
daily “milk-​run.”60
As the Egyptians began to secure urban areas and the road net-
works connecting them, al-​Badr envisioned a strategy that would place
a virtual siege on every republican-​held city. He planned to starve the
inhabitants into submission by attacking road shipments into and out
of the city and by conquering an agricultural region that had acted as
a vital supply of food for urban dwellers. In June 1963, following the
imam’s conquest of the Wadi Dahr grape-​growing region to the north-​
northwest of Sana’a under Prince Yahya al-​Hussein (5th army), there
was a republican shortage of raisins and almonds, which “rank[ed]
next to sorghum as Yemenite food staples.” Jabal al-​Loz (the almond
mountain) and the surrounding almond-​growing region directly east
of Sana’a had long been held by Prince Abdullah al-​Hassan, which fur-
ther exacerbated the food shortage in Sana’a and elsewhere. In addi-
tion, Egyptian bombing in royalist areas had destroyed dwellings,
crops, orchards, herds, and flocks with machine-​gun fire and incendi-
ary bombs, resulting in widespread loss of food supplies in a country
that scarcely had enough for basic nutrition. Imam al-​Badr’s Yemen
was not a UN-​recognized country and was therefore not eligible for
food aid, relying instead on their own hoarded supplies, a camel cara-
van trail from Saudi Arabia, and meager proceeds to purchase food.61
There was therefore little to offer in trade to the country’s urban areas.
The YAR, on the other hand, was eligible for US PL-​480 wheat sales
(the food aid program created in 1954 to dispose of domestic agricul-
tural surplus) and became further reliant on the UAR and the USSR
for their daily sustenance.
The roads themselves, particularly those frequented by Egyptian mili-
tary vehicles, were mined using M35 small mines. Additional explosives
were placed under the earthen floors of houses and lavatories to “upset
enemy morale” and perpetuate the notion that few locations were safe for
Egyptian soldiers. According to royalist reports, sixty-​three mines were
placed from September 1963 through January 1964 killing an estimated
2,585 Egyptians and republicans and destroying thirty tanks and nineteen
armored cars.62 What emerged in the first months of 1964 was a stalemate
between superior Egyptian munitions and al-​Badr’s effective and elusive
tribal guerilla force. In the summer of 1964, Nasser would make one last
major effort to end the war on his terms.
 Local Hostilities and International Diplomacy 77

Haradh Offensive and the Hunt for al-╉Badr

The royalist offensives in early 1964 forced the retreat of republican posi-
tions to the extent that the vital Sana’a-╉Hodeidah road was again cut off,
besieging the capital city. Although a heavy Egyptian military presence
reopened the road in March 1964, periodic royalist ambushes threatened
supply lines. As the situation grew more desperate, Nasser made his first
impromptu visit to Yemen on April 23, 1964, and announced an increase
in the size of the Egyptian garrison to over 36,000 in preparation for a
massive offensive in the summer.63
On August 14, 1964, Nasser launched a determined push on the
imam’s base in al-╉Qarah with a massive bombing campaign emanat-
ing from the new Soviet-╉financed and -╉constructed al-╉Rahaba airport in
Sana’a. The Egyptian pincer movement on al-╉Qarah consisted of troops
moving south from Sa’dah and north from Sana’a and converging on the
imam’s stronghold. Without the regular supply of munitions from Saudi
Arabia during the tenure of the UN observer mission, al-╉Badr was forced
to abandon his cave in al-╉Qarah. Merjan bin Yasser, a member of the “royal
motorized pool,” drove Imam al-╉Badr in his Dodge Power Wagon to the
furthest northern point on the Harad-╉Mushaf front, where the imam pro-
ceeded on foot to al-╉Mushaf. From there al-╉Badr split his force of 1,500
tribesmen, sending half to the Haradh front to join the Royal Guards and
half northeast to Jabal Razih. Following the departure of UN observers in
September 1964, supplies began to cross the Saudi border once again. By
the end of the month, tribal soldiers were rearmed and sent into battle;
they advanced to within thirty miles west of Sana’a. Fourteen thousand
tribal levies claimed to have massacred Sallal’s troops, destroyed twenty
Soviet tanks and twenty armored cars, shot down three planes, and sent
six hundred wounded Egyptian soldiers packing for Port Said.64
Aside from hunting al-╉Badr, Egyptian and republican forces endeav-
ored to close the border with Saudi Arabia. The main thoroughfare from
Saudi Arabia into royalist territory was through the Ma’jaz pass, flanked
on either side by the mountains of Jabal Razih and Jabal Sha’ar. The
Egyptian offensive targeted each mountain stronghold separately before
taking control of the pass, albeit for a short period of time. The unique
part of the offensive was that republican troops constituted the majority
of the soldiers for one of the first times since the early days of the Yemen
Civil War.65 Although al-╉Badr remained at large, at the close of the Haradh
offensive, royalist forces had been pushed back to the border with Saudi
78 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Arabia. Nasser approached King Faisal during the Arab Summit in

September to propose a ceasefire and a resolution to the Yemeni conflict.
The aftermath of the Haradh offensive followed the pattern of local
battles and international diplomacy since 1962, as Nasser jockeyed for
an opportunity to dictate the terms of Egypt’s withdrawal from Yemen.
Nasser appealed for diplomacy after each successful offensive, hoping that
international pressure would help the UAR and the YAR hold on to their
territorial gains by establishing a ceasefire. At each diplomatic juncture,
royalists came back down from their mountainous refuge and pushed the
Egyptian frontline positions back to the general confines of the strategic
triangle of Sana’a, Ta’iz, and Hodeidah. Rather than face negotiating from
a position of relative weakness inflicted by the royalist counteroffensive,
Nasser repeatedly renewed his offensive, reneging on international com-
mitments for a ceasefire and troop withdrawal. In the first month of the
civil war in 1962, Egypt captured Sa’dah and established control over the
majority of urban areas in the country. Imbued with misplaced confidence
of an impending victory, Nasser committed to withdrawing his troops in
exchange for US recognition of the YAR on December 16, 1962. The first
royalist counteroffensive led by al-​Badr quickly reversed Nasser’s inten-
tions. Egypt’s massive Ramadan Campaign in 1963 was so successful that
Nasser agreed to the presence of UN mission to oversee the withdrawal
of all foreign assistance from the Yemeni conflict. Modified royalist tactics
and an emphasis on guerilla war tactics scaled back Egypt’s military gains
and warranted Nasser’s visit to Sana’a in support of plans for the Haradh
Offensive, which began as the UN mission was leaving in September 1964.
The offensive’s measured success convinced Nasser once again to pursue
a diplomatic resolution with the upper hand and conduct, over the next
two years, a series of international conferences aimed at reconciliation.
4

The UN Yemen Observer

Mission (UNYOM)

THE RAMADAN AND Haradh offenses and subsequent royalist counterat-

tacks dominated the narrative of events emanating from the local scene
in Yemen. In the concurrent international sphere an entirely different
battle was taking place between the old European guard of the UN and
the emerging influence of the developing world. This global struggle was
transposed upon Yemen from 1963 to 1964 and impacted the conduct of
diplomatic efforts and their later historical accounts.
In 1963, UN Undersecretary Ralph Bunche and senior US diplomat
Ellsworth Bunker embarked on separate efforts of “shuttle diplomacy”
between Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Egypt with the intention of establish-
ing the basis for the withdrawal of international players from the Yemeni
conflict. The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) was commissioned
to oversee the implementation of these agreements over a fourteen-​month
period beginning in July 1963. Contemporary and historical accounts of
the UN mission have described it as a failure from diplomatic, political,
and tactical perspectives.1 Other accounts have minimized the importance
of the mission in the overall narrative of the Yemen Civil War by relegating
it to a footnote or a few paragraphs at most.2
Critics note that rather than a withdrawal during the mission, there
was a notable increase in the size of the Egyptian military presence and
that Saudi military aid continued to arrive, albeit through more clandes-
tine and varied geographical locations. The overall mission was further
criticized for its apparent failure to approach al-​Badr and the royalists
with similar diplomatic entreaties. The supply and hygiene of UN quar-
ters were deemed dangerously inadequate, which contributed to the low
80 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

morale of personnel. Many of the journalistic and historical accounts of

the mission were further skewed by the negative US and British opinions
of the UN. For example, Michael Crouch, the British resident adviser in
Aden, summed up the way his cohort felt about the UN mission in Yemen,
describing it as “the mission from the UN anti-​colonialist committee …
sitting on the other side of the border making mischief.”3
Recently available UN and Canadian archives challenge the perceived
“failure” of UNYOM. In the pages of the archives, UN personnel continu-
ously reiterated the explanation that the stated goal of the mission was to
“observe” the withdrawal of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Simply stated, at a
certain point in the mission, there was no withdrawal to observe, a failure
on the part of the two belligerent countries rather than the UN mission.
The actual purpose of the mission was not to force an end to hostilities,
but rather to maintain a symbolic presence in the region, the fruits of
which would not become clear until after the series of peace conferences
that followed the mission’s termination.
UNYOM marked the beginning of a new era of UN missions during
the 1960s and 1970s that were hampered by diplomatic and financial
obstacles. In structuring UNYOM, UN Secretary General U Thant endeav-
ored to create a mission that was both uncontroversial and low cost, a clear
departure from previous UN operations of lavish expenditure. An amelio-
rated picture of the mission emerges from the archives, one that is starkly
different from the depraved conditions described by detractors. Reports
and complaints of inadequate supplies and low morale were more a pro-
test against Thant’s attempts to redefine the place of peacekeeping in the
UN rather than an objective testament to reality on the ground. UNYOM
was in fact a valiant effort to maintain a benign and limited international
presence in the midst of an intractable internationalized conflict, thereby
confining the global repercussions of the civil war and laying the founda-
tions for subsequent efforts at reconciliation.

The Emergence of Regionalism and

a Financing Crisis in the UN
When Swedish UN Secretary-​General Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane
crash on September 18, 1961, it marked the end to a “heyday era of a free-
wheeling secretary-​general” and an aggressive UN peacekeeping policy.4
From 1946, Hammarskjöld and his Norwegian predecessor Trygve Lie
had exercised an agenda controlled by the United States and Western
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 81

Europe and were guided by the priorities of the emerging Cold War global
conflict. The UN peacekeeping missions were dominated by a collection
of mid-​level countries, including Canada, Sweden, and Denmark in what
Canadian Secretary of State Howard Charles Green termed the “Scandi-​
Canadian axis in the UN.” Lester Pearson, who served as Canada’s prime
minister during the Yemen Civil War, is known by historians as the “father
of peacekeeping” and the public face of Canadian international diplomacy.
His championing of peacekeeping encouraged a Canadian contingent of
pilots to join the UN mission in Yemen.5
By the end of 1960, however, following a period of rapid postcolonial
independence in Africa and Asia, non-​Western countries constituted the
large majority of the General Assembly. This new Asian-​African regional
bloc called for a decentralization of UN leadership and a shift in focus
from the East-​West conflict to the regional economic development of
the Southern Hemisphere.6 Brian Urquhart, a former undersecretary
of the UN, explained that the emergence of the Third World in the UN
transferred discussion and significance from the Security Council to the
General Assembly, a situation with which neither the West nor the USSR
was comfortable.7
This regional movement gained a voice in 1955 at the Asian-​African
Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, bringing together twenty-​nine
regional states to formulate joint principles of economic development
and international relations. The Non-​Aligned Movement, the group’s offi-
cial title, met in Belgrade in September 1961, at the First Conference of
Non-​Aligned Heads of State, to formalize their commitment to avoiding
military agreements with the superpowers while continuing to support
national independence movements. Nasser was an integral part of the
movement’s leadership and would later use this context to justify sup-
port for Egyptian intervention in Yemen.8 In June 1964, the “Group of
77” formed the largest intergovernmental organization of developing
countries in the UN under the pretext of promoting their collective eco-
nomic interests.9 The regional politicization of UN power dynamics dur-
ing UNYOM’s mandate had a profound effect on the limited diplomatic
latitude offered to planners of the mission and observers on the ground.
In the search for a new secretary-​general following Hammarskjöld’s
death, the impetus was to choose a candidate from the Afro-​Asian bloc of
nations. U Thant, ambassador to the UN from Burma, perceived as a third-​
world country not involved “in a festering conflict that could alienate any
of the great powers,” was appointed for the position and served his first
82 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

term until April 1963. Thant was sensitive to Soviet charges levied against
Hammarskjöld’s Western proclivities, and sought to develop a persona of
neutrality and impartiality. This philosophy did have its limits, particularly
in relation to what Thant perceived as the “historic injustices perpetrated
against third world nations.”10 During his tenure as secretary-​general, he
oversaw the transition of the UN from an East-​West Cold War arena to an
institution forced to grapple with the priorities and concerns of the devel-
oping world. The mission to Yemen and the UN stance toward the conflict
were greatly influenced by Thant’s preference for the developing nations
of the UAR and YAR, his desire to appease the Soviet Foreign Office, and
perhaps an effort to secure support for a second term as secretary-​general
after April 1963.
In the midst of this geographic transition in the UN, a crisis broke out
in the newly independent Congo, drawing the intervention of a UN peace-
keeping mission, known as the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC),
amounting to twenty thousand troops over a period from July 1960 to
June 1964. UN forces racked up exorbitant bills and suffered many casual-
ties, including Hammarskjöld himself, whose plane crashed on the way
to a ceasefire conference. The chaos of the emerging civil war in Congo
embroiled ONUC in a complex domestic conflict that went beyond nor-
mal peacekeeping duties. ONUC was forced to take sides in a country
divided into four rival camps and was accused of having facilitated the
overthrow of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.11
ONUC’s mandate was established nearly four years after the begin-
ning of the UN Emergency Force (UNEF), a peacekeeping mission sta-
tioned along the armistice demarcation lines in Sinai between Israel and
Egypt. The financing of these two operations and of peacekeeping mis-
sions in general was a contested issue in the UN, with four distinct opin-
ions disagreeing over the responsibility for financing UN peacekeeping.
Soviet Union Deputy Foreign Minister Vasiliy Kuznetsov argued that the
aggressor nations should be responsible for maintaining their own inter-
national peacekeepers. Representatives from Latin America argued that
the permanent members of the Security Council should fund the missions
because “they have a primary obligation for the maintenance of peace
and security under the charter.” Latin American and Asian delegates also
offered an opinion that either wealthy nations or the countries with the
greatest economic interests in the region should pay the bills. Finally, the
Canadian delegates, representatives of one of the largest contributors of
peacekeeping forces, advocated a “compulsory payment principle,” as they
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 83

envisioned peace and security as a collective responsibility borne equally

by all UN members.12 Lacking consensus on the responsibility for financ-
ing the missions, Hammarskjöld established separate budgets for each
mission, to be funded by voluntary contributions from all UN members.
1963, the year UNYOM was approved by the Security Council, was
the most expensive year for UN peacekeeping costs, with the continued
administration of UNEF, ONUC, and an annual peacekeeping budget
exceeding $195 million, an amount ten times larger than the UN’s first
annual budget in 1946. This contributed to the overall UN financial short-
fall of $110 million in 1963.13 Members of these two missions were later
sent to Yemen to fill administrative roles in UNYOM, bringing along with
them their grudges and political tensions from Congo and Sinai. The def-
icits incurred as a consequence of financing UNEF and ONUC placed
further pressure on U Thant to run the mission to Yemen frugally and to
secure funds from the aggressor nations themselves, rather than from UN
resources. To make matters worse, the Soviet Union and France refused to
pay their share of assessments for UNEF and ONUC, further deepening
the financial crisis of UN peacekeeping missions.14
Ralph Bunche compared the crisis in Yemen to that in Congo and
stressed patience in bringing about results.15 He would later term this lim-
ited-╉budget approach as “tin cup peacekeeping,” a sure recipe for futility.16
Beyond the financial constraints imposed on the proposed UN mission
to Yemen, U Thant had “to ensure that each new mission was sufficiently
uncontroversial that no state would use its existence to justify further
attacks on the UN.”17

A Rough Beginning
Conscious of the need to both keep costs down and propose an uncon-
troversial mission to Yemen, U Thant sent Swedish Lieutenant-╉General
Carl von Horn, then serving as the Chief of Staff of the United Nations
Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and
Yemen to ascertain the potential needs of a group of UN observers. Von
Horn, described as “prestigious but stormy,” was to join UNYOM after
having served in Congo for six months in 1960 and almost two years in
Jerusalem.18 Following a long and illustrious UN career highlighted by
comfortable office positions, the rustic field mission to Yemen was seen
by von Horn as a personal offense bestowed upon him by U Thant.19 In
1962, von Horn’s wife Scarlett died in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem,
84 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

leaving von Horn alone with their fourteen-year-​old son Johan. His per-
sonal tragedy was confounded by his disdain for U Thant and the new
African states that had recently joined the UN. Upon arriving in New
York to accept his Yemen assignment, von Horn noted: “The old ambi-
ence was gone. The new states were reveling in the politically inspired
largesse of the great powers, and had discovered how well it paid to shout
and snarl and be abusive.” In condescending terms, he described mem-
bers of the nonaligned nations as “enjoying influence without responsi-
bility … using their inflated importance to band together to become a
pressure group.” Von Horn felt that the Americans and Soviets must have
regretted allowing their rivalry to open the door to these countries, as he
believed they were a “great embarrassment to themselves in the United
Nations where the balance of power had been seriously upset … contrib-
uting to the organization’s eventual decline.”20 Von Horn had great respect
for and friendship with former Secretary-​General Dag Hammarskjöld,
feelings that he did not exhibit toward U Thant, a matter that would
impact von Horn’s stance toward UNYOM. He later accused Thant of
seeming “almost entirely preoccupied with the political implications of
virtually every step which peacekeepers took in the field.”21
Thant had originally conceived the mission in terms of “not more than
50 observers, with suitable transportation, aerial and ground, for patrol
purposes.”22 In May 1963, von Horn returned from Yemen asking for two
hundred personnel, a million-​dollar budget, and four months in which
to oversee the agreement.23 This divergence in opinion on the size of the
UN mission marked the beginning of a stormy relationship between von
Horn and Thant that ended with von Horn’s premature resignation in
August 1963. The Soviet Union insisted that a UN mission should not be
sent to Yemen without explicit approval from the Security Council, set-
ting the timetable for the mission even further behind schedule.24 As if to
reiterate his disdain for Thant, before the official start of the mission von
Horn had already submitted a request for two weeks of personal leave in
July 1963.25
On June 11, 1963, the UN Security Council issued Resolution 179, which
called for the formation of UNYOM with the limited function of observing
the disengagement and reporting back to the UN Security Council via the
Secretary General:

The Security Council requests the Secretary-​General to establish

the observation operation as defined by him; urges the parties
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 85

concerned to observe fully the terms of disengagement set out …

and to refrain from any action which would increase tension in
the area.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt agreed to split the cost of the initial two months
of the observer mission, an effort that eventually cost a total of $1.8 mil-
lion.26 The YAR refused to contribute to the mission, claiming that they
were the “injured party.”27 The initial outlay amounted to a $200,000 con-
tribution by each country for a two-​month observer mission.28 A speech by
Saudi Ambassador Rashad Pharaon, explained Saudi Arabia’s willingness
to support the UN mission to Yemen:

The United Nations has justified its existence and shown the value
of its work on various occasions of international conflict recently in
Yemen. The conflict in Yemen is one between brothers, and it should
be settled, as Saudi Arabia has suggested from the outset, in accor-
dance with the aspirations and desires of the Yemeni people, for my
country is convinced that ultimately it is they who will decide their
own future. In view of the traditional friendly relations and spiritual
ties between the Yemeni and Saudi Arabian peoples, my Government,
which has sincerely collaborated with the United Nations, is prepared
to give its honest and loyal support to any effort designed to produce
a peaceful, just and equitable solution to this problem. We are sure
that the efforts made by the Secretary General of the United Nations
will help to put an end to this conflict and to similar conflicts which
might threaten peace in different parts of the world.29

Under the terms of the agreement, the Saudis would cease aid to the
royalists and the Egyptians would begin a withdrawal of its forces from
Yemen. A twelve-​mile demilitarized zone (see Fig. 4.1) would be established
on either side of the YAR-​Saudi Arabia border, within which UN observers
would be stationed to ensure the implementation of the Bunker agree-
ment. Another group of UN observers would keep track of the Egyptian
military withdrawal from the airfield in Sana’a and the port in Hodeidah.
The purpose of the mission was to “check and certify on the observance by
the two parties of the terms of the disengagement agreement.” In as such,
the mission was not tasked with an official peacekeeping role.
At maximum strength the mission had 189 military personnel, includ-
ing 25 military observers, 114 military officers, and 50 members of the
 43° 45°

18°
SAUDI ARABIA 18°

Najran

J zan Sa'dah

Hadrad

16° 16°

Hajjah
Y E M E N
SAN'A' Ma'rib

Bayhan Area
Al Hudaydah
Dhamar

Red Sea Zab d

Bayda
14° lbb 14°

ADEN
Ta'izz PROTECTORATES

ETHIOPIA
Headquarters
Observation post/Detachment

FRENCH Demilitarized zone

SOMALILAND Gulf of Aden

International boundary
12° Undefined boundary 12°

The boundaries and names shown and the designations

0 50 100 150 km
used on this map do not imply official endorsement or
acceptance by the United Nations.
0 50 100 mi
44° 45°

Figure  4.1  UNYOM demilitarized zone on Saudi-​YAR border. (UNA, S-​0656-​

0003, UNYOM DMZ map)
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 87

Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), supported by international and local

civilian staff. The majority of the staff was from Canada and Yugoslavia, but
others hailed from Australia, Denmark, Ghana, India, Italy, Netherlands,
Norway, Pakistan, and Sweden. The troops were stationed in Jizan and
Najran, Saudi Arabia, and Sa’dah, Yemen. The air unit consisted of 50
RCAF officers and pilots employing Caribou and Otter aircraft based out
of Sana’a, Jizan, and Najran.30 It was presumed that royalist arms arrived
in Yemen by sea via the Red Sea shores of Jizan and by land through
Najran.31
The Canadian Cabinet agreed to contribute to the mission on June 13,
1963. The Canadians provided twenty-​three RCAF fliers and two Caribou
aircraft based in El-Arish, Sinai.32 Paul Martin, the Canadian secretary of
state for external affairs, stated during the parliamentary approval of the
UN observer mission:

It is hoped that this will bring about the termination of a situa-

tion in that country which has become increasingly acute since the
establishment of the present republican government in September
of last year, and will help to avoid the danger of the internal con-
flict in that country developing into more widespread hostilities
throughout the area.33

Thomas Clement Douglas, a Canadian member of Parliament from

British Columbia added:

I wish to congratulate the government on having accepted this

responsibility, and to say that … we shall always give our support to
any contribution which Canada may make through serving under
the United Nations for the maintenance of peace throughout the
world and supplying part of a world peace force.34

From the perspective of Martin, Douglas, and much of the rest of the
Canadian Parliament in June 1963, it seemed that UNYOM had the poten-
tial to bring about “world peace,” or at the very least to contain a local con-
flict. While it might be tempting to dismiss the perceived potential benefit
of UNYOM as another case of misplaced Canadian optimism during the
1960s, there was in fact a shared hope among the UN and the United
States that the Saudis and the Egyptians would be willing to adhere to the
tenets of the April 1963 Bunker agreements. The war was proving to be a
88 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

constant drain on the Egyptian economy and political apparatus, and the
Saudis were in the midst of a transfer of power between King Saud and
his brother Faisal. Canadian optimism was, however, dampened before
the observer mission even began.
As if in a prophetic omen of things to come, during an overflight of
Yemen on June 19, 1963, in preparation for the start of the Yemen mis-
sion, von Horn’s aircraft sustained damage from an unspecified source of
ground fire en route from Sa’dah to Sana’a. The immediate reaction was
one of alarm over the substantial risk of using low-​flying single-​engine
aircraft, vulnerable to ground fire from sporadic hostilities.35 Von Horn
sent Thant a vitriolic letter describing the incident and blaming Thant for
the lack of air support. Furthermore, von Horn argued, others should have
been doing the reconnaissance, as the task was beneath his dignity.36
In the aftermath of this incident, Canadian and UN officials suggested
that reconnaissance flights remain above a certain altitude in order to stay
clear of errant ground fire from belligerents. While the safety and wellbe-
ing of peacekeeping forces was of utmost concern, there was a perception
that the absence of low-​flying observation would seriously detract from the
overall efficacy of the aerial observation mission. Those advocating riskier,
yet more effective flight regulations, purportedly believed that royalists
and republican forces alike would immediately recognize the UN peace-
keeping planes and respectfully redirect their fire. Skeptics on either side
of this argument continued to make their cases on issues of aviation and
ground reconnaissance throughout the interim of the mission.
The debate over the relative safety of UN peacekeeping pilots was not,
however, limited to their flight altitude. Following the incident with von
Horn’s aircraft, U Thant requested that, for the safety of pilots involved,
no UNYOM missions should operate in areas other than those openly
observing a ceasefire.37 Prior to the start of the mission, there was no
actual ceasefire between the royalists, republicans, and Egyptians. The
only “ceasefire” zone was the demilitarized border area between the YAR
and Saudi Arabia. The limitation of observation to this area served to fur-
ther distance UNYOM from actual events in Yemen.
Following U Thant’s amended guidelines for peacekeeping pilots,
Canadian officials began to recognize the futility of this ill-​defined mis-
sion. It was becoming apparent that the “aim of the operation is to pro-
vide a face-​saving cover for this Saudi-​UAR disengagement which would
prevent a direct confrontation from possibly engulfing the whole Middle
East in war.”38 UNYOM was not intended to bring a stop to hostilities
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 89

between republican and royalist forces, but was rather a context within
which the Egyptians and Saudis could respectfully disengage without con-
ceding defeat.
Within days of arriving at the UN Headquarters in Sana’a, there were
already grievances from the personnel. Canadians complained of a lack
of provisions and believed that the water had been poisoned by Yemenis
who threw their dead bodies into wells utilized by UN officials. Multiple
requests were sent to UN headquarters for an immediate airlift of drink-
ing water. Brian Pridham, an official from the Arabian Department of the
British Foreign Office, expressed a great deal of skepticism toward these
tales of water issues: “The story about the water, as well as the water itself,
takes some swallowing. The lowest plain around Sana’a is renowned for
its wells, and even if the Yemeni had been so un-╉Arab as to pollute their
own water, it would have been far simpler to tap any local mountain spring
than to fly water in.”39
On July 2, a briefing was received from Sana’a: it complained of the
inability to boil water at a high enough temperature in high elevation
to purify water of high bacteria content.40 While in reality drinking this
partially boiled water would likely not have harmed the personnel, the
fact that this briefing was one of the first major issues from the mission
to Yemen is indicative of more serious problems in preparing for condi-
tions in Yemen. It was as if the troops had arrived from their previous
UN posts in Congo and Sinai only to discover, much to their surprise,
that Sana’a was set atop a mountain rather than a plateau.41 The purity
of water in Sana’a was representative of the greater difficulty of transi-
tioning UN personnel to the shoestring mission in Yemen, a new model
being advocated by U Thant.

The Mission Continues to Unravel

In protest of the unsatisfactory administrative arrangements for UNYOM,
General von Horn submitted his urgent resignation on August 20, 1963,
effective officially on August 31. He remarked in his letter of resigna-
tion: “When my duty-╉bound representations so often are boomeranged as
“unwarranted remarks” I feel having [sic] lost your confidence and there-
fore I have no other choice but to herewith tender my resignation.”42
Von Horn highlighted several specific areas where he thought the mis-
sion was particularly problematic. The purported goal of UNYOM was
to observe the withdrawal of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, a task the current
90 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

mission was not capable of completing. Based on the mission’s recon-

naissance, the Saudis were no longer aiding the imam’s forces across
the Yemen-​Saudi border, although this did not preclude tribal groups
from conducting their own trade. In a meeting with UK Ambassador
Colin Crowe, acting Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Sheikh Muhammad
Ibrahim Mas’ud explained “that Saudis have ceased all aid through official
channels, but cannot account for illicit arms trade.” In addition Mas’ud
reiterated that Jizan and Najran had functioned for centuries as markets
for the local Yemeni economy and as such attracted significant movement
of nonmilitary goods. This created further difficulties for the UN as there
was a need to distinguish between contraband and legal trade.43
Additional impediments along the Saudi-​Yemeni border further lim-
ited the mission’s ability to observe, as for logistical reasons aerial and
ground reconnaissance could only be carried out during daylight hours.
Given the intense heat during the majority of the year in Yemen, however,
much of the travel was conducted at night when there would be no UN
observers on site. Although UN peacekeepers solved this issue by main-
taining a fixed-​observer position alongside a main road for forty-​hour
shifts at a time, von Horn did not deem this sustainable for a successful
mission. For example, a UN ground patrol at one point observed eleven
camels and sixteen donkeys loaded with sacks and wooden boxes pass-
ing through the Saudi Arabian border town of Nahuga. When asked, the
leader of the convoy explained that all he was carrying was food. Believing
him, the observers let him through without having him checked or ques-
tioned further.44
Von Horn complained that he could not verify Nasser’s claim to have
withdrawn 8,300 troops through independent observation. UNYOM per-
sonnel did not have access to Egyptian troop transport facilities in Hodeidah
or the Egyptian garrisons in Sana’a. He believed that the apparent move-
ment of Egyptian soldiers was merely a rotation of troops rather than an
effectual withdrawal. In essence, from von Horn’s perspective, Nasser was
making a mockery of the mission and his agreed withdrawal. As if to add
salt to the wound, Nasser continued unrestrained aerial bombardment and
continuous encroachment on the “demilitarized zone.”45 According to the
eyewitness account of a USAID worker in July 1963, at least six hundred
Egyptian troops were seen disembarking in Hodeidah. Yugoslav Deputy
Commander General Branko Pavlovic added that despite the fact that
UNYOM observers were required to oversee Egyptian troop withdraw-
als, UAR officials actually had asked UN observers to leave the premises
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 91

during troop movements on numerous occasions. Unsurprisingly, during

these instances, reports confirmed the arrival of additional Egyptian sol-
diers to replace those who had been sent home as part of the usual troop
rotation.46
The second major concern noted by von Horn was the difficulty of
securing financial support for the mission. In agreeing to fund the UN
mission, the Saudis provided money while the UAR promised only the
equivalent value in logistical support.47 Von Horn refused on numerous
occasions to use UAR transports or facilities, as doing so would have com-
promised the neutrality of the mission.48 This difficulty in maintaining a
neutral and uninvolved position is best highlighted by the following two
incidents. On July 23, 1963, reports were sent to UN headquarters that
UAR aircraft were following UNYOM Caribou aircraft during flights from
Sana’a to Sa’dah. In a second incident in July 1963, UN aircraft were seen
bringing wounded Egyptian soldiers to Sana’a for treatment. Canadian
Secretary of State Paul Martin released a directive indicating that the trans-
port of non-​UN personnel should be limited to situations in which lives
were in danger and no other aircraft were in the region. Any extensive air-
lift of Egyptian or Saudi troops on UN aircraft would not only cast doubts
as to the neutrality of the mission, but might actually put UN personnel in
danger. Either side might otherwise consider UN aircraft as troop trans-
ports for one of the belligerent parties.49
UN aircraft was competing with the UAR for airspace, particularly
around Sana’a, where the old airport had no control tower and only a sin-
gle runway that was in essence a 14,000-​foot-​long gravel surface.50 These
circumstances were part of a deliberate attempt by the Egyptian air force
to use UN observers as a cover for bombing raids over royalist territory
in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Close encounters with UAR aircraft were
additionally a consequence of the language barrier between the Canadian
pilots and the Egyptians in the control tower who spoke no English. The
Egyptian air force was, however, able to communicate the need for priority
access to the airfield, barring UN aircraft from the field during Egyptian
maneuvers.51
In November 1963, Saudi Prince Muhammad ibn Nayef and Corporal
Saher ben ‘Abd al-​Amer reported seeing two aircraft passing over the Jizan
checkpoint before hearing explosions in al-​Kuba, a Saudi border town. The
attack occurred on Thursday, November 21, a traditional regional market
day during which four thousand people gathered on the banks of the local
wadi. When two airplanes approached from the west, people ran for cover.
92 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

After the planes circled once, they left toward the north, clearly displaying
their white color and UN emblem. When two more planes approached
from the southeast ten minutes later, the locals did not run, assuming that
these were UN aircraft as well, and then the bombing began. The attack
lasted thirty-​five minutes and targeted five trucks parked in the middle
of the market with bombs and gun fire. Among the dead were children,
women, and men from both Saudi Arabia and Yemen. UN Major Paul
Paulson recounted having visited al-​Kuba numerous times and not seeing
any suspicious Saudi military activity, claiming that the only purpose of
this UAR attack was “terror.”52
A third element to von Horn’s grievances was more personal. Von
Horn’s requests for airlift of material from Rafah were rejected because
of expense. Much to his ire, material would be sent via sea. Von Horn
perceived this rejection as a personal affront by Indian General Indar Jit
Rikhye, who was serving as military advisor to U Thant. General Rikhye
also rejected von Horn’s request for extra leave for his personnel as com-
pensation for the difficulty of operating in Yemen. This was part of a larger
debate that included the level of personnel salaries, sufficient supplies, and
hygienic accommodations, which von Horn and others deemed insuffi-
cient.53 Sargeant Robert McLellan, a member of the UNYOM personnel,
sent a formal request to UN headquarters taking up the same issue of com-
pensation and requesting an increase in salary given the risk entailed in
the UN mission in Yemen. McLellan insisted that he was not being greedy
in asking for more money, but that he was only advocating for fairness.54
On September 1, 1963, Yugoslav Deputy Commander General Pavlovic
took over from von Horn as interim commander of the UNYOM. He had
previously served in this capacity during von Horn’s two-​week absence in
July. Pavlovic faced additional difficulties, however, because of linguistic
barriers (he spoke little English) and so was replaced by Indian Lieutenant
General P.S. Gyani before the end of the month.55
During this leadership transition, Yugoslavia announced the with-
drawal of its ground forces from Yemen, following the end of the four
month original proposal made by U Thant. Without a presence on the
ground, the entire observation mission became reliant on aerial recon-
naissance. Furthermore, the declining effectiveness of the four single-​
engine Otters (see Fig. 4.2) in the hot and mountainous Yemeni climate
forced the RCAF to rely on the larger Caribous which fly at a higher alti-
tude, providing even less “observation,” although at a safer distance and
with greater reliability in the Arabian climate.56
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 93

Figure 4.2  UNYOM personnel inspecting a damaged wheel of a Royal Canadian

Air Force Otter aircraft. (UNA, Photo 159707, UNYOM, June 1, 1963, Najran, Saudi
Arabia)

In an attempt to find a solution to the absence of a Yugoslavian mili-

tary presence, Gyani planned for Saudi military representatives to be sta-
tioned at checkpoints along with UN observers. Saudi patrols were not,
however, to accompany UN observers into Yemen territory. The Saudi
soldiers were responsible for checking the contents of the convoy with
“a thorough scrutiny” while the patrol commander merely observed and
made notes for his report. UN observers could only ask Saudis to stop
vehicles and requisition contraband or ammunition, but the observers
were instructed not to inspect convoys themselves and certainly not with-
out Saudi officials present. The observers’ handwritten reports, found
covered in a layer of sand after decades stored in their archival folders,
detailed the movement of troops in the demilitarized zone, convoys
between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, air activity, hostile military activity,
and personnel and equipment redeployment; they made no indication of
UAR withdrawal.57
94 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

After insistence by U Thant, the Canadians agreed to continue supply-

ing members of the RCAF for a primarily aerial observer mission. Pier
P. Spinelli, the acting undersecretary and director of the European Office
of the UN, was brought on to serve as the civilian special representative
to the secretary general and head of the mission in Yemen. Although no
effectual Egyptian withdrawal was noted, it seemed that the very presence
of the UN in Yemen, even in a limited capacity, was a deterrent to full-╉scale
UAR assaults on the royalists or on Saudi Arabian territory. With this in
mind, Thant managed to secure five additional two-╉month renewals, con-
tinuing the mission until September 4, 1964. According to Thant’s reports
to the Security Council in 1964, while fighting continued in Yemen, air
attacks on Saudi border villages had subsided, with only a few exceptions.58
Although direct confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Egypt may
have been avoided, munitions transports across the border were grow-
ing more brazen. Heavy transports were seen traveling through the Saudi
border towns of al-╉Jara’a and al-╉Kuba, but vehicles were not checked by
observers, “owing to the hostile attitude shown by the drivers and vehicle
guards.” The trucks were, however, observed to be carrying “war materials
and soldiers.”59 The town of Jizan was also being used as a transport loca-
tion for munitions to royalist forces in the north and as a destination for
Yemeni tribal refugees.60
Prior to the end of the UNYOM mission, General Rikhye observed
that rather than reducing troops, Nasser seemed to have been preparing
to make a large-╉scale assault on royalists just as the UN mission was
due to expire on September 4, 1964.61 UN observers gathered informa-
tion indicating substantial Egyptian and republican troop deployments
in the planning of further large-╉scale assaults on royalist positions.62
The Saudis, however, did not need this report to realize that Egyptian
troops were not withdrawing from Yemen and were reluctant to con-
tinue funding UNYOM, finally bringing an official end to the belliger-
ent-╉funded mission.63

UNYOM—╉More than Meets the Eye

The UN mission in Yemen has been criticized not only for its failure to
end hostilities in the region, but also for restrictions placed on contact
with royalists, the limited observation mandate, and the conditions for
personnel.64 Recently available UN archives have shed light on multiple
aspects that counter these three perceived deficiencies of the mission. The
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 95

criticism of the mission was more a result of international controversy

than the actual situation on the ground in Yemen.
The principal complaint against UNYOM was its failure to engage
royalists, thereby hampering the mission’s ability to mediate a peaceful
agreement that took all sides into account.65 In reality, there were multiple
visits to royalist bases aimed at familiarizing Yemeni tribesmen with the
blue helmets and white planes of UN personnel. For example, in August
1963, Saudi Prince Turki ibn Abdulaziz al-​Saud (seen Fig. 4.3), the gov-
ernor of Riyadh Province at the time, was asked by UN headquarters to
make contact with royalists in Jizan on behalf of UNYOM. The announced
purpose of the meeting was to explore royalist reactions to UN personnel
and determine whether they would offer them protection.
The meeting took place on August 21 in the Sa’dah area, where UN
Major Larry David, an American fluent in Arabic with years of experi-
ence in the Middle East, met with royalist Hassan ibn Hussein. Together
they crossed the Yemeni border at al-​Kuba, transferring to a royalist Dodge

Figure  4.3  Prince Turki meeting with UNYOM observers in Jizan, July 1963.
(UNA, Photo 159705, UNYOM, June 1, 1963)
96 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Power Wagon, as the UN jeeps could not handle the terrain. Major David
was received hospitably, and royalist officials assured him that al-​Badr
would order the tribes not to harm UN officials and not to fire upon white
planes. Royalist soldiers offered their own assessment of the power of
Egyptian air supremacy in the Yemeni conflicts: “If the UAR aircraft were
withdrawn from the Yemen, the royalists would solve the problem of the
withdrawal of Egyptian troops.” This implied that Egyptian air support
was the republic’s only tactical advantage over royalist forces.66
In October 1963, Major Nicholas Doughty, a member of the UNYOM
personnel, traveled from Najran to the Yemeni district of al-​Hashwa for
a three-​day meeting with Prince Ali, the twenty-​two-​year-​old first cousin
of al-​Badr who spoke English, having learned the language while spend-
ing a year studying economics in the American University of Beirut. Ali
described an apparent UAR military build-​up northeast of Sa’dah and
offered to escort UN observers to the outskirts of the Egyptian military
site. In addition, given that UN officials were already arbitrating between
Egyptians and royalists on prisoner exchange matters, Ali expressed a will-
ingness to have UNYOM observers stationed on a semipermanent basis
in royalist areas. He pledged to circulate the word to tribesmen not to fire
on white UN aircraft, although he admitted that “it was often difficult to
ensure disciplined acts by the tribesmen.”67
In his assessment of the meeting, Doughty suggested continuing talks
with royalists, as they occupied a central geographic position with access
to the specific areas that appeared to be the focus of the UN mission’s
attention. He suggested maintaining contact with Prince Ali and other
royalists, while still retaining an unofficial status, in accordance with U
Thant’s directive to avoid internal politics of the Yemeni conflict. Doughty
felt there was a need to increase “at least an awareness of what UN people
look like, particularly among the tribesmen.” Furthermore, Doughty sur-
mised that “if UAR were notified of UN presence in Hashwa area, the
regular bombing might cease.” Nonetheless, he admitted that there were
some difficulties in maintaining regular contact with the royalist camp.
The rough terrain of the al-​Hashwa region would require the purchase
of new vehicles for UN personnel and there was always a danger of UAR
bombing despite UN presence. Doughty’s visit was highlighted by hours
of dancing with royalist hill tribesmen. He showed off the blue UN hel-
mets to three hundred chanting tribesmen who were “in line abreast com-
ing down the wadi, each line led by a group of dagger waving dancers.”68
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 97

Aside from David and Doughty’s accounts, several additional visits

were had with royalist representatives. Pier P. Spinelli met with Imam al-​
Badr’s foreign minister in April 1964,69 and UN and ICRC representatives
visited with al-​Badr in August 1964 to negotiate a prisoner exchange.70
André Rochat, the head of the delegation from the ICRC in Yemen, main-
tained continuous contact with royalists and reported regularly to UN
officials who in turn provided occasional air transport for Rochat.71 The
ICRC field hospital in the royalist-​held northern territory of Uqd was also
a direct line of communication with royalist officials, as ICRC personnel
utilized frequent UNYOM flights between Sana’a and Jeddah to transport
people and supplies by Caribou.72
Nonrecognition of al-​Badr’s royalists was limited to the official halls of
the UN. On the ground, UNYOM officials coordinated their mission with
royalists and made efforts to regularly visit their remote encampments.
The demilitarized zone situated in royalist territory contained observer
outposts, the ICRC hospital, and many other instances for official and
happenstance interaction with royalist officials and members of the tribal
militias.
The “observer” designation of the UNYOM has also been given as a
reason for the mission’s failure as there was no Egyptian withdrawal to
observe. In reality, the UN mission was called upon to observe much more
than just the planned withdrawals of Egyptian troops and Saudi support.
An addendum to the responsibilities of UNYOM included the investi-
gation of regional incidents “where appropriate and possible.” These
included UAR offensive actions against royalist positions and accusations
of Saudi aid being delivered to royalists in Yemen.73
The presence of UNYOM acted as a safety valve for Saudi Arabia and
the UAR to let off steam without engaging each other. According to the UN
observer log, both countries submitted dozens of complaints to local UN
observer personnel. Most of these grievances sounded more like famil-
ial bickering, with half of Saudi communications naming a camel as the
primary victim of a UAR bombing run.74 To ease regional tensions, UN
observers or Yugoslavian military representatives would be sent to “inves-
tigate” at least half of the submitted allegations, a process that amounted
to writing a few notes in an incident log.75 Despite the lack of actionable
responses to any of these incidents, the complaints continued to arrive at
UN bases, a sign that even meager international attention was sufficient
for the parties involved. Beyond the role of sanctioning diplomatic finger
98 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

pointing, the UN observers were able to foster a working relationship with

local officials with whom they consulted during their investigations.
June 1963, while the mission was only in a preliminary stage, was none-
theless a particularly busy month for UN military observers. UN observers
responded to UAR accusations of Saudi weapons transfers by document-
ing ammunition and gasoline dumps near towns along the Saudi-​Yemeni
border. UN observers responded to reports of UAR bombings in the Saudi
border villages of Tamniah, al-​Abha, and al-​Hadira, where UNYOM repre-
sentative Major Brage Schaathun was accompanied by Saudi Lieutenant
Colonel Hassan Katlan and Prince Abdullah al-​Madi for thorough inves-
tigations (see Fig.  4.4). The team examined bomb fragments and inter-
viewed survivors to put together a detailed report with photographs of
property destruction and injury to civilians.76
On August 27, 1963, the village sheikh of al-​Atam wrote to Saudi offi-
cials to report that their cattle had been subject to artillery fire. Saudi offi-
cials passed on the information in the form of a formal complaint. UN
Major David arrived on site, where he was shown shell fragments from the

Figure  4.4  UN Major B.  Schaathun (center) investigating UAR bombings at

al-​Abha, June 27, 1963, with Saudi Lieutenant Colonel Katlan (left) looking on.
(UNA, S-​0057-​0001, Folder 1, June 27, 1963)
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 99

artillery fire. Nearby, other UN observers toured the evacuated village of

Halfa to investigate reports of an earlier bombing. While they were on site
Egyptian artillery started shooting in their vicinity, and UNYOM officers
had to lie on the ground and crawl toward the Ta’ashar Valley, from where
they withdrew.77 In another investigation on November 21, UN observers
recorded the testimony of locals that UAR planes had raided the Harah
market, south of Jizan. Bombs and machine guns targeted the market,
causing injuries and damage to property. Onlookers claimed that the UAR
planes followed a UN overflight by five minutes and flew back over UN
headquarters in Najran “at a low altitude as if challenging the observers.”78
These examples represent only a small number of the total complaints
investigated by UN observers, who served additional roles beyond observ-
ing the withdrawals of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The perspectives offered
by UN and Canadian officials’ accounts run counter the image of a dys-
functional mission. The UNYOM that emerges from this newly informed
investigation is of a mission that did in fact play a significant role in medi-
ating the Saudi-​Egyptian conflict and managed to incorporate all sides
involved.
Von Horn and other critics of the UN mission have highlighted the
meager rations and paltry conditions at UN bases and outposts in the
demilitarized zone between Saudi Arabia and the YAR. Von Horn blamed
what he referred to as the “paucity of transport planes” for leading to the
“near starvation” of UN personnel.79 During a visit with Canadian pilots
in December 1963, Flight Lieutenant Peter Kelly, a medical officer for the
Canadian Air Transport Command, claimed that the supplies and condi-
tions were so poor that “we in the RCAF have reached the peak of our
endurance in the filthy living environment of Yemen.”80 Kelly’s comments
came at a time of heightened UN tensions: Yugoslav ground forces were
withdrawing, leaving the bulk of the mission’s responsibility in the hands
of the RCAF, much to the indignation of the Canadian public, which was
losing patience with their country’s continued role in global peacekeeping.
In reality, the rumors of conditions in Yemen were greatly exaggerated,
leading UN officials and critics to believe the situation in Yemen was far
worse than it actually was. RCAF Flight Lieutenant George E. Mayer, a
twenty-​two-​year-​old pilot serving in Yemen, recalled hearing rumors about
working conditions in Yemen prior to his arrival. The flying was danger-
ous, the food was terrible, and the “Yemen gut” traveler’s diarrhea and
vomiting was even worse. He had been told that “the outposts made the
TV program M*A*S*H locations look like the Chateau Laurier.”81 Upon
100 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

arrival in Sana’a, another Canadian pilot remarked that in fact the accom-
modations, located in an old palace that had been home to Imam Yahya’s
harem, were primitive, but certainly acceptable for UN standards.82
While there is no doubt that operating in temperatures that topped 125
°F during the daytime can hardly be considered comfortable, the UN staff
was not lacking, especially when the dire poverty experienced by most
Yemenis is taken into consideration. The base in Najran, for example,
received weekly North Star air deliveries of mail, fresh fruits and vegeta-
bles, and other supplies from the UNEF base in El-Arish.83 A close analysis
of the shipment orders in the UN archives reveals a picture far different
from the purportedly depraved conditions under which the UN staff lived.
The main complaint in many of the telegraphs from Najran, Hodeidah,
and Sana’a was of the staff’s boredom rather than lack of resources. In
response to several requests for reading material and entertainment,
headquarters granted six copies each of weekly newspapers including Life,
the New York Times, Time, the Herald Tribune, Newsweek, and the Daily
Telegraph (London). Along with the newspapers, UN headquarters also
sent eight films, including Bye Bye Birdie, In the Piazza, Big Red, Come Fly
with Me, and Ambush in Cameron Pass.84 A follow-​up request procured a
new movie projector, loudspeakers, a cinemascope lens, spare parts, and
a transformer.85 The projector came along with an additional collection of
movies, including The Running Man, Wives and Lovers, The Mouse on the
Moon, Come Blow Your Horn, Murder at the Gallop, among other hit movies
from 1963.86 The UN base in Najran would occasionally host a barbeque
of roasted gazelle and movie viewing for ICRC officials located across the
Yemeni border in Uqd.87
In addition to being entertained with daily newspapers and current
movies, UNYOM staff also developed a penchant for heavy drinking and
smoking. Telegrams from the various UN outposts in Yemen requesting
shipments of beer and alcohol to be charged either to UNYOM’s cash
account or to their individual expense accounts were sent at least once a
week. On several occasions UN headquarters responded: “Forwarding two
Tuborgs [beer] ASAP.”88 One telegram to headquarters, perhaps in prepa-
ration for a night of heavy drinking, read: “Please increase whisky request
to four bottles for each of us.” Some orders did not specify brand name,
but sufficed with a general request for beer, whisky, vodka, or “any other
alcohol.”89 Other orders, however, were made by UN officials with a more
epicurean taste. For example, Major Paul Paulson, who worked as a liaison
officer in Jeddah, requested an emergency airlift of two bottles of Rémy
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 101

Martin, a particularly expensive brand of cognac. Paulson deemed this air-

lift, which was to include gin, vodka, and pipe tobacco as well, an appropri-
ate restitution from UN headquarters for not agreeing to ship the UNYOM
station in Jizan a Christmas tree in December 1963.90 Requests for beer
and spirits were surpassed only by orders for cigarettes, specifically Phillip
Morris brand.91 Aside from a special meal order for Christmas dinner in
December 1963, the content of these telegrams did not convey a desperate
need for food or any other staples. UN personnel in Yemen seemed to have
plenty of leisure time, during which they would drink and smoke heavily,
watch movies, and read regularly—​hardly indications of a demoralized and
depraved crew. Even General von Horn himself was often accompanied
by the two things that “never strayed far from his side: a beautiful blond
Swedish secretary and bottle of his favourite malt beverage.”92
After spending two months in the desert Najran observation point,
the UN radioman Kenneth Woskett was transferred to Jeddah to run the
UN radio station and staff the UN liaison office, which served as a tran-
sit point for personnel. While there, the commanding officer in Sana’a
ordered him to rent a locked storage space in the part of the Jeddah air-
port where international flights departed and arrived. This area served as
the transit point for alcohol arriving from Jerusalem twice a week, which
was then sent along with personnel on transfer to Sana’a. Woskett, who
served as the gatekeeper for this locker (he was the only one with a set of
keys), ensured that the booze was off-​loaded from the aircraft with the
full knowledge of the Saudis and locked in the storeroom in the “interna-
tional” area. The room also stored other necessities such as soap, combs,
toothpaste, and the like. Radio transmissions from Yemen would place
alcohol requests with Woskett the night before the C-​130 transport plane
left Jeddah with the replacement staff. In Sana’a the spirits were off-​loaded
and taken to the UNYOM headquarters, which had a small basement bar
for social occasions. Generally an average of about six bottles, mostly gin
or whisky, were sent with each shipment. There was no Yemeni govern-
ment agency to make UN personnel accountable, and the Saudis did not
press the issue.93
Upon arriving in Sana’a, George Mayer was treated to four cold Amstel
beers to make him feel at ease. He recounted a comical anecdote that
demonstrated the centrality and importance of beer for UN personnel
during his later stationing in Najran: “The focal point of Najran was the
450lb. kerosene fired double door fridge strategically located in the shady
party area. On the left side was the Danish beer Tuborg and on the right
102 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

side, my favourite Dutch Amstel beer. You were obliged to bow or salute
whenever you passed it by! It was the junior man on the outpost that was
charged with keeping it stocked and worth his hide if he didn’t!”94
Any demoralization of the group could be attributed to the Montreal
Canadiens’ playoff loss in April 1964. The Canadian pilots staffing
UNYOM in 1964 spent a great deal of their leisure and work time receiv-
ing updates on the scores and standings of the Montreal Canadiens and
Toronto Maple Leafs during the course of the National Hockey League
(NHL) playoffs. Over fifty telegrams were sent to UN bases in Yemen
detailing the outcome of the most recent playoff game, the performance
of the Detroit Red Wings hockey great Gordie Howe, and the eventual
Stanley Cup victory of the Toronto Maple Leafs.95 Despite the complain-
ing, it seems that at least Canadian hockey fans had their priorities
straight. The accusation of UNYOM limitations, failures, depravity, and
shortages were in fact reflections of broader disenchantment with the
peacekeeping model and the evolving face of the UN rather than the real-
ity of the mission to Yemen.

Understanding UNYOM in Context

The stark differences between von Horn’s description of the barebones
conditions of the UN outposts versus the college dorm–╉like environ-
ment of drinking, movie watching, sports fandom, and smoking dur-
ing leisure time portrayed in the archives was, as Canadian pilot Doug
Poole explained, a matter of psychological perspective. Poole claimed that
Canadian airmen were spoiled, as “they have always been accustomed to
going about the business of war, well-╉lodged, well-╉fed, well-╉clothed and
clean shaven. This mission would tax their mettle to the limit. The envi-
ronment and the hygiene conditions found in this inhospitable climate
would not be their only problem. It would be harder, and take them longer
to cope with the mental challenges.”96 The sign welcoming new recruits to
the mission’s base in Sana’a, referred to the impressive three-╉story struc-
ture as “The Twilight Zone,” despite the fact that the building was staffed
with a personal chef, water purifier (albeit somewhat late in coming), elec-
tricity, and an acceptable latrine, amenities of which the local population
could only dream.97
The negative outlook of UN personnel was more likely the result of
disgruntled reactions to abusive UN leadership and general despon-
dency with the UN mission. Although he declared himself an advocate
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 103

of UN staff and resigned from his post in protest over their conditions,
General Carl von Horn was known to have had a short temper and was
often verbally abusive to UN personnel. During a preflight inspection of
his Caribou in Sana’a, Doug Poole noticed a fresh bullet hole that caused
him some concern. When von Horn arrived to ascertain as to the delay in
takeoff, the following demonstrative episode occurred:

“The Wing Commander took him around to the back of the Caribou
and showed him the bullet hole. The General had got out of the
wrong side of the bed and wasn’t in a very good mood. He seldom
was. He asked if the aircraft was alright to fly. The Wing Commander
assured him it was. He told the General, the bullet had gone in on
one side of the aircraft and out the other, “without hitting anything
important.” … The General frowned and replied:  “Then get in
the God damned thing and fly it, what the hell do you think you’re
being paid for?”98

Kenneth Woskett took particular note of von Horn’s entitled attitude

toward his staff. Woskett recalled being reprimanded by von Horn for
trivial incidents related to the official UN car. On one occasion, Woskett,
who had recently arrived at UN headquarters as a radioman, accidentally
parked his car in the senior staff parking spot in front of the UN laun-
dry site. Von Horn took the time out of his schedule to call Woskett to a
meeting to discuss the severity of the parking offense and to reprimand
him.99
Beyond the confines of their headquarters, UN personnel reported
being shocked by the disdain Egyptians harbored toward Yemenis. The
thought that the UN mission was aiding the Egyptian cause, even indi-
rectly, cast a negative light on UNYOM in the eyes of its personnel and
critics. Doug Poole reported driving by two Egyptian guards on the way
to the Sana’a airport and noticed them pointing and laughing at a decapi-
tated head of a Yemeni, mounted on a plank; they had placed a cigarette
to dangle from the severed head’s mouth.100 Ian Umbach, who served as
George Mayer’s commanding officer in Yemen, noted “the appearance
each morning of a freshly severed head over the main gate to the city,”
a sign, according to Umbach, that Yemen was still in the Middle Ages.101
On a different occasion, a group of four Canadian pilots was shocked by
the abuse that a senior Egyptian administrator in Sana’a inflicted upon
his Yemeni barber. The Egyptian reprimanded him for being late, then
104 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

slapped him and kicked him multiple times in a demonstration of what

Poole noted was an imposed hierarchy of Egyptians over Yemenis.102
Many UN officials and personnel felt that the General Assembly and
the United States had “stumbled into premature recognition of Sallal’s
republic” and was now in a political bind as supporters of the percep-
tibly weaker side of an internationalized civil war.103 Although they may
have felt uneasy about the organization’s political stance, U Thant’s
political options regarding the royalists were constraints by UN protocol.
Following the US recognition of the YAR on December 16, 1962, the UN
had been given the green light to recognize the Yemeni republic as well.
On December 20, the General Assembly voted seventy-​four to four, with
twenty-​three abstentions, to approve the Credential Committee’s recom-
mendation to seat the YAR delegates as the official representatives of
Yemen. Given the official UN decision recognizing the republicans, Thant
and UNYOM could not openly incorporate royalist officials and opinions
into the specifics of the mission without violating the General Assembly’s
decision. Lieutenant General P.S. Gyani needed to be reminded of this
fact by Ralph Bunche when he assumed the head position of UNYOM in
September 1963: “Limit contact with royalists out of concern that the UN
might be legitimizing other government than YAR.”104
Serving as a window into the thinking of Thant’s inner circle, Gyani
noted that UAR military action had made the republic even more unpopu-
lar to the extent that the YAR could not even collect taxes to pay full salary
to its employees. He suggested that the UN could serve in an advisory
role to the YAR in the place of Egypt, seeing this as an alternative to the
UNYOM mission in its present form.105 It is evident from Gyani’s sug-
gestion of stationing a permanent UN financial consultant in Yemen that
he understood the true purpose of UNYOM: simply having a presence in
Yemen.
After two months as interim head of the mission, Gyani was replaced
in November 1963 by Spinelli, the first civilian UN official to lead a mili-
tary mission. U Thant’s logic in appointing Spinelli was further explained
in his grand vision for UNYOM: “It was desirable that the mission of mili-
tary observation with its limited mandate should be complemented by a
United Nations political presence, which, by exploratory conversations
with the parties concerned, might be able to play a more positive role in
encouraging the implementation of the disengagement agreement and
peace and security in the region.”106 In appointing a civilian, U Thant was
also thinking beyond the UNYOM, to perhaps maintaining a permanent
 The UN Yemen Observer Mission (UNYOM) 105

UN aid mission in Yemen dedicated to the establishment of health and

education facilities. However, Sallal and Baydani later rejected this offer,
fearing that a UN presence would undermine Egyptian support for the
republic.107
In the early months of the mission Thant indicated to the Security
Council that he had envisioned the mission as an “intermediary and
endorser of good faith on behalf of the parties concerned.”108 In hind-
sight, although there was an increase in the number of Egyptian troops in
Yemen, the withdrawal of the UNYOM mission was followed by a series
of direct diplomatic negotiations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia and
royalist and republican camps. Mediation efforts that included Bunche,
Bunker, von Horn, Spinelli, and other UN officials acted to reduce inter-​
Arab tensions and keep open the possibility of a diplomatic solution. The
model offered by international diplomatic efforts would be at the core of
the eventual Saudi and Egyptian withdrawal from Yemen in 1967 and
served to underscore, despite having been hampered by global conflicts
unrelated to local events, the true benefit of UNYOM.
5

Nasser’s Cage

Arab Summit in September 1964, following the with-

AT T H E S E C O N D
drawal of UNYOM and the measured gains of the Haradh offensive,
Nasser and the Saudi monarchy once again declared their desire for
mutual withdrawal. Rather than renew the Egyptian offensive when the
royalists attacked in October 1964, Nasser chose to hold onto defensive
positions and organize additional meetings that included representatives
from both the republican and royalist camps. The peace conferences,
highlighted by the Saudi-​Egyptian Jeddah Pact in August 1965 and the
Yemeni National Conference in Haradh in November 1965, created expec-
tations for reconciliation.
By the end of 1965, however, Nasser’s policy in Yemen reversed course,
renewing the Egyptian occupation in what he called the “long-​breath strat-
egy.” UAR troops garrisoned the strategic triangle and interconnecting
road network, relying on an intensive aerial bombing campaign that would
feature the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons to subdue royalist
tribal supporters. The reversal of the Egyptian withdrawal from Yemen
has been described as a reaction to British colonial policy, Saudi-​Iran rela-
tions, and renewed royalist attacks against Egyptian troops. Alternatively,
it may be argued that the United States and the USSR played a role in
encouraging Nasser to remain in Yemen in an effort to confine Egyptian
military power. Even amidst Cold War tensions, US President Lyndon
B. Johnson and Soviet Secretary Leonid Brezhnev found themselves fol-
lowing similar policies toward Nasser in Yemen in an effort to forestall a
superpower nuclear confrontation over an Egyptian-​Israeli war. Foreign
agendas, once again, dominated the course of the Yemen Civil War and
placed local events into an arena of international conflict.
 Nasser’s Cage 107

Haradh Conference and Political Turmoil in Yemen

After reopening diplomatic relations in the months following the first Arab
Summit in Cairo in January 1964, Nasser and Faisal declared their willing-
ness to bring the Yemeni conflict to a resolution.1 The Montaza Palace
in Alexandria, Egypt, served as the venue for the second Arab Summit
in September 1964. This was intended as a demonstration of Arab unity
and reconciliation. According to a Soviet account of the September 1964
Summit, although the topic of normalizing Saudi-╉YAR relations was dis-
cussed, no definitive actions were taken. There was, however, universal
agreement on the Arab anti-╉imperialist stance and support for anti-╉British
nationalist forces in Aden, Cyprus, and Oman.2
The Arab Summit came on the heels of the success of the Egyptian
Haradh Offensive and the capture of the royalist base of al-╉Qarah in
August 1964. Nasser was intent on establishing a ceasefire in order to
secure the territorial gains north and east of the strategic triangle. From
October 30 through November 4, Nasser and Faisal met in the summer
hilltop resort in Erkowit, Sudan to negotiate the mutual withdrawal of
Egyptian and Saudi support from Yemen according to similar parame-
ters of the original Ellsworth Bunker agreements of 1963. The royalists
were represented by Ahmad Muhammad al-╉Shami and the republicans
by Muhammad Mahmud al-╉Zubayri, one of the founders of the original
Free Yemeni Movement. All parties agreed on a ceasefire, which was to
take effect on November 6, 1964, with a Yemeni National Council planned
for November 23. There was an understanding among the attendees that
both Sallal and al-╉Badr would be forced to step down during the process of
forming the new Yemeni government.
On the ground in Yemen, however, another reality was unfolding. As
had been the pattern in the prior two years, royalist forces that had pre-
viously retreated to the northern highlands came back down from the
mountains to reclaim territory lost during the Egyptian Haradh Offensive.
The description of these battles in Western media was analogous to a
heroic Maccabean effort of the few royalists against the many Egyptians.
For example, during the battle with Egyptians on the northeastern moun-
tain of Jabal Razih, royalist forces numbering only 1,600 tribesmen faced
three times that number of Egyptian soldiers and armor. The royalist
assault was able to recruit seven thousand additional Hajuri mountain-
eer militiamen in five hours by “ordering the Hajuri tribal war drum
108 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

mobilization message to be circulated,” and capturing the last two northern

Egyptian strongholds at the top of Jabal Razih on December 31, 1964.3 This
battle epitomized the futility of the Haradh Offensive, originally intended
to capture or kill Imam al-​Badr by any means necessary. Although the
summer of 1964 had been Imam al-​Badr’s “blackest days,” during which
he developed a “nagging neurosis and a raging carbuncle,” he emerged
triumphant in December 1964 to declare yet again that “Yemen will be
Nasser’s graveyard.”4
Nasser’s setbacks were not limited to the battlefield, as segments
of Yemeni republicans considered moderates were growing increas-
ingly frustrated with the ongoing civil war and the continued presence
of Egyptian troops in Yemen. Several leaders formed opposition parties
to Sallal’s regime, constituting the movement that became known as the
“third-​force.” Sayyid Ibrahim Ali al-​Wazir, descendant of the historic rival
clan to the Hamid al-​Din family for the position of imam, led an opposi-
tion to Sallal in the form of the Union of Popular Forces, an ill-​structured
and short-​lived political party.5
Al-​Zubayri, who had served as a minister in Sallal’s cabinet, subse-
quently formed the Party of Allah and left Sana’a to recruit tribal sup-
porters in the northern and northeastern Yemeni highlands. The stated
goal of Zubayri’s party was to rid Yemen of the Egyptian military occupa-
tion and oust Sallal and his government. Zubayri and his third-​force sup-
porters envisioned retaining the structure of a republic equally divided
between royalist and republican supporters. Although groups within
the third-force suggested reviving the concept of a constitutional mon-
archy, most agreed that the Hamid al-​Din family should not remain in
power.6 Qadi ‘Abd al-​Rahman al-​Iryani, who later served as the YAR head
of state from 1967 to 1974 and oversaw Yemen’s reconciliation, was con-
sidered, along with Ahmad Muhammad Nu’man and Zubayri, as one of
the founding fathers of the concept of a Yemeni republic and a leader of
the “third-force.” His formal title of qadi, or religious judge, underscored
his role as the bridge between the traditional imamate and the modern
Yemeni state.7
Several secret meetings between royalist and republican represen-
tatives took place between November 1964 and March 1965. Egyptian
authorities reportedly became alarmed at the content of these meetings,
and arranged for the assassination of Zubayri on April 1, 1965,8 in the hopes
that removing him would bring the third-​force movement to a premature
end. Other accounts of Zubayri’s assassination blame Hassan ibn Yahya,
 Nasser’s Cage 109

who may have been alarmed by Zubayri’s popularity among the royalist
tribes.9
Popular protest and the Hashid and Bakil tribal federations’ threats of
marching on Sana’a in the aftermath of Zubayri’s assassination pressured
Sallal to appoint Ahmad Nu’man as prime minister of the YAR, in the
hopes that it would appease the opposition. As prime minister, Nu’man
wrested much of Sallal’s presidential power and organized a national
peace conference in Khamir, a hilltop village thirty miles north of Sana’a,
in May 1965.10 YAR Prime Minister Mohsin al-​‘Ayni expressed a great deal
of optimism for Nu’man’s government and the success of the national
conference, as he believed an Egyptian withdrawal would follow.11 This
belief was based on a letter received from Nasser around the time of the
Khamir conference. In the text of the letter, Nasser made it unequivocally
clear that he intended to withdraw Egyptian forces as early as July 1965.12
The goal of the Khamir Conference was to form a united Yemen,
with the exclusion of Egypt and with limitations on Sallal’s power.13 The
conference featured more than five thousand tribal notables and pro-
duced the first modern constitution intended for the whole Yemeni state.
Yemen would become an Islamic republic, with a strong assembly that
could overrule the president, and would raise an eleven-​thousand-​mem-
ber people’s army to replace the Egyptian forces on which the current
YAR was dependent. Iryani, the chairman of the conference, planned to
seek Saudi recognition and support, supplanting Egyptian forces, Sallal’s
regime, and al-​Badr’s source of financial and logistical support. Rather
than acquiesce to Nu’man’s political demands, Sallal rejected the power-​
sharing measures, a clear sign that he was reluctant to compromise with
the third-​force.
While Nasser’s assassination of Zubayri was intended to remove the
major political opposition to the Sallal regime, this brash political move
was not accompanied by immediate plans for an Egyptian offensive to
regain lost territory north and east of the strategic triangle. The royalist
offensive continued unabated from March through August 1965, driving
Egyptians away from Jawf and Mishriq and leaving them with only two
surrounded outposts in Sa’dah and Hajjah.14 Rather than immediately
reinforcing his troops in Yemen, Nasser began the gradual withdrawal
of his army and traveled to Jeddah for yet another meeting with Faisal.
Before setting out to Saudi Arabia, Nasser gathered Nu’man and his sup-
porters for a frank conversation about the future of the Egyptian presence
in Yemen. At the end of the meeting even Nu’man, a vocal opponent of
110 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Egypt’s occupation, sincerely believed that Nasser intended to bring the

war in Yemen to a close and withdraw his troops.15
The Jeddah Pact, signed on August 23, 1965, between Nasser and
Saudi King Faisal, seemed to be Nasser’s appeal for respite from the war.16
Although there were reports of Egyptian troops massing on the Saudi bor-
der for an attack on Jizan, a principal source of royalist munitions and sup-
port, these seemed highly unlikely and were at most a demonstration of
military strength prior to negotiations with Faisal.17 The Egyptian military
was hemorrhaging funds, munitions, and soldiers, and had little tangible
success to show for it. According to the agreement, Egyptian forces would
withdraw by September 1966 and Faisal would deny Saudi territory and
resources to royalist armies. Plans were put in place for a second Yemeni
tribal meeting in Haradh in November 1965, with a Yemeni plebiscite
scheduled for November 1966. Al-​Badr reportedly ordered his troops to
maintain an offensive ceasefire without ceding any of the gained territory
until after the outcome of the second Haradh conference. Sallal responded
in kind by freeing political prisoners, although he was soon forced to leave
for medical care in Cairo after purportedly being shot by “irate Yarimi
tribesmen while staging a bogus ‘save the republic’ rally at Dhammar
replete with imported ‘applause’ and slogan-​shouters.”18 The atmosphere
at the November 24, 1965, Haradh II Conference was optimistic, as Nasser
had visibly been withdrawing troops, and the mutual ceasefire was being
upheld by both sides. Spirits were not dampened when republican and
royalist delegates could not agree on the future of the Yemeni imamate
after a month-​long meeting; they planned to reconvene after Ramadan on
February 20, 1966. However, the second rounds of talks never occurred.19
Within weeks of the Haradh II Conference, Egyptian reinforcements were
sent back to Yemen and Nasser’s offensive began once again in earnest.
In September 1965, Sallal traveled to Cairo, ostensibly to recover from
an illness, but in reality to come under Nasser’s watchful eye lest he be
overthrown by the growing opposition. When Sallal finally returned to
Yemen eleven months later, on August 12, 1966, Egyptian tanks lined the
road from the airport to central Sana’a, a testament to the fear that YAR
Prime Minister Hassan al-​‘Amri and opposition leader ‘Abd al-​Rahman
al-​Iryani had designs to depose Sallal. Yemenis had begrudged the fact
that every Yemeni army officer had an accompanying Egyptian officer: “a
Siamese twin empowered to overturn the Yemenis’ decisions if they failed
to concur with Egyptian thinking.”20 On September 9, Egyptian authorities
evidently stooped to new lows by dropping leaflets all over Sana’a accusing
 Nasser’s Cage 111

al-╉‘Amri of taking money from the United States and embezzling YAR
funds. Egyptians encouraged republicans to reject any peace overtures,
arguing that the Egyptians must stay in Yemen until the British left Aden,
“to protect the republic.” Several other prominent officers and officials
were accused of being royalist sympathizers or were placed on trial for
high treason and either publicly executed or given long prison sentences.21
An enraged al-╉‘Amri demanded a face-╉to-╉face meeting with Nasser.
Acquiescing to al-╉‘Amri’s request, Nasser sent two aircraft to Ta’iz to bring
al-╉‘Amri and an estimated fifty ministers who opposed Sallal for a meeting
in Cairo. Following a meeting at the Officers’ Club in Cairo on September
16, 1966, Nasser arrested al-╉‘Amri, al-╉Iryani, and Nu’man, and kept them
under house arrest while the other ministers were sent to a military prison
in Cairo’s Heliopolis neighborhood. With a single act of political treach-
ery, Nasser successfully lured Sallal’s opposition out of the country for the
duration of Egypt’s presence in Yemen.22 During the months of imprison-
ment, Ahmad Nu’man’s son Muhammad wrote to the International Red
Cross in Geneva, requesting an inquiry into the well-╉being of his father
and political constituents imprisoned in Cairo. In March 1967, André
Rochat, the head of the ICRC delegation to Yemen, was entrusted with
Muhammad’s letter to his father and subsequently used this as an excuse
to open additional lines of communication with Egyptian authorities.23

Nasser’s Change of Heart

As the Egyptian army was rolled back from its positions north and east
of the strategic triangle, Nasser appeared to be withdrawing from Yemen
with the intention of redeploying his troops in Sinai for a confrontation
with Israel.24 He wanted to prepare for an attack on Israel, but also needed
to uphold Egyptian defensive positions during the withdrawal. Several rea-
sons have been suggested to account for the sudden reversal in policy at
the end of 1965 and the subsequent failure of the Haradh II peace over-
tures. Republican intransigence and refusal to compromise with royalists
on the republican nature of the state has often been cited as the primary
reason.25 The declared “ceasefire” itself was officially broken by royalist
forces, partially as a reaction to the barring of Hamid al-╉Din families from
the Haradh I and II Conferences. Nasser’s renewed offensive in 1966 was
a response to the insulting nature of royalist attacks on a withdrawing
army in order to improve their postwar position.26 The renewed offensive
has also been attributed to Marshal ‘Abd al-╉Hakim Amer, who purportedly
112 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

sabotaged the Haradh II Conference to give his military solution to the

conflict another chance.27
Other accounts of the war have blamed the Saudi diplomatic overtures
with the Iranian Shah in December 1965 and the attempts to form an
Islamic alliance against Arab Nationalism even as King Faisal was nego-
tiating a peace settlement with Nasser.28 In 1966 Saudi Arabia was the
recipient of large and unprecedented military contracts from the United
States and Britain.29 The Anglo-​American air defense program from 1966
to 1967, worth $400 million, offered the Saudis a package that included
forty British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) Lightning planes, radar and com-
munication equipment, 150 American Hawk surface-​to-​air missiles (SAM),
and British training and support service. While the defense program was
being installed, Faisal also purchased thirty-​seven British Thunderbird I
SAMs and fifteen former RAF planes to be flown and serviced temporar-
ily by British pilots. Although the defense system failed to prevent UAR
aerial bombing of Saudi border territory, the large arms purchase pre-
sented a potential challenge to Nasser’s military supremacy in the region.30
According to David Stirling, founder of the British SAS regiment and rep-
resentative to the Saudi government, Faisal was reluctant to openly engage
Nasser before the “magic carpet” air defense system was operational.31
Saudi Arabia was not the only regional power to recognize Nasser’s
weakened position, both in Yemen and in the Middle East in general.
Responding to a royalist visit to Tehran in 1963, Muhammad Reza Shah
Pahlavi sent the first group of Iranians to Jabal Ahmar in Yemen on April
30, 1965, ostensibly to observe the circumstances of the civil war.32 Royalist
Prince Muhammad ibn al-​Hussein made his own trip to Iran in October
1966 to ask the Shah for heavy weaponry, Iranian military trainers,
and space for royalist training in Iran. In addition, Prince Muhammad
broached the possible use of Iranian airlifts and parachute deliveries in
order to resupply besieged royalist troops. The shah agreed to the requests
and pledged to organize three parachute drops and the transport of heavier
materials by land through Saudi territory. Royalist tribesmen were invited
to Tehran to be trained in medical, combat, and sabotage missions, while
Iranian trainers were sent to royalist camps in Yemen.33 Iranian aid for the
royalists was concerning for both Nasser and the Saudis, who expressed
their willingness to forsake al-​Badr and his supporters for the sake of
Arab unity.34 British MP Neil McLean conducted his own trip to Tehran
with a substantial request for military aid. A portion of this shipment was
 Nasser’s Cage 113

received in October 1967, during a period when Iran was acting as the sole
supplier of royalist forces.35
The most repeated explanation for Nasser’s decision to maintain a
large contingent of troops was the issuance of the British 1966 Defence
White Paper, which declared a withdrawal from Aden and the Federation
of South Arabia (FSA) by 1968. Nasser allegedly perceived the impending
British withdrawal as a way to salvage an otherwise disastrous military
expedition by expanding his influence over South Arabia following the
British withdrawal.36 This theory was supported by the reported redeploy-
ment of Egyptian forces to the southern border with the FSA.37
There is no denying the fact that, as John Badeau described: “Most Arab
countries seemed content to let President Nasser wrestle with his own dif-
ficulties in Yemen and watched King Faisal’s increasingly effective oppo-
sition to the UAR with quiet approbation.”38 Focusing solely on regional
actors, however, neglects to consider the broader geostrategic interests of
the United States and the USSR as a major factor in convincing Nasser
to remain in Yemen. For the first years of the civil war, Soviets supported
the Egyptian occupation of Yemen with air munitions, loans, and diplo-
matic capital for the defense of UAR actions in the UN. In contrast, the
official US position under President Kennedy advocated withdrawal, con-
tainment, and mediation even as Nasser’s continued military presence in
Arabia was quietly sanctioned. Rather than championing the Haradh con-
ferences and the Jeddah Pact as the culmination of years of international
diplomacy in the region, the administrations of Johnson and Brezhnev
renewed support for Nasser and indirectly encouraged him to maintain
a continued presence in Yemen, further draining Egypt’s economy and
caging Nasser’s Arab nationalist foreign policy. Even at the height of the
Cold War, the two superpowers may have realized the danger of unleash-
ing Nasser’s unbridled military on the Sinai Peninsula and the politically
charged conflict with Israel.
Ibrahim al-​Wazir, a prominent member of the Yemeni third-force, was
one of the few to understand the significance of this policy: “Both East
and West are now kindling the resumption of the war in Yemen, paying
no heed to who kills whom. The Communists are supplying the Egyptians
with weapons whereas some Western countries are supplying them with
wheat and dollars.”39 Al-​Wazir further charged Nasser with cowardliness
by keeping his army in Yemen in an effort to avoid a confrontation with
Israel.40
114 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Soviet Relations with the YAR

The Soviet Foreign Office envisioned Yemen as a base and staging post
for further Soviet expansion into the Arabian Peninsula and postcolo-
nial Africa at the expense of Western interests.41 The completion of the
Hodeidah port by 1961 and the construction of a modern airport near
Sana’a in 1963 were an essential component.42 On March 21, 1964, a treaty
of friendship between the USSR and YAR was signed in Moscow as a
reaffirmation of the original treaties signed in 1928 and 1955.43 Over the
course of the civil war, republican officers were sent to train at the USSR
Officers Infantry Academy in Solnechnogorsk, twenty-╉five miles north-
west of Moscow, before returning to Yemen to train new recruits. By 1965,
the YAR army totaled ten thousand troops. Despite a continued reliance
on tribal militias and the presence of tens of thousands of Egyptian sol-
diers, the YAR army earned the Yemeni republic some semblance of inde-
pendence, the underlying intention of Soviet investment.44
The Soviet naval base in Hodeidah was a manifestation of the doctrine
of Sergei Gorshkov, the admiral of the Soviet fleet from 1956 to 1985, known
by many as the “father of the modern Soviet navy.” Gorshkov’s published
articles, later republished in his celebrated 1976 book The Sea Power of the
State, had a profound influence on Soviet naval strategy in a similar man-
ner that Alfred Mahan’s The Influence of Sea power Upon History had on
US naval doctrine in the early twentieth century.45 Like Mahan, Gorshkov
argued that the future of the land empire of the USSR was at sea. Only
with a powerful navy could the USSR protect the revolution and support
liberation movements across the globe. Naval staff stationed at these ports
functioned as cultural ambassadors, organizing sports and other activities
for the local population.46 He emphasized the peacetime military-╉political
role of the Soviet navy in “protecting state interests,” specifically Soviet
state economic, political, and military interests in the developing world.47
The Hodeidah port and the Soviet presence in South Arabia was part of
Gorshkov’s vision of a strong naval presence in the Red Sea region and
near the Horn of Africa. This Indian Ocean region was envisioned as the
“epicenter of the national liberation movement.”48
Soviet diplomat Oleg Peresypkin explained that because Soviet ships
were going from Odessa to the Far East via the Indian Ocean, “we need to
have friendly relations with the littoral states. We had, and do have, some
economic interests there. We had, or have, trade offices in Hodeida, Jidda,
Massawa, Djibouti and Port Sudan—╉some of them were set up as early as
 Nasser’s Cage 115

the 1920s.”49 As Soviet admiral, Gorshkov personally oversaw the expan-

sion of Soviet naval influence in the region and joint Egyptian-​Soviet stra-
tegic interests in the Mediterranean and Red Seas.50 The Mediterranean
Sea and Indian Ocean also became scenes of Cold War tensions, as in
1962 the United States deployed nuclear submarines, the Polaris and the
Poseidon, which had the capability to target Soviet cities.51
Until his presumed death during the coup on September 26, 1962,
Moscow had been cultivating a close relationship with al-​Badr, with the
intention of securing its financial investment in Hodeidah. The coup and
the subsequent Egyptian intervention complicated Moscow’s long-​term
strategy for the Red Sea region. Rather than serve as a facility solely for the
Soviet navy, the Hodeidah port was backlogged with Egyptian shipping
and military transport. Similarly, the airport in Sana’a was also being used
as a base for Egyptian aerial operations in Yemen.
Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power in October 1964 and
replaced by Leonid Brezhnev as first secretary of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union. Khrushchev had been accused by members of the Soviet
politburo of indiscriminate support for nationalist governments, such as
the UAR. There was considerable concern among Nasser’s administra-
tion that military and economic aid would be curtailed and that Brezhnev
might demand loan repayment. During a speech on December 24, 1964,
Alexander Shelepin, the former head of the KGB, laid these concerns to
rest by making it clear that Soviet support for the UAR would continue
unabated.52
Following the August 1965 Jeddah Pact with Saudi Arabia, Nasser
flew to Moscow and obtained a massive military aid package in which
the Soviets offered to underwrite Nasser’s continued military presence
in Yemen. Two more shiploads of Soviet munitions, including 50,000
machine guns and an additional six thousand Egyptian troops arrived in
Hodeidah while the Haradh II Conference was still in session. The UAR
became the first country outside of Eastern Europe to receive MIG-​21D
jet fighters (twenty of them in total). The USSR wrote off Egyptian debt
of $400 million for military equipment and concluded a trade agree-
ment that promised Egypt shipments of Soviet machines, minerals, oil,
wheat, and wood.53 According to Muhammad Heikal, Nasser’s confidant
and a prominent Egyptian journalist, the debt forgiveness was granted
after Nasser demonstrated to Leonid Brezhnev that these were expenses
directly related to arms purchases for the war in Yemen.54 Some Yemenis
were of the opinion that the Soviet Union played its role in the failure of
116 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

the Jeddah Pact and in “keeping the pot boiling” in Yemen. By writing off
some of Cairo’s debt to Moscow for the equipment used in Yemen, and
giving E£200 million in financial aid before Nasser’s visit to Moscow at
the end of August 1965, the Soviet Union encouraged the Egyptians to
continue their occupation.55
The Soviets may have been relieved to have Nasser occupied in Yemen,
as a similar stance of aggression against Israel would have involved the
USSR in another high-​stakes confrontation with the United States.56 By
1965 Egypt was no longer as asset to Moscow, but rather had become a bur-
den. Nasser had outlived his usefulness after helping the USSR establish
a foothold in South Arabia and Africa, and was now deemed expendable.57
Moscow could not turn its back entirely on its unpredictable Egyptian ally
out of concern that Nasser would foster a closer relationship with Chinese
Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, whom he met in late 1963.58 With one hand
Moscow was pushing Nasser back into Yemen and with the other it was
developing a closer relationship with Yemenis through direct military and
economic aid in preparation for the post-​Nasser Yemen republic.
The continued Egyptian presence secured Soviet access, albeit some-
what limited, to both Hodeidah and the Sana’a airport in the short
term, but the instability of Sallal’s regime created a level of uncertainty
in Moscow about the long-​term strategy and access to Yemeni facilities.
After succumbing to successive political and military crises, the Soviet
Foreign Office began to explore other, more reliable, Soviet allies in the
YAR administration to replace Sallal.
It did not take long for Soviet officials to begin to question contin-
ued support for the forty-​eight-​year-​old Sallal. Sallal had taken part in the
failed 1948 revolt and was a longtime member of the Yemeni Free Officer
group. He was considered a revolutionary hero by some Yemenis, a title
that was reinforced by his continued rhetoric against British imperialism
and the deposed imam. In the months following the revolution, how-
ever, Sallal’s popularity was subdued in response to the increasing cor-
ruption among Yemeni officials, tense tribal relations, and the continued
presence of Egyptian troops in Yemen. According to Russian historian
Alexei Vassiliev “[Sallal’s] dependence on Egypt was absolute. He vis-
ited Cairo so frequently that he became a figure of fun. In some areas of
Yemen Egyptian officers acted as virtual governors and often engaged in
black marketeering, snatching away a portion of foreign trade from local
merchants. Moreover, the Egyptians’ condescending attitude even riled
a good number of republicans.”59 Sallal’s reliance on Nasser vicariously
 Nasser’s Cage 117

weakened the Soviet position in Yemen, as their approach to the YAR was
contingent upon a middleman relationship with Egypt, an unpredictable
regional ally.
In an official assessment of the economic and political situation in
Yemen, the Soviets observed that Sallal relied mainly on his disorganized
army and the aid of the UAR, but had little or no domestic popular sup-
port. Rather than address those inequities, Sallal retained unrealistic plans
for a Yemeni army of 28,000 in order to create a presidential security
state. Furthermore, his government did not manage to carry out a sin-
gle economic reform, yet repeatedly made statements regarding restrict-
ing large estates, expanding the construction industry, improving living
standards for the population, and other ambitious projects. The Yemeni
government’s only salvation came from foreign financial and economic
assistance, primarily from the USSR and UAR. The Soviets concluded
that without help from the UAR, “it will be difficult for Sallal’s govern-
ment to strengthen its position and its republican regime in the coun-
try.”60 Even Nasser himself, in a conversation with John Badeau admitted
the futility of the YAR government: “You would not believe what goes on
in Sana’a. Half of the Ministers never go to their offices and the other half
don’t know what to do when they get there.”61
On March 31, 1964, Nikita Khrushchev and Vasiliy Kuznetsov, the
First Deputy Foreign Minister, met with Sallal and YAR Foreign Minister
Hassan Makki during a planned visit to Moscow. Khrushchev and Sallal
exchanged letters of formality thanking each other for their respective
invitations, travel, and hospitality, and reiterating the friendly intentions
of this meeting. Kuznetsov considered this visit a positive sign of Soviet-​
Yemeni friendship, despite serious misgivings toward the sustainability
of the Sallal regime.62 The emergence of the “third-force” several months
later forced Sallal to make further compromises to the opposition lead-
ers and granted them a political council to form the “Progressive Yemeni
Republic.” Sallal was only able to maintain his political position and con-
trol over the army by using coercive military force against his own popu-
lation.63 His precarious political situation left the USSR with little choice
but to consider alternatives to Sallal’s leadership, for fear that continued
access to strategic assets in Yemen would otherwise be endangered.
In anticipation of the collapse of Sallal’s regime, Soviet intelligence
reports listed five potential replacements, highlighting in particular their
respective stances toward the USSR. The Soviets planned to install a pup-
pet leader so that the YAR could be corralled into the Soviet sphere in
118 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

the aftermath of an eventual Egyptian withdrawal. Until that point the

“Soviet five” could also be counted upon for continued Soviet intelligence
and support within Sallal’s regime itself. The list of possible replacements
included ‘Abd al-Rahman al-​Iryani, Hassan Muhammad Makki, Hussein
al-​Dafa’i, Abdullah Dobbi, and Saleh Ali al-​Ashwal.
‘Abd al-Rahman Al-​Iryani, the YAR Minister of Justice and a prominent
member of the “third-force,” assumed control of the YAR presidency in
1967. Iryani, a judge prior to the coup, had spent fifteen years in prison after
being implicated in the 1948 coup against Imam Yahya, and was an ardent
opponent of the Egyptian occupation and foreign interference in internal
Yemeni affairs. Yet, in February 1964 he was appointed a member of the
politburo in recognition of his positive attitude toward the Soviet Union.64
Hassan Muhammad Makki, the YAR deputy prime minister and
foreign minister during the 1960s, was in contact with Soviet embassy
employees in Ta’iz both before and after the coup and had been instru-
mental in strengthening the Soviet-​Yemeni relationship. He was believed
to have had a warm opinion of the political relationship with the USSR
and was initially the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s top candidate to replace
Sallal.65 Makki ultimately became the YAR prime minister in 1974.
Hussein al-​Dafa’i, who served as YAR minister of war, minister of the
interior, and ambassador to the Soviet Union, was one of Sallal’s closest
and greatest confidants in addition to being a pro-​Egyptian Arab nation-
alist. During his tenure as ambassador to the USSR from 1965 to 1966,
Dafa’i developed a friendly relationship with the USSR and openly praised
the Soviet military help for the YAR and the work of the Soviet military
specialists in Yemen. He often spoke of developing a closer relationship
and alliance with the Soviet Union.66 Sallal was alarmed by Dafa’i’s rela-
tionship with the Soviets and had him arrested under suspicions that
Dafa’i was subverting Sallal’s regime. Dafa’i was later appointed Yemeni
minister of state in 1977.
Abdullah Dobbi, the former minister of war and a YAR military com-
mander, had earned a military degree in Baghdad along with Sallal and
others of the Yemeni Free Officers group and was one of the most active
and influential revolutionaries. Dobbi had a relatively long history with
the Soviet Union dating back to Imam al-​Badr’s 1958 Moscow trip, and
served as national security director in Hodeidah during the period of the
Soviet port construction. In February 1963 he was named the personal
presidential consular to the Soviet premier, and cultivated a friendly rela-
tionship with Soviet officials throughout the civil war.67 As Sallal’s agent
 Nasser’s Cage 119

for the arrest of targeted political opponents, Dobbi developed his own
network of security personnel stationed around the country.68
Saleh Ali al-╉Ashwal, the longtime YAR Ambassador to the USSR, was
one of the first YAR officials to visit Moscow in November 1962, by invita-
tion of the Soviet minister of defense. He personally handed Khrushchev
a message from YAR President Sallal in recognition of the forty-╉fifth anni-
versary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. During their stay in the
USSR together with the delegation, al-Ashwal was taken on tours of Kiev
and Leningrad and developed a close relationship with Soviet officials.
At the 1962 meeting and throughout his tenure as ambassador, he was
reported to have divulged confidential and valuable information about the
internal political situation in Yemen.69
The Soviet Foreign Office understood that increasing the military aid
and debt ceiling for Nasser would encourage him to maintain a military
presence in Yemen, thereby securing Soviet access to Yemeni port and
air facilities and redirecting Egyptian foreign policy away from a high-╉
stakes confrontation with Israel. Relying on Nasser’s independently
minded machinations was not a sustainable long-╉term solution for the
broader Soviet aim of securing a stable naval and air base in South Arabia.
Throughout the civil war, Yemen continued to play an important role in
Soviet grand strategy in the Middle East. The “Soviet five” stood at the
center of plans for a post-╉Sallal and post-╉Nasser regime that would secure
Soviet interests in the region.

Yemeni “Hearts and Minds”

As the Soviet Foreign Office was planning for a post-╉Sallal Yemen, they
were also overseeing a shift to a direct diplomatic and aid relationship
with the YAR, so that they would not have to rely on an Egyptian interme-
diary.70 While the United States was cutting aid to Egypt and improving
relations with Saudi Arabia through official visits and the presence of an
air squadron for protection, the Soviets were cultivating a very different
relationship with the Yemeni people. Rather than focus solely on military
and strategic aid, the Soviets invested resources in education, infrastruc-
ture, and entertainment in an attempt to win the “hearts and minds” of
local Yemenis.
In October 1964, for example, the first group of Soviet tourists arrived
in Yemen and included teachers of Middle East history, culture, and lan-
guages; journalists; artists; and religious Muslims. During their guided
120 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

tour they became acquainted with the way of life of the Yemeni people,
along with the country’s history and culture.71 The following month, a
group of Soviet musicians gave their first concert in Sana’a in front of
an audience of two thousand, filling the hall to capacity. The attendants
included YAR Vice President Hassan al-​‘Amri and other important min-
isters.72 This effort to win Yemeni “hearts and minds” was deemed a suc-
cess, at least according to one barometer. The Yemenis observed that the
Soviets called themselves tovarishch, or comrades. In turn, the Soviets
working in Yemen noticed that the Yemenis began to call themselves
sadik, a rough Arabic equivalent of “comrade.” This was taken as a sign
of positive Soviet influence on the Yemeni public and the foundation of
closer Soviet-​Yemeni relations.73
The port city of Hodeidah, long envisioned as the base for Soviet
operations in the Red Sea and the Middle East in general, continued to
undergo major infrastructure and civil engineering projects that went well
beyond the confines of the port facilities. The majority of these efforts
were focused on the area of the city known as New Hodeidah, a newly con-
structed urban area built over parts of the original city of Hodeidah that
were destroyed in a fire in 1961. Soviet specialists, sent to the YAR for two-​
month rotations, included architects, quantity surveyor engineers, geolog-
ical engineers, construction engineers, and doctors.74 The main projects
included the construction of hospitals, schools, roads, telephone lines,
and an electrical grid within and between the cities of Sana’a, Hodeidah,
and Ta’iz. These projects were seen as a rival to the American $500,000
investment into the reconstruction of the Ta’iz water supply system, which
was called the Kennedy Memorial Water System.75
The stated goal of the Soviet education program in Yemen was “that
the Yemenis should leave the darkness of the Middle Ages and take the
road towards progress and civilization.”76 Prior to the revolution in 1962,
there were only nineteen elementary schools and a reported illiteracy
rate of 98 percent. By October 1964, more than nine hundred elemen-
tary schools (grades one through six) and four secondary schools (grades
seven through nine) were open for enrollment. The subjects taught
included Arabic language and literature, religious education, history and
society, math, drawing, painting, sciences (physics, biology, chemistry,
and nature), labor education, and music. There were over thirty hours of
school per week, starting in first grade, during a school year that extended
from October 1 through the end of July. In Hodeidah, the schools dedi-
cated six hours a week to Russian language beginning in third grade in a
 Nasser’s Cage 121

plan of study approved by the YAR Ministry of Education.77 As a testament

to the popularity of the Russian language classes, the program advisor
placed an urgent request to the Soviet Ministry of Education for an airmail
delivery of an additional sixty copies of Arab-╉Russian textbooks for the
upcoming school year as many more students had enrolled than initially
expected.78 In addition to investing in local education, 5,500 Yemeni stu-
dents were given scholarships to study in the USSR in December 1965.79
The Soviets contributed politically and economically to the Egyptian
mission in North Yemen, but preferred small-╉scale relations with the
Yemeni people. The paradox is that the Egyptians received the brunt of
Yemeni hostility as a reaction to their military occupation and forced
model of a socialist state, while Moscow was spared similar criticism, leav-
ing Soviets in a position to benefit from the new Yemeni state once the
Egyptians withdrew.80

US Policy: Irrigating the Yemeni Countryside

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) looked upon
Yemen not as a future state in the American orbit, but as a blank slate where
their most ambitious visions for modern development could be imple-
mented. As US Deputy Chief of Mission David Newton remarked: “Yemen
was the darling of USAID as they perceived it as starting from nothing.”
The USAID mission began in Ta’iz, where they stored heavy equipment
used for the road construction and later the Kennedy Memorial Water
System.
Soviet and Chinese construction teams had already completed con-
struction on their own road projects in Yemen. In playing catch-╉up to
Communist efforts, USAID undertook construction of the Mocha-╉Ta’iz-╉
Sana’a road, arguably the most difficult road project in Yemen given the
mountainous terrain. In order to scale down construction and mainte-
nance costs, the US engineers built a gravel road, which in retrospect
was a political disaster, as Yemeni drivers did not abide by the speed limit
and would often skid off the gravel road. Locals nicknamed the road “the
American death road,” hardly an achievement for US propaganda.81
Aldelmo Ruiz, a water engineer trained at Virginia Tech, was brought
to Yemen in 1962 to begin a new era of USAID projects, which had shifted
from road-╉
building to urban and village water supply projects. Ruiz
recalled finding out how dire the situation was upon his arrival to the
USAID guesthouse in Ta’iz. After lengthy travel with his wife Maria and
122 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

their young daughter Stella, Ruiz remarked to the attendant that he would
love to take a shower. With a smile, the Yemeni attendant answered: “Mr.
Ruiz, that’s the reason you’re here—​to provide us water. We don’t have
any water now. You can wait until the truck comes—​we’ll order some.”82
The initial construction of the Kennedy Memorial Water System in
Ta’iz was completed in December 1963.83 By 1965, USAID had connected
the main water pumps to over 6,400 houses in Ta’iz, a city with approxi-
mately 25,000 residents at the time.84 After the completion of the major
road and Ta’iz water system construction, Ruiz orchestrated a self-​help
water project with surrounding villages. The village sheikhs would provide
the manual labor, land allocation, and partial financing, while Ruiz and
USAID would provide the machinery and technological expertise. Water
projects were seen as a way to utilize the existing machinery and provide
a reason to maintain workshops, facilities, and a general American diplo-
matic presence in the YAR.85 In addition, periodic local draughts in Yemen
were exacerbated by indiscriminate water consumption by Egyptian occu-
pational forces during the 1960s.86
USAID personnel and property became an outlet and target of Egyptian
frustration with the perceived US foreign policy. Sana’a and Ta’iz, the two
main centers of US presence in Yemen, were transformed into an arena
of conflict and competition between the United States and Egypt. Marjorie
Ransom, who worked along with her husband David in the US consulate
in Yemen during the 1960s, explained that Yemen was practically the only
place where Nasser could retaliate against US international diplomatic
slights.87
There was no single moment that triggered this rift, but rather a grad-
ual escalation of tensions between representatives of the two countries.
There were, however, several episodes that served as markers for a dete-
riorating relationship between US and Egyptian personnel in Yemen. In
1966, USAID employee Michelle Hariz was accused of spying and given
twenty-​four hours to leave the country. Hariz, a Lebanese-​American, was
indeed a contact for the CIA, a fact that was well known by everyone in
the mission.88
Another incident occurred in February 1967 while David and Marjorie
Ransom were working for the US Information Services (USIS) in Sana’a.
One evening, both were alerted to the screams of the USIS budget and fis-
cal officer as she saw several Egyptian soldiers stealing the official USIS
car. The car was attached to an old and slow-​moving Russian truck. David
Ransom, an ex-​Marine, was able to jump onto the bed of the truck and follow
 Nasser’s Cage 123

the Egyptian soldiers. They had only properly fastened one chain to the
truck, leaving the car to swerve wildly as they drove away. The swerving car
slammed into an electric pole, knocking out the lights to what seemed like
all of Sana’a. When the truck eventually stopped, Ransom swiped the keys
before the Egyptian officials could arrest him, and presented them as evi-
dence the next morning when the Egyptian military tried to deny the whole
incident. When the pieces of the Egyptian cover story started to unravel,
Ransom was sent home rather than stand as witness to the rest of the
embarrassing episode. The following day, other US political officers rather
shamefacedly shared stories of their own cars having been stolen the night
before by the Egyptian military. What became clear was that the Egyptians
had intended to plant weapons in the back of US officials’ cars, photograph
them, and then use them as propaganda to foment anti-​American senti-
ments among Yemenis. The relative chaos and power vacuum in Yemen
allowed even junior Egyptian officers to manufacture international inci-
dents and their American counterparts to singlehandedly foil their plots.89
April 1967 marked the apex of crises for the USAID mission in Yemen.
One evening, two British intelligence agents infiltrated and bombed an
Egyptian military compound in the city of Ta’iz. The agents had parked
their getaway car outside of the city limits in preparation for a quick
retreat. However, with Egyptian soldiers in pursuit, the two agents took a
shortcut through the USAID compound, located on the outskirts of Ta’iz,
on the way to their getaway vehicle. Egyptian soldiers cut the electricity to
the USAID compound, forcibly entered, and gathered any sensitive mate-
rial they could find. In their report, the Egyptian military implicated the
USAID staff in the attack and declared nearly their entire staff personae
non gratae. They were given twenty-​four hours to vacate the premises and
leave Yemen.90 Aldelmo Ruiz recalled his frantic trip through Ta’iz collect-
ing passports from the USAID officers, who were completely unaware
of the circumstances of their deportation.91 Marjorie Ransom conjectured
that the deportation notice was really only a formality. Egyptian authori-
ties, who controlled the radio and media in Yemen, had already broad-
casted their version of events and encouraged mob riots against US
citizens.92 The US State Department independently reached the decision
that it was no longer safe to retain a mission that included approximately
sixty USAID staff, forty legation employees, and twenty children.93 Only
six US representatives remained in Yemen after April 1967 and all were
evacuated after Egypt cut diplomatic relations with the United States in
retaliation for Israel’s victory against Egypt in the June 1967 War.
124 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Wheat Conflicts with Egypt

Congressional disapproval of US aid programs to Egypt grew exponentially
as Egyptian rearmament continued, even during the UN observer mission.
Alaskan Senator Ernest Gruening led the Senate opposition to Kennedy’s
third world military and economic aid policy, which had already racked
up a bill upwards of $1.8 billion by the end of 1963. David Bell, Kennedy’s
former budget director and new administrator of USAID, received the
brunt of the criticism, primarily from Democratic liberals such as Frank
Church, who had defected from Kennedy’s leadership in the party. Church
noted that by 1963, all but eight noncommunist countries were receiv-
ing some form of US foreign aid, demonstrating that the United States
tried to “do too much for too many, indiscriminately.” Senator Halpern of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee claimed that the PL-╉480 ship-
ments to Egypt were causing “Yemen mass murders subsidized by our
economic assistance.”94 When the Senate passed the Gruening amend-
ment in October 1963, one month before Kennedy’s assassination, it was
clearly seen as a criticism of his policy with Nasser. The amendment ter-
minated all forms of US aid to any nation “engaging in or preparing for
aggressive military efforts” against the United States or its allies.95 This
included Kennedy’s economic aid to Egypt through the Public Law (PL)-╉
480 wheat sales. Although the Gruening amendment was only the first
step in a series of political maneuvers to increase Congressional control
over foreign aid, it significantly hampered Kennedy’s ability to repair his
coveted relationship with Nasser.96
According to economist John Waterbury, Egypt’s growing population
was increasingly reliant on the import of wheat specifically from the United
States: “Like arms supplies, there are only a handful of countries that can
regularly export wheat, and all of them are Western … keeping Egyptians
alive, if not well-╉fed, is a matter settled in international grain markets or
through bilateral trade agreement with the U.S. Every man, woman and
child in Egypt receives an average of 100 kilograms of imported wheat per
year or about 70 percent of their total consumption. Egypt’s jugular vein
runs through Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.”
A combination of Nasser’s intransigence and US Congressional dis-
sent forced Kennedy to reconsider his relationship with Nasser and Arab
nationalism, which in turn compelled Egypt to look eastward to secure
economic and military aid from the Soviet Union.97 In 1962, Kennedy was
under the assumption that Nasser was the predominant ideological force
 Nasser’s Cage 125

in the Middle East. In 1963, however, two Ba’thist coups in Iraq and Syria
presented a challenge to Nasser’s monopoly of the Arab revolution and
weakened Nasser’s position in the eyes of the Kennedy administration.98
When Lyndon B. Johnson took office on November 22, 1963, he retained
few of Kennedy’s affinities for Nasser and did not hesitate to portray the
Yemen Civil War as it was: a cage for Nasser and Arab Nationalism. As he
wrote to King Faisal less than a month after taking office: “On its present
course, the UAR is gaining little, losing much in Yemen. UAR problems
are many. Yemen’s drain on UAR resources is great. UAR is not winning
popular support among the people. Yemen can well prove to be a trap for
those who would seek to dominate it.”99
Two foreign policy crises in Egypt further soured Johnson’s opinion
of Nasser. On Thanksgiving Day in 1964, Congolese protestors in Cairo
stormed the newly dedicated JFK Library in Cairo in protest of US policies
in Congo, burning the building to the ground. Egyptian police who knew
of the riots in advance did not inform the US Embassy. Weeks later, on
December 18, 1964, Texas oil man John Mecom’s plane was shot down
near Egyptian airspace. Although Egyptian officials claimed it was an acci-
dent, Mecom was a friend of LBJ and one of his biggest financial sup-
porters; thus the incident further tarnished Nasser’s image in Johnson’s
eyes. US Ambassador to Egypt Lucius Battle warned Nasser that he would
not receive aid from Johnson “because first you burn his libraries, then
you kill his friends.”100 The efforts of Bushrod Howard, an American lob-
byist for the royalist cause, continuously criticized the economic aid to
Nasser, further pressuring the Johnson administration to reconsider any
form of economic aid to Egypt.101 Johnson was not amused by Nasser’s
lack of gratitude for US economic aid. In a particularly anti-​American
Port Sa’id speech in December 1964 Nasser mused:  “The American
Ambassador says our behavior is not acceptable. Well, let us tell them
that those who do not accept our behavior can go and drink from the sea.
If the Mediterranean is not enough to slake their thirsts, [the Americans]
can carry on with the Red Sea.”102 Nasser’s appeal to the Egyptian people to
throw US aid into the Red Sea was countered with further Congressional
limitations on aid to Egypt.103
Robert Komer, the LBJ administration’s Yemen Civil War guru, feel-
ing unrestrained by Kennedy’s courting of Nasser, explained to McGeorge
Bundy that Yemen had become a perpetual military disaster for the
Egyptian army. As long as the United States did not force Egyptian dis-
engagement and continued to dangle PL-​480 wheat sales to the “bellies
126 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

of the fellahin”, it was safe to assume that Nasser would not threaten US
and UK bases in Aden and Libya and would not succumb to complete
Soviet domination.104 Komer explained to LBJ: “At this point it may serve
our interests better if Nasser has to keep a third of his army tied up there,
since this will enforce restraint vis-​à-​vis Israel.”105 The United States was
“just as happy to have 50,000 UAR troops in Yemen rather than deployed
against Israel.” All that remained to be done was to periodically reassure
Faisal’s security in order to protect the billion-​dollar oil investment and
encourage Faisal to purchase US aircraft over the British and French
options.106 In conversation with his British counterparts, Parker Hart
admitted the US mistake in recognizing the YAR, but “compared Nasser’s
position in the Yemen to that of a fly stuck on fly paper for Nasser was
caught in the Yemen and could not escape from it and would slowly die
there like the fly on the flypaper.”107
In a speech to Palestinian (PLO) delegates in 1965, Nasser explained
the logic of his inaction against Israel: “Is it conceivable that I should
attack Israel while there are 50,000 Egyptian troops in Yemen?” After the
1956 Sinai War, the UN negotiated a ceasefire and positioned a peacekeep-
ing force in Sinai. According to Michael Oren, the absence of a realistic
military option against Israel while the Egyptian army was bogged down
in Yemen ameliorated Nasser’s stance against the presence of UN peace-
keeping troops on Egyptian territory.108 Many Egyptians viewed Nasser’s
colonization of Yemen at the expense of war with Israel as “national
treason.”109 Although only a temporary respite from Egyptian and Israeli
hostilities, Nasser’s commitment in Yemen carried with it an inherent
inability to pursue military expeditions elsewhere. In fact, the Egyptian
efforts in Yemen became “so futile and fierce that the imminent Vietnam
War could have easily been dubbed America’s Yemen,” just as Yemen was
“Nasser’s Vietnam.”110
The realization in 1965 that Nasser might actually be pulling his troops
out of Yemen led Johnson and others in the State Department to argue
that it was in the US national interest to send economic aid to Egypt, if
only to keep Nasser in Yemen. On June 22, 1965, Washington resumed
wheat sales to Egypt and allowed nongovernmental organizations and
charities to gift an additional $11.6  million worth of agricultural equip-
ment. Johnson was able to circumvent the limitations of the Gruening
amendment by issuing a direct presidential order for the resumption
of aid. On January 3, 1966, the United States sold Egypt an additional
 Nasser’s Cage 127

$55.7 million of agricultural surplus in an effort to alleviate the economic

strain of sustaining an army of significant size in Yemen.111
Faisal’s June 15, 1964, letter to LBJ expressed “supposed alarm and
revulsions” at Soviet intentions and Nasser’s violation of Saudi air-
space.112 Later that year, Faisal continued to drop buzzwords about global
communism and expressed concern about “the dangers of anarchy and
Communist activity in Yemen.” He said that “today, virtually every facet of
international communism, including the Russians, Chinese, Poles, and
Czechs, are at work in Yemen.”113 Faisal’s Soviet  alarmism was nothing
more than a game to gain the goodwill and support of Johnson. Johnson
visibly appreciated Faisal’s anticommunist rhetoric and continued to per-
ceive Saudi Arabia as the cornerstone of American policy and oil interests
in the Middle East. This perception was evident in the great deal of prepa-
ration and care invested in King Faisal’s Washington visit in June 1966.114
Despite calling him a communist and urging Nasser’s immediate
departure from Yemen, Faisal secretly rejoiced at the sight of Nasser
expending huge sums of money on a futile war. A combination of covert
British operations, Saudi support for royalists, and the popularity of
Zubayri’s Party of Allah made it increasingly clear that by 1965 Nasser was
simply trapped in Yemen and was unable to establish a republican regime
loyal to the UAR.115
In a June 1966 meeting with Faisal, Secretary of State Dean Rusk clari-
fied the relatively lax attitude toward Nasser’s troop presence in Yemen.
The return of over 40,000 troops to Egypt would threaten the stability of
the entire region: “With more troops in Egypt, the possibility existed for
the U.A.R. to move toward the east, which would result in a full scale war;
to the west, where we had our important base in Libya; or to the south,
which would create a large problem with the Sudan and would not be wel-
come by the Africans.”116
According to CIA intelligence estimates in May 1966, Nasser was not
prepared to suffer a humiliating withdrawal from Yemen and was forced
to accept the realities of the intractable stalemate. His failed five-​year eco-
nomic plan, combined with the strain of financing a large army abroad,
led to a plethora of economic problems in Egypt. Domestic economic woes
and self-​inflicted foreign affairs blunders encouraged popular opposition
to the cost and casualties of the war in Yemen.117 In essence, there was no
longer a need for an expedited Egyptian withdrawal from Yemen, as the
continued occupation was destroying Nasser’s regime from within.
128 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Nasser’s policy reversal in 1965 and his decision to maintain Egypt’s

occupation of Yemen were encouraged in part by continued Soviet and
US support and the abandoned efforts of international diplomacy. Neither
Brezhnev nor LBJ was eager to have Nasser’s army completely withdrawn
from Yemen and free to exercise an aggressive foreign policy agenda else-
where in the region. At the same time, both the United States and the
USSR endeavored to win the “hearts and minds” of local Yemenis, hoping
to secure an ally in South Arabia. What emerged during the height of civil
war tensions was a conflict in the developing world that found the two
superpowers not only supporting the same Yemeni republic, but pursuing
parallel policies in the region.
6

Chemical Warfare in Yemen

BY 1966, NASSER had been cajoled back into the cage of Yemen, reluctantly
defending the YAR, having been persuaded by a combination of interna-
tional pressures, encouragement, and opportunities. His military pres-
ence, however, had ceased to be focused on large-​scale offensives. Nasser
retreated to Sana’a, Hodeidah, and Ta’iz, the triangle of strategic cities that
formed the administrative and military centers of Egypt’s occupation. By
the time Nasser implemented his defensive strategy at the end of 1966, he
did not need to worry about internal opposition undermining his position
from within the triangle. Sallal’s opposition was securely imprisoned in
Cairo and would not be allowed back to Yemen until after the last Egyptian
departed. The Egyptian occupation was focused mainly on repelling royal-
ist attempts to breach the defenses of the strategic t​ riangle.
The Egyptian “long-​breath strategy,” a defense of the strategic ​triangle
and road network, was sustained by an increased presence of the air force,
hindering royalist troop and supply movement and demoralizing the local
Yemeni population. In addition to unguided, precision, incendiary, and
delayed-​explosion bombs, the Egyptian air force began to employ poi-
son gas bombs in large numbers in 1967. This use of chemical weapons
was a calculated part of the Egyptian effort to depopulate the countryside
through a “scorched-​earth policy designed to eliminate support for the
royalist guerillas.”1 The international community failed to censure Egypt’s
use of poison gas in Yemen. National, economic, and political interests,
in addition to the ramifications of wars half a world away from South
Arabia, impeded the world’s ability to directly engage Egypt’s violation of
the norms of warfare.
Egypt’s poison gas bombings were first investigated by British Minister
of Parliament (MP) Neil McLean, then serving on a team of British
130 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

mercenaries in the northern highlands of Yemen, during his visit to the

Yemeni village of Jabal Bani Awar in July 1963. McLean disseminated the
first of many gruesome testimonies and photographs that characterized
Egypt’s use of poison gas in Yemen, a tragedy that has since been largely
forgotten. Decades before the more well-​known chemical attacks by Iraq
in the 1980s and Syria in the 2010s, Egypt’s use of chemical weapons in
Yemen during the country’s civil war was one of the first large-​scale and
substantively documented military uses of poison gas following World
War I.2 Nasser’s first foray into chemical weapon use in Yemen began in
1963 and was limited to rudimentary tear gas bombs. Early experiments
with poison gas evolved into a more sophisticated and deadly aerial cam-
paign that by 1967 used phosgene and mustard gases.
The absence of a global response to Egypt’s war conduct in Yemen
demonstrated the limitations of the international community’s ability to
respond to the use of chemical weapons and served as a further example
of how global conflicts impacted the conduct and reaction to the local war
in Yemen. US General John J.  Pershing famously stated that “chemical
warfare should be abolished among nations, as abhorrent to civilization.
It is a cruel, unfair and improper use of science. It is fraught with the
gravest danger to noncombatants and demoralizes the better instincts of
humanity.”3 In reality, the supposed moral indignations and concern for
weapons proliferation that the United States and Europe had associated
with the use of poison gas took second stage to issues of national inter-
est, reinforcing the observation that “morality in foreign policy is simply
politics by other means.”4
The historic taboo against chemical weapons was first codified in the
text of the Geneva Protocol of 1925: “Whereas the use in war of asphyxiat-
ing, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or
devices has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized
world, and Whereas the prohibition of such use has been declared in
treaties to which the majority of the Powers in the world are Parties.”
As Richard Price explains in his seminal book on the subject, chemi-
cal weapons continue to defy the path to normalization taken by other
new forms of weaponry. Other weapons such as tanks, submarines, and
missiles are collectively more deadly than poison gas yet have gradually
become an accepted means of war. However, chemical weapon use con-
tinues to be reviled by policy makers and public opinion as an inhumane
and immoral method of warfare.5 The use of chemical weapons by Egypt
in Yemen and the lack of international condemnation challenged the
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 131

tenuous nature of a taboo whose existence was either merely theoretical

or whose immorality had been diluted by the passage of time following
the poison gas battlefields of World War I. The supposed taboo was not
universal and the fear of its violation did little to deter Egyptian generals
in Yemen.
Following the passage of the 1925 Geneva Protocol the signatories
debated the interpretations of the language used and the applications of
the protocol’s restrictions. One of the most contentious divergences was
the categorization of chemical agents and whether they included “harass-
ing” and “incapacitating” agents like tear gas and herbicides. Prior to the
outbreak of the civil war in Yemen, the United States was concerned that
“aerial spraying techniques to destroy crops in Vietnam might give rise
to Communist propaganda that the United States was embarking on
chemical warfare in Asia.”6 International media did not often distinguish
between the various categories of “poison gas,” readily using this single
term to refer to both innocuous tear gas and deadly mustard gas. This
painted Washington’s policy in Vietnam in an even darker light as both
the US army and the South Vietnamese forces frequently used tear gas
for riot control.7
Critique of Washington’s Vietnam policy appeared in newspapers and
as meeting agendas for international organizations around the world.
The United States was not only using tear gas in Vietnam as a riot con-
trol method, which was considered by some to be a “humane” use of gas.
Rather, it was clear that tear gas was being used as a “force multiplier”
to increase the effect of lethal weapons. Similar to the methods used by
Egypt, tear gas was used by the US Air Force to flush the Vietcong out of
their caves so that they could be attacked with artillery and aircraft.8 The
similarities in chemical warfare tactics employed by both Egypt in Yemen
and the United States in Vietnam gave a new level of credence to Nasser’s
observations that Yemen was “his Vietnam.” Ibrahim Ali al-​Wazir, a prom-
inent Yemeni politician who spent the majority of the civil war as an exile
in Beirut, commented that “what is going on in Yemen is by far worse and
more horrible than what is going on in Vietnam.”9 Although Egypt’s use
of poison gas was a clear violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, the United
States could not take the lead on censuring Egypt. As historian Barbara
Keys explains: “As long as the [Vietnam] war went on it branded the United
States as a major source of oppression and violence in the world, making
it impossible to propose the [US] champion a crusade against those evils
elsewhere.”10
132 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

On the face of it, international reaction to Egypt’s use of chemical weap-

ons was yet another example of human rights limitations in the foreign
policies of the United States and Europe, subject to the hurdles of coor-
dinating multilateral action, overcoming cumbersome legislative formali-
ties in the UN and other international organizations, and accounting for
domestic public opinion.11 The emerging field of human rights literature,
and specifically the work of those scholars focusing on instances of chemi-
cal warfare, often highlights specific moments where interventions could
have been made to prevent atrocities or chemical attacks. For example,
George Baer argues that closing the Suez Canal to Italian shipping in 1935
would have economically pressured Benito Mussolini and forced him to
abandon a poison gas campaign against Ethiopia that same year.12 In his
book on the Iraqi chemical attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja in 1988,
Joost Hiltermann argues that a strong condemnation of Saddam Hussein’s
early chemical attacks against Iran in 1983 could have prevented further
chemical attacks that eventually took the lives of over 50,000 victims.13
Yemen truly was a unique situation in that, even in hindsight, there was
no realistic diplomatic, military, or economic effort or defining moment
that could have prevented Egypt’s use of chemical weapons.
Although human rights talk had become the lingua franca of interna-
tional affairs as early as the 1940s, the politics and enforcement of its tenets
remained weak.14 The 1960s was a dead zone for international efforts to
condemn human rights violations. The United States was mired by the
moral baggage of an ongoing Vietnam War. Britain, despite rapid post-
war decolonization, was still associated with the remnants of the British
Empire. By the early 1960s, the Afro-​Asian bloc of decolonized nations
and the Soviet-​led communist bloc came to dominate the UN General
Assembly. In this new diplomatic reality, it was unlikely that Egyptian
President Nasser, a prominent leader of the nonaligned movement and
an ally of the USSR, could have ever been censured by the UN, in essence
granting Egypt’s occupation of Yemen (1962 through 1967) a great degree
of latitude.
Presenting another obstacle to addressing the use of chemical weap-
ons was the fact that the attacks were perpetrated against the royalists who
were unrecognized by the international community and resided in one
of the most remote areas of the world. The YAR, and by extension their
Egyptian overlords, were seen as the legitimate suzerains in Yemen, while
al-​Badr and his tribesmen were perceived by foreign leaders as rebels
and readily associated with beheading, torture, and other arcane methods
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 133

of punishment. Defending medieval tribal armies, who were themselves

supported by British imperialists and Saudi royalists, would most cer-
tainly have garnered a great deal of negative public opinion. Making mat-
ters more difficult were the Cold War politics, economic considerations,
the Vietnam War, continued British imperialism, and legal obstacles at
the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that were
transposed onto the Yemen conflict and presented additional limitations
to any concerted effort at condemning Egypt’s war conduct.

The Emergence of Chemical Weapons in Yemen

Egypt’s counterinsurgency campaign in Yemen remains a primary his-
torical example for considering the difficulties of hunting rebel tribesmen
in inhospitable terrain using modern weaponry. Yemen’s mountainous
topography, however, proved the greatest obstacle for an Egyptian army
that had been trained and equipped for desert warfare. Armored vehicles
had great difficulty navigating the rough terrain and mountain passes in
a country that lacked modern transport infrastructure. Given the limited
mobility on the ground, the Egyptian army relied increasingly on its air
force to target the tribal forces of Imam al-╉Badr. The incessant Egyptian air
raids drove tribesmen and supplies into a system of caves that pockmark
the mountains of north Yemen, which provided both men and supplies
with reliable cover from air raids, further frustrating the Egyptian military
strategy.
In June 1963, Egypt began employing makeshift tear gas bombs
with the intention of extricating tribesmen from the cave system before
bombing them with conventional weapons. US General Alden Waitt of
the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) had advocated the use of chemical
weapons against Japanese tunnels and caves on Pacific islands during
World War II, remarking that gas was “the most promising of all weap-
ons for overcoming cave defenses.”15 According to British intelligence
reports, Nasser employed a strategic logic similar to Waitt’s in order “to
overcome heavily fortified defenses which did not succumb to attack by
high explosive or fragmenting weapons.” Many of the air raids were done
in pairs, such that the first wave would drop concentrated tear gas near the
entrances to the caves and a second wave would bomb the tribesmen who
had exited the cave for air.16
The use of poison gas in Yemen first gained the world’s attention in
June 1963 when the British Yemen Relief Committee brought Muhammad
134 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Nasser, a twelve-​year-​old Yemeni boyfrom the village of Jabal Bani Awar

who suffered from a perpetual cough and deep blister wounds, to London
for hospital examination. Richard Beeston, the Daily Telegraph correspon-
dent in Yemen, reported that the boy was suspected to have been sickened
by an Egyptian poison gas attack. Beeston assumed that the production of
simple chemical weapons was beyond the capabilities of the Egyptian sci-
entist and proceeded to perpetuate a rumor that the Soviet Union was sup-
plying Egypt with advanced chemical weapons in Yemen.17 Media hype had
died down by the time the boy was released from the hospital with a clean
bill of health. There was no definitive evidence from the boy’s medical
report that his symptoms were caused by inhaling poison gas. Competing
correspondents, such as Desmond Stewart of the Spectator, wasted little
time in ridiculing the quality of evidence used by Beeston and other alarm-
ist journalists who were quick to utilize unconfirmed chemical attacks as
anti-​Egyptian propaganda.18 American and British audiences moved on
from the 1963 suspected Egyptian chemical attacks as quickly as they first
came to hear of their existence.
The poison gas incident in 1963 was Egypt’s first attempt at chemical
warfare in the battlefield. However, Nasser’s malicious intentions were
hampered by Egypt’s poor laboratory capabilities. As Raymond Titt from
the Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment (CDEE) Munitions
Research Division observed: “There is evidence of an ingenious malevo-
lence supported, however, by only rudimentary knowledge of chemical
weapons.”19 British labs at the CDEE at Porton Down, the UK government
military science park, concluded that the bomb used in June 1963 was
not originally manufactured as a chemical weapon. Dr. E.E. Haddon, the
director of CDEE, observed that “the markings on the bomb and the shape
of its nose, point to improvisation rather than a factory-​made product.”20
According to CDEE conclusions, these manufactured weapons that used
old British teargas grenades “represents an ingenious and competent
piece of ad hoc engineering, but a very poor piece of basic design.” The
modification allowed the grenades to attach to the inside of the bomb, “in
a somewhat misguided after-​thought to make the fire bombs even more
unpleasant, and this is consistent with the evidently ad hoc nature of the
assembly.” The CDEE findings were verified independently by US labo-
ratories in Langley, Virginia, and by UN officials who obtained their own
samples from the attack site.21
In July 1963, the US Ambassador to Egypt John Badeau confronted
Nasser on the issue of poison gas in Yemen. Nasser initially claimed that
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 135

only napalm was being used. When Badeau pushed further and indicated
that the United States had evidence that actual poison gas bombs were
used, Nasser then said that “ ‘a bomb’ was being used which had been
manufactured in UAR, of which he did not know [the] precise chemical
content.” When Badeau warned Nasser of the self-​defeating use of uncon-
ventional weapons, which were probably militarily ineffective and would
most likely only open Egypt to international criticism, Nasser claimed
“he could not sit in Cairo and direct military operation in Yemen as to
specifics of weapons and tactics. If [a]‌military commander in Yemen felt
air bombing and support was necessary for troops, the decision would
be his.”22 Robert W. Komer argued that there was no need to take a lead
on “public noises,” as the United States should wait until the investiga-
tions into the Egyptian alleged poison gas use were complete. President
Kennedy also mentioned to Komer that he would prefer that others lead
the investigation and censure out of concern that it would harm US pol-
icy in Middle East.23
Just a few months earlier in 1962, Kennedy had authorized Operation
Ranch Hand, the large-​scale herbicidal warfare in Vietnam. At the same
time that the Egyptian air force was experimenting with poison gas weap-
ons in Yemen, the US air force was flying sorties over forests and farm-
land in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, dropping “rainbow herbicides”
and defoliating large swaths of Southeast Asian territory.24 In March 1963,
the US Embassy in Vietnam expressed concern over the growing nega-
tive news coverage and Communist bloc propaganda on the use of poi-
son gas in Vietnam.25 A CIA intelligence cable observed how the use of
nonlethal poison gas in Vietnam negatively impacted the country’s image
in the UN in particular: “The image of the United States is at its lowest
ebb … ”26 Kennedy’s, and later Johnson’s, administration were subject to
harsh criticism from domestic and international media as well as their
voting constituency.27 The mounting opposition against herbicidal warfare
in Vietnam certainly played a role in influencing Kennedy and Johnson’s
decision to shy away from a confrontation with Egypt over the use of poi-
son gas in Yemen.
The UN was equally quiet and scarcely addressed the allegations
against Egypt’s war conduct in Yemen. As U Thant explained to William
Yates of the House of Commons: “the often confused and obscure nature
of the situation in Yemen makes it difficult to provide such information
with any certainty of its remaining correct. Indeed, a part of the trouble in
Yemen stemmed from detailed and highly colored reports on what goes
136 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

on there, which are not always in accordance with the true facts or nature
of the situation.”28 U Thant backed away from Yemen, claiming that tribal
and political dynamics of the civil war were far too complicated and that
the sources of information were unreliable and often dismissed as mere
anti-​Egyptian propaganda.
U Thant’s approach echoed Nasser’s defense against British allega-
tions during a public statement on July 8, 1963 that turned allegations
of Egypt’s misconduct into an attack on British imperial actions in Aden.
Nasser claimed that the media attention for poison gas use in Yemen was
a “campaign of slander” and that newspapers were printing these sen-
sationalist stories “without any attempt made to verify the facts of the
story…  . The British, being aware of the far reaching repercussions of
this vicious campaign, knew that such a harrowing allegation would soon
catch the spotlight in some newspaper and international wire services… .
The inventive and slanderous campaign are a desperate attempt to cover
up the aggressive, provocative and imperialistic actions carried out by the
British forces on the Southern Boundaries of Yemen.”29
British Conservative backbenchers such as Patrick Wall took advantage
of the momentary public attention on the Egyptian use of poison gas to
pressure their party to take a more anti-​Egyptian stance.30 However, aside
from internal British political pressure and short-​lived media coverage,
the suspected Egyptian use of poison gas in 1963 went largely unnoticed
internationally. The absence of definitive scientific evidence likely contrib-
uted to the lackluster international response. Yet, the lack of an effective
Egyptian censure in 1963 undoubtedly led Nasser to take bolder actions
later in the war.
In implementing Nasser’s long-​breath strategy, the Egyptian air force
strategically deployed both conventional and poison gas bombs against
tribal positions to forestall a serious offensive against the strategic trian-
gle.31 The sites of the attacks were chosen for their proximity to royalist
leadership or other significant military sites. The royalist cave network of
bases often abutted local villages which served as supply depots for water,
food, staples, and nonmilitary manpower. The psychological impact of an
unfamiliar and deadly new weapon contributed in part to delaying the
royalist advance on Sana’a.
As can be seen from the map below (see Fig. 6.1), nearly all of the
reported major chemical attacks that took place from January through the
end of May 1967 occurred north and northwest of the capital city of Sana’a.
These attacks occurred a far distance from Nasser’s strategic triangle, a
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 137

Figure 6.1  Map of chemical attacks in 1967. Created by author.

reflection of the fact that the northern rural areas of the country remained
beyond the control of the YAR central government. Nasser preferred to uti-
lize Egypt’s air superiority by using conventional, incendiary, and chemi-
cal bombs to attack the imam’s tribal forces rather than send an Egyptian
armored division into the inhospitable enemy territory.
Following Egypt’s defeat by Israel in June 1967, Nasser’s strategy
in Yemen changed dramatically. Rather than trying to prolong Egypt’s
presence in Yemen until the complete British withdrawal from Aden
scheduled for the beginning of 1968, Nasser began a rapid transfer of his
troops from Yemen to the Sinai border with Israel. Egyptian troops and
munitions were transported from the battlefield directly to the Soviet-​
constructed port of Hodeidah and from there to Egypt. As Egyptian troop
strength receded, the royalist tribal armies continued their march south-
ward in a concerted effort to retake the city of Sana’a as soon as Egypt
withdrew. The chemical attacks, in addition to the conventional air raids,
in July 1967 took place closer to Nasser’s strategic triangle and in some
cases south of Sana’a itself, combating the tribal militias who attempted
to cut off the main roads leading to the capital. Where earlier air raids
had been a concerted effort to destabilize royalist cave headquarters and
terrorize Imam al-​Badr’s tribal supporters, these bombings was seen as
138 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

a desperate attempt by Nasser to cover the withdrawal of his troops from

Yemen. This new set of large-​scale chemical attacks was intended primar-
ily to forestall the imminent royalist advance and to cover the Egyptian
withdrawal. Rather than a cessation of all poison gas attacks, there were
reports of a sizable increase in the number of conventional and chemical
bombings in June and July.32
Chemical weapons were reported to have been used in at least a
dozen instances between January and August of 1967 and were of a more
advanced nature than the tear gas bombs used in 1963. Two-​thirds of the
attacks were documented as having used phosgene gas, and one-​third had
used mustard gas. Several US media outlets that received information
from contacts at CIA laboratories claimed traces of a nerve agent present
as well.33 At least 800 Yemenis were killed, a high proportion of them
women and children. While civilian casualties may not have been inten-
tional, the instability of poison gas clouds and the changing winds often
spread the gas to nearby villages, causing mass hysteria and terror among
local tribes. This hysteria drew the attention of international media, which
brought the issue of chemical attacks in Yemen to the desks of Western
politicians.
Kitaf, a small northern Yemeni village of about a thousand inhabit-
ants, was bombed by Egyptian aircraft on January 5, 1967. The number
of casualties was estimated to be one hundred to two hundred, and the
testimonies of the survivors pointed toward the presence of chemical
weapons. The village of Kitaf was likely the unintended victim of a strike
aimed at the nearby royalist military headquarters of the imam’s Prime
Minister Emir Hassan bin Yahya. The gas from bombs dropped near his
cave must have drifted toward the village as well.34 The major difference
between the bombing of Kitaf and earlier tear gas bombings in 1963 was
the geographic location of Kitaf, just thirty miles from the Saudi bor-
der town of Najran. From early 1964, the ICRC, previously based in the
Yemeni desert region of Uqd, had been forced to move the base of its
Yemeni medical facilities across the border to the Saudi town of Najran
in response to safety and supply issues.35 The ICRC delegation, led by
André Rochat, was able to reach Kitaf within days of the reported bomb-
ing and obtained greater sample sizes for laboratory testing and bodies
for autopsy. The same was true of technicians from the United States and
Britain, in addition to foreign correspondents, who were able to reach
the relatively accessible site at Kitaf. The ICRC investigation and subse-
quent reports were particularly significant, as the ICRC was considered
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 139

the only neutral organization able to speak with and treat the patients of
both sides of the civil war.
Nonetheless, Rochat was not a particularly reliable spokesman and as
a result, ICRC policies and terminology were often misinterpreted. In an
interview with the Saudi newspaper al-​Medina in February 1967, Rochat
expressed his frustration with Egyptian media and their incorrect inter-
pretation of the ICRC report and Rochat’s public statements. He cited a
particular incident with Salah Jabadiyya, a correspondent for the Cairo-​
based newspaper al-​Akhbar, who referred to the ICRC report and quoted
Rochat in saying that the Egyptians had not used poison gas in Yemen.
Jabadiyya claimed, instead, that all of the Yemeni casualties had simulta-
neously died of tuberculosis rather than Egyptian gas. Rochat denied the
validity of the article to the Saudis and reiterated his commitment to the
neutrality of the ICRC. This episode demonstrated the potential for seri-
ous misunderstandings when utilizing careful terms of neutral scientific
analysis.36 In this case, Jabadiyya understood the ICRC statement of “no
conclusive evidence” to mean that Egypt had been absolved and that poi-
son gas had not, in fact, been used.37
ICRC’s neutrality was an asset in a climate that was overpoliticized by
Cold War tensions, media hype, and Anglo-​Egyptian rivalries in Arabia.
Yet that neutrality also hampered the ICRC, as it limited the organiza-
tion’s ability to criticize Egypt for fear of a loss of impartiality.38 Rochat
admitted that the ICRC was powerless to impact Egypt’s war practices,
as the organization’s very presence in South Arabia was contingent upon
Nasser’s continued approval. In a 2009 documentary film, Rochat seem-
ingly continued to toe the line and attempted to historically defend and
whitewash the ICRC’s inaction by contradicting his previous claims and
emphatically stating that Egypt had never used chemical weapons and that
no condemnation was ever necessary.39
Even the possibility of distributing gas masks to Yemeni civilians was
hindered by the politicization of the Egyptian chemical war.40 William
Norman Hillier-​Fry, a diplomat in the Aden Department of the Foreign
Office, praised the potential distribution of gas masks as having “publicity
value.” The delivery of gas masks would in essence substantiate the initial
claims that the Egyptians were using chemical weapons. Hillier-​Fry was
concerned, however, that delivering direct aid from London to the royal-
ists might result in unintended political consequences, as the UK would
be accused of aiding a belligerent party in the civil war.41 What was miss-
ing from these deliberations was any mention of Yemeni civilians or the
140 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

moral necessity of granting defense measures to a population subject to

poison gas attack. The idea of providing Yemeni civilians at risk with gas
masks petered out as it became clear how much it would cost to refurbish
the British surplus masks in storage and how little the propaganda value
might actually be.42
Gas mask distribution was only the first of many politically marred
issues that would arise over the course of 1967, but it was most demon-
strative of things to come. Moral indignation and humanitarian concern
for Yemeni victims of poison gas scarcely factored into calculated political
decisions. In the case of poison gas in Yemen, respective national interests
trumped all else.

“Passing the Baton”—​National
Interests vs. Human Rights
By March 1967, there was little doubt among British policy makers that
poison gas had been used on the Yemeni village of Kitaf on January 5, 1967.
Both the prime minister and members of both houses of the Parliament
were willing, at the very least, to support a Saudi initiative condemning
the Egyptian use of poison gas in Yemen. Many were even willing to pres-
sure Secretary General U Thant to have the UN Security Council consider
the issue. However, British condemnation of the UAR was limited by sev-
eral factors.
Royalist officials had submitted complaints, but U Thant could not
take action because the royalists did not occupy the Yemen seat at the
UN. Saudi delegates to the UN were hesitant to bring the complaint, lest
their enemies vote them down or the evidence prove to be too stale to
be definitive by the time the UN would organize a fact-​finding mission.
Saudi delegate to the UN Jamil Baroody presumed, at least in February
1967, that “[Saudi] enemies at the UN would anyway outvote them in
any case.”43 Nonetheless, he did log a complaint in the UN regarding the
alleged UAR bombing campaign, in the process making a strong claim
against Nasser’s entire endeavor in Yemen: “We hope for amicable solu-
tions, but President Nasser seems to think he is the arbiter of the Arab
World, that he can impose a government on the Yemen … ”44 U Thant
unequivocally rejected Baroody’s initial attempts to press for UN action
on the grounds that only the YAR representatives, and not the imam’s
royalists, could request an investigation: “I am bound by the actions of
the United Nations in matters involving official status and accreditation of
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 141

governments. On matters relating to Yemen, therefore I deal only with

the representative of the government of the Yemen Arab Republic whose
credentials have been accepted here.” Furthermore, U Thant explained
that the UAR had already denied the use of poison gas and therefore con-
cluded that “[t]‌here is no further action on this matter that I can properly
take at this time.”45
The British assumed that U Thant would not undertake action uni-
laterally, unless invited to do so by Saudi Arabia or the UAR, because he
was “afraid of being dragged into an Egyptian propaganda exercise.” This
was despite the fact that UN Charter Article 99 granted the secretary-​
general the power to bring to the attention of the Security Council any
matter that in his opinion might threaten the maintenance of interna-
tional peace and security.46 The UK mission to the UN was particularly
disturbed by the overall double standard that they perceived in the halls of
the General Assembly. “It is also in general a bad thing that delegations
in New York should be allowed to close their eyes to a most flagrant exam-
ple of ‘imperialism’ merely because the perpetrator is an ‘Afro-​Asian.’ ”47
UK Ambassador Richard Beaumont echoed similar sentiments later that
same year:  “the “imperialist” powers came under constant criticism for
“atrocities” but apparently the Afro-​Asian states could never commit any
sins.”48
It was also not entirely clear which UN commission would be most
suitable to undertake the investigation. The Security Council would have
been best suited to address an act of aggression by the UAR, but this
was not an option as the Soviets would most likely have vetoed any anti-​
Egyptian resolution. The British were concerned that “raising the matter
in the Human Rights Commission (HRC) might encourage the UAR to
support Amnesty International’s allegations of torture in Aden.” There
was further debate over the nature of the HRC, which “is concerned with
the relationship between individuals and their governments, not between
individuals and the activities of a foreign government.” In this case, Egypt
was a foreign government supporting a legitimate state government, and
it was not clear that the HRC would be an appropriate venue for this issue.
Nonetheless, more optimistic members of the British Foreign Office
assumed that “the charge of use of poisonous gas is so serious that it would
not be understood if the HRC declined to discuss it.” Furthermore, the
Egyptians might very well have put pressure on Amnesty International’s
investigation in Aden regardless of whether the British supported a UN
investigation of poison gas.49
142 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Assuming that the HRC or the Security Council would have actually
considered a condemnation of the UAR, it is not clear that Egypt would
have been found guilty of violating the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which speci-
fies the prohibition against “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or
other gases.” In a legal sense, Egypt was not technically “at war,” but instead
was merely aiding the republicans in their war against the royalists.50
There remained a possibility of issuing a general resolution condemning
the use of chemical weapons, similar to the December 5, 1966 resolution,
co-​sponsored by Hungary, which reiterated the need for “strict observance
by all States of the principles and objectives of the Geneva Protocol.” The
1966 resolution was partly intended as a censure of Washington’s use of
poison gas in Vietnam. There was a recognized danger in another broad
resolution emphasizing the general human-​rights aspects of Egyptian gas
usage, as “attempts might then be made to turn the ‘attack’ by indicting
the United States use of napalm in Vietnam, and the use of tear gas by [the
UK] in colonial territories.”51 The use of napalm in Vietnam had already
been cited by Arab newspapers in their critique of the ICRC’s investiga-
tion in Yemen, while at the same time the UN declined to investigate the
US conduct of war in Vietnam: “hence its avowed concern in this incident
whilst it stands idly watching American massacres in Vietnam.”52
Daniel J. McCarthy, a British diplomat attached to the Aden High
Commissioner’s office, highlighted “the important humanitarian consid-
erations involved and the advantage from the point of view of our position
in South Arabia of bringing discredit upon the Egyptians for their activities
in the Yemen, it is most unfortunate that the UAR are getting off lightly.”53
Not everyone in the British Foreign Service agreed with McCarthy’s per-
spective. Peter W. Unwin, a British diplomat, argued that the UAR was
not getting off lightly, as press reports of poison gas use against Yemeni
civilians had served to discredit the UAR in the Arab world: “Although
there is no official UN condemnation, I think the point has gotten across.”
Unwin was additionally hesitant to lead a political attack against Egypt’s
use of poison gas for “fear of arousing great Egyptian hostility towards us”
and “the fact that if we lead a critical chorus we will be accused of attacking
the UAR not on the merits of the gas attack but because of our imperialist
antipathy to them.”54 In essence, Unwin ironically seemed to have been
concerned that the British Empire would be accused of being imperial,
especially regarding its policy toward Egypt.55
Unlike his American and British counterparts, Jamil Baroody, a
Lebanese-​born New Yorker who served as the Saudi UN ambassador, knew
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 143

how to play the diplomatic field and navigate the UN General Assembly, as
he had been a member of the UN since its founding in 1946. Baroody had
Saudi King Faisal’s total confidence and was at liberty to speak his mind
on the floor of the UN. There seemed to be no one more suited to chal-
lenge Nasser and U Thant in the UN than Jamil Baroody, who earned the
nickname “unguided missile” for his ability to “derail trains of thought,
[discomfit] the orthodox, and [disrupt] debate.”56 The results of a Saudi lab
report released in March 1967 convinced Baroody that he could take com-
plaints to the UN, as the scientific evidence was accurate. The report, an
analysis of Egypt’s chemical attacks,was published by the Saudi Arabian
Ministry of Health and included forensic medical eports from the military
hospital in Ta’if where acutely ill Yemen patients were transferred from
the border village of Najran.57
In his first oral complaint to U Thant, Baroody labeled the Egyptian
use of poison gas in Yemen a “silent genocide.”58 In subsequent corre-
spondence with U Thant between February and April of 1967, Baroody
logged similar complaints against the UAR. Baroody declared that he
planned to “wrap U Thant like an octopus” on the subject of chemical
weapons in Yemen with his intense letter writing campaign.59 U Thant
on his part managed to delay any action by sidestepping Baroody’s com-
plaints, claiming that there was insufficient evidence of Egypt’s use of
chemical weapons. On April 1, 1967, Baroody wrote out of frustration: “if
God forbid, should lethal gas be used in another region of the world, no
United Nations representatives should keep silent.”60 In continuing his
critique of U Thant’s double standard, Baroody highlighted the UN’s cen-
sure of the US conduct of war in the Far East while ignoring the Egyptian
war in Yemen. In response, U Thant continued to refer to the fact that
UAR representatives to the UN have “flatly and repeatedly denied” the
use of poison gas, evidently giving him no further reason to press the
matter. To this Baroody reiterated the convincing evidence presented by
the ICRC and Saudi reports, claiming that the UAR is taking “refuge in
denials.”
In some of his letter writing to U Thant, Baroody, one of the origi-
nal delegates to the League of Nations, assumed the role of the wise old
man offering advice to a younger generation. In his April 1 letter, he left U
Thant with strong final words: “The tendency has always been to rational-
ize one’s inaction on the ground of legal niceties or juridical intricacies
whence the better part of valor takes refuge in caution and prudence. The
United Nations can no longer afford such a policy, for if it does, there is
144 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

no assurance that it will not founder like the League of Nations had done
before it.” Baroody later continued that “if no warning is sounded that the
use of lethal gas constitutes an act of genocide and should be forbidden
under all circumstances in wars whether declared or undeclared, there
henceforth shall be no deterrent for ultimately plunging mankind into
suicide.”61 Despite his oratory prowess, Baroody was unable to sufficiently
pressure the hesitant U Thant to take a strong stance against Egypt’s use
of chemical weapons. Just as Baroody predicted, failure to censure Egypt’s
first attack on Kitaf would serve to encourage further attacks in the follow-
ing months.

Post-​1967 War and the

“Let-​someone-​else-​do-​it policy”
In the aftermath of Egypt’s war with Israel, Baroody’s correspondence with
U Thant and Saudi Arabia’s condemnation of Egypt quickly died down.
Several Conservative British MPs argued that “we are going too far along
the line of doing practically everything to placate Egypt.”62 The majority
of MPs, led by Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs George Brown, how-
ever, were reluctant to continue efforts to condemn the Egyptian chemical
warfare as they felt that “the present is hardly the time to take such action,
since we should probably be accused of simply seizing another stick with
which to beat President Nasser.” It also seemed unlikely that Saudi Arabia
“will wish to risk more cracks in the face of Arab solidarity” by continuing
its campaign against the Egyptian use of poison gas in Yemen.63 Without
the support of Saudi Arabia, or any other Arab country, it did not seem
expedient for the UK to continue its international campaign against
Egyptian war tactics
The staunch anti-​Egyptian stance of the British Conservative party
had seen a change of face following the 1967 War. Even Donald McCarthy,
who had advocated earlier in the year for a harsher censure of Egypt,
ameliorated his position toward the poison gas issue in Yemen. In justify-
ing his changed position, he highlighted the “big lie” (following Egypt’s
defeat in June 1967, the Arab press falsely accused the United Kingdom
and the United States of playing a role in Israel’s victory, giving birth to
what became known as the “big lie”) atmosphere in the Middle East, mak-
ing any British protest against Egypt inherently counterproductive.64 In
McCarthy’s view, the British response needed to be limited to “sympathy
but unwillingness to take drastic action.”65
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 145

Echoing McCarthy’s thoughts, William Hillier-​ Fry explained that

if British involvement in any poison gas censures was discovered, “it
would be widely believed that we were simply indulging in a vindictive
attack upon the Egyptians.”66 There was additional concern in the British
Foreign Office that any British-​led anti-​UAR initiatives had the potential
to adversely affect British interests in Libya, Kuwait, and the Emirates,
which were all still under British colonial control in 1967.67
George Brown’s talking points for August 8, 1967, were a demonstra-
tive sign of how British policy toward the Egyptian poison gas issue had
changed after June 1967. Britain would not take the lead on UAR condem-
nation because it was unlikely to succeed in stimulating action by UN
Security Council, General Assembly, HRC, or the Economic and Social
Council. British involvement would only be a “propaganda gift” to the pro-
gressive Arab countries, who would assume the initiative was part of the
UK vendetta against the UAR. Secretary Brown concluded his remarks
with a statement absolving Britain of any further responsibility for hold-
ing Egypt accountable: “While I sympathize very strongly with the victims
of what has happened, I  must keep the British interests as a whole in
mind in any action I take or attitude I adopt.”68
On the other side of the ocean, even though CIA labs had confirmed
the presence of a nerve agent in the battlefield samples from Kitaf, it was
not until the end of July 1967 that the US State Department officially
acknowledged the use of poison gas in Yemen.69 Hermann F.  Eilts, US
Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, was one of the lone government voices advo-
cating greater US involvement on the poison gas issue. “UAR continues
[to] indiscriminately use poison gas in Yemen. On our part we [are] no
longer seeking [to] obscure this fact … we here are also discreetly urging
Yemeni royalists give wider, more effective publicity to these poison gas
attacks.” On one occasion, Eilts tried to convince the State Department
to supply two hundred gas masks to royalists.70 Leading up to the June
1967 war, the United States had been concerned that excessive pressure
on Nasser related to his war conduct in Yemen would push him into a war
with Israel. As Eilts pointed out, that war had already occurred and these
constraints were no longer a factor in US policy toward Egypt’s chemical
warfare in Yemen.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk did not agree with Eilts’s approach. In
his response to ICRC’s request for gas masks, Rusk demonstrated the
impact of the politically restrained US policy toward Egypt’s chemical war
in Yemen. He first blamed the complicated nature of using a gas mask
146 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

and the supposed ineptitude of Yemeni civilians: “effective use of masks,

medicines, and equipment requires training or supervision of type not
easy to arrange in conditions of this area. Many Yemeni are illiterate and
would require oral instructions in use of masks. Yemenis are known to
fear injections and would be hard to train to make proper use of medical
kits.”71
When British officials asked why the United States had not made a
public statement on the Egyptian use of gas in Yemen, Rusk replied that
“this information would have greater impact internationally if it came
from the Red Cross rather than from the US.”72 British officials recog-
nized that by this point in the Middle East conflict US officials were facing
similar constraints in that “the United States cannot take the lead in any
action against the Egyptians because any such initiative would undoubt-
edly be attacked as a “pro-​Israel” maneuver by the United States.”73 Rusk’s
hesitance may also have been driven by the fact that by mid-​July 1967, the
Ranch Hand herbicidal warfare missions in Vietnam had reached their
all-​time peak in terms of defoliating agent volume and the number of
sorties.74 General William Westmoreland made it clear in 1967 that he
wanted all his officers and their Vietnamese counterparts to make use of
tear gas during combat operations, citing several years of successful tacti-
cal deployment. Tear gas was particularly effective at flushing enemies
out of hiding, denying guerillas access to terrain or supplies, and during
search-​and-​rescue operations.75 Rusk had always been a vehement oppo-
nent of Kennedy and Johnson’s defoliation policy, fearing that the United
States would be charged with biological and chemical warfare despite the
fact that herbicides were not officially prohibited by international law.
He recommended several times that the Ranch Hand program be termi-
nated.76 Washington could therefore not hope to contribute to the censure
of Egypt’s chemical warfare in Yemen without receiving an international
critique of their own use of chemical agents in Vietnam in return. As
Harold Beeley, the former UK ambassador to Egypt, noted:  “The Soviet
bloc would certainly exploit the item for attacks on the use of gas, lethal or
not, in Vietnam by the United States. We should then have a sterile propa-
ganda debate, which at the best would waste time and at the worst would
erode the present East-​West détente … ”77
Given the political limitations of Cold War tensions and the restric-
tive environment following the June 1967 war, Britain, Saudi Arabia,
and the United States offered only supportive roles in investigating the
use of poison gas in Yemen. Officials from the United States and Britain
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 147

were desperate for another country to take the lead in a censure of Egypt.
Roscoe Drummond, a reporter for the Washington Post, ridiculed US
Ambassador Arthur J.  Goldberg and US inaction against Egypt in the
UN as a “let-​someone-​else-​do-​it-​policy.”78 Numerous attempts in August
and September 1967 to find another country or organization to lead the
attack against Egyptian chemical warfare failed to find the metaphorical
sacrificial lamb.
During a meeting that appears to have taken place in front of a map of
the world, British foreign officers went through continents, eliminating
entire regions while highlighting several countries that could be portrayed
as “neutral” and that could be relied upon to broach the poison gas issue
in the UN. The entire continent of Africa was ruled out for a multitude
of reasons, including Nasser’s prominence in the decolonized world and
the issue of African solidarity with Egypt. In Asia, evidently “only Ceylon,
Indonesia and Malaysia, whose attitudes in recent months has been rea-
sonable, could avoid accusations of commitment and are also free to act.”
Yet there remained a reasonable doubt whether any would take the lead
against Egypt. This left only the Latin American and Scandinavian coun-
tries, or perhaps a willing NATO member.79
In an attempt to find a neutral Western country to lead a censure of
Egypt, US and British diplomats approached the Portuguese delegation to
NATO, who rejected the request, as they believed that the use of poison gas
in Yemen was an inter-​Arab matter that should be dealt with among the
Arab foreign ministers in Khartoum, Sudan, rather than one of the NATO
countries. They referred specifically to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, whose del-
egates would be at the center of the upcoming Arab Summit in Khartoum
on August 29, 1967. When approached with the same request, the Turkish
delegates to NATO suggested that continued public media attention and
condemnation would be more effective than a UN resolution.
US Ambassador Goldberg was initially optimistic that one of the
Scandinavian countries would accept the responsibility to lead the politi-
cal attack against Egypt’s war in Yemen, given their recent history in sup-
porting UN peacekeeping forces as a neutral Western power. Following a
meeting with representatives of the Norwegian government, Goldberg’s
initial optimism seemed somewhat misplaced. British foreign officers
met with their Norwegian counterparts and expressed serious skepticism:

“Norway considers that it enjoys at present a certain measure of

goodwill with the Afro-​Asians in the United Nations and is ready to
148 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

play an active part in peacekeeping in the Middle East if called upon

to do so … The Norwegian Government will therefore not be will-
ing in any way to jeopardize this international asset … for the sake
of damaging the UAR’s reputation or even to save Yemeni lives.
They have also a very important tanker shipping interest which they
will not wish to endanger by action directed against Nasser.”80

When the Norwegian mission to the UN approached UN diplomat

Ralph Bunche for advice, he further dissuaded an Egyptian censure and
expressed fear “that a resolution might only complicate the Middle East sit-
uation.”81 The Norwegian Foreign Minister John Lyng told George Brown
that “the Scandinavians considered that their economic and political
interests outweighed the moral issues.” Other NATO allies similarly shied
away from taking an initiative. Delegates from Washington and London
broached the subject with the Director-​General of the Danish Ministry
of Foreign Affairs Gunnar Seidenfaden, who explained that “the Danes
would want to avoid any initiative directed against the UAR. Danish ship-
ping and economic interests in the Middle East would in this instance be
likely to outweigh any moral feeling about poison gas.”82 Dutch represen-
tatives at the NATO Disarmaments Experts meeting in September further
justified these economic concerns to George Brown, recognizing that “in
light of the passions aroused by the Arab-​Israeli war it would be difficult
to secure condemnation of a major participant for the use of gas in the
Yemen.”83
MP Emanuel Shinwell then suggested finding a Latin American coun-
try to carry out a political censure against the UAR’s poison gas use, an
idea that failed to take off ,as the United States doubted that any of these
countries would take the initiative.84 In what seems in retrospect an act of
sheer desperation, Lee Dinsmore, the acting country director for Yemen
in the US State Department, admitted that he was “approaching a num-
ber of ‘non Anglo-​Saxon Nobel prize winners’ with a view to organizing
a protest against the use of poison gas in Yemen.” He told his British
counterparts that the approaches were being made indirectly and the State
Department was very keen that their part in organizing the protest should
if possible not be exposed.85
The State Department’s “Nobel scheme” was hardly unprecedented, as
the British had attempted a similar tactic with South Arabian representa-
tives appealing to the UN. The most willing collaborator to this scheme
was Hussein Ali Bayoumi, the pro-​British Adeni minister of defence and
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 149

the secretary-​general of the United National Party of Aden. When Bayoumi

first learned of the Egyptian use of poison gas, he expressed concern for
Egyptian colonialism and tactics following South Yemen’s independence
from Britain, originally scheduled for 1968: “The people of South Arabia,
who have struggled for so long to gain their freedom, are determined not
to exchange the miseries of British colonialism for a life of slavery under
the Egyptian imperialists.”86
Hillier-​Fry suggested that the British use South Arabian petitioners,
like Bayoumi, to publicize local concerns for Egyptian chemical weapons,
as the imam’s royalist supporters did not have an official public voice. The
token South Arabian could appeal to the UN for a mission to save them
from the fate of their northern brethren at the hands of the Egyptian air
force. Even in the worst possible scenario, if the UAR blocked Bayoumi’s
petition, “we might be able to get a certain amount of publicity for the sup-
pression of a legitimate petition merely because it criticized the UAR.”87
Neither the Nobel nor the South Arabian scheme ever gained serious
traction.
The diplomatic failure was attributed to Egypt’s preeminence in the
UN: “The Egyptians are not an easy target … the UAR was, in terms of
ability to influence Assembly votes, probably the most powerful member
country of the United Nations, not excluding the Soviet Union and the
United States.” Although events following the Egyptian defeat in June
1967 had dented the country’s reputation in the UN, “the Egyptian del-
egation remains amongst the most efficient of third world delegations
and still has a fair chance of swinging the great bloc of Afro-​Asian votes
the way it wants.” A member of the Soviet delegation even remarked in
defense of Egypt’s war record in Yemen that “since unmarked aircraft
have been flying over the Yemen, it may be the CIA who have arranged for
the dropping of the bombs!”88
George Brown admitted to British MP Duncan Sandys after having
approached various governments to intervene in UAR poison gas attacks
that “while all the governments we have approached deplore the UAR’s
use of poison gas, they all seem to feel they have compelling reasons of
national interest for not publicly taking the lead in censuring the UAR.”89
When US and British diplomats failed to find another party to lead the
attack, George Brown decided to table efforts at obtaining a UN censure of
the UAR.90 Frank Brenchley, the Head of the Arabian Department in the
Foreign Office even recommended to Brown that he should omit the issue
of poison gas in his upcoming address to the UN General Assembly, as
150 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

further discussion would be counterproductive. Brenchley was concerned

that condemning the UAR would be construed as general hostility to UAR
and would “have lessened the chances of getting an overall settlement on
the Middle East.”91
Sandys continued to be Brown’s adversary on the poison gas issue and
sharply criticized this decision. Sandys questioned Brown’s trust in Nasser
and why the UK should “allow him to get away with this flagrant breach of
the rules of war.” Sandys made one final overture to the foreign secretary,
asking Britain to take the lead against poison gas in Yemen lest “Britain
be afraid to speak alone for humanity.”92 Brown dismissed Sandys’ moral-
istic appeal claiming instead that “were we to raise the matter, it would be
widely believed that we were cynically using a humanitarian appeal simply
in order to embarrass the UAR.”93
By November 1967 the withdrawal of Egyptian forces from Yemen was
well underway and was expected to be completed by mid-​December.94
British diplomat Norman Hillier-​Fry remarked that by this point, “there
is no possibility of securing international action to condemn the United
Arab Republic.”95 The international initiative and desire to censure Egypt
and perhaps force a withdrawal from Yemen had dissipated; the Egyptian
troops were already on their way out. Just a few weeks later the Egyptian
intervention in Yemen came to an end, leaving the issue of poison gas as
only a distant historical memory for most governments and news outlets.
While the United States and Britain had already withdrawn their con-
frontations with Egypt over chemical weapons, Imam al-​Badr and his roy-
alist movement continued their own public relations campaign for many
months after the Egyptian troops had left. In 1968 the imam’s official
printing service released an English-​language magazine that highlighted
the atrocities committed by Egyptian occupation forces and focused on the
use of poison gas. The publication included graphic pictures of Yemeni
casualties, copies of ICRC reports, and grossly exaggerated statistics on the
number of poison gas attacks, which the royalists numbered in the hun-
dreds. In an attempt to garner support for an international investigation
into Egyptian war crimes, the publication ends with the following state-
ment in bold:  “You may know personally some of those responsible.”96
However, no Egyptians were ever held accountable for their actions. By the
time the royalists began their propaganda effort in earnest, Egyptian forces
had already withdrawn and the international community had moved on to
other conflicts, leaving the first use of chemical warfare in the Arab world
to the backrooms of dusty and neglected archives.
 Chemical Warfare in Yemen 151

Ignorance of Egypt’s use of chemical weapons continued even decades

after the civil war had come to an end and the royalists had reconciled
with the YAR. Contemporary media analyses and much of the chemical
warfare literature tend to overlook the use of poison gas in Yemen.97 As
Walter Benjamin famously remarked, “history is written by the victors.”
The YAR defeated Imam al-​Badr and the royalists, earning the republican
leadership the right to dictate national memory of the civil war. During the
author’s visits to Yemen, there were only a few who could recall the attacks
and there was certainly no mention in the limited political archives avail-
able in Sana’a. In the National War Museum in Sana’a, as of 2013, there
was no reference to Egypt’s use of chemical weapons. To date, no monu-
ments have been erected in the targeted villages and no memorial was ever
held for the victims of Egypt’s chemical attacks. Although many Egyptian
military officers published self-​serving memoirs of the Yemen campaign,
predictably, none of them mentioned the use of chemical weapons, hop-
ing their war conduct would soon be forgotten in the pages of history.
7

The Anglo-​Egyptian Rivalry

in Yemen

THE AMERICANS, SOVIETS, and Saudis were each secretly pleased to see
Nasser rattling in his Yemeni cage with great restraints placed on his
plans elsewhere in the region. The British, on the other hand, were not
merely content with shackling Nasser’s foreign policy. When the first
Egyptian troops arrived to Yemen in October 1962, British officials per-
ceived a direct threat to their colonial interests in Aden.1 Nasser openly
declared his malicious intentions toward the British-controlled territories
of South Arabia and granted financial support, training, and munitions to
anti-​British groups. From the British perspective, this was an opportunity
to exact revenge on an Arab leader who had singlehandedly delivered the
greatest blow to the British Empire in the Middle East with their 1956
defeat in Suez. There was concern that Nasser would try to undermine
British control over the Wheelus Air Base in Libya and a pair of bases in
newly independent Cyprus. In order to protect these strategically impor-
tant bases, the official British foreign policy objective was to “keep Nasser
locked up in Yemen,” without confronting him in open war.2 The Anglo-​
Egyptian conflict would eventually encompass elements of the British
Special Air Service (SAS), the French Foreign Legion, the Israeli Air Force,
the American CIA, and the Iranian savak (secret service), among others,
adding a clandestine component to the international arena of the Yemen
Civil War.
During the 1960s, South Arabia was occupied by two international
powers in decline. Following their loss of the Suez Canal in 1956, the
British Empire in the Middle East transferred regional military command
to the port of Aden. Nasser’s gaze, in turn, shifted toward Yemen, whose
 The Anglo-Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen 153

geography served great strategic interest for Egypt. Yemen overlooked Bab
al-Mandeb, the maritime gates of the Red Sea and a vital water passage for
the Suez Canal. Yemen’s proximity to Arabian oil fields and the remaining
imperial possessions of the British Empire which were a source of poten-
tial propaganda value, were added bonuses. This Anglo-​Egyptian rivalry
over regional dominance served as an important backdrop to the Yemen
Civil War as their historic struggle had a profound impact on the course
of the conflict.
The 1960s was not, however, the first time that British and Egyptian
foreign policies clashed in this corner of South Arabia. During the 1830s,
both Muhammad Ali, the Khedive of Egypt, and Lord Palmerston of
the British Empire had their eyes on this vital region. The rhetoric and
circumstances of their first confrontation over Yemen would be recre-
ated 130  years later as Nasser, the inheritor of the country fathered by
Muhammad Ali, clashed with the last generation of British imperialists
in the same setting. The Yemen Civil War contributed to the decline of
both British and Egyptian regional clout and served to close the circle of
130 years of the Anglo-​Egyptian rivalry.

British Capture of Aden3

Between 1835 and 1837, British Captain Stafford Bettesworth Haines
made two expeditionary trips to Aden, noting that the armies of
Muhammad Ali, the Khedive of Egypt, had been consolidating their
position in Yemen since 1832 and were poised to move southward to
capture the port of Aden.4 Ali’s army was sent to Yemen at the behest of
the Ottoman Empire to crush the Wahhabi tribal revolt in the Hijaz, an
area encompassing the holy cities of Mecca and Medinah. When hun-
dreds of Egyptians were reported to have garrisoned the Yemeni port
city of Mocha on June 22, 1837, the British Foreign Office estimated that
it was only a matter of time until Muhammad Ali’s forces secured the
entire Arabian Peninsula.5 Beyond the Red Sea trade, Yemen itself was
estimated to be a valuable asset to Ali as it was, and continues to be,
the most populous country on the Arabian Peninsula.6 The impending
Egyptian conquest of Aden would have serious ramifications for British
commerce in the Red Sea and the security of India and its trade routes.
Moreover, the expansion of Egyptian control on the Arabian Peninsula
continued to threaten the relative stability of the Ottoman Empire and
the balance of power in the region.
154 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

In January 1837 the merchant ship Deria Dawlat, owned by the nawab
(ruler) of the Carnatic and sailing under the British flag, left India carry-
ing dozens of Muslim passengers on their way to Mecca for the annual
Hajj pilgrimage. After the ship crashed into the rocky shores of Aden,
tribal members under the leadership of the Sheikh of Aden plundered the
British ship and apprehended many of the surviving passengers. In sub-
sequent events, later clarified by detailed testimonies offered to a tribunal
in Bombay, the passengers were stripped naked and brought to shore.
The men were jailed while the women were harassed by the local inhabit-
ants of Aden. The sheikh forced them, under threat of death, to sign an
affidavit declaring that they had not been mistreated. After receiving a
coarse waist covering and some food, several passengers found passage to
Mocha, where they were forced to beg for food in the streets. The surviv-
ing passengers eventually made their way to Jeddah under the protection
of a British captain who was passing through the area.7 The Deria Dawlat
incident would have far-​reaching repercussions for the future of Yemen
and the rest of South Arabia.
On March 26, 1838, the British Colonial Council met in Bombay to dis-
cuss Muhammad Ali’s expanding Egyptian empire and its repercussions
for the British Empire. They discussed Captain Haines’ “free purchase of
Aden” proposal. Although members of the Government of Bombay deemed
the military procurement of the Aden to be a dangerous and unnecessary
provocation of Egypt, they perceived the situation as an epic confrontation
with Egyptian imperialism: “there is but one power in that [Arabia] region,
whose views or feelings on that subject are worth a moment’s regard; and
to that Power it will be a matter of profound indifference whether we gain
the port in question by force, fraud, or favor, so as we gain it at all. Probably
no sight more hateful could visit the eyes of Muhammad Ali, than that of
the British Design flying over the promontory of Aden.”8
The council viewed Ali as an ambitious ruler equaling, if not surpass-
ing, the global threat of the French and Russian Empires.

Since first obtaining possession of Egypt by an act of shocking per-

fidy and cruelty, his career has been uniform. By treason to his
acknowledged sovereign, he has extended his sway over the heart
of Africa… . His next adventure will be on Baghdad, and on the
western shores of the Persian Gulf; and, if once permitted to the
Straits of Bab al-​Mandib, he never rest till he has stretched his
power along the whole cost of Arabia. The object of Muhammad
Ali is evident the plans to erect Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, into
 The Anglo-Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen 155

an independent Kingdom; and, whenever it suits the views of

France or of Russia to abet him in accomplishing that purpose,
he will gladly league with either of those powers against England.9

The council concluded that the British occupation of Aden was indeed
retribution for the embarrassment of the Deria Dawlat and could poten-
tially curtail the threat of Egyptian imperialism by blocking Ali’s plans for
Arabian and Red Sea dominance.

It is distinctively known that as one object amidst his ambitious

schemes, Muhammad Ali has for some time contemplated the sub-
jugation of Aden. He cannot therefore but view with great displea-
sure the anticipation of his design by the British government… .
If we withdraw from Aden, and Muhammad Ali plants his foot
there, the plea of priority becomes his, and our hopes of supersed-
ing him are extinguished forever. We are then at his mercy, and can
establish no coal depot for our Red Sea steamers, at a station worth
having, which will not be under his control.10

Throughout the 1830s, Henry John Temple, Third Viscount, Lord

Palmerston, held personal contempt for Ali, whom he accused of estab-
lishing state monopolies only to secure a huge profit for himself.11 As the
conflict with Egypt progressed, Palmerston took an increasing vitriolic
stance toward the Egyptian wali, writing: “I hate Mehmet Ali, whom I con-
sider as nothing but an ignorant barbarian, who by cunning and bold-
ness and mother-​wit, has been successful in rebellion; … I look upon his
boasted civilization of Egypt as the arrantest humbug; and I believe that
he is as great a tyrant and oppressor as ever made a people wretched.”12
Having been persuaded by Haines’s arguments and by the council’s
fear of Egyptian imperialism, Sir Robert Grant, the governor of Bombay,
issued orders to negotiate with the sheikh of Aden to take possession of
the port in compensation for grievances related to the Deria Dawlat:13 “The
insult which has been offered to the British flag by the Sultan of Aden has
led me to enquiries which leave no doubt on my mind that we should take
possession of the port of Aden.”14
Without a British presence in Aden, it would only be matter of time
before Ali conquered Sana’a, the capital of South Arabia, giving him
regional political control. Haines believed that the interior tribes looked
to the British for support to stop the Egyptian advance and reopen Yemeni
roads to commerce.15 Many of these same tribes later became part of the
156 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Federation of South Arabia (FSA) during the 1960s, a product of British

hegemony in twentieth-​century South Arabia.
On March 27, 1839, Patrick Campbell, British Consul-​General in Egypt,
reported to Lord Palmerston that the port of Aden had been secured by
the British navy and that he no longer thought that Ali would threaten
the British port or British trade routes along the Red Sea.16 Palmerston’s
response to Campbell claimed that Ali had marched an expedition force
to Mocha with the intention of attacking Sana’a in October 1838 and con-
tinuing further south to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. The British pos-
session of Aden, however, succeeded in halting Ali’s advance. Palmerston
instructed Campbell to inform Ali that the British did not support con-
tinued Egyptian occupation of Yemen and request withdrawal. Campbell
was to encourage Ali to “engage in improving the administration of the
Provinces confided to His Government instead of employing the energies
of his mind and the resources of the countries he governs in, in aggres-
sive expeditions against neighboring districts.”17 Although the occupation
of Aden was further justified by the commercial potential of Yemen’s coffee
trade and of the utility of an Aden coal station, it was clear to all that the real
purpose of the British conquest of Aden was primarily to counter Egyptian
imperialism.18 British Aden would serve a similar role during the 1960s.

The Suez Group and the Anti-​Nasser Movement

Muhammad Ali’s nationalist ambitions were adopted by the Egyptian suc-
cessor to Ali’s dynasty, Gamal Abdel Nasser, when he rose to power in
1954.19 In his treatise The Philosophy of the Revolution, published in 1955,
Nasser portrayed himself as the inheritor of a century of incomplete
Egyptian revolutions. Beginning with Ali’s failed experiment at represent-
ing the Egyptian people, Nasser then highlighted Colonel Ahmad Urabi’s
nationalist revolt in 1881 and Sa’ad Zaghloul’s failed 1919 revolution. The
Free Officers Revolution on July 23, 1952, Nasser claimed, was the realiza-
tion of Egyptian dreams for nationhood that began with Ali’s founding
of the modern Egypt state.20 Rather than marching an army of conquest
through Sudan and the Arabian Peninsula, however, Nasser initially saw
the expansion of his influence through anti-​imperialist rhetoric and mili-
tary support for regional allies as manifested in his personal Arab nation-
alist ideology, Nasserism.
Nasserism has been characterized as an ideology, cult of personal-
ity, modernization effort, anticolonialist movement, and even a form of
 The Anglo-Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen 157

populism. Similar to Ali, Nasser sought to modernize the Egyptian nation

state.21 Under both Ali and Nasser, particular emphasis was given to the
modernization of the Egyptian countryside and the local fellahin.22 Walid
Khalidi describes Nasserism as an “attitude” of the people, rather than an
ideology like Marxism or Socialism.23 At the core of this “attitude” was an
anti-​imperialist drive and a sense of pan-​Arab identity.
P. J. Vatikiotis argues that, rather than an ideology, Nasserism was an
authoritarian cult of personality dependent entirely upon Nasser and “his
vision, style, and approach to power.”24 This centrality of Nasser in the
Egyptian state is similar to Khaled Fahmy’s depiction of Muhammad Ali’s
dynastic empire.25 Nasser’s ability to appeal to the masses of Egypt, the
Arab world, and the developing world was itself a concept of Nasserism.26
His charismatic authority, however, rested on his heroic performance,
necessitating constant success and foreign adventures abroad, an impor-
tant factor when considering the Anglo-​Egyptian rivalry. In an edited vol-
ume published fifty years after Nasser’s rise to power, Eli Podeh and Onn
Winckler argue that Nasser’s appeal to Egyptian peasantry and empha-
sis on mass public appearances resembled the Latin American populist
model, and Ali’s fellahin-​directed economic reform and military modern-
ization. Like Ali’s, Nasser’s populism rested on his ability to appeal to
the fellahin and the general population through continued efforts against
imperialism and the British in particular.27
Despite these similarities, Nasser’s revolution was not explicitly a rein-
carnation of Muhammad Ali’s empire, aside from elements of historical
continuity and a very compelling narrative. After all, the Free Officers
Revolution came at the expense of King Farouk, the last ruling member
of Muhammad Ali’s dynasty. Nonetheless, Nasser’s rise to power and his
ability to challenge British hegemony in the region helped bring about,
once again, the intersection of declining British power and rising Egyptian
influence in the Middle East. The reemergence of the Anglo-​Egyptian
clash of equals reintroduced many of the racial, economic, and strategic
concerns harbored by British officials during the nineteenth century.
As if echoing Palmerston’s concerns about Muhammad Ali, British
Prime Minister Anthony Eden considered Nasser an embodiment of all
the threats to British hegemony, including the balance of power in the
Middle East, British oil supplies, economic export, and general national
livelihood.28 British statesmen during the 1950s and ‘60s reused much of
the Ali-​era language to describe Egyptian colonialist involvement in Yemen
during the 1960s. During a parliamentary meeting on November 25, 1955,
158 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Conservative MP Julian Amery critiqued that “every Egyptian Government

must embark on a policy of foreign adventure.”29 In his maiden speech as
an MP on the floor of the House of Commons on March 7, 1956, Colonel
Neil ‘Billy’ McLean observed:  “I feel that our Egyptian friends and the
Egyptian government must realize that admiration for Egypt is not the
same thing as love for Egyptian imperialism.”30
On July 26, 1956, when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company,
British condemnation of the Egyptian President grew more vitriolic. The
Suez Canal was immensely important for the British. Every year, six mil-
lion tons of oil passed through the Suez Canal, with two-​thirds allotted
for Western European fuel requirements. In 1955, 14,666 ships passed
through the canal, with one-​third destined for British ports, and three-​
quarters for NATO countries.31 British newspapers expressed the views
of the British public describing the nationalization as “an act of brigand-
age,”32 claiming that “the time for appeasement is over. We must cry ‘Halt’
to Nasser as we should have cried ‘Halt!’ to Hitler. Before he sets the
Middle East aflame, as Hitler did to Europe.”33
Given his position as Prime Minister in 1956, Anthony Eden received
a great deal of blame in the historical critique of the Suez Crisis. More
apologetic and pro-​Eden historians have been keen to absolve Eden of
complete responsibility for the 1956 fiasco. They argue that Eden did not
willingly pursue military options in Egypt. Rather, he was forced into the
Suez war by a combination of domestic political pressures, his own fail-
ing health, US reluctance to act, and pressure from Israel and France.34
Whether these reasons account for Eden’s decision making in 1956 is a
matter of debate. What is not debatable, however, is the political drama that
overran Whitehall during the 1950s regarding the Anglo-​Egyptian rivalry.
At the core of the anti-​Nasser coalition in the British government was a
group of twenty-​six Conservative Party MPs, headed by Captain Charles
Waterhouse, a longtime MP and a senior advisor in the Privy Council.35
Known as the Suez Group, Waterhouse’s coalition was a last vestige of
swashbuckling British soldiers and administrators who continued to view
themselves as global kingmakers through the end of the 1960s.36
The Suez Group’s image was of “backwoodsmen—​a motley collec-
tion of colorful, marginal political eccentrics.”37 They formed backbench
pressure on the cabinet and were central to Conservative Party thought
for two decades. During the 1950s, the group consisted of elderly con-
temporaries of Churchill including Loran Hankey, the Director of the
Suez Canal Company, and Leo Amery, a close confidant of Churchill’s
 The Anglo-Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen 159

anti-​appeasement Munich coalition during the 1930s (he died in 1955),

who were joined by young Tories such as Enoch Powell, the well-​known
moral critic of British policy in Kenya, Fitzroy MacLean who had served
under Churchill’s World War II command in Cairo, and Julian Amery, a
Conservative MP and the son of Leo Amery.38
The group rose to prominence following the October 19, 1954, British
agreement with Egypt to withdraw British troops from the region in
exchange for the maintenance of the Suez Canal as a vital British base.
The Suez Group believed that their subsequent anti-​Egyptian posture
was representative of the general sentiments of the British public. The
members of the group were intent on maintaining remnants of the British
Empire at a time when the United States, under President Eisenhower,
was pushing a policy of decolonization. Having grown impatient with the
lack of American support for continued British presence in the Middle
East, some went as far as proposing an alliance with the Soviet Union,
trying to convince the Soviets that a British presence in Middle East would
be better than an American takeover.39 Karl Pieragostini observed that dur-
ing the 1950s and ’60s British politicians, specifically those of the Suez
Group, saw themselves as locked in a battle with Nasser for the future of
South Arabia and the role of the British in the Middle East.40 This group,
however, was held together by more than their disdain for Nasser. A com-
bination of political intrigue, familial ties, and close friendship brought
together the members of the Suez Group to exert influence on a decade of
British foreign policy in the Middle East.
The political origins of the Suez Group can be traced back to the
anti-​appeasement coalition of the 1930s, which included most notably
Winston Churchill and his protégé Anthony Eden. Between 1951 and
1955, Eden, who served as foreign secretary and deputy prime minister
under Churchill, was instrumental in formulating British foreign policy
globally and in the Middle East in particular. On January 29, 1953, Eden
returned from a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart during which
they had been negotiating the independence of Sudan and the withdrawal
from the Suez Canal. Upon hearing news of progress in the negotiations,
Churchill reprimanded Eden as a failed foreign secretary and claimed
that his former partner in “anti-​appeasement” in the 1930s was now
practicing a policy of appeasement in the Middle East. Churchill fumed
that he “never knew before that Munich was situated on the Nile.”41 After
Churchill retired in 1955, Eden succeeded him as Prime Minister, but
could not avoid Churchill’s continued criticism. Eden’s foreign secretary
160 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

and later chancellor of the exchequer, Harold Macmillan, with his eyes
on the prime minister position himself, willingly joined with members
of the Suez Group, along with Churchill, in undermining Prime Minister
Eden’s foreign policy with Egypt. Although not an official member of
the Suez Group himself, Churchill acted as the group’s ideological and
political mentor. In a conversation with his doctor, Lord Maron, Churchill
shared a blunt opinion of Nasser: “Whoever he is he’s finished after this.
We can’t have that malicious swine sitting across our communications.”42
The Suez Group’s pressure on Prime Minister Eden continued at the
Conservative Party conference in Llandudno, Wales, from October 11–​13,
1956, compelling him to further consider military action against Egypt.
Waterhouse and Amery introduced a party amendment that stipulated
that any agreement with Nasser must ensure the international control of
the Suez Canal. The Suez Group’s influence did not stop at party head-
quarters, but gained the sympathy of media figures as well. Malcolm
Muggeridge of the Daily Telegraph and Randolph Churchill of the Evening
Standard and Daily Express, for example, vilified Eden as a Munich politi-
cian (an appeaser) and supported the more hawkish Macmillan.43
In his effort to supplant Eden as Prime Minister, Macmillan was able
to rely heavily on the support of his son-​in-​law Julian Amery and the Suez
Group in general.44 Amery’s passionate and energetic patriotism is often
attributed to the fate of his brother John, who was hanged for treason
in a Wandsworth jail in December 1945.45 MP McLean, a “political soul-​
mate and inseparable friend” of Amery from their time serving together as
intelligence officers in the Balkans, also assumed an important role in the
group.46 When Eden resigned in 1957 in the aftermath of the Suez politi-
cal disaster, Queen Elizabeth took the advice of Churchill and appointed
Macmillan as the next prime minister rather than Rab Butler, who was
Eden’s deputy prime minister.47
According to Amery’s assessment, Nasser was within forty-​ eight
hours of being overthrown, and the British and French already had alter-
native government waiting. It was clear that the Soviets had withdrawn
military support from Egypt and that Nasser would likely flee Cairo with
little resistance. As a consequence of the Suez failure, nicknamed the
European “Waterloo” of the Middle East, a major power vacuum emerged.
According to Amery, this vacuum was filled by two Arab-​Israeli wars, the
Egyptian invasion of Yemen, the murder of Prime Minister Nuri al-​Said
and King Faisal in Baghdad, the rise of Muammar Qadafi in Libya, and the
Sovietization of Aden and Ethiopia; in sum all of the region’s problems
 The Anglo-Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen 161

of the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. He believed this would never
have happened if the British and French had been allowed to prevail in
Suez.48
In 1957, in response to the British retreat from Egypt and Iraq, and
the tenuous hold on military bases in Cyprus and Kenya, the Suez Group
helped transform the relatively minor British port of Aden into the center
of British power in the region. The construction of the British Petroleum
(BP) refinery in 1954 helped Aden become the fourth-╉largest refueling sta-
tion in the world.49 The increasing importance of Aden for British regional
security inspired the members of the Suez Group to refocus their efforts
on the strategic South Arabian port.

The Aden Group and the Secret War with Nasser

In the aftermath of the 1956 Suez War, Nasser was intent on driving the
British out of the Red Sea region, and Aden in particular, for fear that it
would be used as a British base to reestablish influence over Egypt and
the Suez Canal. Nasser later described himself as a “thorn in the British
throat.”50 Aden, a port city initially captured as a deterrent to Muhammad
Ali’s Egyptian nationalism, found itself once again at the forefront of the
British-╉Egyptian imperial struggle. The final Anglo-╉Egyptian confronta-
tion in Yemen, from 1962 to 1967, marked the bookend to a long history
of British and Egyptian power relations in the Middle East.
Having failed to secure the Suez Canal in 1956, the Conservative rem-
nants of the Suez Group turned their political intentions toward the last
British military base in Aden. Following the arrival of Egyptian troops to
North Yemen in October 1962, the group, under the leadership of Julian
Amery and Neil McLean, was renamed the Aden Group. Its anti-╉Egyptian
and anti-╉Nasser agenda remained the same. In the eyes of the Aden Group,
the Yemen Civil War was the second round of the final Anglo-╉Egyptian
confrontation that began with the Suez War in 1956. In the eyes of the his-
torian, however, the history of the Anglo-╉Egyptian rivalry in Yemen began
over a hundred years earlier, with the British capture of Aden in 1839.
In 1869 British colonial officials in Aden formalized strategic relation-
ships with the surrounding tribes, forming the East Aden Protectorate
and the West Aden Protectorate which both constituted the area of
South Yemen (see Fig. 7.1). Aden High Commissioner Kennedy Trevaskis
turned the West Aden Protectorate of fifteen tribes into the Federation
of South Arabia (FSA) in April 1962, with Aden joining on January 18,
162 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Saudi Arabia

Oman

Sa’dah
North South
Yemen Yemen
Red Sea Hajjah
Ma’rib
Sanaa
Eritrea Hodeidah

Ta’izz

Aden Gulf of Aden

Ethiopia
Djibouti

Somalia 0 100 mi

Somaliland 0 100 km

Figure 7.1  Map of North-​South Yemen. Created by author.

1963, intending it to serve as a permanent barrier from Arab nationalism

even after the British withdrew.51 The East Aden Protectorate, which con-
sisted of those tribes that did not join the FSA, became the Protectorate
of South Arabia. The British intent was to grant the FSA independence
in 1968, while continuing to maintain defense facilities in Aden. To this
end, the Aden Legislative Council formally approved Aden’s accession to
the Federation on September 24, 1962, only two days before the outbreak
of the civil war in what historian William R. Polk described as a “shotgun
wedding.”52 Prior to September 1962, it seemed as if Aden and the protec-
torates were sheltered from pan-​Arab nationalism by the “dense curtain of
the Imam’s Yemen. As the former High Commissioner of Aden, Charles
Johnston explained: “The Yemeni revolution brought its bugles on to our
doorstep.”53
Echoing the conversation between Campbell and Palmerston in 1839,
Trevaskis explained to the prime minister’s office that “the base in Aden
is the major obstacle to Nasserite pretensions in the Arabian Peninsula
and the Persian Gulf.”54 British Defence Minister Peter Thorneycroft and
Secretary of State for the Colonies Duncan Sandys took Trevaskis’s words
a step further, warning that “the loss of Aden would signal the end of
the British Empire.”55 Heeding these words, Prime Minister Macmillan
 The Anglo-Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen 163

appointed Julian Amery as “minister for Yemen” and entrusted him

with the responsibility of supporting royalist forces, with the intention of
forestalling Egyptian hegemony in Arabia. Amery’s “private war against
Nasser” would receive no public recognition or official government
approval, as Macmillan’s divided cabinet would never have sanctioned
open support of the royalists and a confrontation with Nasser.56
Subsequent letters from British ambassadors abroad to the Foreign
Office reiterated the need to “prevent UAR state from stabilizing in
Yemen,” and that British intervention should “maintain at least a stalemate
if not a royalist victory.”57 For example, in a letter to Amery, Michael Webb,
a British undercover journalist fighting with the royalists, explained the
shared sentiments felt by many current and former SAS soldiers: “That
maniac in Cairo has a complex against Britain, and no amount of diplo-
macy and tact will ever eliminate it.”58
Colonel McLean used the crisis in Yemen as a personal opportunity to
confront Nasser’s imperialism on the Arabian Peninsula, just as Captain
Haines had orchestrated the political and military logistics to take pos-
session of Aden during the 1830s. Following his visit to Yemen over
Christmas break 1962, McLean explained the measures that were needed
to confront Egypt in Yemen: “The objective is to get the Egyptian troops
out of the Yemen. If this were not possible then we should at least ensure
that the Egyptians in the Yemen are so busy defending themselves against
the Yemenis that they will not be able to intervene in Aden and other parts
of the Arabian Peninsula. Therefore I believe the maximum possible sup-
port should be given to the Imam.”59
Over the course of the civil war, a total of sixty-​six British mercenar-
ies and twenty-​four French counterparts aided royalist forces in Yemen.
Mercenaries were paid on average $500 per month in addition to airfare,
rent, and other expenses. Their responsibilities including weapons train-
ing, establishing radio communications, developing guerilla strategy, and
mining vital roads. Many of these mercenaries served on the front lines of
the royalist battlefield and specifically targeted Egyptian military strong-
holds and heavy weaponry.60
The Saudi royal family financed and supplied the entire mission.
Colonel David Smiley, Britain’s military advisor on Yemen and an impor-
tant member of the Aden Group, suspected that the Saudis intended to
“keep the pot boiling” in the Yemen without increasing the direct sup-
port necessary to openly defeat Egyptian forces in Yemen. Adding to the
list of countries machinating to keep Nasser engaged in Yemen, Smiley
164 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

observed that the Saudis “would no doubt be happy to see 40,000 of

Nasser’s troops permanently tied down in the Yemen, suffering casualties
and costing Nasser a great deal of money.” The British, on the other hand,
preferred to drive Nasser from the Arabian Peninsula entirely.61
Jim Johnson, a central figure of the Aden Group, echoed McLean’s
observations, claiming that a stalemate that pinned down the Egyptian
army “in a war of attrition suited the Saudis nicely.” Johnson was skepti-
cal, however, as to the royalists’ ability to breach Egypt’s strategic triangle.
During a 1966 offensive, for example, mercenaries orchestrated a heavy
barrage of artillery to cover a royalist advance on Sana’a only to see al-​
Badr’s forces remain in place, noting the “royalists’ lack of resolve that
went beyond the front line.”62 Mark Millburn, an SAS major who was part
of the mercenary group in Yemen, shared a particularly harsh opinion of
Yemeni royalists and an honest assessment of why the British intervened
in Yemen: “Thank goodness I am nearly finished here. If Nasser wants to
occupy such a dud country, the more fool he! … . Apart from the obvious
importance of safeguarding Aden via Royalists and the comparatively few
decent and loyal people excepted, I personally should lose no more sleep
if the Egyptians captured all the Yemen killing the men and raping the
women. The men are positively asking for this to happen. Yet I would be
sorry for the women and children.”63
Trevaskis argued that royalists could not defeat UAR forces, but might
drive Nasser out of Yemen, just as guerillas had driven the British out of
Cyprus and Palestine and the French out of Algeria. He advocated open
British support for the imam, lest Nasserite supporters rise up as a fifth
column against the British in Aden, making the colony untenable.64 As he
explained to Duncan Sandys: “in my view, we should do all in our power
to prevent the Yemen Arab Republic from acquiring stability and if pos-
sible to rid the Yemen of the UAR and other hostile influences.”65 Open
British confrontation with the YAR and Egypt was not, however, a serious
option. Several British cross-​border attacks from 1963 to 1964 on YAR
military positions and against rebels from Radfan were condemned by
the US and British press. One air raid on a Yemeni base at Fort Harib in
March 1964, in particular, received a great deal of criticism, as it was the
first time TV news cameras filmed British counterinsurgency operations
in South Arabia.66
According to Clive Jones in his book detailing British mercenary oper-
ations in Yemen, the post-​Suez “malaise” dissuaded London from sup-
porting large-​scale efforts to oppose Egypt. Clandestine operations were
 The Anglo-Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen 165

undertaken as a way to confront Nasser without publicly declaring war

on the YAR.67 According to John Harding, British political officer in Aden
during the 1960s, “it was this unofficial campaign, rather than anything
mounted by HQ Middle East Command in Aden, that ultimately frus-
trated Nasser’s Yemeni ambitions.”68 The secrecy of these operations was
regarded as a useful means to avoid international condemnation of overt
military action, particularly from Americans who did not want to be seen
as supporting “an old-​fashioned colonial campaign.”69 Tony Geraghty,
author and journalist who focuses on British intelligence, goes even fur-
ther in claiming that the secret war in Yemen also “helped prevent an
Egyptian or Marxist takeover in Oman and other Gulf States.”70 In the
British television series The Mayfair Set, which details the clandestine war
in Yemen, the English filmmaker Adam Curtis best described the group
as “the first example of the ‘privatization’ of British foreign policy as its
worldwide role wound down in the mid-​1960s.”71
On the other end of the political spectrum, British Consul to Ta’iz
Christopher Gandy dismissed Amery’s alarmism, claiming that the Aden
Group’s lobbying for royalist support was “moved by nostalgia for lost
causes.” Gandy suggested recognizing the YAR on December 28, 1962, in
an attempt to placate Nasser and stop his attacks on the British position
in Aden. These “Tory imperialists,” as Gandy termed them, “apparently
believed that if only all the King’s horses and all the King’s men could
push hard enough they could put Humpty Dumpty together again and
restore the Imamate, provided only that they were not held back by that
awkward squad of wets and pussy-​footers in the Foreign Office.”72 Despite
his ameliorated attitude, Gandy would be expelled by Sallal on February 17,
1963, in response to the nonrecognition of the YAR.73
In October 1963, Macmillan was forced to resign and was replaced
by Alec Douglas-​Home, the previous Foreign Secretary.74 Douglas-​Home
maintained a tolerance of the clandestine support for the royalists, as he
believed that “the whole history in the Middle East in recent years shows
that Nasser has had a series of setbacks in Syria. He has only gotten
bogged down in Yemen. Let us leave him alone and let him stew in his
own juice.”75
In November 1963, Deputy Director of CIA Richard Helms explained
to Director of MI6 Dick White that he could not sanction official sup-
port for the royalists as the White House officially recognized the YAR.
NSA director Robert Komer was convinced that London was exaggerat-
ing the threat from Nasser to Aden, as Nasser’s support for terrorism in
166 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

South Yemen was only a “pinprick” and was of no serious concern.76 Any
help given to the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in Yemen would
have to be completely “off the record.”77 In aid of his British counterparts,
James Fees, a CIA officer in Ta’iz in 1963, organized a network of Arab-​
born agents who managed to infiltrate the inner-​offices of the republic
and Egyptian administration obtaining detailed maps of military impor-
tance.78 The clandestine supply of US weapons for the royalists increased
American popularity among al-​Badr’s supporters because the tanks and
military hardware used by Egyptians and republicans were all Russian-​
made. The Irish-​ born journalist Peter Sommerville-​ Large explained
that “because the Americans did not openly help the republicans it was
assumed among the royalists that they secretly supported the Imam, and
had only recognized the new regime for devious diplomatic motives.”79
Nasser did not sit idly as British mercenaries and American agents
aided royalist forces against his troops; he instead formed his own anti-​
British clandestine organization in South Yemen. The group was headed
by Qahtan al-​Sha’bi, who had fled to Cairo in 1958. During a meeting
in Sana’a in June 1963, Sha’bi oversaw the formation of the National
Liberation Front (NLF), an anti-​British Arab nationalist militant organiza-
tion supported by Egyptian smuggled weapons across the FSA border.80
The formation of this organization attracted tribesmen from all over
Yemen to join the fight against British imperialism.81 Egyptian journal-
ist and Nasser confidant Muhammad Heikal justified Egyptian support
for the NLF as retaliation for British support for royalists.82 Mutual bor-
der incursions by ground troops, air force, and allied tribes marked the
extent of the direct Anglo-​Egyptian confrontation in South Arabia. Beihan,
a transit point for British-​royalist aid, was a frequent target for Egyptian-​
YAR bombing raids.83 YAR territory in North Yemen served as a training
base for anti-​British forces in a way similar to how Aden served as a base
for the anti-​imam Free Yemeni Movement prior to 1962.84
With the looming general elections in England in October 1964,
Secretary of State for the Colonies Sandys added a political dimension to
the secret war against Nasser, which he thought might discredit Harold
Wilson, the leader of the Labour opposition. Sandys argued that “Nasser
is probably the most hated man in Britain. But at bottom his policy and
the Labour Party’s also towards the Middle East are very closely aligned. If
we could identify Wilson with Nasser … we might greatly strengthen our
hand.”85 These political machinations were cut short when in July 1964
the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram published five letters written between
 The Anglo-Egyptian Rivalry in Yemen 167

British mercenaries and the central command in England; the letters

threatened to uncover the entire operation. The ensuing short-​lived media
frenzy in the UK and Egypt discredited Conservative party members who
were seen as complicit with British clandestine activities in Yemen.86 The
Labour Party won the elections of 1964 and 1966, giving Harold Wilson
the premiership. In 1966, Harold Wilson’s Labour government published
a defense white paper that detailed the withdrawal of British forces “East
of Suez,” thereby canceling any earlier plans for the British to maintain a
military presence in Aden and calling for a complete withdrawal in 1968.87
The 1966 decision to withdraw from Aden was based on a number
of factors. Beginning in 1964, Sudan forbade British overflights, thereby
limiting access to Africa from Aden.88 The FSA was considered a failure,
as the local elite were increasingly unwilling to collaborate with colonial
authorities. Egyptian intervention in South Arabia fueled anti-​ British
sentiments and violence, influencing domestic public opinion in the UK
against maintaining an empire in the Middle East.89 Finally, the economic
hardships and ensuing Sterling crisis in 1966 forced Prime Minister
Wilson to reduce defense expenditures on overseas bases such as Aden.90
A report from the British Petroleum refinery in Aden, with a capac-
ity of 150,000 barrels per day, offered an additional consideration for the
defense paper of 1966. The investment in the Aden refinery had long
since been paid off and therefore the port was expendable from BP’s point
of view. There was still a danger of Nasser’s further plans in the Gulf that
constituted a potential threat to BP interests.91 BP officials felt that it was
unlikely that South Yemen had the technical capability to operate the
BP Aden refinery, with or without Egyptian help, and would “have little
adverse effect on Western interests in the Gulf.”92 The contingency plan in
the event that the Aden refinery was closed included new facilities in the
French-​controlled Djibouti.93
The 1966 white paper presented Nasser with an opportunity to emerge
victorious in all of South Arabia. The long-​breath strategy allowed Nasser
to maintain a defensive position in the strategic triangle while dedicat-
ing additional resources and attention to South Yemen.94 In January 1966,
Nasser continued to facilitate attacks on Aden and the FSA, by attempting
to unite anti-​British factions under a single Cairo-​controlled Front for the
Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY).95 The original members
of the NLF rejected this Egyptian-​proposed union and the prospects of
Egyptian control over their organization and domination over all of South
Arabia.96 From November 1966 through the end of 1967, the NLF and
168 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

FLOSY engaged in a heated campaign for control of the anti-​imperialist

movement.
British complaints to the UN and other international organizations
were dismissed, while condemnations of British conduct in Aden were
numerous. For example, Amnesty International in a report issued in
March 1967 reprimanded colonial officials for allegations of prisoner tor-
ture by the British. The British Foreign Office complained that Amnesty
International was slanted toward nationalist powers, conducted biased
investigations, insisted on interviewing criminal detainees that were not
political prisoners, and, in their eyes, issued baseless allegations while
Egyptians were committing far greater atrocities in North Yemen.97 It
seemed to British officials in Aden that Egyptian incursions from Yemen
into the FSA were condoned by the international community, while British
retaliation in Yemen was condemned.98
No amount of bickering or finger pointing would have helped the
British position in Aden or aided the hapless situation of the Egyptian mil-
itary against what eventually became a well-​trained royalist guerilla force.
The Anglo-​Egyptian rivalry had already taken its toll on events in both
north and south Yemen and contributed to the downfall of both empires.
The Aden Group had succeeded in forming an anti-​Egyptian force in
Yemen while Nasser was satisfied in having contributed to the downfall of
his arch British rivalry in Aden. The clandestine war in Yemen would yet
have its greatest impact on the history of the modern Middle East on an
area outside of Yemen entirely.
Less than twelve months into their campaign to aid the royalists, Tony
Boyle, Jim Johnson, and Neil McLean quickly realized that supplying
tribesmen in inaccessible mountainous terrain would be equally as dif-
ficult for them as it was for Nasser’s mechanized army. Taking large cara-
vans through enemy territory was both expensive and impossible to hide
from the seeing eyes of the Egyptian air force and UNYOM observers. An
airlift, on the other hand, would avoid unpredictable tribal territory and
could deliver supplies directly to the frontline, and its effect on Yemeni
moral “would be out of all proportion to the equipment dropped.”99 The
Aden Group, however, could not find either a neighboring country willing
to lend an airfield or an air force willing to undertake a near-​suicidal mis-
sion. Left with no other option, this last generation of British imperialists
turned to Israel, the only country with more to gain from the defeat of
Nasser.
8

Yemen, Israel, and the Road

to 1967

can be added to the list of regional and global

T H E A R A B - ​I S R A E L I C O N F L I C T
conflicts that both influenced the conduct of the civil war in Yemen and
was in turn impacted by events in Yemen. Neil McLean was introduced to
Brigadier Dan Hiram, the Israeli defense attaché in London, in October
1962. Citing mutual interest in the defeat of Nasser, Hiram promised
McLean weapons, money, instructors who could pass as native Arabs, and
the support of the Israel Air Force (IAF).1 In 1964, when French Djibouti,
Jordan, and Saudi Arabia withheld permission to host the air support for
British mercenaries, McLean, Jim Johnson, and British Royal Air Force
veteran Tony Boyle sought the help of the Israeli intelligence services and
air force in establishing air supply lines for the royalist army in their strug-
gle against Israel’s principal enemy, Egypt.
Chief of the Mossad Meir Amit met with the British group on February
20, 1964, in Tel Aviv, and subsequently with Shimon Peres, the director
general of the ministry of defense, and Ezer Weizman, the director of the
IAF, to receive official approval for the mission and begin preparations.2
In approving this mission, Peres and Weizman believed that supporting
the royalist forces in Yemen was equivalent to fighting Egyptian forces
and diverting their attention from the Sinai border. Imam al-​Badr had also
promised de-​facto recognition of Israel upon a royalist victory in return
for their aid during the civil war.3 Further attempts were made by Israeli
officials to establish direct contact with Faisal through the royalists in the
faint hopes that the Saudis would commit to recognizing Israel as well.4
Ezer Weizman did not trust British intentions for the mission and
insisted that Boyle serve as the British supply and liaison officer to the
170 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Israeli counterparts and remain closely involved in the mission planning

and flights.5 Weizman instructed Arieh Oz, the commander of the Yemen
mission, to keep Boyle close, giving Oz an expense account to take him
out for drinks, dinner, and cabaret to discover any sinister plot to down an
Israeli plane over Yemeni territory. Weizman figured that Boyle would per-
haps open up after a few shots of whiskey. Oz became very friendly with
Boyle and found no reason to distrust his intentions and mission plan.
Nonetheless, Weizman insisted that Boyle would have to sit in on every
flight to Yemen, right next to the flight captain, keeping him as a kind of
hostage or insurance policy against any potential ill intentions from the
British. The engineers actually built a chair right next to Oz specifically
for Boyle despite the fact that it blocked the pilot’s emergency exit. Boyle
ended up flying twelve out of the fourteen flights with the Israeli mis-
sion and made contact with British agents on the ground in Yemen as the
Israeli plane approached.6
Israel’s International Squadron, established a few months earlier
to transport weapons from France to Israel, assumed responsibility for
the Yemen mission. The squadron consisted of five retired Boeing-​377
Stratocruisers that were repurposed as military aircraft. The main concern
of the squadron’s staff was potential technical malfunctions to one of the
four Stratocruiser aircraft engines. The engines on the Stratocruiser failed
so often that they referred to it as “the best three engine airplane.” It was
decided that if the plane were left with only three engines, the captain
would abandon the mission and land in Asmara, Eritrea. If the plane were
left with only two engines midflight, the crew would ditch out on the coast
of Saudi Arabia in the faint hope that the Israeli navy would be able to
retrieve them from there. Under no circumstances was Oz to bring the
plane down in Yemen, regardless of the malfunction. They were told: “It’s
a very bad idea to land near the people who you bombed a minute ago.”7
After hearing the contingency plans to rescue the crew of a downed air-
craft, Boyle admitted to secretly hoping that the IAF would consider him
one of the “rescuable members of the crew.”8
The supplies transported to Yemen were primarily British munitions
that had been left behind in Mandate Palestine, including guns, rifles,
ammunition, machine guns, mines, fuel, and military supplies as well as
whiskey for the British, cognac for the French, and letters from the wives
of the mercenaries. The flights were to commence only during a full moon
when the moon’s light could be relied on for sight. Takeoff time was set for
one hour prior to sunset so that the plane would pass the southernmost
 Yemen, Israel, and the Road to 1967 171

Israeli city of Eilat under cover of darkness. On the return flight, the goal
was to have cleared Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by daybreak.9
The first mission took place on March 31, 1964. The irony of this tim-
ing is that UNYOM personnel were concurrently endeavoring to curtail
Saudi aid to royalists by land and hardly suspected an airlift from Israel,
of all places.10 After seeing the success of the first drop, Imam al-​Badr
asked for the next drop to be made in front of al-​Qarah, the royalist cave
base, during a qat-​chewing session with local sheikhs on May 26, 1964.11
The al-Qarah base was on a small mountain with a drop zone of about
50 square meters in front of his cave. The imam gathered those royalist
sheikhs loyal to him and announced that supplies would be dropped right
in front of them.12 Moshe Bartov, the mission’s navigator, recalled being
told by Mossad agents on the ground in Yemen that one of the sheikhs
announced: “Look even God is helping the Imam.” This and other drops
were in such limited areas that even slightly overshooting to the right or
left, or failing to take the wind into account, would have jeopardized the
entire mission. According to Bartov’s account, the squadron lost only one
package during the fourteen missions.13
After the packages landed on the mountaintop successfully, the tribal
leaders cheered and called out, according to British observers: “We are so
strong that we will be able to conquer Aden in addition to Sana’a!”14 While
this was hardly an encouraging reaction for British mercenaries aiding the
royalists, it was nevertheless a demonstration of the psychological impact
of the airlifts, regardless of their origin.
During the flight, there was little concern that the Egyptian air force
would notice the Stratocruiser flying toward Yemen over Saudi territory.
Oz explained that the plane was equipped with an AWACS-​type system to
listen to the radio traffic in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The plane was set to
all the frequencies of the Egyptian air force, particularly that of the inter-
cept squadron, which they had stationed in Ghardaqa, along the Egyptian
coast between Cairo and Luxor, to give forewarning if the transport was
noticed. During one flight, the Egyptians intercepted the Stratocruiser
on the radar and the Israeli flight crew overheard the dispatch of several
MiGs. Oz turned the plane eastward into Saudi Arabian territory, assum-
ing that the local Ghardaqa commander did not have prior authorization
to enter Saudi airspace. When the MiGs finally reached the Saudi border
in pursuit of the plane, they were indeed instructed to return to base. This
was the only instance when the Egyptians managed to find the Israelis on
the radar.15 An account of the clandestine airlift by British mercenary John
172 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Woodhouse explains that “though the Egyptians knew that supply drops
were being made, and though they had complete command of the air, the
secret of when, how and by whom the drop was made was always kept.”16
On later flights, Bartov suggested plotting a flight pattern directly over
the Saudi coastline, both making the navigation at night easier and further
distancing the aircraft from Egyptian aerial bases.17 The flight crew was
not particularly concerned about flying over Saudi territory and had been
assured that the British planning of the air supply mission was done with
the knowledge of select Saudi officials who were told to ignore air traffic
of this sort.18 In addition to keeping Saudi officials abreast, Boyle needed
to remind Yemeni tribesmen manning the anti-​aircraft gun positions
around the drop zone to hold their fire that night. In order to placate their
curiosity, the tribesmen were told that the aircraft was French in origin
and that it would be arriving from Djibouti.19
During one of the return flights, the Stratocruiser came under fire
from a distance and Oz was forced to reroute to a flight path just north
of Sana’a. As they flew over the Egyptian airfield near Sana’a, the crew
had a clear vision of rows of MiG fighters parked unprotected along the
side of the runway.20 After returning to Israel, Boyle submitted an official
“Proposal for Surprise Attack on Egyptian Aircraft in Yemen.”21 Having
seen the Egyptian airfield with his own eyes, Boyle suggested that the
Israelis bomb the Egyptian air base in Sana’a on the way back from one
of their supply missions to Yemen. Earlier in 1964, Boyle had proposed a
similar plan involving himself and other mercenaries using Hunter air-
craft based in the Saudi border airfield of Khamis Mushayt for a surprise
attack on Egyptian air positions in Yemen.22 Although such outlandish
schemes for attacking Egypt were typical of Boyle’s character, they man-
aged to garner a great deal of excitement among his Israeli counterparts.
Oz jumped at the opportunity as he said, “this would have been the
highlight of my career.” Weizmann and Rabin agreed, but Prime Minister
Eshkol rejected the plan, telling them that Israel’s role in Yemen was
merely to support the imam and not to directly engage Israel in the civil
war. Oz recalled “it would have been a piece of cake. In a matter of seconds
they would have knocked out 30 MiGs and probably 200 pilots. It would
have turned the tide of the war entirely. It would have also changed the Six
Day War. The Imam would have surely been victorious as it would have
finished off the Egyptians …”23 Furthermore, the Israel Defense Forces
were intent on avoiding a crisis either in Yemen or with Syria that might
have been used as a diplomatic cover for Egypt’s withdrawal from Yemen.24
 Yemen, Israel, and the Road to 1967 173

On May 5, 1966, the International Squadron carried out its last airlift
to Yemen, marking the end of two years and fourteen missions airlifting
military and medical supplies to royalists in the battlefield, as part of two
sets of missions codenamed Rotev (gravy) and Dorban (porcupine).25 On
two occasions Israeli airlifts reached royalist commander Abdullah ibn al-╉
Hassan in an isolated and remote mountainous region, saving him from
certain defeat.26 Another drop established a vital fuel dump in the Yemeni
wilderness.27 The Israeli airlift to Yemen had a practical and psychological
impact both on Imam al-╉Badr’s war with Egypt and eventually on Israel’s
decision to attack Egypt in June 1967 after having seen the Egyptian mili-
tary capabilities firsthand during the course of the mission.
In exchange for its airlifts, Israeli officials asked the British mercenaries
for detailed reports on Egyptian military capabilities and troop movements.
For example, following the first reported use of Egyptian poison gas on
June 8, 1963, in the Yemeni village of al-╉Kawma, McLean delivered shell
casings to his Israeli counterparts for analysis.28 In a meeting with British
counterparts, Golda Meir received reports on Egyptian military perfor-
mance in Yemen. She expressed concern for the Egyptian missile stockpile
and the significant battlefield experience being afforded to Nasser’s rotat-
ing troops.29 In a second meeting with British Prime Minister Douglas-╉
Home, Meir expressed additional concern over the Egyptian acquisition
of medium-╉range rockets and the willingness of the USSR to replace the
purported 80 million tons of military material expended in Yemen.30
Israeli Head of Military Intelligence Aharon Yariv estimated that well-╉
trained and combat-╉ready Egyptian troops and poison gas bombs could
conceivably be transported to Sinai within forty-╉ eight hours. thereby
leaving the IDF with limited warning of an impending Egyptian assault.
According to Yariv’s May 1967 intelligence appraisal, the Egyptian air and
ground forces were highly effective and had the potential to increase the
UAR offensive capabilities in Sinai, especially after the arrival of updated
Soviet aircraft and electronic and navigation systems.31 Member of Knesset
Ya’akov Hazan described the situation in May 1967 as “a storm which had
been brewing in Yemen until then and was now moving towards Israel.”32

From Yemen to Israel, 1967

In May 1967, Neil McLean claimed to have sent a vital piece of intelli-
gence to his Israeli counterparts through unspecified channels, reiterat-
ing that there was “no feasible way that Nasser could fight a war with
174 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Israel” with so many of his forces holed up in Yemen for the foreseeable
months.33 By this point, the British had moved up their date of departure
to November 1967, leaving the Israelis only a few more months to exploit
Nasser’s apparent strategic disadvantage. Although this coincidental nar-
rative is compelling, there is no written confirmation that the memo was
received by anyone, let alone the Israelis. Furthermore, it is doubtful that
the Israelis based their decisions in 1967 on a few lines of intelligence
from a nostalgic British MP-​turned–​Yemeni emissary. Israeli military
officials already possessed sufficient intelligence on the Egyptian position
in Yemen to make this strategic decision on their own accord. The most
revealing aspect of this memo, however, is not the impact that it had on
events in Sinai, if any, but in the psyches of British imperialists, even as
late at 1967. There was a sense, at least among the members of the Aden
Group, that it was still within the power of the British Empire to influence
regional events in the Middle East and end this conflict with an Egyptian
defeat.
As it happened, events in Sinai in May and June of 1967 turned out
much as McLean had predicted. The cost of the Yemeni war economi-
cally and politically had taken a toll on Egypt’s domestic prosperity and
on Nasser’s Arab nationalist prestige abroad. The decision to reoccupy
the Sinai Peninsula on May 14, 1967, and provoke the Israelis into a war
was likely made at the behest of Nasser’s poor strategic vision. As Jesse
Ferris explains, a successful war with Israel would both restore Nasser’s
stature in the Arab world and provide him with justification for a mili-
tary withdrawal from Yemen.34 Events, however, did not proceed as Nasser
envisioned.
Egyptian military officers have readily blamed the Yemen war for their
ignominious defeat in the 1967 War with Israel. Egyptian Field Marshal
Muhammad ‘Abd al-Ghani al-​Gamasy claimed that “nearly a third of our
land forces, supported by our air force and navy, were engaged in an oper-
ation approximately 2,000 kilometers away from Egypt, with no pros-
pects for either a political or a military settlement.”35 Others argued that
the Sinai forces were comprised of only 60 percent active forces, with
40 percent reservists. The more experienced fighters were evidently sta-
tioned in Yemen, as the economic benefits and opportunities for career
advancement were far greater there than on inactive duty in Egypt.36
Lieutenant General Kamel Mourtagi, the commander in chief of Egyptian
armed forces in Yemen, went as far as claiming that Egyptian soldiers
had become used to fighting with air superiority against a guerilla force
 Yemen, Israel, and the Road to 1967 175

in Yemen and were not prepared to face an army with its own air force.37
These self-​serving accounts do not accurately portray the impact of the
ongoing war in Yemen on Egyptian military performance during the Six-​
Day War.
In reality, by 1967 Nasser’s long-​breath strategy had consolidated the
Egyptian position, allowing for the withdrawal of the great majority of
troops who once totaled upwards of 70,000. According to most estimates,
there were between 20,000 and 30,000 Egyptian soldiers in Yemen,
hardly the one-​third described by Gamsay.38 This number may in fact
be even lower, as it likely did not account for the order to withdraw an
additional three brigades from Yemen on May 20, 1967. These brigades
were destined for Sharm al-​Sheikh.39 According to Israel intelligence esti-
mates at the time, by the end of May 1967, the great majority of combat-​
ready Egyptian troops had already been stationed along the Sinai border
with Israel. The thousands left behind in Yemen were inconsequential,
particularly as they were already making plans for further withdrawals.40
The increasing use of aircraft and chemical warfare compensated for the
declining number of soldiers who were being redeployed to Sinai. Rather
than an impediment to Egypt’s military performance in 1967, the inter-
vention in Yemen and the cycles of troops being deployed acted as training
ground for battle experience—​much more so than sitting idly in military
barracks in Sinai. Even if Nasser had withdrawn all the troops from Yemen
prior to June 5, 1967, it is unclear how they would have made a differ-
ence, considering the near-​total loss of air superiority in Sinai. Indeed,
some contemporary accounts of the 1967 war blame the devastating loss
on the lack of Egyptian military planning and the difficulties of coordina-
tion among Arab countries.41 Exacerbating the difficulties of coordinating
the war with Israel was the fact that Nasser preferred keeping his top brass
in Yemen, even after June 1967, in order to avoid a military coup against
his own regime.42
The official Egyptian national narrative blames the defeat on Field
Marshal Amer’s reckless behavior, which was convenient, as he was found
dead only weeks after the end of the war from an apparent suicide or over-
dose.43 Amer had given assurances that his army was ready and more than
capable of confronting Israel, perhaps giving Nasser a false sense of con-
fidence.44 Even as late as May 19, 1967, Amer told Moscow that despite the
continued costs of a commitment to Yemen, Egypt was intent on dem-
onstrating that support of the YAR would not preclude support for Syria
against Israel.45 Egyptian generals who were defeated in the field were
176 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

quick to find Amer culpable, blaming the ill-​prepared forces in Sinai on

poor military and political planning.46
The United States, UK, USSR, and Nasser himself may have surmised
that with forces stationed in Yemen, Egypt could not attack Israel. This
scenario did not, however, prevent Israel from attacking Egypt. Israeli
authorities developed an understanding of Nasser’s military capabilities
and willingness to use chemical weapons on a civilian population through
high-​level contact with British mercenaries, airlifts to royalist forces, and
intelligence operations in Yemen, all of which were overseen by officials
high up in the Israel chain of command. The reluctance of the United
States and UN to condemn Egyptian chemical warfare was further evi-
dence that the international community might not rise to the defense of
Israel in the aftermath of a poison gas attack. These factors combined to
foster a sense of alarm among Israeli military authorities, serving as an
additional impetus for a preemptive attack against the Egyptian air force,
which was the main mode of chemical weapon delivery. There was no
evidence from the Yemen theater of war that Egyptian scientists had man-
aged to retrofit their new rockets with a chemical warhead.
In his seminal work on the 1967 Arab-​Israeli War, Ami Gluska explains
that a “dread of annihilation” was at the core of Israel’s security policy
and the decision to preemptively strike Egypt and Syria. The participation
of German scientists in the Egyptian medium-​range rocket and chemi-
cal weapons programs and the publicized deliveries of advanced Soviet
weaponry symbolized an existential threat to Israel. In an address to
the Israeli Knesset, Foreign Minister Golda Meir expressed alarm at the
alliance between German scientists and the Egyptian military, claiming
that “the close connection between Cairo and Nazism existed already in
Hitler’s time, and it is no secret that today Cairo is a haven for the princi-
pal Nazis.”47 Many Israeli military authorities feared an Egyptian chemi-
cal attack, including the former Chief of Intelligence Brigadier-​General
Yehoshafat Harkavi, who estimated the potential for casualties with over
100,000 dead.48
The fear of chemical attacks was not limited to the Israeli military
and political elite, but reached even the teachers association of Tel Aviv.
During an emergency meeting in May 1967, teachers debated the safety
protocol for the schoolchildren during a potential Egyptian missile attack.
Previously, the teachers had been instructed to rush the children to the
lower levels of the school. Fearing Nasser’s poison gas bombs, some of
the teachers began to suggest that the roof would be the safest place for
 Yemen, Israel, and the Road to 1967 177

the children, as they would be further away from the toxic fumes. Even the
local population of Tel Aviv knew that Nasser was actively using poison gas
in Yemen and were concerned that similar weapons would be used against
Israeli cities.49
This apocalyptic psychology was exacerbated by the “courtside seats” to
the Yemen Civil War given to Israeli decision makers from 1964 to 1967.
With each passing month in Yemen, the UAR air force gained experience
in bombing raids, aerial reconnaissance, and ground support. In 1966
and 1967 in particular, Yemen had become a testing ground for chemi-
cal warfare against civilian populations. May 1967, the month before the
outbreak of the Six-​Day War, saw one of the most intensive bombing and
poison gas warfare campaigns of the entire conflict. Egypt’s conduct of
the war in Yemen had a profound impact on Israel. Nasser, however, was
unaware that Israel had become a participant in the Yemen Civil War, a
decision that both aided the royalists and provided Israeli politicians with
the alarming military intelligence that drove them to war with Egypt.
The decisive Israeli victory in the Six-​Day War brought Nasser’s impe-
rial expeditions in Yemen to a premature close. By December 1967, just
weeks after the British evacuated Aden, Nasser withdrew the last Egyptian
soldier from Yemen, marking the end of 130 years of British and Egyptian
competition on the Arabian Peninsula. The war in Yemen, however, was
far from over. McLean and other British mercenaries remained in Yemen
during the ensuing royalist siege of Sana’a, harboring unrealistic hopes
that the imam would be victorious.
9

The Impact of Individuals

of Yemen were overrun by Soviet-╉equipped Egyptian

A S T H E M O U N TA I N S
soldiers, thousands of Saudi-╉sponsored Yemeni tribesmen, and the dip-
lomatic efforts of the United States and the United Nations, it became
increasingly clear that no single foreign or domestic power was able to
exercise control over events in Yemen. The relative chaos that emerged
opened the doors of Yemen to individuals and organizations that had here-
tofore not had a presence in South Arabia. Thus, an eclectic American phi-
latelist, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and a group
of Southern Baptist missionaries were able to make inroads in Yemen, a
previously inaccessible area of the world, and play their own roles in the
outcome of the civil war and the future of the country.

Postal Wars in Yemen

Beyond the military maneuvers, guerilla tactics, and counterinsurgency
strategies, battles between Nasser and Imam al-╉Badr were being waged
through other nontraditional means. Radio Cairo and the Voice of the
Arabs radio program had without question the farthest reach and greatest
impact on the local population, Arabs across the Middle East, and global
listeners.1 Attempts by Saudi Arabia and Israel to broadcast their own
radio programs paled in comparison with Nasser’s propaganda initiatives.
Thousands of free radios were given to Yemeni locals, along with medical
care from army doctors, education from Egyptian teachers, and improve-
ments in infrastructure in an attempt to win the “hearts and minds” of
Yemeni civilians. In Sa’dah, for example, the Egyptians built a field hospi-
tal in which one-╉third of the beds were reserved for civilians, established
a school in which Egyptian teachers taught a hundred boys and fifty
 The Impact of Individuals 179

girls, and distributed tractors, water pumps, and seeds to local Yemenis.2
In May 1963, a soccer match between Egyptian pilots and marines in a
sports facility in Ta’iz was open to Yemeni spectators at great fanfare.3 The
next month, Egyptian authorities founded a cultural center that afforded
patrons the opportunity to play chess and checkers, and to enjoy other
leisure activities.4 Although there are no available statistics on how many
Yemenis took up chess or other hobbies in the cultural center, the avail-
able programs, which included several lectures a week, gave Yemenis a
leisure venue at which to escape from hostilities.
What received less attention, however, were the “stamp wars” waged
between Imam al-​ Badr and the Sallal-​Nasser alliance. Stamps were
not merely a source of income for al-​Badr’s Mutawakkilite Kingdom
of Yemen, but were a source of legitimacy and pride for an opposition
movement that received very little global recognition.5 In the eyes of the
philatelic stamp-​ collecting community, al-​ Badr’s royalist Yemen was
legitimate, heroic, and worthy of their admiration. Nor were stamp col-
lectors the only Westerners to become enamored by the royalist cause.
American and European media depicted Imam al-​Badr and his north-
ern tribesmen as romanticized anti-​imperialists fighting for their coun-
try’s independence. Photographs, interviews, and press feeds from the
northern highlands of Yemen were popular fodder for the Western news
media, owing both to the royalist lobbyists and supporters and to the
human interest stories of the “simple” farmer taking up arms against
the Egyptian invaders. While some Yemeni princes became avid stamp
enthusiasts during the 1960s, al-​Badr’s small stamp victory against
Nasser and the YAR can be attributed in part to the role played by Bruce
Condé: the first and presumably only American to have aspired to be the
postmaster general of Yemen.
Born in California in 1913, Bruce Chalmers Condé served in the US
Army counterintelligence service during World War II and studied Arabic
at the American University of Beirut on a GI Bill scholarship. One of
Condé’s greatest passions in life was collecting stamps, particularly from
Middle Eastern countries. He became enthralled by Yemen after read-
ing the travelogues of the Lebanese Arab-​American Ameen Rihani.6 In
the 1940s, Condé became a pen pal to none other than Crown Prince
Muhammad al-​Badr, who was himself a philatelist. In 1953, at the invita-
tion of al-​Badr, Condé moved to Sana’a and started a business exporting
Yemeni stamps to collectors abroad. In 1958, he converted to Islam and
changed his name to Abdul Rahman Condé and gave up his American
180 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

citizenship. In 1960, however, he fell out of favor with Imam Ahmad and
the Yemeni Ministry of Communications, was accused of being a spy, and
expelled from the country, leaving him a stateless citizen. Condé settled
in Beirut and was hired as a Middle East correspondent for Linn’s Weekly
Stamp News, where he worked for the next two decades, sharing detailed
descriptions of events unfolding in Yemen. When his old pen pal al-​Badr
was overthrown, he saw this as an opportunity to find favor with the
Hamid al-​Din family once again, and made the trip to Najran to meet with
the Yemeni princes and their tribal army.7
Condé eventually rose to the rank of general in the imam’s army and
acquired the official title of “Adviser to the Ministry of Communications
of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom.” As one of the only native English speak-
ers among the royalists, he served as the guide and host by default for
American and British officials, reporters, and tourists visiting the roy-
alist frontline. British agents working in Yemen regularly approached
Condé for reports on inner royalist politics and used his postal network
to communicate with London.8 Condé in turn tried to recruit addi-
tional mercenaries and in one instance tried to persuade the UNYOM
radio man Kenneth C.  Woskett to join the royalist cause and establish
a radio network.9 David Holden, the Middle East correspondent for the
Guardian, observed that Condé was “an ardent Yemenophile seeking, it
seemed, to ingratiate himself with the Government by acting as their self-​
appointed public relations man… . He was an odd and slightly pathetic
figure, somewhat out of both his time and his depth … he seemed to
belong nowhere, and to be yearning romantically for the impossible …”10
Popular media in the United States referred to him as the American
version of Lawrence of Arabia, who dreamed of “worldwide control for
Yemeni stamps.” Condé would often meet with foreigners while dressed
in traditional Yemeni dress, trying his utmost to look and act native. The
New York Herald Tribune wrote of Condé: “He may not be Peter O’Toole,
but his situation is melodramatic enough to throw, say, Malcolm X or
Cassius Clay into transports of jealousy.”11
“The philatelic sideline war,” as Bruce Condé referred to the com-
petitive publication of stamps by the imam’s Mutawakkilite Kingdom of
Yemen and the YAR, became his obsession, and according to Condé, his
only source of sanity amid the depressing battlefield. The printed stamps
themselves were a manifestation of local religious and political identity
and an appeal to international organizations and countries for aid and
recognition.12
 The Impact of Individuals 181

The value listed on Condé’s stamps was in buqsha, where forty buq-
shas were equivalent to one of the imam-​era riyals. Amongst royalist
tribes, the imadi riyal (from Imam Yahya’s reign), the Ahmadi riyal (from
Imam Ahmad’s reign), and the silver Maria Theresa thaler, a vestige of
the Habsburg Empire, were used interchangeably. The YAR introduced
the “Yemeni riyal” worth an equivalent amount of forty buqshas as part
of a broader effort to modernize the economy.13 The Egyptian occupa-
tion forces exhibited a large degree of control over the issuance of cur-
rency, replacing the state emblem of arms used under the imam with the
Egyptian emblem of Saladin’s eagle.14 This emblem was used on the first
paper currency issued in the YAR in February 1964 as part of the broader
effort to replace the imam-​era currency with a republican alternative. The
new bank notes, printed in Egypt, were received reluctantly by republican
merchants, yet were completely worthless among royalists, who believed
the notes would be useless after the republic’s defeat.15 David Newton, the
US Deputy Chief of Mission to Yemen in 1967, explained that printing
currency and stamps were considered components of Nasser’s effort to
establish his own model of “non-​Western colonialism,” as Egypt did not
have the financial resources to fund a European-​style colony. The Egyptian
occupation was funded by the large-​scale printing of paper currency and
by a Yemeni puppet regime that gave Egypt free rein over their country’s
resources. This garnered a great deal of Yemeni animosity toward Egypt.16
Not only were the Egyptians not sufficiently investing in their colonial
endeavors, but UN personnel also observed the Egyptians shipping thou-
sands of silver Yemeni riyals out of the country and replacing them with
worthless paper money.17
On the other side of this postal war, slogans such as “Loyalist-​free
Yemen”18 and “Free Yemen for God, Imam, and Country” figured promi-
nently in Mutawakkilite stamps in a self-​identification of the divine-​right
of the imam’s Yemen.19 Condé described the “romance of the Free Yemen
mails,” traveling to the war zone in Yemen from Jeddah by truck, in dan-
ger of attack.20 Most of the mail passing through royalist territory was
stamped with the phrase “Delayed in transit through enemy lines.”21 The
imagery used on the stamps was also a criticism of the Egyptian occupa-
tion, as is clear below (see Fig. 9.1) in the “Tank” set of royalist stamps.22
The capture of an Egyptian T-​34 tank in the Jawf battlefield, located 117
miles northeast of Sana’a, and the halting of Egyptian forces 75 miles
short of Egypt’s goal of reaching the Najran frontier was the inspiration
for the “Tank” stamp.23
182 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Figure  9.1  The two-​star UAR flag is shown being torn down by a royalist sol-
dier while another raises the Free Yemen battle flag over the turret, from which
is hanging the body of one of the tank crew. Other dead crew members are on
and beside the T-​34 tank with the Soviet sickle and hammer on the turret, while
an Egyptian infantryman is falling to the right of the tank and another is being
pursued and bayonetted beside it. On the ground are Soviet Kalashnikov subma-
chine guns while overhead a Soviet plane is falling in flames. (Author’s private
collection)

Imam al-​Badr retained the red flag of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom,

decorated with a sword and five stars representing the five natural geo-
graphical divisions of Yemen, the five pillars of Islam, and the five daily
prayers. The republican flag, on the other hand, was a copy of the UAR
version, with red, black, and white stripes, albeit with only one star in
the middle rather than two. The flag design was another demonstration
of the profound Egyptian influence on state formation and identity in
the YAR.24
Condé criticized the many typographical and factual errors in the YAR-​
issued stamps and deemed them mere copies of Egyptian nationalist
stamps. The YAR “Freedom from Hunger” stamps (see Figs. 9.2, 9.3 and
9.4), for instance, were close duplicates of Egyptian design, having only
changed the country name, indicative of the political reality. According
to Condé, “the virtual ‘carbon copying’ of Cairo by the Sallal regime in
Yemen, philatelically as well as politically, has long been one of the charges
leveled against the YAR by Yemenites loyal to the Imam.”25 When royalists
 The Impact of Individuals 183

Figures  9.2 and 9.3  Egyptian Freedom from Hunger stamps issued in 1963
and labeled with “UAR.” (Author’s private collection)

“liberated” towns and provinces from the UAR, they ceased using YAR
stamps and converted all mail to Mutawakkilite stamps.26
In reality, YAR stamp production was more robust and predictably
supplied than the Mutawakkilite alternative. Although most of the YAR
stamps were Yemeni versions of the Egyptian original, some of the stamps
also served as a reflection of national identity and the achievements of the
184 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Figure  9.4  Yemeni versions of the “Freedom from Hunger” stamps issued in
1963. The “YAR” and the monetary value were the only differences between the
two sets. (Bruce Condé, “Story Of Free Yemen’s FFH Set in Tragedy of ‘Chickens
That Stay at Home to Roost’,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, October 14, 1963, 28)
(With Permission of Amos Media/​Linn’s Stamp News)

fledgling Yemeni republic. For example, select 1963 stamps commemo-

rated the founding of the republic and certain 1964 stamps celebrated
the opening of spinning and weaving factories and the international air-
port in Sana’a. In addition to annual commemorations of the revolution,
the YAR also used its stamps to appeal to the international community
by memorializing President Kennedy and celebrating Soviet space travel
achievements.27 While the variety and number of stamps issued by the
YAR and accepted by the international community was significantly larger
than those printed by Condé and his Mutawakkilite postal team, greater
attention and fanfare were given to the royalist stamps, as they were
designed and distributed by the romanticized cave outposts of northern
Yemen. Condé (see Fig. 9.5) undertook personal initiative to popularize
the royalist stamps, utilizing his network of connections in the Middle
East, Europe, and the United States as well as acting as a self-​appointed
 The Impact of Individuals 185

Figure 9.5  Bruce Condé (on left) standing next to Tony “Abu Yusef” Mu’awwad,
one of his postal assistants, who is holding the Mauser pistol given to Condé as
a gift by Saudi King Faisal’s son Muhammad. (With permission of Amos Media/​
Linn’s Stamp News)31

philatelic lobbyist. In addition to dozens of philatelic articles, Condé sent

collectors copies of the royalist stamps to many locations, including, for
example, Poul Juel Jensen, Denmark’s ambassador to Iraq, and to Condé’s
friends in the ICRC, with both taking a favorable stance to the royalist
cause.28
Condé depicted the Yemeni battlefield as a war over stamp sovereignty,
implying that Egyptian military figures were specifically targeting his
stamp project and that the imam was dedicated to its defense. For exam-
ple, Condé described the imam’s capture of the republican post office
towns of Barat and Hajjah and stocks of republican stamps in June 1963
as part of the Imam’s “philatelic war” against the YAR.29 His depiction of
events was undoubtedly self-​absorbed and a gross exaggeration, yet the
stamps emerged as an important propaganda tool worthy of some effort
to preserve.30
186 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Condé also used the stamps to express appreciation to international

organizations that had come to the aid of the imam’s supporters. In
December 1964, the imam signed off on a set of stamps honoring the
ICRC and its field hospital in Uqd in the al-Jawf region of northern Yemen
(see Fig. 9.6 and 9.7).32 Dr. J. de Puoz, a stamp collector who ran the

Figure  9.6 Stamp honoring ICRC hospital in Uqd (1964). (Author’s private

collection)

Figure 9.7  ICRC Hospital in Uqd. (ICRC Archives. V-​P-​YE-​N-​00047-​04. 1967)

 The Impact of Individuals 187

‘Uqd hospital also received a set of stamps from Condé in recognition of

the ongoing friendship between the ICRC and royalists.33 Claude Pillout,
director of the ICRC, an avid stamp collector as well, was particularly
excited about the prospect of selling copies of these rare and exotic stamp
to the philatelic community. He went out of his way to obtain an official
document attesting to the validity of the royalist postal network and of
Condé’s permission to produce these particular 20,000 stamps on behalf
of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen.34
A second set of stamps “Honouring British Red Cross Surgical Team,
1963-​64,” expressed an appreciation to Doctor William C. Bartlett (an
American working with the British), Doctor Colin Wilson-​Pepper (a secret
informant for British intelligence), and Field Officer Arnold Plummer
(forty-​year veteran nurse for the Red Cross), who treated wounded royal-
ists only twenty-​five miles from Sana’a. The presence of the Red Cross in
the royalist camp was no small achievement, especially when the threats
issued by YAR vice president Lieutenant-​General Hassan al-​‘Amri to bomb
the Red Cross location are taken into consideration; al-​‘Amri claimed that
“anyone opposing the Yemen Arab Republic was a criminal and had no
right to medical attention.” He specifically threatened members of the Red
Cross, saying, “If you establish any kind of hospital or medical attention
in the rebel zone, I shall personally order you to be executed.” The UAR
occupation zone commander Lieutenant-​General ‘Abd al-​Majid Kamal
Murtaji, understood the Geneva Convention and personally assured Red
Cross that they would not be bombed.35
The Red Cross hospital in Uqd served an important role in the health
of the surrounding tribal population. In the winter of 1964, for example,
teams of doctors traveled to the surrounding areas to treat the wounded
and teach general principles of hygiene and first aid. According to their
testimonies, local Yemenis regarded them with great respect, assum-
ing that they had some religiously divined power. According to some
accounts, locals brought transistors and other car parts to the hospital,
assuming that those who could repair a human being could surely repair
a car as well.36
The royalist memorial stamps for President Kennedy in 1965 (see Fig.
9.8) were a direct appeal to the American people during a pivotal congres-
sional debate over renewing PL-480 wheat sales to Egypt.37 Other stamps
celebrated Saudi support for the imam and Yemen by featuring pictures
of al-​Badr and King Faisal (see Fig. 9.9).38
Nasser was evidently not oblivious to the significance of al-​Badr’s issu-
ance of royalist stamps. In December 1964, the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of
188 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Figure 9.8  Stamp commemorating JFK. (Author’s private collection)

Figure  9.9  Commemorative postage celebrating Mutawakkilite-​Saudi alliance

(September 16, 1965). (Author’s private collection)

Yemen printed their last set of stamps with Saikali Press in Beirut, as the
printing house was later pressured by Egypt into imposing a ban on the
printing of stamps issued by the imam.39 Dar al-​Asfhani Press Company
in Jeddah, the former stamp printers of the Saudi government, later
assumed responsibility for printing most Mutawakkilite stamp orders.40
After Jordan recognized the YAR on January 22, 1965, Condé claimed
to have been afraid of being arrested in Jordan because the Arab Postal
Union issued a warrant against him for printing “Free Yemen” stamps
 The Impact of Individuals 189

“offensive to President Gamal Abdel Nasser.” Furthermore, all Arab states

had been warned by Egypt not to carry mail affixed with “Free Yemen”
stamps.41
These six years witnessed the reconstruction of the Mutawakkilite
Kingdom’s postal system from three tiny post offices in war-​torn al-Jawf
and the Mashriq eastern provinces in November 1962 to sixty-​five post
offices and several general post offices servicing 6,000 to 7,000 first-​class
inland letters daily and 25,000 pieces of outgoing overseas mail monthly.
Condé claimed that royalist mail was sometimes faster than Saudi post
because “our registry lists are always in correct geographical order.”
Barring war-​related delays, a letter could leave the Yemen border one day
and arrive in London three days later via Jizan, Saudi Arabia.42
David Newton, the deputy chief of the US Mission to Yemen during the
1960s, provided a somewhat critical depiction of Condé. There is no deny-
ing Condé’s influence on the international opinion of the Yemeni royal-
ists. His stamp network was extremely popular and Condé always made
himself available to the Western media. Condé’s availability, however, was
a consequence of the fact that he rarely entered the battlefront in Yemen,
preferring the relative security of a hotel room in Saudi Arabia. The title of
“general” was self-​appointed, as was his role as the royalist propagandist.
Ibrahim al-​Kibsi, known as the “cave director” for the imam, was bemused
by the fact that Condé was “more Yemeni than the Yemenis” and certainly
more “royalist than the royalists,” especially since most of the royalists
knew he was a self-​promoting farce. Despite his constant hints of con-
nections to the CIA, Newton explained emphatically that Condé had no
formal contact with the US government. “We would be crazy to associate
with such a flake!” As Newton described it: “Condé just liked to talk,” and
on occasion there was no harm in listening. Evidently, the only one to truly
believe his CIA connections was a Soviet diplomat who tried to gather
intelligence on Condé.43
Since his time in Lebanon during the 1950s, the US State Department
came to regard Condé as “rather a nuisance and an embarrassment.” The
fact that he considered himself an “American Lawrence of Arabia” served
only to justify his amateurish meddling in Arab politics. On one occasion
the US embassy needed to intervene after Condé “stuck his nose into
some Moslem sectarian quarrel.” His time during the 1950s in Yemen
was equally unnerving to British officials, as Condé acted “bear-​leader”
for Western journalist traveling to Yemen to see the “British aggression.”
190 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Condé’s opportunism earned him the early good graces of the imam and
his family in addition to the negative attention of British colonial officials
who remained suspicious of him and his related activities and referred
to him as the “Middle East crank.” There was even concern that Soviet
officials might take advantage of his “weakness of character” and his pro-╉
Arab nationalist tendencies.44
The greatest harm to Condé came not from his musings, but from
his open homosexual activity in Yemen. During his time spent in Yemen
during the 1950s, US consular staff would complain about the noise and
raucousness emanating from his weekly rendezvous with Yemeni teens
in the consular guest house. Yemeni officials eventually lost patience with
his outspoken Arab and Yemeni nationalism and his open homosexual-
ity and sent him into exile in 1970 along with his former pen pal Imam
al-╉Badr.45
Even years after the demise of the royalist opposition, Condé contin-
ued to appeal for historical recognition of the royalist stamps as official
state-╉issued postage in philatelist postal registries.46 The popularity of
Mutawakkilite stamps remained a major topic of the Yemen Philatelic
Society under the leadership of the group’s Canadian president Blair
Stannard.47 The real victory, however, was Condé’s ability to turn the
Mutawakkilite stamps and postal system into Western propaganda to
attract attention, sympathy, and support for the royalist cause. During a
time of tribal divisions, Condé singlehandedly created a national institu-
tion that symbolically granted legitimacy to the royalist nonstate actor.

André Rochat and the ICRC

The Yemen Civil War presented the ICRC with an opportunity to expand
their medical operations to a previously inaccessible region of the world.
Prior to 1962, the ICRC did not have operations anywhere on the Arabian
Peninsula. In fact, prior to leading the mission to Yemen, André Rochat,
the director of ICRC operations in Yemen, admitted that neither he nor
the personnel knew anything about Yemen, assuming incorrectly that
“Yemen lay somewhere east of Pakistan!”48
The ICRC established its first hospital in Uqd, located in a remote
northern region of al-╉Jawf under the nominal control of royalist tribes-
men. At the time the field hospital was established in November 1963, Uqd
was included as part of the demilitarized zone established by UNYOM,
giving ICRC staff a greater sense of security. The hospital consisted of a
 The Impact of Individuals 191

Clinobox, a transportable medical unit equipped with radiology and labo-

ratory services all powered by electric generators and laboriously trans-
ported over inhospitable mountains and desert. At its height, the ICRC
field hospital treated 160 patients and performed at least one major sur-
gery every day. ICRC personnel ran programs to teach elementary hygiene,
prophylaxis, and first aid and by March 1964 had even trained three male
Yemeni nurses. ICRC appeals to other national Red Cross organizations
were answered by the British Red Cross (BRC), which sent Dr. William
C. Bartlett and Arnold Plummer, a nurse. Bartlett led medical missions to
the royalist front, accompanied by a varying number of French, German,
and Swiss doctors and nurses.49 Needing to maintain uniform neutrality,
however, every member was required to wear ICRC insignia rather than
their own national insignias. This was particularly true for BRC person-
nel, as Nasser was already suspicious of British support for the royalists,
and the ICRC was keen on maintaining Nasser’s good graces. Plummer
criticized Rochat’s excessive neutrality, claiming that medical activities to
aid northern Yemenis were limited when the ICRC expected the person-
nel to “be like Caesar’s wife.”50
Aside from the medical care offered to royalists, Rochat assumed the
role of a bridge builder between Egypt and the royalists and later was an
important witness to Egyptian chemical attacks. For example, in February
1964 he set out to visit Egyptian prisoners in the royalist general headquar-
ters, a fifteen-​day journey from Uqd. Rochat succeeded in orchestrating a
few small-​scale prisoner exchanges and also managed to carry prisoner
correspondences back to Egypt, to inform their loved ones of their situa-
tion in Yemen. In some cases, these letters were the only official record
of Egyptian prisoners who were later executed by tribal leaders. Two
other ICRC representatives, Roger du Pasquier and Joseph Gasser, visited
Abdullah Sallal in Sana’a and convinced him to sign on to the Geneva
Conventions and subsequently provided the YAR with a list of prisoners in
royalist hands.51 As we have already seen, Rochat and the ICRC were also
at the forefront of investigating Egypt’s use of chemical weapons in 1967,
serving as neutral and scientific observers at a pivotal moment in the war.
In 1964, during the course of skirmishes between British forces and
rebels in the Radfan region in South Yemen the ICRC saw a need to
shift its gaze southward towards Aden and even threatened to inspect
the British conduct of the anti-​insurgency campaign in Radfan.52 Rochat
tried to use excuse of “fundraising in Beihan,” a border region between
north and south Yemen, in order to gain access to British prisoners and
192 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

direct ICRC attention toward Aden. British officials found this hard to
believe, as Beihan was not remotely wealthy and was in fact funded pri-
marily by British subsidies. Critics perceived Rochat’s meddling as an
attempt to gain favor with Egyptian officials who questioned the ICRC’s
neutrality, a reaction to the extent of medical aid offered to royalist
tribesmen in the Uqd hospital.53 When the British colonial administra-
tion refused to sanction ICRC operations in South Yemen in 1965, insist-
ing that Aden was an internal affair, André Rochat approached Roger
Gallopin, the Director of the ICRC, pointing out that, “look, I’m only 25
miles from Aden.”54
As the conflict in Yemen continued, Rochat demonstrated just how
close ICRC operations in Yemen were to the British protectorates and to
the port city of Aden. In 1967, Rochat crossed the north-​south border into
Aden, against ICRC directives and British wishes, with the intention of
applying the Geneva Conventions to protect prisoners and civilians. He
intervened on several occasions to rescue National Liberation Front (NLF)
revolutionaries in battle, and, according to Yemeni historian Najib al-​
Jabeli, Rochat even protected Front for the Liberation of Occupied South
Yemen (FLOSY) members by evacuating prisoners to Cairo for political
asylum. British officials reprimanded Rochat, who claimed he was oper-
ating as a “free agent in Aden.” His uninvited and often dangerous inter-
ventions in Aden and its environs created a great deal of negative press, as
the British administration was cited for torturing Yemeni prisoners and
causing civilian casualties. 55 High Commissioner Humphrey Trevelyan
complained to the British Foreign Office: “We have suffered here from
the fact that M. Rochat is the delegate of the International Committee of
the Red Cross… . Rochat’s visits have greatly increased our difficulties
with the detainees, who are so well treated that we have made ourselves
look fools to everyone.” A frustrated Trevelyan even tried to petition the
ICRC to send in Rochat’s place “somebody slightly less eccentric to look
after the Detention Camp.”56
Rochat, however, never left and neither did the ICRC whose operations
in Yemen have since continued uninterrupted as the organization played
a role protecting prisoners of war and providing medical care in remote
regions during subsequent conflicts, including the civil war in 2016.The
chaos caused by the Yemen Civil War allowed Rochat and the ICRC to
enter a region of the world that had thus far remained outside the purvey
of the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross movement and help Yemen
become a participating member of the global community.
 The Impact of Individuals 193

Southern Baptist Medical Missionaries

While Bruce Condé was dreaming of becoming postmaster general of
Yemen, another ambitious American dreamed of spreading the gospel
in Yemen. Dr. James D. Young, a Southern Baptist missionary trained
as a surgeon in Irving, Texas, saw the 1962 coup as an opportunity to
bring his religious work to an area of the world that until then had not
been touched by the global networks of American missionaries. Young,
who had previously been part of the Southern Baptist Medical mission to
Gaza during the 1950s, took advantage of the newly opened borders and
made his first trip to Yemen during the early chaotic months of the civil
war. During his trip in 1962, Dr. Young had the good fortune of meet-
ing with Muhammad ‘Abd al-╉Aziz Sallam, the newly instated Yemeni
minister of health, and his director general, Ahmad Mohanny. Sallam
was part of the select group of Yemeni students sent to study abroad
during the 1940s and 1950s and had spent time in America. Although
he had only been a novice in his medical studies abroad, Sallam under-
stood the benefit of bringing American-╉trained doctors to local Yemenis.
Mohanny spent eight years in America, earned a degree in public health
from Tulane University, and was even married to an American. Much
to the surprise of Dr. Young, Sallam and Mohanny agreed in principle
to a Christian medical mission to Yemen and sent an official written
approval to the Baptist Foreign Mission Board in Richmond, Virginia,
on November 8, 1963.57
During a second exploratory trip to Yemen in March 1964, Mohanny
explained to Dr. Young and Dr. John D. Hughey, the Baptist secretary for
Europe and the Middle East, that he was willing to accept medical aid,
even from Christians, as “we are so much in need of medical care that we
cannot be very discriminating.”58 Mohanny’s statement could not be more
accurate. At the time of this first meeting, Yemen had among the fewest
doctors per capita in the world, with one doctor for every 150,000 people,
compared to the United States,which during the 1960s had one doctor for
every 790 people.59
1962 and the subsequent years marked a unique moment in Yemeni
history as the country’s borders were freely open to foreigners for the first
time since the reign of Imam Yahya had begun forty-╉five years earlier. The
Yemeni government during the civil war was no longer dominated by a
hegemonic and isolationist authority, leaving novice Yemeni officials free
to arrive at agreements even with American Christian groups, something
194 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

that may not have been palatable by centralized Arab nationalist agents,
religiously conservative groups, or a Soviet satellite state. The Southern
Baptist mission to Yemen was all the more unique in that it first began
during a decade when other missionaries across the Middle East were
being withdrawn.
In September 1964, Dr. Young and his family arrived in the republican-​
controlled city of Ta’iz, where they established a small clinic, in contrast
to the ICRC, which established a hospital in royalist territory. Over an
eighteen-​month period, the clinic in Ta’iz, located on the second floor of
a dilapidated government hospital building, treated over 15,000 Yemeni
patients. The popularity and reputation of Dr. Young’s medical care drew
large crowds of Yemenis to their ward and away from the government hos-
pital on the first floor. In an effort to relocate to a more manageable and
isolated rural population, and to avoid an unhealthy competitive environ-
ment with the government hospital on the floor below, Dr. Young reached
an agreement to lease land in a small rural village of Jibla to serve the Ibb
province population of 500,000.60
In 1966, the Baptist Charitable Society signed an agreement with the
YAR committing themselves to all expenses related to hospital construc-
tion and administration in Jibla. The contract stated that Dr. James Young
was sent to Yemen by the Baptist Society “to offer medical assistance” and
emphasized that proselytization was strictly forbidden. In accordance with
the Ibb Regional Department of Endowments, the Baptist Society would
contribute a token sum of sixty Yemeni riyals per annum over the total
lease term of one hundred years for the 52,000 square meters south-​east
of the village of Jibla.61
From the perspective of the Southern Baptist community in the United
States, the members of the medical mission in Yemen were religious
messengers carrying their gospel to a remote region of the world. Baker
Cauthen, the executive director of the International Mission Board (IMB),
wrote to Dr. Young: “You and your family have certainly set a high example
of dedication and Christian faith. You have blessed all of us in the way you
have laid hand to this very important undertaking, and we are watching
each step with joy and thanksgiving.”62
In a letter to Southern Baptist donors, June Young, Dr. Young’s wife,
explained the strong evangelical motivations driving the members of their
mission in Yemen. She explained: “We have a wonderful opportunity in
Yemen to go live as Christians among people in great need, physically and
 The Impact of Individuals 195

spiritually. In a land with so little medical care, so little education, we have

an open door to put Christians in contact with Yemeni people… . There is
not one Christian witness in the entire area. There is probably not a doctor
in the entire area… . This is enough to make a follower of Christ want to
do something about it.”63
There were obvious tensions between the religious bent of the mis-
sion and the Yemeni government’s intentions. Mohanny explicitly warned
Dr.  Young against proselytizing in Yemen advising them to “stick to
your job of treating the sick” and to avoid “causing trouble.” The refer-
ence to “trouble” in this case was understood by both parties as a form of
evangelical missionary work. Shortly after the hospital construction was
completed, trouble began to brew. The hospital staff placed scriptures on
display in the outpatient clinic and offered copies to patients. One after-
noon, the local military commander of Ibb confiscated the scriptures and
warned the hospital staff not to let any Yemeni workers or patients read
from their personal Christian library housed in the hospital building.64
There were additional tensions in relation to the nationality of the
Southern Baptist group, as the mission felt compelled to distance itself
from its American identity. Upon first arriving in Jibla in November
1966, the missionaries were aided by the USAID program that provided
them with trailers and temporary facilities. Aldelmo Ruiz, the head of the
USAID water projects in Yemen, offered to draw up initial plans and drill
a well for the hospital as well as serve in an advisory capacity for planning
and construction of the hospital compound.65
Dr. Hughey prophetically observed the dangers of accepting an excess
of aid from the US government. In a 1966 letter to Dr. Young, he wrote: “It
is fortunate that the AID people are so cooperative. I think, however, you
will need to be on guard lest we become involved in the acceptance of
government assistance for our mission work. We are now living in an era
when government aid is offered very freely. It takes courage to refuse a gift
but I think that we should pay our own way. I think that would apply to
anything which is done on the property which we have leased.”66
The foundations of the permanent hospital building were laid in
February 1967 by a team of Swedish builders who were given the con-
tract to build the hospital and several residences. In what Dr. Young called
“God’s doing,” similar building contracts were rejected by American and
British companies.67 Sweden’s neutrality proved an asset during the post-​
1967 nadir in Arab-​American and Arab-​British relations, as the Baptists
196 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

were able to claim that they were a “Swedish hospital” by highlighting the
Swedish company building their hospital.
In the weeks following Egypt’s defeat in the June 1967 war with Israel,
the YAR was pressured to break diplomatic relations with the United
States and evacuate the country of what few American citizens remained.68
Dr. Young had decided that the mission’s Baptist identity and degree of
separation from US policy in Yemen would be sufficient to shield them
from the deportations.69 Egyptian soldiers scoured the Yemeni country-
side looking for American citizens and eventually arrived at the Baptist
Hospital in Jibla. They came to the clinic and confronted Nurse Carolyn
McClellan, demanding to know whether the staff was from America.
She calmly responded:  “We are from Texas.” The soldiers nodded, as if
they understood, apologized for the intrusion and went on their way.70 By
the end of the month, Southern Baptist missionaries remained the only
American representatives in Yemen.71
Despite Egyptian and YAR tensions with the United States, local
Yemeni leaders had an amenable relationship with the staff at the Baptist
hospital. In September 1968, for example, the hospital staff invited to the
Jibla Revolution Day celebration at the local school house. While Yemeni
women were not invited, a special invitation was granted to the foreign
women working in the Baptist clinic.72 The lack of a restrictive central
authority during the civil war gave the missionaries and the Yemeni
authorities involved the latitude to found an American Christian medi-
cal mission in Arabia during the 1960s, allowing the Southern Baptists
to become part of the fabric of the country for the next four decades.
This relationship lasted far beyond the chaos of the civil war and until
December 2002, when an al-​Qaeda operative attacked the hospital, mark-
ing the unofficial end of the Southern Baptist presence in Yemen.
The absence of a dominant national power after the 1962 coup opened
the country to a new cast of international characters that previously had
no access to South Arabia. The conflict was not dictated by US-​Soviet
machinations alone, nor did Egyptian or Saudi interests solely determine
the course of events in Yemen. The three incarnations of Lawrence of
Arabia—​Bruce Condé, André Rochat, and James Young—​are examples of
individuals who saw the 1960s as an opportunity to pursue their dreams
in the remote deserts of Yemen, play a role in the civil war, and lay the
groundwork for continued operations in Yemen inspired by their legacy.
10

The Siege of Sana’a and

the End of the Yemen Civil War

ON AUGUST 29, 1967 at the Arab Summit meeting in Khartoum, Sudan,

Nasser and Faisal agreed on a “Yemen peace plan.” Egypt committed to
withdrawing its troops and in return Saudi Arabia pledged that it would
discontinue royalist aid. In return, the oil monarchies agreed to com-
pensate Nasser for Egypt’s economic loss as a result of the closure of the
Suez Canal.1 A military intervention that had originally been envisioned
by Egyptian Field Marshal ‘Abd al-​Hakim Amer as taking no more than
a few weeks had become a costly five-​year war against an underestimated
royalist opposition.2 Efforts at international diplomacy had come full cir-
cle. The original withdrawal agreements first proposed by US diplomat
Ellsworth Bunker in 1963 continued to serve as the basis for peace nego-
tiations throughout the conflict and were at last implemented at the end
of 1967.
On October 10, 1967, Nasser finally released the Yemeni ministers who
had been in detention in Cairo since September 1966. After discussing the
political situation with Nasser, the opposition group returned to Hodeidah
on October 22 with clear intentions to take control of the republic. On
November 5, 1967, Abdullah Sallal boarded a plane bound for Moscow,
ostensibly to attend the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Russian
revolution. Sallal’s plane never made it to Moscow, as he was diverted
to Baghdad, where he would spend the next fourteen years in exile.3
According to Sallal’s unpublished memoirs, this exile was self-​imposed
as he understood what was awaiting him following Egypt’s withdrawal.4
According to other accounts, Sallal was forced to fly to Baghdad because
Egypt had rejected his request for asylum.5
198 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

Sallal had long fallen out of favor with fellow Yemeni republicans and
he would have been deposed earlier were it not for continued Egyptian
intervention and support. In Sallal’s absence, Qadi ‘Abd al-​Rahman al-​
Iryani, a prominent member of the third-force and one of the “Soviet five”
orchestrated a bloodless takeover of the YAR. Al-​Iryani was joined by fel-
low members of the third-force, Ahmad Nu’man and Muhammad ‘Ali
Uthman, to form a triumvirate ruling coalition. Hassan al-​‘Amri became
prime minister and Hassan Makki foreign minister; Soviet-​ friendly
Yemenis thus held influential positions in the new republic.
Aside from Sallal, there were few Yemenis who grieved the departure
of the last Egyptian soldier. In fact, during the weeks prior to the Egyptian
withdrawal, Yemenis conducted multiple hand grenade attacks against
the remaining soldiers. Yemenis hated Egyptians and the Egyptians
returned mutual sentiments. The one bright side for Egyptian soldiers
returning home were the duty-​free imports from Yemen. On the day the
Egyptians were scheduled to leave, twenty soldiers returned to Sana’a to
complete last-​minute shopping before shipping back to Egypt. The group
was ambushed by enraged Yemenis who killed at least twelve of them and
drove the rest out of the city.6
Egyptian aerial and artillery superiority for five years of the conflict had
prevented a full-​scale royalist advance on the capital city. Nasser’s with-
drawal, which was to be completed on November 29, 1967, was already in
its advanced stages, leaving republican defensive positions and the entire
strategic triangle vulnerable to attack. With the republican defenses weak-
ened, Imam al-​Badr’s counterattack on Sana’a, long expected after the
September 1962 coup, finally materialized in December 1967.7
Muhammad ibn Hussein, the commander of the royalist armies in
1968, marched an estimated 56,000 tribesmen toward the capital city.
The royalist army captured the country’s main airport and all major roads
leading to Sana’a, placing the city under an effective siege.8 Both al-​Iryani
and Makki left the city for purportedly unrelated reasons leaving Hassan
al-​‘Amri, who had only recently been released from political detention in
Cairo, in command.9 Al-​‘Amri had at his disposal no more than 10,000
republican troops and an equal number of Shafi’i tribesmen from areas
south of Sana’a. As was the case throughout the 1960s, the key to the
republican victory stemmed from foreign intervention. NLF and FLOSY
fighters arrived from Aden to Sana’a in order to defend the revolution and
demonstrate solidarity between the two Yemeni nationalist movements.10
Foreign fighters and other local reinforcements were able to join the
 The End of the Yemen Civil War 199

defense of Sana’a because the siege started during the month of Ramadan
and the royalist tribesmen were not active on the battlefield.11
With the onset of the royalist siege of Sana’a in December 1967, al-​
Iryani turned directly to the Soviets with an urgent request for aid. Makki
flew personally to Moscow on December 8 to conclude an economic agree-
ment and arms purchase with the Soviets.12 Moscow responded with emer-
gency airlifts of medical supplies, food, and ammunition for the besieged
city.13 A  total of 10,000 tons of supplies were delivered to Sana’a along
with a Soviet squadron of MiG-​19s, pilots, and ground crew intended to
provide air cover for republican positions.14 The royalists claimed to have
shot down a “red-​haired MiG-​17 fighter pilot” who was wearing a Russian
wristwatch and held Soviet documentation.15 Hassan al-​‘Amri even threat-
ened in addresses on Radio Sana’a that “he will summon Soviet warplanes
to destroy with poison gas, napalm, rockets, and bombs ‘every living thing’
in the Royalist two-​thirds of Yemen.” In response, Condé commissioned a
new “Freedom Fighter” set of stamps that portrayed tribesmen with small
arms fighting against Soviets, rather than Egyptians, reflecting shifting
enemies.16
The very decision, however, to place a siege on the city rather than
stage a frontal assault while holding the numerical and munitions advan-
tage, was among the underlying reasons for the failed royalist offensive.17
Royalist tribesmen, unaccustomed to lengthy siege warfare and frustrated
by the arrival of foreign reinforcements and Soviet munitions in aid of
the YAR, began to drift away from the battlefield and return to their fields
before the end of the coffee harvest season. The combination of a lengthy
siege with limited funds available, diminishing royalist numbers, as well
as an influx of foreign aid and fighters for the YAR eventually broke the
siege in February 1968. The siege lasted for seventy days and became a
defining moment in Yemeni national history. Al-​‘Amri’s heroic perfor-
mance at maintaining the city’s morale and civil order during the siege
and his eventually breaking through royalist lines earned him the moni-
ker of “the general of Yemen.”18 The republican victory and the lifting of
the siege marked the practical end of the Yemen Civil War. While spo-
radic fighting continued for two years, the final outcome had already been
decided.
On March 21, 1968, the YAR declared that it had signed a new Soviet-​
Yemeni friendship treaty that acted to solidify their alliance and contin-
ued cooperation. To emphasize the sincerity of their commitment, and
in response to renewed hostilities in August 1968, Moscow organized
200 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

seventy-​five to one hundred round-​trip flights to Yemen carrying muni-

tions and supplies to the last battlefields of the Yemen Civil War.19
In March 1969, Prince Muhammad ibn Hussein resigned as the
imam’s deputy and royalist general. At this point Imam al-​Badr realized
that continuing the royalist military efforts would only result in more
Yemeni bloodshed. According to his own recollections, al-​Badr agreed
to sever the allegiance between the royalist tribesmen and the Hamid al-​
Din family, granting political flexibility to negotiate with al-​Iryani and the
YAR. Official negotiations took place during the Islamic Conference of
Foreign Ministers, held in Jeddah from March 23-​26, 1969. Both sides
agreed to form a unified government with republican and royalist repre-
sentation, albeit excluding the Hamid al-​Din family. Several weeks later,
Saudi Arabia recognized the YAR, officially ending the era of international
intervention in Yemen.20 The YAR Minister of Economics Muhammad
Sa’id al-​Attar argued that the northern opposition was driven by the pres-
ence of a foreign power in Yemen that might infringe upon their tribal
independence in the highlands. Once the Egyptians and Soviets had with-
drawn from Yemen, the temporary alliance with al-​Badr was no longer a
necessary measure.21
While the royalists and republicans were fighting their final battles in
the north, the British-​created Federation of South Arabia was quickly col-
lapsing. On November 30, 1967, the day after the British withdrew from
Yemen, the NLF declared an independent state of the People’s Republic of
South Yemen (PRSY), taking advantage of the power vacuum created by
the simultaneous withdrawal of Britain and Egypt.22 The NLF sent a del-
egation to Moscow and obtained political recognition from the Kremlin.
By early 1968 a group of Soviet military advisers arrived in Aden. Political
tensions continued in South Yemen as a radical Marxist branch of the NLF
gained power and reorganized their party as the Yemeni Socialist Party.
On December 1, 1970, South Yemen became the first and only Arab com-
munist state, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY).
As the PDRY became a center for Soviet military affairs in the region
with a large naval and air presence in Aden, Moscow subsequently allowed
their strategic relationship with Sana’a to deteriorate.23 The USSR decided
to abandon Sana’a for a number of reasons. Multiple coup attempts by left-​
wing Yemeni groups against YAR General Hassan al-​‘Amri failed, push-
ing the republic further to the conservative right and into an alliance with
Saudi Arabia and Western powers. This political stance was demonstrated
 The End of the Yemen Civil War 201

by the YAR decision in July 1969 to resume diplomatic relations with West
Germany in exchange for an aid package worth $3.5 million. Saudi Arabia
continued to improve its relations with the YAR, offering their recogni-
tion in July 1970 along with a renewable aid package worth $20 million.24
Individual “stipends” or bribes were given to Yemeni tribal sheikhs to
maintain their allegiance.25 Saudi Arabia came to view the YAR as a buffer
between the Marxist PDRY and the Saudi border. Furthermore, despite
the precarious royalist position and the relative strength of the republican
army equipped with Soviet weaponry, the last battle of the civil war was
hardly a measure of success. Depleted royalist tribal militias captured the
city of Sa’dah from republican forces in February 1970, placing them in
a relative position of strength in advance of the conference for national
reconciliation.26
The Egyptian magazine al-╉Jadid best described the emerging Yemeni
state in the north:  “the new regime in Yemen will be conservative with
some revolutionary glimpses, republican with some monarchical tints,
tribal in civil and military framework, progressive compared with the
old past and moderate compared with the glaring and boisterous slogans
launched by Sallal.”27

The Personal Sagas Continue

André Rochat, once considered a public enemy of the British colonial
administration in Aden for his oversight of British political prisoners,
became the guarantor for the remaining British representatives after 1967.
Rochat and the ICRC were considered the insurance policy for British
subjects and interests in Aden in the event of a national emergency and
in the continued absence of a British embassy. The ICRC was committed
to protect British hostages who might be in danger from government or
radical groups in Aden.28
Imam al-╉Badr left Yemen in 1970 in a self-╉imposed exile in the UK
where he bought a home on St. George’s Road in Bromley, Kent. Al-╉Badr’s
residence made its way into British news when Scotland Yard seized mil-
lions of royalist stamps on July 5, 1971, under the legal pretenses that they
were printed without YAR approval and distributed all over the world.29
On November 8, 1976, al-╉Badr applied for British naturalization and asked
for the former mercenaries to Yemen David Smiley, Julian Amery, and
Neil McLean to serve as references for his good character and loyalty.30
202 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

In 1970, Bruce Condé was exiled from Yemen as well and again found
himself stateless, as he had rescinded his American citizenship and the
Yemeni government refused to grant him citizenship. Condé finally
settled in Spain and later Morocco (Martil and Tangier). In 1984, Condé
married another royalist pretender who adopted the persona of Princess
Olga Beatrice Nikolaevna Romanovskaya Dolgoroukaya, Princess of the
Ukraine, and great granddaughter to Nicholas II of Russia. The two
adopted Alexis d’Anjou Dolgorouky, a self-​declared prince and author of a
controversial and fanciful book, Moi Petit-​Arriere-​Fils du Tsar.31
Yet Condé’s relationship with al-​Badr was not over. Throughout his
time in exile, he attested that he maintained close contact with members of
the Yemeni royal family, including two of al-​Badr’s nephews, who brought
him various monetary gifts.32 In September 1975, he published a report
issued purportedly by the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen’s Ministry of
Communications. Condé had named himself major general and claimed
to be an official representative of the imam despite the fact that the war
had been officially over for more than five years. Nevertheless, Condé was
trying to advocate a new settlement for Yemen that included three states:
the YAR, PDRY, and a new state for al-​Badr. (see Fig. 10.1)33
The Aden Group had been shut down as of May 24, 1967; letters were
sent to former members indicating that the “office” in London would be
closed for good and that they would be given a new contact for emergen-
cies. The letters ended with the following statement:  “As you know, we
never did exist and now to prove it we propose to vanish.”34 The group’s
former members, intent on keeping their mission with Israel a secret,
were faced with leaked information in 1971. Jim Johnson concocted a story
claiming that Jack Malloch of the Rhodesian Air Services flew weapons to
royalists. Johnson ridiculed those who thought Israel was involved, claim-
ing that “no story is too fantastic to be believed in the Middle East.”35
Two days after Israel’s victory in June 1967, Jim Johnson and Tony
Boyle were invited by Nahum Admoni to Israel and were flown over the
Sinai battlefield to observe hundreds of destroyed Egyptian tanks and air-
fields. Boyle was given photographs of these scenes of destruction with
a note expressing the gratitude of the Israel for the work of British mer-
cenaries in Yemen, claiming that the Six-​Day War victory could not have
been achieved without him.36
Even without the aid of the Aden group, the Mossad continued intel-
ligence operations in Yemen and dispatched an Egyptian-​ born senior
agent named Baruch Zaki Mizrahi to report, ostentibly, on the Egyptian
Figure 10.1  Condé’s proposed division of Yemen into three states. (Tony Boyle
Papers, IWM)
204 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

army and on traffic in and out of the Red Sea.37 He entered the country
with a Moroccan passport under the name Ahmad al-╉Sabbagh and estab-
lished an espionage ring of Yemenis to observe Palestinian terrorists who
were using Hodeidah as a base to launch attack against Israeli shipping.38
Mizrahi remained in Yemen until his capture by Yemeni authorities in May
1972.39 In 1972, Israeli officials appealed to US President Richard Nixon to
intercede on behalf of Mizrahi, who was still interned in Yemen, as part of
a prisoner exchange between Israel and Egypt.40 When the United States
refused to intervene, fearing damage to US-╉Yemeni relations, the Israelis
turned to West Germany and Iran, who in turn appealed directly to Yemeni
Interior Minister Sayf ‘Ali Khawlani for a delay in Mizrahi’s execution and
for an official prisoner transfer to Cairo.41 Negotiations continued after the
Yom Kippur War, in October 1973,42 and Mizrahi was finally released in
March 1974 in exchange for Egyptian prisoners of war held by Israel.43
According to Nahum Admoni, the prisoner exchange could not have
taken place without the intercession of Jim Johnson. There was concern
that the lack of order and accountability in Yemen would present insur-
mountable obstacles to a prisoner swap with Israel. Johnson approached
his contacts in Yemen and organized the transfer of Mizrahi to Egypt,where
the prisoner exchange was orchestrated.44
Arieh Oz developed a long-╉term friendship with Boyle. On one occa-
sion, after Oz left the air force and went to work for El Al, he met Boyle
for dinner during a layover in London. At 11:00 PM that night Oz received
a phone call from an Israeli diplomat in Denmark, a former friend from
the Mossad who asked how his dinner was, implying that he was being
watched. He asked Oz not to see Boyle anymore, as he was “no longer
with us.” It was not until 2008, after the passing of the ever-╉cautious chief
of the IAF Ezer Weizman, that Oz once again saw Boyle over dinner with
Admoni, marking an end to the era of clandestine planning and suspi-
cions. The memories of these individuals and their impact on the history
of the modern Middle East live on in the pages of this book.

Legacy of the Yemen Civil War

The Yemen Civil War was a pivotal moment in the history of the Middle
East. The decline of Arab nationalism and Nasser’s expansionist foreign
policy was brought about in part by Egypt’s intervention in Yemen.45 It
would be incorrect to assume that Nasser’s presence in Yemen was a com-
plete failure. For one, the Yemeni republic remained intact despite eight
 The End of the Yemen Civil War 205

years of war with the royalists. As part of the Saudi-​Egyptian Khartoum

agreement, Egypt was given a share of Saudi oil wealth and employment
opportunity for hundreds of thousands of Egyptian workers in the Saudi
oil industry during the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, Nasser succeeded in
securing the Red Sea approach to the Suez Canal by uprooting the impos-
ing British military presence in Aden. Egypt’s presence in North Yemen
and its support for the NLF and later FLOSY were instrumental in forcing
an early British withdrawal from Aden and a collapse of the FSA.46 Rather
than a harbinger of defeat, the war in Yemen gave Nasser an opportu-
nity to further his personal security, economic, and ideological agendas
in the region in a relatively low-​stakes conflict two thousand miles away
from Egypt.
The real victors in the Yemen Civil War were Saudi Arabia and the
USSR. Without expending their own troops, the Saudis managed to secure
a temporary ally south of their border. The emergent YAR in 1970 repre-
sented perhaps the most ideal state the Saudis could have envisioned: the
Shi’i monarch in Yemen had been exiled and the state was weak, decen-
tralized, and dependent upon continued Saudi funds. The most populous
area on the Arabian Peninsula was split between north and south, allow-
ing Saudi Arabia to maintain its regional hegemony and patronage of
the YAR.47
The USSR similarly saw its vision of an ideal South Arabian state
emerge in the PDRY. As early as June 1968, eighteen Soviet ships docked
in Aden, a number that would increase exponentially over the subsequent
years.48 The Marxist country in South Arabia became a Soviet naval and
military asset for the interim of the Cold War and served as a strategic
base for missions to postcolonial Africa: Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique,
and Somalia, in particular. The increased naval presence in the Indian
Ocean occurred as the British withdrew from “east of Suez” in the late
1960s and early 1970s and ushered in a renewed era of Soviet interest in
its “internationalist duty” in the developing world.49 The PDRY gave the
USSR a base of operations for intervention in these newly independent
territories.
Iraqi political scientist Adeed Dawisha best explains the aftermath of
the Yemen Civil War:  “Inevitably, the conservative instincts and social
customs of the Yemenis, as well as their religious affiliations, meant that
sooner rather than later Sana[‘a] would replace Moscow protection by that
of Riyadh.” By the 1970s, it had become obvious that the survival of the
YAR depended “not so much on the Russian tank as on the Saudi riyal.”50
206 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

As international interest began to wane in 1968, Pavel Demchenko, the

senior Middle East correspondent for Pravda, observed that September
1962 was not a revolution, but rather “a centuries-​old method of Yemeni
regime change.”51 When al-​Badr’s palace was first shelled on September
26, 1962, the conflict was still a localized civil war. Any significant delay
in Egyptian intervention may have signified the failure of the republic and
the return of the Yemeni imamate, albeit perhaps somewhat reformed. In
1962, the republican model was not a universally accepted concept among
local Yemenis. McLean recounted a demonstrative and comical story cir-
culated among the Yemenis during his travels:

“It is told that that when the great meeting of chiefs was called
on the Foundation of the Republic they were informed that ‘The
Republic will bring you roads, schools, and other benefits which
will make the Yemen into a modern country.” The chiefs shouted
‘Hooray, Long live the Republic,” but at the end of the meeting they
asked “This is all very fine, but who is going to be the Imam?”52

The local “regime change” was overrun by events and conflicts far
beyond Yemen’s borders. The civil war was prolonged and the suffer-
ings of Yemenis deepened as a result largely of players and forces much
larger than themselves. With each additional international intervention,
it was easy to lose sight of the fact that this conflict, at its core, was a
clash between Yemen’s history and its future. The state that emerged in
1970 was starkly different from the isolationist regime of Imams Yahya
and Ahmad. The previous generation of autocratic monarchs made every
effort to forestall Yemen’s entry into the international community. Instead,
the civil war brought the international community to Yemen’s doorstep
and transformed the former kingdom into a modern nation-​state. Rather
than demonize the individuals who brought destruction, death, and a
prolonged international conflict to Yemen, the country continues to cel-
ebrate even Abdullah Sallal and ‘Abd al-​Rahman al-​Baydani as national
heroes.53 Yemen’s state-​issued history and memory focuses on the 1960s
as a period of revolution, nationalism, and modernization rather than a
trying decade of civil strife and political uncertainty. Even the most cul-
pable collaborators and inept leaders have been granted the status of a
national revolutionary heroes.
Epilogue: Echoes of a Civil War

An Arabian Case of Déja vu

The compromise of 1970 marked the official end of the Yemen Civil War.
Imam al-╉Badr and his extended family resettled in the UK and images
of the northern Yemeni tribesmen faded from mass media. Over four
decades later, those images would reappear along with a modern narra-
tive and international cast of characters starkly similar to those of 1962,
and rife with historical ironies. The Yemeni republic is again at war with
northern tribesmen, and foreign powers are again intimately involved.
Journalists and contemporary scholars have attributed the 2014–╉15 civil
war in Yemen to a “new Arab Cold War” between Iran, which has purport-
edly given support to a northern tribal alliance, and Saudi Arabia, which
is fighting on behalf of the Yemeni republican government in exile, sup-
planting the role once played by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Egyptian
army. The Egyptian air force, this time as part of a Saudi-╉led coalition,
has returned to the ominous mountainous terrain that bedeviled Nasser’s
army during the 1960s. The UN has again assumed the role of mediator,
with many of the diplomatic shortcomings of UNYOM. The ICRC, which
began operations in South Arabia during the 1960s, now finds itself at
the center of a growing humanitarian crisis in Yemen. The current war
in Yemen even features foreign mercenaries, which summon memories
of Neil McLean and the rest of the Aden Group. Dana Adam Schmidt’s
1968 journalistic account of the Yemen Civil War, refers to the conflict as
“the unknown war.” Gabriel Gatehouse, a correspondent for the British
Broadcasting Corporation and a modern incarnation of Schmidt, has
already termed the new conflict “Yemen’s forgotten war.”1
208 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

When the northern tribesmen lay siege to Sana’a in 1968, the repub-
lic emerged victorious and established the contemporary model of gov-
ernance for Yemen. On September 21, 2014, the children of those 1968
tribesmen returned to Sana’a once again, only this time they managed to
capture the capital city in the face of a weakened republican government.
According Dr. Hassan Abu Taleb, a professor at the Egyptian Al-╉Ahram
Center for Political Studies and Strategy, the 2014 fall of Sana’a marked the
symbolic end to the republic that was founded in 1962.2 The revolutionary
leadership of the 1960s has passed on, leaving in its wake the skeleton of a
Yemeni republican government whose legitimacy scarcely extends beyond
their current hotel quarters in Riyadh.

Rise of the Houthi
The Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, or the “supporters
of God,” began as a religious educational movement during the 1990s to
counter the influence of Saudi proselytizers spreading radical Wahhabi
doctrine in North Yemen.3 Members of the al-╉Houthi family, one of the
early supporters of Imam al-╉Badr during the 1960s, assumed a central
leadership role in the northern tribal opposition group that emerged as a
political threat to the Yemeni republic.4 The Famous Forty and the original
revolutionary council of the YAR during the 1960s specifically targeted
the hierarchy of the Sayyid families, or the descendants of the Prophet
Muhammad. The Houthis, a prominent Sayyid family, had thus been mar-
ginalized politically and economically for decades along with the rest of
their social class and those among the northern tribes in particular.5
Hussein al-╉Badr al-╉Houthi, the first leader of the movement, was
killed during a 2004 battle with the military forces of the former Yemeni
President Ali Abdullah Saleh. His death and subsequent adaption as the
movement’s martyr marked the expansion of the Houthi movement’s
armed conflict with the Yemeni government that continued for a decade.
Following Saleh’s abdication in 2012, the Houthis gradually filled the
political void left by the Saleh regime and the decline of the republic’s
legitimacy more broadly.

Decline of the Revolution

The rise of the Houthi movement coincided with the passing of Yemen’s
revolutionary generation, which featured a foreign-╉trained civil service,
 Epilogue 209

discussed in c­ hapter 2. The Famous Forty, as they are known in Yemeni

national history, returned home either before or during the years follow-
ing the September 1962 revolution, and represented the core of the coun-
try’s first modernist and foreign-​educated civil service.6 The country’s first
foreign minister Mohsin al-​‘Ayni, for example, was one of the most prom-
inent Yemeni politicians of the twentieth century, tracing his political
beginnings to the original Famous Forty group.7 In the decades following
the revolution, nine other members of the Famous Forty became ministers
of health, education, economics, state, foreign affairs, finance, and public
works. The training they had received abroad translated directly into their
designing and staffing the modern state infrastructure of Yemen.8
While the great majority of the members of the Famous Forty ended
up in the foreign service, in government ministries, in the military, or
at the Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and Development, they were not
limited to the Yemeni public sector. Several served senior roles in mixed
public-​ private industries, including Yemenia Airlines and the Sana’a
Broadcasting Company; a few remained in academia or became national
poets.9 The Famous Forty and their extended cohort became the face of the
new republic in every regard, bringing tribal Yemen into the modern era.
On June 3, 2011, six months after the beginning of massive anti-​
government protests in Sana’a, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s
palace mosque was targeted by a rocket attack. Although the publicly
reviled president was seriously injured in the attack and was forced to
travel to Saudi Arabia for medical care, popular jubilation was somewhat
tempered, for there was a second, unintended victim. ‘Abd al-​Aziz ‘Abd
al-​Ghani, one of the original founders of the modern Yemeni republic in
1962, was praying next to Saleh and was mortally wounded in the attack.
There was a massive outpouring of grief when the Yemeni public received
the news on August 21 that ‘Abd al-​Ghani, who had served as prime min-
ister again from 1994 to 1997 and had continued to preside as the presi-
dent of the government’s Consultative (“Shura”) Council since 2003, had
died from his injuries.10 Al-​Ghani’s death symbolized the fall of Saleh’s
regime as well as the passing of a great figure in the history of the Yemeni
republic. His funeral marked a unique pause in the months of street pro-
test, when both Saleh’s regime and its opposition mourned a casualty
of national hostilities. Government employees were given the day off to
attend the funeral, and a public day of bereavement was declared. During
the height of opposition to Saleh’s regime protesters took a one-​day hiatus
to recognize the tragic loss of one of Yemen’s greatest political leaders of
210 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

the revolutionary era. For many Yemenis, al-​Ghani embodied an entire

generation of revolutionaries who ran the modern state and continued to
represent its legitimacy in the decades after the 1962 revolution.
The death on January 1, 2012, of ‘Abd al-​Rahman al-Baydani, the former
mentor to the Famous Forty students who served as vice-​president of the
YAR during the 1960s and continued to play a prominent role in Yemeni
political society, marked another significant moment in the passing of
Yemen’s generation of the revolution. Although Baydani was exiled from
the country for political conspiracy during the civil war, he was invited
back to Yemen during the 1980s to serve in both official governmental and
unofficial advisory roles, and even considered a run for president in 2006.
Baydani also became a prolific academic writer, garnering a large reader-
ship as well as a local following.
An elaborate website dedicated to Baydani’s life’s work is a testament to
the public’s perception of him as an embodiment of Yemen’s revolution.11
Until a few months before his death, at the age of eighty-​five, Baydani
appeared regularly on television shows and radio broadcasts and in news-
paper columns, developing a cult of personality rivaled perhaps only by the
president himself. Baydani’s death was particularly significant, as he had
outlived nearly all of the other Famous Forty and was thus one of the last
remaining members of Yemen’s generation of the revolution who came to
political and national prominence during the civil war in the 1960s.
With the passing of the Famous Forty a new generation of Yemenis has
assumed the mantle of leadership. While the earlier generation of foreign-​
educated Yemenis had returned to lead their country into the modern era,
the same cannot be said of today’s foreign-​educated class. Of the original
group of the Famous Forty and the approximately five hundred students
who studied abroad during the 1950s and 1960s only a small minority
remained abroad. ‘Abd al-​Karim al-​Iryani was the starkest example, as he
returned to Yemen after earning a PhD in Biochemical Genetics at Yale
University in 1968 and served as the country’s most prominent statesman
until his death in November 2015.
Since the 1970s the trend has been reversed, as Yemenis studying
abroad have increasingly declined to return. According to a February 2014
study by the Yemen Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research,
upward of thirty thousand Yemenis holding undergraduate, graduate, and
post-​graduate degrees are working in other countries.12 At a time when
local hospitals, universities, and government ministries are struggling
to find trained professionals, educated Yemenis continue to leave the
 Epilogue 211

country.13 Yemeni institutions like the universities of Sana’a and Ta’iz have
been forced to appoint their own recent B.A. graduates to lecture in place
of faculty who have left the country.
The new generation of Yemenis is faced with the difficulty of prolong-
ing a republic that enjoys declining support and validity in the face of tribal
and religious alternatives. For example, Yemeni President ‘Abd Rabbuh
Mansur Hadi, who was deposed by the Houthis in 2014, is a southerner
who was studying abroad during the 1968 siege of Sana’a and did not
return to South Arabia until the end of the 1970s. Hadi was unable to
claim the status of a national hero or an association with the founding
fathers of the revolution. The Yemeni republican model and its manufac-
tured national identity have indeed shown signs of serious weakness and
decline as the new post-╉revolutionary generation demonstrates a prefer-
ence for Yemen’s historic clan-╉and tribal-╉based affiliations rather than dis-
integrating national political parties and the remnants of state security.14

Saudi Grand Strategy

Since the beginning of the Saudi military campaign against the Houthis
in March 2015, the number of Arab, African, and Western coalition mem-
bers involved has increased. In contrast to Saudi Arabia’s reluctant 1962
interventions in Yemen, the current bombing campaign is described as a
response to Iranian meddling in Yemeni tribal politics. In actuality, under-
lying the Saudi interventions of both the 1960s and today is a staunch
grand strategy aimed at maintaining control over their southern border.
The Saudi monarchy has always feared the instability of its southern bor-
der, a remnant of the 1934 Treaty of Ta’if, which ceded the three Yemeni
provinces of Asir, Najran, and Jizan to the victorious armies of Saudi
founder ibn Saud. During the 1960s, the porous border was a source of
regional tension as Imam al-╉Badr’s tribal armies garrisoned soldiers and
weapons in the border towns, luring incessant Egyptian air raids over
Saudi territory. Serving to exacerbate matters, Baydani and other YAR
officials openly declared their intentions to carry the Yemeni revolution
over the border into Saudi Arabia. In the current climate, the Houthis
have taken up a similar anti-╉Saudi stance from their native villages in the
area surrounding Sa’dah. The prospect of thirty million Yemenis march-
ing across the vast and undefended border continues to serve as a source
of anxiety for Saudi leaders. Saudi King Salman therefore is following the
short-╉term tactical strategies set by his predecessors in maintaining Saudi
212 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

control over a weakened Yemeni state rather than a forward-​thinking and

long-​term solution.

International Follies: The UN, the ICRC,

and a New Era of Foreign Mercenaries
UNYOM, which maintained a presence from 1963 to 1964, was ham-
pered by the emergence of the Asia-​Africa block, a funding crisis, and the
inability of Secretary General U Thant to implement unpopular policies.
Although this book has served to debunk many of the historical misrep-
resentations that have stained the UNYOM legacy, there was no escaping
the short-​term futility of the mission’s diplomacy.
International diplomatic efforts have been similarly plagued by dif-
ficulties surrounding the post-​Arab Spring governments. Following the
overthrow of Arab dictators across the region, a collection of UN diplo-
mats has overseen transitions from dictatorships to democratically elected
governments. Jamal Benomar, the UN special envoy to Yemen, was the
last of these diplomats to admit failure when he resigned on April 16, 2015,
in the face of a complete collapse of Yemen’s transitional government.
Even as late as 2013, the transition of power in Yemen, orchestrated by the
Gulf Cooperation Council and brokered by Benomar, had been praised as
a model for peaceful resolutions to regional turmoil. Rather than a model
of success, Benomar’s efforts in Yemen served only to delay the eventual
turmoil in Yemen. President Mansur Hadi, who followed Benomar’s pre-
scriptions by forming a national dialogue council, announcing national
elections, and attempting to enact overly optimistic political reforms, was
nonetheless forced to flee the country in the face of military and political
opposition to his government.
Benomar’s replacement Ould Cheikh Ahmed has been following the
shuttle diplomacy paths marked by Ralph Bunche and Ellsworth Bunker,
who traveled between Cairo and Riyadh while largely bypassing the
Yemenis themselves. Although he made a brief visit to Sana’a to meet
with representatives of the republic, Bunche, along with other UN repre-
sentatives, was officially barred from meeting with Imam al-​Badr and his
royalists. The international community recognized only the YAR as the
legitimate representatives of the Yemeni people and did not legally sanc-
tion the royalist entity. Similarly, Cheikh Ahmed has shuttled between
New  York, Geneva, Paris, Kuwait, and Riyadh speaking with the small
 Epilogue 213

number of representatives of the Houthi government who managed to

navigate diplomatic hurdles and arrive for a European-╉brokered peace
conference. The international community and media have easy access to
Yemen’s government in exile in Riyadh, which is still considered the only
legitimate representative of the Yemeni people, despite its illegitimacy in
Yemen itself. Similar to the predicament faced by al-╉Badr and his royal-
ist tribesmen during the 1960s, the Houthi government has not received
global recognition, leaving their representatives on the legal periphery of
international diplomatic efforts.
When André Rochat was first told of his ICRC mission to Yemen in
1962, he knew nothing of the country, even assuming that it was “east of
Pakistan”! Regardless of their organizational ignorance, the ICRC admin-
istration recognized the importance of the chaos begot by the civil war
in opening for them the opportunity to begin operations in the Arabian
Peninsula, an area of the world previously beyond their reach. The ICRC
has maintained a continual presence in Yemen since the civil war and is
to date one of the few organizations with the knowledge and local network
able to address the growing humanitarian crisis.
The British and French mercenaries aiding the royalist armies in
northern Yemen during the 1960s were some of the most colorful and
influential figures in the civil war. Varying groups of mercenaries have
joined the current local conflict, with most supporting the military efforts
of the Saudi coalition. Mike Hindmarsh, a former senior Australian army
officer, is the public face of this disparate group as the commander of the
United Arab Emirate’s presidential guard.15 Hindmarsh and the presiden-
tial guard have served an important role in recapturing the port city of
Aden on July 17, 2015. While there were many other reports of mercenar-
ies from Australia, Columbia, and Sub-╉Saharan Africa, none has thus far
established a similar public persona.

Arriving at a Historic Solution

In over fifty years since the Yemen Civil War, the country’s presence along
the vital Bab al-Mandeb waterway to the Suez Canal has not changed, nor
it seems has the very public manner in which Yemen transitions regimes
and fights its local wars. Egypt’s 1962 intervention in Yemen helped legiti-
mize a weak republican government and launched six years of a bloody
and costly internationalized conflict. The Yemen Civil War was drawn, in
214 B e y o n d the A r ab C o l d   W a r

rhetoric and in practice, into regional and global conflicts far beyond its
borders. It was not until the withdrawal of British and Egyptian forces at
the end of 1967 and the diversion of Soviet attention from Sana’a to Aden
at the end of 1969 that the Yemenis found their independent voice to end
the civil war, arriving at a compromise that has served as the foundation
of the Yemeni government for five decades.
In the current climate, the grand coalition organized by Saudi Arabia is
again supporting a weak Yemeni republic. Foreign intervention has served
to exacerbate local issues and cloud the true underlying national tensions
that spawned the current Houthi rebellion. The current war in Yemen
has been couched as a manifestation of the Saudi-​Iranian rivalry or as
part of the West’s global war against terror. At its core, the current Yemen
conflict, similar to the civil war during the 1960s, is nothing more than
“a centuries-​old method of regime change,” a fact that will emerge only
after foreign interests are withdrawn.16 For the sake of innocent Yemenis,
one can only hope that this date arrives with great expediency, lest fifty
years from now another historian sits down to write a sequel entitled the
International History of the Yemen Civil War, 2014–​…
Notes

In t roduc t ion

1. Robert W. Stookey, Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1978), 2. Robin Bidwell, The Two Yemens (Boulder: CO: Westview
Press, 1983). Bidwell argues that the concept of the unified state of Yemen dates
back to 1229 CE, when the Yemeni region entered two centuries of a golden age
under the Rasulid Dynasty, which ruled over most of South Arabia.
2. Harold Ingrams, The Yemen: Imams, Rulers, & Revolutions (London: John Murray,
1963), 4.
3. Mohammed A. Zabarah, “The Yemeni Revolution of 1962 Seen as a Social

Revolution,” in Contemporary Yemen: Politics and Historical Background, ed. B.R.
Pridham (London:  Croom Helm, 1984), 80. In a more abstract sense, Zabarah
highlighted the importance of new roads in carrying modern ideas to formerly
isolated areas of the country. (Mohammed Ahmad Zabarah, Yemen: Traditionalism
vs. Modernity (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1982), 85). Roads were constructed
mainly by American, Chinese, and Soviet companies. Burrowes argues that
the YAR was defined by its roads, which served as “foci of change.” (Robert
D. Burrowes, The Yemen Arab Republic:  The Politics of Development, 1962–╉1986
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 7.)
4. Fred Halliday, Arabia Without Sultans (London: Saqi Books, 2002), 27. Halliday
argues that Soviet foreign intervention in South Arabia presented a fourth
obstacle to the Yemeni state following the end of the civil war in 1968.
5. Gamal Abdel Nasser, The National Charter (Cairo: Information Department, 1962).
6. Interview with David Newton, November 5, 2015. The phrase “non-╉Western colo-
nialism” was coined by an UN employee from India who was stationed in Yemen.
Rather than Egypt’s colony, James Cortada, the US chief of mission in Yemen
(1963–╉64) referred to Yemen as “Egypt’s zone of influence.” James N.  Cortada
Oral History, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs
Oral History Project, September 1, 1992.
216 Notes to pages 3–4

7. Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War:  Gamal ‘Abd Al-​Nasir and his Rivals—​1958–​
1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). Kerr published three editions of
his book, maintaining the same central thesis and only expanding the period of
his evidence to account for the passage of time.
8. For example: Fawaz A. Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and
International Politics, 1955–​1967 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994); Roby C. Barrett,
The Greater Middle East and the Cold War:  US Foreign Policy Under Eisenhower
and Kennedy (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007); and Jeffrey A. Lefebvre, “Middle East
Conflicts and Middle Level Power Intervention in the Horn of Africa,” Middle
East Journal 50 (1996), 387–​404.
9. For example:  Robert McNamara, Britain, Nasser, and the Balance of Power in
the Middle East, 1952–​1967:  From the Egyptian Revolution to the Six Day War
(London: Frank Cass, 2003), 131.
10. Curtis Ryan, “The New Arab Cold War and the Struggle for Syria,” Middle East
Report 271 (2014); Hilal Khashan, “The New Arab Cold War,” World Affairs
159 (1997), 158–​169; Morten Valbjorn and Andre Bank, “The New Arab Cold
War:  Rediscovering the Arab Dimension of Middle East Regional Politics,”
Review of International Studies 38 (2012), 3–​ 24; F. Gregory Gause, “Beyond
Sectarianism: The New Middle East Cold War,” Brookings Doha Center 11 (2014).
11. Tariq Habib, Milaffat thawrat yuliyu shahadat 122 min sunnaiha wa-​maasiriha
(Cairo:  Al Ahram, 1997), 242. Avraham Sela, “Nasser’s Regional Politics,” in
Rethinking Nasserism: Revolution and Historical Memory in Modern Egypt, eds. Elie
Podeh and Onn Winkler (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004), 200.
Sela made similar observations about the limitations of Kerr’s ideological Arab
Cold War. He refers to the 1960s as a transition from political symbols to “negoti-
ated order.”
12. Wallerstein dismisses as mere fantasy the notion that everything that hap-
pened during those years was initiated by either the United States or the USSR.
Immanuel Wallerstein, “What Cold War in Asia? An Interpretative Essay,” in The
Cold War in Asia: The Battle for Hearts and Minds, eds. Zheng Yangwen, Hong
Liu, and Michael Szonyi (Boston: Brill, 2010), 4–​5.
13. John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War:  A  New History (New  York:  Penguin Press,
2005). Gaddis introduced a theory of “dogs wagging tails” to describe the rela-
tionship of small nonaligned nations, including Nasser’s Egypt, to the two super-
powers. Michael E. Latham, “The Cold War in the Third World, 1963–​1975” in
The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne
Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 5–​6.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s “wars of liberation speech” on January
6, 1961, affirmed the USSR’s support for nationalist movements in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America. (CIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Review, January
26, 1961, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), 1961–​1963,
Vol. V, Soviet Union (Washington: GPO, 1998): doc. 39. Also cited in Robert B.
 Notes to pages 4–7 217

Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned Movement (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2013), 62.)
14. Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2007). Westad is known for his division of the Global Cold War into an
ideological rivalry. Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for
Independence and the Origins of the Post-╉Cold War Era (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002) and Matthew Connelly, “Taking Off the Cold War Lens: Visions of
North-╉South Conflict during the Algerian War for Independence,” The American
Historical Review 105 (2000):  739–╉69. Manela suggests the concept of bifo-
cals rather than getting rid of the lens entirely. Erez Manela, “A Pox on Your
Narrative: Writing Disease Control into Cold War History,” Diplomatic History
34:2 (2010): 299–╉323.

C h a p t er   1

1. Kevin Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen:  The ‘Famous Forty’
Mission of 1947” (M.Phil diss. St. Antony’s College, Oxford, 1998), 53.
FRUS 1961-╉1963, Vol. XVIII, 51, Paper by the Person in charge of Arabian
Peninsula Affairs (Seelye), September 20, 1962. Y. Aboul-╉Enein, “The Egyptian-╉
Yemen War (1962–╉67):  Egyptian Perspectives on Guerilla Warfare,” Infantry,
January–╉February 2004.
2. Ali Abdel Rahman Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World: Intervention in
Yemen 1962–╉1967 Case Study (Washington, DC:  University Press of America,
1983).
3. Edgar O’Ballance, The War in Yemen (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1971), 68.
4. Khadija al-╉Salami, The Tears of Sheba:  Tales of Survival and Intrigue in Arabia
(Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2003), 198–╉199. This account is based on a version of
events as told by Yahya al-╉Mutawakil to the author.
5. The historian Gregory Gause claims emphatically that there is no disput-
ing Egyptian foreknowledge and involvement in the coup, citing Baydani
and two other Egyptian military memoirs as evidence (Gause, Saudi-╉Yemeni
Relations, 59).
6. A. I. Dawisha, “Intervention in the Yemen: An Analysis of Egyptian Perceptions
and Policies,” Middle East Journal 29 (1975), 47.
7. Jesse Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble:  How Intervention in Yemen Caused the Six-╉Day
War and the Decline of Egyptian Power (Princeton:  Princeton University Press,
2013), 28.
8. Tariq Habib, Milaffat thawrat yuliyu shahadat 122 min sunnaiha wa-╉maasiriha
(Cairo: Al Ahram, 1997), 244.
9. Anthony Nutting, Nasser (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1972), 351.
10. Nutting, Nasser, 338.
11. Dawisha, “Intervention in the Yemen,” 50.
218 Notes to pages 8–10

12. TNA, CO 1015/​2150, 4. January 6, 1961, C. Johnston (Aden) to FO. It was not
clear who these two individuals were. The British were the target of Arab nation-
alist rhetoric as well during a 1961 Arab League meeting when Nasser boasted
that he would soon have a consulate in Aden.
13. Tony Geraghty, Who Dares Wins:  The Special Air Service, 1950 to the Falklands
(London: Arms and Armour Press, 1980), 63. Geraghty and other British histo-
rians take any opportunity to blame unrest on Soviet agent Kim Philby.
14. Churchill Archives Centre, Interview with R. W. Bailey, British Diplomatic Oral
History Program.
15. TNA, CO 1015/​2150, 561, February 2, 1962.
16. TNA, CO 1015/​2150, 534, February 2, 1962, C. Johnston (Aden) to FO.
17. Imperial War Museum Archives (hereafter IWM), Tony Boyle Papers, Box 1,
Notebook.
18. TNA, CO 1015/​2150, 559A, February 8, 1962, C. Johnston (Aden) to FO.
19. Ahmad Yusuf Ahmad, Al-​Dawar al-​Misri fi al-​Yaman (The Role of Egypt in
Yemen) (Cairo: Muaissasit Dar al-​Nasir al-​Misriya, 1981), 110.
20. Clive Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press,
2004), 27.
21. Saudi Radio Mecca, February 14, 1967 (taken from the O’Brien communiqué in
IWM, Neil McLean Files. Box A). McLean would later quote additional circum-
stantial evidence that the Egyptians had departed for Yemen before the revo-
lution began. Among other points, he notes that Egyptian heavy artillery and
armory arrived only one day after Sallal shelled the palace. (IWM, Neil McLean
Files, Box 39)
22. James, Nasser at War, 58–​59; ‘Abd al-​Rahman al-​Baydani, Misr wa Thawrat al-​
Yaman (Egypt and the Yemen Revolution) (Cairo: Dar al-​Maarif, 1993), chaps. 1
and 2. Baydani’s tales grew more hyperbolic over time, as evidenced by his 2001
interview with al-​Jazeera in which he claimed sole responsibility for the revo-
lution (Nawaf Madkhli, “Nasser’s Vietnam”—​The Egyptian Intervention in Yemen
1962–​1967 (master’s thesis, University of Arkansas, 2003), 15).
23. Telegram from the legation in Yemen to the Department of State, December 22,
1962, FRUS 1961–​1963, Vol. XVIII, Near East, ed. Nina Noring (Washington
DC: GPO, 1994), doc. 119. Since the 1960s, Baydani had been banished from
both Egyptian and Yemeni politics, although he attempted a return to politics
on a number of occasions. His political aspirations might explain his outland-
ish retrospective account of heroism and leadership during the Yemeni coup
(Robert D. Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Yemen (Lanham, MD:  Scarecrow
Press, 1995), 52).
24. Yael Vered, Hafikhah u-​milḥamah be-​Teman (Coup and War in Yemen), (Tel
Aviv:  Am ‘oved, 1967), 100. Baydani continued to operate on the fringes of
Yemeni politics during the 1960s, traveling often to Germany, Aden, Cairo, and
Baghdad. George M. Haddad, Revolution and Military Rule in the Middle East: The
 Notes to pages 10–13 219

Arab States. Vol. 3 Pt. 2: Egypt, The Sudan, Yemen and Libya (New York: Speller,
1973), 267.
25. Habib, Milaffat thawrat yuliyu, 240–​41. According to this version, Nasser sent
a full platoon only fifteen days after the original coup. Baghdadi would later
describe Nasser’s intervention as “100% a mistake.”
26. Salah al-​Din al-​Hadidi, Shahid ‘ala Harb al-​Yaman (Cairo:  Maktabat Madbūlī,
1984), 21.
27. Duff Hart-​Davis, The War that Never Was (London:  Century, 2011), 25. This
account was based on British intelligence material from the IWM.
28. al-​Hadidi, Shahid ‘ala Harb al-​Yaman, 38.
29. J. Leigh Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement 1935–​1962 (Beirut, Lebanon: The
American University of Beirut, 1987), 25.
30. Muhammad Ali Luqman and Faruq Muhammad Luqman, Qissat al-​Thawra al-​
Yamaniyya (Aden: Dar Fatat al-​Jazira), 82.
31. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 63.
32. O’Ballance, The War in Yemen, 43.
33. J. Leigh Douglas, “The Free Yemeni Movement: 1935–​1962,” in Contemporary
Yemen:  Politics and Historical Background, ed. B. R. Pidham (London:  Croom
Helm, 1984), 34.
34. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 34. Imam Yahya eventually uncovered their
organization and imprisoned or exiled their members.
35. Paul Dresch, Tribes, Government, and History in Yemen (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1989), 237.
36. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 39. Among this group were Qadi Yahya
Muhammad al-​Iryani, Qadi Abdullah al-​Jirafi, and many others who would
assume important roles in the 1948 coup.
37. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 43.
38. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 86.
39. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 35.
40. Robert D. Burrowes, “The Famous Forty and their Companions: North Yemen’s
First-​Generation Modernists and Educational Emigrants,” Middle East Journal
59 (2005), 82. Burrowes explains that although moving abroad for employment
opportunities was common for Yemenis, going abroad for education was rela-
tively unheard of. This cohort was even more unique in the fact that with few
exceptions they all returned to Yemen, rather than act as a “brain-​drain” for the
country.
41. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 28.
42. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 46.
43. Burrowes, “The Famous Forty.” Burrowes estimates that between one-​third and
one-​half of all Yemeni cabinet appointments since 1967 originated from the
original Famous Forty.
44. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 122–​139.
220 Notes to pages 13–16

45. Paul Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

Press, 2000), 56.
46. John Hewitt, “First footsteps in Yemen, 1947,” The British-​Yemeni Society 2005,
3. Jamal Jamil was an Iraqi artillery officer assigned to the Yemeni army in
Sana’a. He was the father of Ra’is Jamal Jamil, the Iraqi artillery officer wanted
in Baghdad for his role in the 1940 Iraqi Golden Carpet revolution. Jamil was
later executed along with other co-​conspirators.
47. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 58. Al-​Fusayyil considered
the 1962 coup to be a popular uprising with a greater number of educated
supporters.
48. Yemen Under the Rule of Imam Ahmad (Documents on the History of Arabia, Volume
VII), ed. Ibrahim al-​Rashid (Chapel Hill, NC: Documentary Publications, 1985),
107–​11. The list was included in a Foreign Service Dispatch from Hermann Eilts
to Department of State, February 20, 1953.
49. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 162. The prison was located in the Qahera
Fortress (Qula’at al Qahera), which dates from the eleventh century. The fortress
and its large underground prisons were used for centuries to house the imam’s
hostages from rebel tribes.
50. Ali Abdel Rahman Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World: Intervention in
Yemen 1962–​1967 Case Study (Washington, DC:  University Press of America,
1983), 84. According to Sallal’s recollections, he returned to the army after his
time in prison with the objective to remove all imams, including al-​Badr.
51. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 171.
52. Dresch, Modern Yemen, 79. The pamphlet was first printed in Aden. Dresch
argues that Ahmad Nu’man, who was Muhammad Nu’man’s son, likely wrote
the actual pamphlet.
53. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 37, 43.
54. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 190.
Haddad, Revolution and Military Rule, 232.
55. Rahmy, Egyptian Policy, 90.
56. “The Real Yemeni Revolution and History,” Ahmad Jaaber, Al Thawra (December
31, 1962). Copies of Al Thawra, an official government-​funded newspaper, can
be found in the Yemeni presidential compound. At least according to the archi-
vist’s account, other copies of Yemeni newspapers were destroyed during the
siege of Sana’a in 1968.
57. Boals, Modernization and Intervention, 254.
58. According to British observers, in addition to economic aid, al-​Badr also devel-
oped a drinking problem, perhaps over the course of his Eastern European
excursions (Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret
Intelligence Service (New York: The Free Press, 2000), 678).
59. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 24. Al-​Badr’s uncle Prince Hassan
believed as well that his nephew was unfit to rule as imam.
 Notes to pages 16–17 221

60. Vsevolod Aleksandrovich Galkin, V Ĭemene; zapiski sovetskogo vracha (In

Yemen: A Soviet Doctor’s Notes) (Moscow: Oriental Literature Publishing House,
1963), 68. Galkin was a Soviet doctor serving in Sana’a, Hodeidah, and other
Yemeni villages. He documents his interactions with Yemeni patients, daily rou-
tine, and the details of each city or village.
All translations are those of the author, unless otherwise indicated.
61. Stephen Page, The Soviet Union and the Yemens:  Influence in Asymmetrical
Relationships (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1985), 4. Page suggests that
by the end of 1961, Imam Ahmad was no longer the ideal Soviet third world
leader, because he broke with Nasser, made an alliance with Chinese, accepted
economic aid from the US, and ceased attacks on British Aden. Page describes
the September 1962 coup as the revitalization of Soviet-​ friendly Yemeni
leaders.
62. Adeed Dawisha, “The Soviet Union in the Arab World: The Limits to Superpower
Influence,” in The Soviet Union in the Middle East: Policies and Perspectives, eds.
Adeed Dawisha and Karen Dawisha (London: Heinemann Educational Books,
1982), 16.
63. Vladimir Sakharov and Umberto Tosi, High Treason (New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1980), 147–​149.
64. Charles B. McLane, Soviet-​Middle East Relations (London: Central Asian Research
Centre, 1973), 113.
65. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 5, Papka 4, Dela 6, March 1962—​Soviet Delegation
to Yemen Report. The delegation included Al-​Badr who was the Minister of
Defense and Commander in Chief of Armaments and Strength), Hassan bin
Ibrahim (Foreign Minister), ‘Abd al-​Rahman al-​Sayigi (Minister of Internal
Affairs), Seif al Islam Abduh Rahman (Minister of Health), Abduh Rahman
Abu Taaleb (Minister Economics and Trade), Muhammad ‘Abd al-​ Amuv
(Minister of Education), Prince Hassan ibn Ali (Minister of Social Labor and
Manufacturing), Sheikh Muhammad Ali Osman (Finance Minister), Zeid
Akabat (Minister of Agricultural Economy), Abdel Qader Abdullah (Postal
Minister), Abdullah al Hadjari (Minister of Communications), Abdullah
Abdel Karim (Minister of State), Qadi Nasser al Zuravi (Minister of  Land).
Stanko Guldescu, “War and Peace in Yemen,” Quenn’s Quarterly Vol. 74 Is. 3
(1967), 475.
66. Fred Halliday, Arabia Without Sultans (London: Saqi Books, 2002), 97.
67. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 30–​38, June 1964, Brief Yemeni history
written by V. Kornev. In February 1961 the Yemenis would open their own mis-
sion in Moscow staffed by a Yemeni charge d’affaires.
68. GARF Fond 4459, Opis 24, Dela 2125, File 5, November 1, 1959, TASS-​Peking.
69. Page, Stephen, The USSR and Arabia:  The development of Soviet policies and
attitudes towards the countries of the Arabian peninsula 1955–​1970 (London: The
Central Asian Research Centre, 1971), 49.
222 Notes to pages 17–21

70. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 30–​38, June 1964, Brief Yemeni history
written by V. Kornev. Port Ahmad was named after Imam Ahmad who served as
monarch of Yemen from 1948 through his death in 1962.
71. GARF, Fond 4459, Opis 24, Dela 2555, File 7, April 1, 1961, TASS-​Ahmad and
AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 5, Papka 4, Dela 6, January 1962, notes from the Soviet
Mission to Yemen.
72. Page, The USSR and Arabia, 48.
73. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 20, Green Envelope.
74. GARF, Fond 4459, Opis 24, Dela 2555, File 24–​25, April 7, 1961, TASS-​Ahmed.
75. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 5, Papka 4, Dela 62, June 14, 1962, Report of the Soviet
Mission to Yemen. The majority of al-​Badr’s speech consisted of religious rheto-
ric and talk of creating a new and more socialist Yemeni society. Port Ahmad was
seen as the first of many municipal projects in his new Yemeni society.
76. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 14, Papka 7, Dela 10, File 1, September 21, 1962, “The
New Imam’s Reforms.”
77. Page, The USSR and Arabia, 64. Despite Nasser’s call in December 1961 for
revolution in Yemen, the Soviets continued to remain friendly to Ahmad until
his death in September.
78. Department of State, Central Files, DEF 19-​8 US-​Iran, Telegram From the
Embassy in Iran to the Department of State, July 11, 1966. Evidently Meyer’s
interest in Yemen peaked around October 1962 and he never discovered that al-​
Badr was not actually killed.
79. David Holden, Farewell to Arabia (New York: Walker and Company, 1966), 89.
80. Clive Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War,33.
81. Xan Fielding, One Man in His Time: The Life of Lieutenant-​Colonel NLD (‘Billy’)
McLean, DSP (Macmillan: London, 1990), 136.
82. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 45.
83. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 49.
84. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 53.
85. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 20, Green Envelope.
86. Anwar Sadat’s presidential resort was located in Borg el-​Arab as well. The town
would become an industrial city in later decades.
87. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 20, Green Envelope. When al-​Badr tried to con-
vince his father of the “benign” intentions for hosting a Soviet naval fleet in
Hodeidah, Ahmad refused to grant permission.
88. Jonathan Walker argues that the Yemen Civil War cannot be separated from
the anti-​British insurgency in South Arabia. Nasser’s sponsorship of the revo-
lution in North and South Yemen was a testament to his plans of uniting the
two halves of Yemen and incorporating the country as a member of the UAR.
(Jonathan Walker, Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in South Arabia, 1962–​67 (S
pellmount: Staplehurst, 2005).
 Notes to pages 21–25 223

89. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 6.  This version was based on Imam Al-​Badr’s
testimony and was confirmed by other Royalists as well.
90. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 4.
91. Editorial Note, April 1959, FRUS 1958-​1960, Vol. XII, Near East Region, ed.
Edward Keefer (Washington D.C.: GPO, 1992), doc. 370. Al-​Badr was deemed
to have been very unpopular with the Yemeni tribes. The US believed in addi-
tion that the Soviets were unpopular with the Yemeni people as a consequence
of Nasser’s anti-​communist campaign.
92. Page, The USSR and Arabia, 48.
93. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 20, Green Envelope.
94. David Holden, Farewell to Arabia (New York: Walker and Company, 1966), 94.
In the last twelve months of his reign, there were at least seven attempts on
Ahmad’s life. On one occasion in March 1962, he was found lying on the floor
with four bullets in his body.
95. IWM, Neil McLean Files. Box 20. Green Envelope.
96. Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World, 59.
97. Bodleian Library: Oxford University, Papers of Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, MSS.Brit
Emp. S 367,5/​14, File 65, April 20, 1961.
98. Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World, 59.
99. Salim Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the
Middle East (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 145, 142.
100. Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism, 270
101. John S. Badeau, The Middle East Remembered (Washington, DC:  The Middle
East Institute, 1983), 201.
102. Parker T. Hart, Saudi Arabia and the United States: Birth of a Security Partnership
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 117.
103. Hart, Saudi Arabia and the United States, 144.
104. Chester L. Cooper, In the Shadows of History: Fifty Years Behind the Scenes of Cold
War Diplomacy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), 182.
105. Robin Bidwell, The Two Yemens (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983), 20.
106. “Forbidden Yemen Yields to a Yankee’s Offer,” Life Magazine, December

5, 1955.
107. Telegram from Embassy in Saudi Arabia to the Department of State, October
31, 1955, FRUS 1956-​1957, Vol. XIII, Near East, ed. Will Klingman, Aaron
Miller, and Nina Noring, (Washington DC: GPO, 1988), doc. 422.
108. Phil H. Shook, “Yemen Oil Fields, Dallas Feud,” Dallas Star, March 20, 1988. In
1981, Hunt Oil Company, discovered oil in the same region where Crichton and
his team had obtained concessions. A fierce legal battle ensued to determine
the owner of the Yemeni oil proceeds.
109. Jack Crichton and E. J. Anderson, The Middle East Connection (Yemen)

(Bloomington:  Author House, 2003). Crichton, who was among the first to
224 Notes to pages 25–28

recognize the importance of oil deposits in the Middle East, later published this
book based partially on his experiences in Yemen as part of the YDC.
110. El-​Khalide, Hatem, Sojourn in a Dreadful Land (Yemen Chronicles) (Pittsburg:
Dorrance Publishing, 2011). The book itself focuses around a fictional charac-
ter that observes events in Yemen during the 1955. In his introduction, we learn
of a CIA character operating under the cover of a geologist for an American
oil firm. Portions of his own tale match the activities of the YDC as they actu-
ally occurred. Although the majority of the book reads like a fanciful novel-
ette, Khalide provides additional material to fill out the thickening plot of US
intelligence.
111. TNA, FO 371/​
149223, BM 1531/​ 1, November 24, 1960, Oil Concessions
in Yemen.
112. TNA, FO 371/​149223, BM 1531/​1, November 29, 1960, R.W. Bailey to D.  J.
Wyatt (Arabian Department).
113. Memorandum for the record by Thomas A. Cassilly of the Executive Secretariat,
November 13, 1957, FRUS 1955–​1957, Vol. XIII, doc. 434. There was additional
concern that if oil would actually be found, the State Department would have to
explain why they used tax payer money to finance the ventures of a private oil
company.
114. GARF, Fond 4459, Opis 43, Dela 195, File 15, March 6, 1961, “American
Business Concessions in Yemen,” French Press Correspondent. The American
Overseas Investment Corporation was a State Department organization that
recruited private company to invest overseas as part of a broader American
Foreign Policy mission.
115. TNA, FO 371/​149223, BM 1531/​1, November 6, 1960, R.W. Bailey to D.J. Wyatt
(Arabian Department).
116. AVPRF, Fund 585, Opis 5, Papka 4, Dela 6, File 35, April 19, 1962, Report of
Soviet Mission to Yemen. During a conversation that lasted for one hour, Hassan
ibn Ali and the Yemeni envoy to Rome Sa’id Muhammad ‘Abd al-​Qadus al-​Bazir
were present. Exploration rights in this area had previously been granted to a
German oil company.
117. O’Ballance, The War in Yemen, 54.
118. AVPRF, Fund 585, Opis 14, Papka 7, Dela 9, File 89, May 3, 1962, Al Nasser
published interview.
119. GARF, Fond 4459, Opis 43, Dela 195, File 73, March 6, 1961, French Press
Correspondent in Hodeidah reported the arrest. Muhammad Galeb Farakh had
previously worked for the U.S. diplomatic mission in 1959.
120. Special National Intelligence Estimate:  The Yemen Situation, November 12,
1958, FRUS 1958-​1960, Vol. XII, doc. 366.
121. Mawby, British Policy in Aden, 56.
122. El-​Khalide, Sojourn in a Dreadful Land.
 Notes to pages 28–34 225

123. Zaid al-╉Wazir, Muhawalat li-╉Fahm al-╉Mashkelah al-╉Yamaniah (“An Attempt to

Understand the Yemeni Problem”) (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-╉Risālah, 1971), 197.
124. Paper by the Person in charge of Arabian Peninsula Affairs (Seelye), September
20, 1962, FRUS 1961-╉1963, Vol. XVIII, doc. 51. It seems that Hassan’s anti-╉
Soviet stance was not sufficient to warrant American support.

C h a p t er   2

1. Aboul-╉Enein, “The Egyptian-╉Yemen War.” In addition to the radio and tele-

phone stations, Sallal’s troops captured Qasr al-╉Silaah, the main armory and
Central Security Headquarters. His followers were instructed to attack their
respective sites when they heard the shelling on al-╉Badr’s palace.
2. Oleg Gerasimovich Gerasimov, Ĭemenskai͡a revoli͡ut͡sii͡a, 1962-╉1975 gg.:  Probl. i
suzhdenii͡a (Moscow: Nauka, 1979), 44.
3. al-╉Salami, The Tears of Sheba, 199.
4. Saeed M. Badeeb, The Saudi-╉Egyptian Conflict over North Yemen 1962–╉1970,
(Boulder, CO:  Westview Press, 1986), 118, Al-╉Badr Interview (December 21,
1983). Supposedly Hussein al-╉Shukeiri was still alive during the 1980s, albeit
with a disfigured face. ‘Abd al-╉Ghani is a reference to a prominent Yemeni polit-
ical family. Al-╉Badr’s nonspecific reference may be an indication of the dubious
nature of certain parts of his account. During the time of this interview, Abdel
Aziz Abdel Ghani was the acting Prime Minister of the YAR, perhaps explain-
ing why al-╉Badr chose his family name as the head of the conspirators.
5. Sebastian O’Kelly, Amedeo:  The True Story of an Italian’s War in Abyssinia
(London: Harper Collins, 2002), 306.
6. Claude Deffarge and Gordian Troeller, Yemen 62–╉69: De la révolution “sauvage”
a la trêve des guerriers,” (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1969), 18.
7. “Fierce Fighting in Yemen,” Pravda October 12, 1962 (No. 285, 1).
8. Deffarge and Troeller, Yemen, 47. The authors were skeptical of Baydani’s dis-
missal because al-╉Badr’s body was not found under the rubble of the palace.
9. “Events in Yemen: With the rotten monarchy ended forever,” Izvestia, October
15, 1962, 1.
10. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 56.
11. “Hassan is Dead,” Pravda, October 20, 1962, 1. Bidwell, Robin, The Two Yemens
(Essex and Boulder: Longman Group and Westview Press, 1983), 198.
12. Deffarge and Troeller, Yemen, 94.
13. Badeau, The Middle East Remembered, 215.
14. Ibid.
15. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 14, Papka 7, Dela 10, File 12–╉21. Reports on YAR-╉UAR
telegram exchange, September 29 and October 4, 1962.
16. Aboul-╉Enein, “The Egyptian-╉Yemen War.”
226 Notes to pages 34–38

17. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 5, Papka 4, Dela 6, File 126, October 1, 1962, Report of
Soviet Mission to Yemen.
18. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 5, Papka 4, Dela 6, File 112, October 6, 1962, Report
of Soviet Mission to Yemen. The arrival of Egyptian troops was accompanied
by the Algeria, Tunisia, Yugoslav, Hungary, Sudan, Libya, Bulgaria, Democratic
Republic of Germany recognitions of the YAR.
19. Arab Political Encyclopedia: Documents and Notes (vol. 11, 1962–​63).
20. TNA, FO 371/​16883/​BM 1071/​54 (I), June 21, 1963, UAR letter to UN.
21. Rahmy, Egyptian Policy, 102.
22. Mark Robertson, “Twentieth Century Conflict in the Fourteenth Century:

Intervention in Yemen” (The Fletcher Forum, Winter 1989, 95–​111).
23. Al Ahram, November 16, 1962.
24. Meir Ossad, “Legal Aspects of the Egyptian Intervention in Yemen,” Israel Law
Review 5 (1970), 226. Nasser used the Jeddah agreement despite the fact that
it was renounced by both Egypt and Yemen during the 1961 political tensions
between the two countries. On November 10, 1962, the YAR and UAR concluded
a new military agreement that presumably annulled or replaced the previous
Jeddah agreement.
25. Deffarge and Troeller, Yemen, 88.
26. Eli Podeh, “‘Suez in Reverse’: The Arab response to the Iraqi Bid for Kuwait,”
Diplomacy and Statecraft 14:1 (2010), 103–​130.
27. Habib, Milaffat thawrat yuliyu, 244.
28. Muhammad Fawzi, Thiwar Yuliyu Yitahaddithun (Cairo, 1987), 126.
29. Dan Hofstadter, Egypt & Nasser Volume 2, 1957–​1966 (New York: Facts on File,
1973), 180.
30. “Sallal traveled by plane to Hodeidah while an economic conference was held in
Sana’a; ‘Nasser our Ally’,” Al Thawra, December 31, 1962.
31. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Speeches and Press-​
Interviews, January–​
December 1963
(Cairo: UAR Information Department, 1964), 102–​103, Joint Communique on
Talks in Cairo between President Abdullah al-​Sallal and President Gamal Abdel
Nasser, June 10, 1963.
32. Habib, Milaffat thawrat yuliyu, 240.
33. James, Nasser at War, 66.
34. Badeeb, The Saudi-​Egyptian Conflict , 133. Baydani’s outlandish tales seem to
have made him the favorite scapegoat for Egyptian, Yemenis, and Saudis.
35. John S. Badeau, The American Approach to the Arab World (New York: Harper &
Row, 1968), 127.
36. “The June Challenge,” Al Ahram Weekly, February 6, 2013.
37. “Ta’if Agreement, 1934,” accessed March 13, 2016, www.al-​bab.com/​yemen/​pol/​
int1.htm.
38. Badeeb, The Saudi-​Egyptian Conflict, 16. Badeeb’s assessment of the Yemen Civil
War is written from a Saudi perspective. While the Ta’if Agreement was certainly
 Notes to pages 38–42 227

invoked, it is unclear how seriously the articles of the agreement factored into
actual decision-​making.
39. Zayd is a Shi’i Muslim school of thought whose followers are known as “fiv-
ers.” The majority of Yemen’s northern country adheres to Zaydi Islam while
the southern half of the country belong predominantly to the Shafi’i school of
Sunni thought. The twentieth-​century Yemeni imams and the Hamid al-​Din
family date back to 1918 with Yemen’s independence from the Ottoman Empire
under Imam Yahya. Yahya was Imam al-​Badr’s grandfather and the father of
Imam Ahmad.
40. Badeeb, The Saudi-​Egyptian Conflict, 10.
41. Robert Lacey, The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud (New York: Avon Books,
1981), 346.
42. JFK Library, Parker Hart, Oral History, 39
43. Badeeb, The Saudi-​Egyptian Conflict, 53. The Yemeni army in the beginning of
October did not have the capability to invade Saudi Arabia. These threats were
entirely empty and were likely intended to garner foreign support for the Yemeni
war effort (Bidwell, Two Yemens, 198).
44. Haddad, Revolution and Military Rule, 260.
45. Central Intelligence Bulletin. October 11, 1962, FOIA. Baydani’s declaration was
cited from a Middle East News Agency dispatch.
46. Vered, Hafikhah U-​Milhama be-​Teman, 36.
47. Lacey, The Kingdom, 346.
48. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Archive, 15/​S.AR/​Yem, UNHCR, London
to Geneva, May 3, 1966. The number of refugees might have numbered as much
as 500,000, although no official census was taken during the war and the Saudi-​
Yemeni border was notoriously porous.
49. See Lacey, The Kingdom for a full account of the Saudi succession crisis. King
Saud’s health was declining along with his mental faculties, leaving most of the
governing responsibilities to his brother Faisal. Periodic legal attempts to replace
Saud as king were met with continued resistance from Saud and his supporters.
It wasn’t until 1964 that Faisal was officially named king.
50. Lacey, The Kingdom, 346.
51. Nasser, Speeches and Press-​Interviews, 35. Address by President Gamal Abdel
Nasser at the Popular Rally in Aswan on the Occasion of the High Dam
Celebrations, January 9, 1963.
52. Paul Dresch, Tribes, Government, and History in Yemen (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1989), 238.
53. Ibid., 243. Additional hostility was related to Ahmad’s tribal hostage system and
forcing tribes to return al-​Badr’s bribes from 1961.
54. al-​Salami, The Tears of Sheba, 234.
55. Bidwell, Two Yemens, 198.
56. Vered, Hafikhah u-​milḥamah be-​Teman, 39.
228 Notes to pages 42–46

57. Muhammad Sa’id al-​Attar, Le Sous-​Développement Economique et Social du Yemen

(Algiers: Tiers-​Monde, 1964). Al-​Attar fell out of favor with the right-​leaning gov-
ernment that emerged after the civil war and accepted a position as a diplomat
to the UN for the next fifteen years.
58. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 2, 1964, Interview with Imam Al Badr.
59. Helen Lackner, PDR Yemen:  Outpost of Socialist Development in Arabia
(London: Ithaca Press, 1985).
60. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 5, Papka 4, Dela 6, File 155, October 8, 1962, Report of
Soviet Mission to Yemen.
61. Dresch, Tribes, Government, and History, 245. One wonders how many tribal
truces were undertaken as a result of these wartime qat chews.
62. Deffarge and Troeller, Yemen, 73.
63. Deffarge and Troeller, Yemen, 97. This opinion was based on their conversation
with an unspecified American official in Beirut.
64. GARF, Fond 4459, Opis 43, Dela 2310, File 294, French Journal Perspective,
January 13, 1963.
65. P. J. Vatikiotis, “The Soviet Union and Egypt:  The Nasser Years,” in The

Soviet Union and the Middle East:  The Post-​World War II Era, edited by Ivo J.
Lederer and Wayne S. Vucinich (Stanford: Hoover Institute Press, 1974), 131.
Galia Golan agreed with this perception as well claiming that the goal of Soviet
relations with Egypt was to obtain a strategic location to open a Mediterranean
Squadron to counter the US Sixth Fleet. (Golan, Galia, Soviet Policies in the
Middle East from World War Two to Gorbachev (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 56–​57).
66. “Port Ahmad-​Beacon of Light,” Pravda, April 12, 1961, 1.
67. “Yemen in Peril,” Izvestia, October 10, 1962, 2.
68. Alan R. Taylor, The Superpowers and the Middle East (Syracuse:  Syracuse

University Press, 1991), 133. Taylor cites Fred Halliday’s assessment in formu-
lating his opinion of Soviet opportunism.
69. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 6, 1961, Brief Yemeni history written by
V. Kornev. National assessment was written by V. Kornev, Deputy Head of the
Department of Middle East-​Soviet Relations.
70. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 12–​13, June 1963, Brief Yemeni history
written by V. Kornev.
71. CIA Intelligence Weekly Summary, “Yemeni Rebel Regime Gaining Strength,”
October 19, 1962, FOIA.
72. Richard E. Bissell, “Soviet Use of Proxies in the Third World:  The Case of
Yemen,” Soviet Studies (vol. XXX (1978), 87–​106), 92.
73. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 4, October 3, 1963, Brief Yemeni history
written by V. Kornev.
74. Bissell, “Soviet Use of Proxies in the Third World,” 92.
 Notes to pages 47–49 229

75. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 33, June 1964, Brief Yemeni history writ-
ten by V. Kornev. A Chinese road building team completed a Sana’a-​Hodeidah
road in January 1962.
76. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 36, June 1964, Brief Yemeni history
written by V. Kornev. By the beginning of 1964, the Egyptians had already spent
35 million pounds sterling and had suffered five to six thousand casualties bat-
tling royalist opposition.
77. Peter Somerville-​Large, Tribes and Tribulations:  A  Journey in Republican Yemen
(London:  Robert Hale, 1967), 123. When Somerville told American Charges
d’affaire Cortada that he paraded as an American journalist for his safety,
Cortada responded: “We can take it… . If the Royalists regard us as allies, it’s all
to the good –​you can’t have too many friends.” (161)
78. Stookey, America and the Arab States, 1975, 183.
79. JFK Library, Talbot, Oral History 2, 10.
80. Frank Leith Jones, Blowtorch:  Robert Komer, Vietnam, and American Cold War
Strategy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2013), 3. Komer, who later serve as
LBJ’s adviser and head of US counterinsurgency efforts under General William
Westmoreland in Vietnam, was aptly nicknamed “Blowtorch” as a description of
his aggressive personality and brash self-​confidence. He was also described as
“a caricature, a self-​important sycophant, or a person so outlandishly optimistic
that he is of no importance other than to serve as comic relief or a symbol of
American hubris.”
81. JFK Library, Komer, Oral History 2, 17.
82. JFK Library, Hart, Komer, Oral History, 31. Komer’s illustrative and emo-
tional memos eventually antagonized enough senior diplomats in the State
Department that Johnson exiled him to Vietnam to work on the pacification
program. (Jonathan Colman, The Foreign Policy of Lyndon B.  Johnson:  The
United States and the World, 1963–​69 (Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press,
2010), 13.)
83. JFK Library, Komer, Oral History 2, 9.
84. Badeau, The American Approach, 185.
85. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 2, July 1963, CIA Summary. In 1957, the Soviet
Bloc introduced an economic and military aid program, supplying Yemen with
heavy artillery, tanks, small arms, and aircraft. On the economic front, the Soviets
built the new port in Hodeidah and began construction on the new Sana’a. The
Chinese built a new highway from Hodeidah to Sana’a.
86. Hart, Saudi Arabia and the United States,120.
87. JFK Library, Box 207, Folder 3, 55, October 1962, Stookey to State.
88. Badeeb, The Saudi-​Egyptian Conflict, 52. In fact, in 1963, Nasser paid some
Yemeni workers to carry out acts of sabotage in Saudi Arabia that potentially
threatened to undermine the Saudi regime.
230 Notes to pages 49–53

89. JFK Library, Box 207a, Folder 1, 10, November 1962, Macomber to State. In
an interview with William Macomber, the U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, on
November 18, 1962, King Hussein spoke his thoughts aloud: “I wonder who
will be next King Saud or me!”
90. Macro, Yemen and the Western World, 128.
91. JFK Library Box 207a, Folder 2, 23, February 1962, Brubek to Bundy.
92. Hart, Saudi Arabia and the United States, 117.
93. Ibid., 119. There is doubt that the Saudis even had that many battle-​ready
troops.
94. Badeau, The American Approach, 192.
95. JFK Library, Box 207a, Folder 1, 70, November 1962, Yemen Summary.
96. Badeeb, The Saudi-​Egyptian Conflict, 60.
97. Peterson, The Decline of Anglo-​American Middle East, 33 and 43. This “jealousy”
was symptomatic of a general suspicion that Nasser had of any Arab leader
whom he thought might be trying to build his own “Arab” credentials and per-
haps force unity upon Egypt.
98. La Gazette. October 10, 1962.
99. Christopher McMullen, Resolution of the Yemen Crisis, 1963:  A  Case Study in
Mediation (Washington DC:  Institute for the Study of Diplomacy School of
Foreign Service Georgetown University, 1980), 3.
100. Mordechai Gazit, President Kennedy’s Policy Towards the Arab States and
Israel: Analysis and Documents (Tel Aviv: Shiloah Center for Middle Eastern and
African Studies, 1983), 26.
101. Badeau, The American Approach, 123.
102. JFK Library, Box 209, Folder 2, 54a, 2, Komer to Kennedy, October 1963.
103. JFK Library, Box 208, Folder 5, 25, February 1963, Rusk to State, Summary of
UAR incursion into Saudi Arabia and Aden Federation.
104. “UAR, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen,” Central Intelligence Weekly Review, March
15, 1963, FOIA.
105. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 1, 33, June 10, 1963, Badeau to State.
106. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 3, 8, July 2, 1963, Sherman Kent, CIA Civil War
Summary.
107. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 3, 8, September 18, 1963, Jones (London) to Dept.
of State.
108. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 3, 23, July 2, 1963, Komer to Kennedy. After 1961,
the UAR referred only to Egypt.
109. McMullen, Resolution of the Yemen Crisis, 7.
110. Ibid, 9. Ellsworth Bunker was chosen for his experience in mediating Dutch-​
Indonesian West Irian dispute in 1962, rather than his Middle East qualifica-
tions. He also served in India during the 1950s and greatly improved American
relations with Nehru’s government.
111. Ibid, 32.
112. Ibid, 17.
 Notes to pages 54–56 231

113. Brian Urquhart, Ralph Bunche:  An American Life (New  York:  W.W. Norton,
1993), 363.
114. Little, “The New Frontier on the Nile,” 520. Edward Weintal and Charles
Bartlett, Facing the Brink: an intimate study of crisis diplomacy (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1967), 43.
115. JFK Library, Box 209, Folder 5, 2, Brubeck to McGeorge Bundy. February 28,
1963. Komer claims that Kennedy originally hoped to have the planes with-
drawn within sixty days (Jones, Blowtorch, 68).
116. JFK Library, Box 209, Folder 5, 9, Komer to Kennedy. March 11, 1963. Air
Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay protested the mission as the Dharan airfield
had been deactivated in April 1962. The absence of a modern airfield not only
ensured the inability of the Hard Surface planes to respond to Egyptian incur-
sions, but also made them sitting ducks for enemy fire (Weintal and Bartlett,
Facing the Brink, 45). Little, “The New Frontier on the Nile”. Operation Hard
Surface was intended as a symbolic deterrent and was under strict orders from
Kennedy to remain idle, lest the United States be drawn into a large-​scale mili-
tary confrontation with Nasser.
117. JFK Library, Robert Komer, Third Oral History Interview, 2.
118. Weintal and Barlett, Facing the Brink, 45. Although Kennedy was not dragged
into the war, Operation Hard Surface had an unintended consequence. Rumors
spread by Radio Cairo claimed that American Jews were among the pilots sent
to Saudi Arabia, creating a media storm and public relations issues for the
administration both domestically among Jewish groups and among Arab allies
abroad (Hart, Saudi Arabia, 195).
119. JFK Library, Box 209, Folder 6, 74, April 3, 1963, Badeau to Dept. of State.
120. JFK Library, Box 209, Folder 6, 102, April 19, 1963, Dept. of State:  Bunker
Mission Summary.
121. McMullen, Resolution of the Yemen Crisis, 43.
122. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 3, 60, August 19, 1963, Komer to Kennedy.
123. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 1, 78, June 26, 1963, Ball to State.
124. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 2, July 1963, CIA Summary.
125. JFK Library, Box 208, Folder 4, 43, April 17, 1963, Cortada to State.
126. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 2, 1, July 1963, CIA Summary.
127. JFK Library, Box 208a, Folder 2, 6, July 1963, CIA Summary.
128. JFK Library, Box 209, Folder 1, 23, September 20, 1963, Komer Yemen

Summary.
129. Bent Hansen, The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth:  Egypt and
Turkey (Washington DC:  Oxford University Press, 1991). Hansen is the best
resource on Nasser’s economic reform during the 1960s.
130. Tom Little, Modern Egypt (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), 266.
131. John Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat:  The Political Economy of Two
Regimes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 95, 100.
132. Alaini, Fifty Years, 83.
232 Notes to pages 58–61

C h a p t er   3

1. Milton Bearden, “Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires,” Foreign Affairs (December

2001), accessed January 6, 2016, https://╉www.foreignaffairs.com/╉articles/╉
afghanistan/╉2001-╉11-╉01/╉afghanistan-╉graveyard-╉empires.
2. Kathryn Boals, Modernization and Intervention: Yemen as a Case Study (Princeton
University, PhD., 1970), 278.
3. Schmidt, Yemen: The Unknown War (London: Bodley Head, 1968), 210. Schmidt
claims that Nasser suffered political and military embarrassment prior to the
1964 conference and was not prepared to withdraw.
4. The British saw Nasser’s presence as an epic Anglo-╉Egyptian battle and could not
believe that Nasser’s commitments to withdrawal were sincere (Karl Pieragostini,
Britain, Aden, and South Arabia:  Abandoning Empire (Hampshire:  Macmillan,
1991)). The anti-╉Nasser lobbyist and politicians in America depicted Nasser as
benefitting from a policy of appeasement, receiving American aid while continu-
ing hostilities and making a mockery of diplomatic efforts. Alan R. Taylor, The
Superpowers and the Middle East (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1991).
5. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), Imam’s Forces, 25.
Egyptian servicemen found sixteen rusting Ilyushin-╉10 planes left out in the
open and six Ilyushin-╉ 14 planes that were in serviceable condition. Once
repaired and reconstructed, these were used for domestic transport. Four addi-
tional planes were found in Ta’iz; they were repaired by Egyptian technicians
and used for reconnaissance.
6. ITIC, Yemen Aerial, 56. The military airport in Sana’a had a 1,000-╉meter runway
and was 7,200 meters above sea level. The civilian airport in Sana’a was 1,200
meters long and 7,200 meters above sea level. The Hodeidah civilian airfield had
an 800-╉meter runway and was at sea level. The Ta’iz civilian airport had an 800-╉
meter runway and was 4,000 meters above sea level.
7. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 11. Caves around Sana’a remain inaccessible and are
deemed a restricted military zone.
8. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 10. David Mitty likens the Egyptian program of trans-
ferring military and security responsibility over to Yemeni republicans to the
American program of Vietnamization. (David M. Mitty, “A Regular Army in
Counterinsurgency Operations: Egypt in North Yemen, 1962–╉1967,” The Journal
of Military History 65 (2001), 415).
9. ITIC, Yemen Overview, 13–╉15. Although Yemen was the most fertile region in
the Arabian Peninsula, the country was nonetheless covered with large swaths
of desert and limited water resources. According to Anwar al-╉Qadi, the com-
mander of the Egyptian forces in Yemen, the terrain in Yemen was so difficult,
that distance was measured in hours rather than in kilometers. (Vered, Hafikhah
u-╉milḥamah be-╉Teman, 63.)
10. Vered, Hafikhah u-╉milḥamah be-╉Teman, 54–╉58.
 Notes to pages 62–68 233

11. ITIC, Battlefield: Sa’dah, 38.

12. ITIC, Battlefield: Sa’dah, 39.
13. ITIC, Battlefield: Sa’dah, 40.
14. ITIC, Battlefield: Sa’dah, 41.
15. ITIC, Battlefield: Sa’dah, 42. Egyptian estimates claimed that three hundred roy-
alists were killed with only six Egyptian casualties. Accurate statistics from the
Yemen Civil War are difficult to ascertain. See Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble, for an
overview of memoirs of Egyptian officers and soldiers serving in Yemen and
their own casualty estimates ranging anywhere from ten thousand to sixty thou-
sand, with an undetermined number of maimed or injured.
16. Interview with David Newton, November 5, 2015.
17. Schmidt, Yemen: The Unknown War, 64.
18. Bruce Condé, “Odd Battle Of Stamp Orders Punctuates Conflict In Yemen,
Philately Safe After Close Call,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, January 18, 1965, 16.
Condé added that the “royal motor pool” also carried the mail. Bruce Condé,
an American philatelist serving as a military commander in Yemen, published
many of his observations during the 1960s in Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, for
which he served as a Middle East correspondent.
19. Schmidt, The Unknown War, 65.
20. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen POD Carries On, Resumes Operations In West,
North and East As Loyalists Repel Rebels In These Areas,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp
News, April 1, 1963, 26. British MP McLean was witness to these royalist victo-
ries, leading him to conclude that recognition of YAR would be premature.
21. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s First Definitives In Pictorial Theme Appear In Perf,
Imperf, and Sheet Form,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 15, 1964, 13. Condé’s
history is notoriously inaccurate, citing the early-​twentieth-​century artillery as
Turkish rather than Ottoman and misquoting Yemen’s date of independence
from the Ottoman Empire as 1926 rather than 1918.
22. Schmidt, Yemen: The Unknown War, 130.
23. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 7.
24. IWM, Boyle/​
Johnson Papers—​ 64/​
89/​5, The Diaries and Papers of Mark
Millburn.
25. ITIC, Battlefield: Sana’a-​Hodeidah, 53.
26. George de Carvalho, “Yemen’s Desert Fox,” Life Magazine, February 19, 1965,103.
27. IWM: Tony Boyle’s Papers, May 16, 1964.
28. Patrick Seale, “The War in Yemen,” The New Republic, January 26, 1963.
29. Mordechai Gazit, President Kennedy’s Policy Toward the Arab States and
Israel: Analysis and Documents (Tel Aviv: Shiloah Center for Middle Eastern and
African Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1983), 26.
30. Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy, 246–​247. Salah al-​Din Al-​Hadidi, Shahid ‘ala Harb
al-​Yaman (al-​Qāhirah:  Maktabat Madbūlī, 1984), 55–​56. Many of these items
234 Notes to pages 68–74

were later sold on the black market in Egypt and were a source of financial cor-
ruption as detailed in Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble, 199–​205.
31. Vered, Hafikhah u-​milḥamah be-​Teman, 142.
32. Nasser, Speeches and Press-​Interviews, 126, Address by President Gamal Abdel
Nasser on the Occasion of the 11th Anniversary of the Revolution at the Republican
Square, Cairo, July 22, 1963 and 164, Address by President Gamal Abdel Nasser on
the 11th Anniversary of the Revolution at Alexandria, July 26, 1963. It seems more
likely that these letters, which were passed along to Amer, served as evidence for
the role that the Yemen battlefield played in Nasser’s patronage network.
33. Andrew McGregor, A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest
to the Ramadan War (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 261,
264. McGregor explains Amer’s personal fiefdom:  “loyalty to the commander
came to outweigh success on the battlefield.”
34. Mitty, “A Regular Army in Counterinsurgency Operations,” 417.
35. Hofstadter, Egypt & Nasser, 189–​190.
36. ‘Abd al-​Latif al-​Baghdadi, Mudhakkirat ‘Abd al-​Latif al-​Baghdadi Vol. 2 (Cairo: al-​
Maktab al-​Misri al-​Hadith, 1977), 123. Sami Sharaf, Sanawat wa-​ayyam ma‘a
Gamal Abdel Nasser:  shahadat Sama Sharaf (Cairo, Egypt:  Dār al-​Fursān lil-​
Nashr, 2005), 409–​420.
37. ITIC, Overview, 30–​39. Although the 1962 port was never intended for large-​
scale military shipments, the 1958 Hodeidah-​Sana’a road and the existing port
facilities were sufficient for Egyptian military purposes.
38. ITIC, Naval Forces, 73. Ironically, the large number of ships in and around the
Hodeidah port created an added layer of difficulty for enemy forces to discern
the Egyptian military vessels from the neutral commercial ones.
39. ITIC, Naval Forces, 74.
40. ITIC, Yemen Aerial, 58. The time bombs also facilitated multiple rounds of over
flights unobstructed by premature explosions on the ground.
41. ITIC, Yemen Aerial, 57.
42. ITIC, Yemen Aerial, 59.
43. ITIC, Yemen Aerial, 63–​67.
44. ITIC, Battlefield:  Jawf, 44. The Egyptian offensive was a response to enemy
attacks on roads leading from Sana’a to Ta’iz and the coastal city of Zabid under
the pretext of cutting supplies in preparation for an attack on Sana’a.
45. Bruce Condé, “Loyalist Yemen Mail Continues; Operations Through Territory
Held By Invaders To Reach Free World At Post Of Aden,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp
News, June 10, 1963, 1.
46. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 3.
47. ITIC, Airborne Troops, 25–​27.
48. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 5. Digging ditches to protect the artillery was also a chal-
lenge in the rocky mountainside, and the army engineers opted instead to pile
sand bags and rocks for protection, further increasing the need for transport.
Artillery pieces stored in makeshift bunkers would often break upon firing and
required extra maintenance.
 Notes to pages 74–79 235

4 9. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 4.

50. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 8.
51. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 9.
52. ITIC, Artillery Lessons, 12.
53. Anwar Sadat, In Search of Identity:  an Autobiography (New  York:  Harper Row,
1978), 162. Al-╉Qadi did not have much of a chance to respond for at the end of
1963 he was injured during an ambush on his convoy in northeast Yemen and was
evacuated to Egypt for treatment (Mitty, “A Regular Army in Counterinsurgency
Operations,” 415).
54. Mitty, “A Regular Army in Counterinsurgency Operations,” 418.
55. Bruce Condé, “Loyalist Yemen Salutes Flight of Mariner 4 with Release of
Overprints on Astronaut Issue,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, January 3, 1966, 22.
56. ITIC, Enemy Weapons, 28. The two main routes of infiltration from Saudi
Arabia and the southern Federation of South Arabia led directly into Yemeni
border villages, which became royalist bases and targets for the Egyptian air
force. Supplies from the northern border with Saudi Arabia came directly to the
regions of Amara and Wadi Amlach (about fifty miles from Sa’dah). Supplies
from the eastern border with the tribe of Bayhan led to the southern Harib
region, three miles from the border.
57. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s First Definitives in Pictorial Theme Appear in Perf,
Imperf, and Sheet Form,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 15, 1964, 13. These
have replaced the .50 caliber American machine guns received before UNYOM.
Their bullets could penetrate armor of Russian Ilyushins and MiGs, posing a
threat to low flying planes.
58. Schmidt, Yemen: The Unknown War, 159.
59. ITIC, Enemy Tactics, 27.
60. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s First Definitives In Pictorial Theme Appear In Perf,
Imperf, and Sheet Form,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 15, 1964, 12.
61. Bruce Condé, “Story of Free Yemen’s FFH Set in Tragedy of ‘Chickens That Stay
at Home to Roost,’” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, October 14, 1963, 29.
62. IWM, Boyle/╉
Johnson Papers—╉ 64/╉
89/╉
5, The Diaries and Papers of Mark
Millburn. IWM, Boyle/╉Johnson Papers—╉64/╉89/╉7, Record of Mines.
63. O’Ballance, The War in the Yemen, 129–╉130.
64. Bruce Condé, “Odd Battle of Stamp Orders Punctuates Conflict in Yemen,
Philately Safe After Close Call,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, February 1, 1965, 36.
65. Vered, Hafikhah u-╉milḥamah be-╉Teman, 198.

C h a p t er   4

1. These include:  Dana Adams Schmidt, “The Civil War in Yemen,” in The
International Regulation of Civil Wars, ed. Evan Luard (London:  Thames and
Hudson, 1972). Schmidt argues that the UN presence was actually detrimental as
it gave Yemenis an excuse to avoid finding their own solution to the conflict, pre-
ferring instead to tell their people: “It is in the hands of the United Nations now”
236 Notes to pages 79–83

(145). Alan James, Peacekeeping in International Politics (London:  MacMillan,

1990), 305. O’Ballance, The War in Yemen.
2. For example, see Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble.
3. Bodleian Library Archive, Oxford University, Michael Crouch Papers, File 102,
May 29, 1963. It is somewhat ironic that several years later, the anti-​British
nationalist organizations in South Arabia, NLF and FLOSY, would refer to a sub-
sequent UN mission as “UN Puppets of British imperialism” (Julian Paget, Last
Post: Aden 1963–​1967 (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), 190).
4. Bernard J. Firestone, The United Nations under U Thant, 1961–​1971 (Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001), 32.
5. Ann G.  Livingstone, “Canada’s policy and attitudes towards United Nations
Peacekeeping, 1956–​ 1964”, PhD diss., Keele University, 1995. Livingstone
argues that Canada’s “middlepowermanship” gave the country significance in
a foreign policy dominated by the great powers. Canadians saw themselves as
a “fire-​brigade” for international crisis. Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1957 for his work on resolving the Suez Crisis and envisioning the UN
peacekeeping force in Sinai.
6. C. V. Narasimhan, Regionalism in the United Nations (New York: Asia Publishing
House, 1977), 43.
7. Brian Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), 171.
8. The principles of the Non-​Aligned Movement were agreed upon during a pre-
liminary conference in Cairo in April 1961. Imam Ahmad’s Yemen was one of
the founding nations of NAM in 1961.
9. The first ministerial meeting of this group of seventy-​seven countries occurred
in October 1967 in Algeria. To date, there are 133 members in the Group of 77,
making it one of the most powerful and influential groups in the UN.
10. Firestone, The United Nations under U Thant, xvii, xx. April 1963, was to have
been the end of Hammarskjöld’s term. Firestone explains that Thant envisioned
the coming decades to be characterized by the North-​South conflict of developed-​
undeveloped nations, rather than the East-​West Cold War conflict of the previous
decade. The General Assembly, dominated by countries of the developing world,
would serve as the “prime arena” for these future conflicts.
11. The Blue Helmets:  A  Review of United Nations Peacekeeping (New  York:  United
Nations Department of Public Information, 1996), 175.
12. Peter Bishop, “Canada’s Policy on the Financing of U.N. Peace-​
Keeping
Operations,” International Journal 20 (1965): 463–​483.
13. Michael K. Carroll, Pearson’s Peacekeepers:  Canada and the United Nations

Emergency Forces, 1956–​67 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009).
14. Karl Th. Birgisson, “United Nations Yemen Observation Mission,” in The

Evolution of UN Peacekeeping: Case Studies and Comparative Analysis, ed. William
J. Durch (New York: Henry L. Stimson Center, 1993), 211.
15. TNA, FO 371/​16831/​BM 1071/​9, March 7, 1963.
 Notes to pages 83–87 237

16. Firestone, The United Nations under U Thant, 31.

17. Peter Jones, “UNYOM:  The Forgotten Mission,” Canadian Defence Review

Quarterly 22 (1992), 18–​22.
18. “The Mess in Yemen,” Time Magazine, vol. 82, issue 11, p. 41, September 13,
1963. Von Horn remarried in 1964 to Elisabeth Liljenroth, a Swedish movie
actress thirty years his junior, perhaps the reason why he needed to leave
UNYOM early and take personal leave in July 1963.
19. Schmidt, Yemen:  The Unknown War, 196. Practically the only creature com-
forts of prestige offered to von Horn were Imam Ahmad’s old white horse and
Daimler.
20. Carl Von Horn, Soldiering for Peace (New  York:  David McKay Company,

1966), 307.
21. Jones, “UNYOM: The Forgotten Mission.”
22. UN Archives (hereafter UNA), S-​5794, Report by the Secretary-​General to the
Security Council on the functioning of UNYOM, July 2, 1964. Thant presented
this speech to the entire Security Council, evidently trying to appease the cost-​
conscious peacekeeping advocates.
23. “Yemen-​UNYOM Background, accessed March 13, 2016, http://​www.un.org/​
en/​peacekeeping/​missions/​past/​unyombackgr.html.
24. Ellsworth Bunker blamed UNYOM delays for losing his diplomatic momentum
in the interim between his report to the UN on April 12, 1963, and the beginning
of the mission in the end of June. Howard B. Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker: Global
Troubleshooter, Vietnam Warhawk (Chapel Hill:  University of North Carolina
Press, 2003), 126.
25. UNA, S-​0656-​0002, Folder 2, June 15, 1963, von Horne to Bunche.
26. “Yemen-​UNYOM Background, accessed March 13, 2016, http://​www.un.org/​
en/​peacekeeping/​missions/​past/​unyombackgr.html.
27. TNA, FO 371/​168833/​BM 1071/​42, May 21, 1963.
28. The Soviet Union pressured the Security Council to accept only renewable two-​
month terms for the observer mission, contingent upon available financial
resources for its continuation.
29. United Nations General Assembly, 18th session, 1,235th plenary meeting,

October 9, 1963.
30. Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LARC), RG 24—​
Volume 21494,
September 4, 1963. The mission consisted of a reconnaissance unit of 114
Yugoslav officers who had been serving as part of UNEF.
31. Ian Umbach, “134 ATU in Yemen,” accessed March 13, 2013, http://​www.115atu.
ca/​yem.htm.
32. LARC, RG 24,Volume 21494, June 12, 1964. The Canadian aircraft and person-
nel had been part of UNEF originally created to maintain the demilitarization
of the Sinai Peninsula and uphold the agreed-​upon armistice lines after the
1956 War.
238 Notes to pages 87–92

3 3. Canada House of Commons Debates—​Volume II, 1963.

34. Canada House of Commons Debates—​Volume II, 1963.
35. LARC, RG 25,Volume 6144, June 19, 1963.
36. UNA, S-​0656-​0002, Folder 5, June 17, 1963, von Horn to U Thant.
37. LARC, RG 25,Volume 21592, June 19, 1963.
38. LARC, RG 25—​Volume 6144, June 21, 1963.
39. TNA, C.T. Crowe, FO 371/​16885/​BM 1071/​98, August 7, 1963.
40. LARC, RG 25,Volume 6144, July 2, 1963. During the 1960s, it was assumed that
one had to boil water for a longer period of time in higher elevations in order to
rid the water of harmful bacteria. More recent studies indicate that almost all of
the harmful bacteria would have already been killed off at temperatures lower
than that of the boiling point, even at high elevations.
41. Holden explains that many Americans and Europeans mistakenly assumed that
Yemen was a flat desert like the rest of Arabia and were dismayed to find rugged
mountains (David Holden, Farewell to Arabia (New York: Walker and Company,
1966), 101–​102).
42. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 2, August 21, 1963, von Horn to U Thant.
43. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 1, September 3, 1963, Rikhye to Bunche. Mas’ud fur-
ther elucidated on Saudi thinking: “Yemenis have classical pattern of civil war,
revolt, counter-​revolt.” Saudis have “no special love for Imam nor for republi-
cans”, and only want to have Yemenis left to find their own solution.”
44. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 4, September 19, 1963, UNYOM commander to
Secretary General.
45. LARC, RG 24,Volume 21494, August 26, 1963.
46. UNA, S-​0656-​0002, Folder 2, July 12, 1963, Pavlovic to Rolz-​Bennett.
47. UNA, S-​5325, “Report of the Secretary-​General on the latest developments on
the proposal to send a UN observation mission to Yemen,” June 7, 1963.
48. LARC, RG 24, Volume 21494, August 26, 1963.
49. LARC, RG 24, Volume 21494, July 23, 1963.
50. George E.  Mayer, “134 ATU (Air Transport Unit), Sana’a Yemen 1962–​
3,”
accessed March 13, 2016, http://​www.115atu.ca/​yem.htm. Mayer claims that
“dodging the Russian made Yak fighters flown by Egyptian pilots was almost
suicidal.”
51. Fred Gaffen, In the Eye of the Storm:  A  History of Canadian Peacekeeping
(Toronto: Deneau & Wayne Publishers, 1987), 80.
52. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 7, November 21, 1963, Paulson testimonial.
53. LARC, RG 24,Volume 21494, August 26, 1963. There were rumors that U Thant
was purposely ignoring von Horn’s reports entirely (Edward Weintal and Charles
Cartlet, Facing the Brink: An Intimate Study of Crisis Diplomacy (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1967), 51).
54. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, Folder 2, January 1964, McLellan to UN, was written as a
formal letter on behalf of himself and other members of his cohort.
 Notes to pages 92–96 239

55. Pavlovic would later serve as the UN Chief of Staff for the mission. While serv-
ing as the Commander and Chief of Staff of the mission, Saudis were often
suspicious of Pavlovic and of the Yugoslav contingency of the mission, and were
hesitant to work with them. Although the Yugoslav presence was less than desir-
able for the Saudis it prevented Nasser from accusing UN mission of partiality.
56. LARC, RG 24, Volume 21494, November 12, 1963.
57. UNA, S-​0657-​007, Folder 1, November 1, 1963, Colonel Branko Pavlovic, Chief
of Staff UNYOM, “UNYOM Operations Instructions.”
58. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 7, January 2, 1964, U Thant to Security Council.
59. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 10, August 27, 1964, Sabharawal to Spinelli and
Bunche. The governor of Jizan submitted an official complaint, claiming that
UAR planes were returning to the area in an attempt to intercept transports.
60. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 10, September 3, 1964.
61. LARC, RG 24, Volume 21494, August 5, 1964.
62. LARC, RG 24, Volume 21494, August 7, 1964.
63. Schmidt, “The Civil War in Yemen,” 141.
64. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War 1962–​1965, 71. Jones claims a “paucity in
manpower and equipment that reflected the styptic nature of the mandate” and
that “Von Horn was prohibited from establishing contact with forces loyal to
the Imam.”
65. Schmidt, “The Civil War in Yemen,” 146. He claims that UN should have sus-
pended recognition until after the conclusion of the mission so as to keep the
diplomatic channel open to both parties. In his memoirs, Soldiering for Peace,
Von Horn, does not mention that extensive contacts with royalists, yet laments
U Thant’s restrictions regarding contact with royalists. Yael Vered, Hafikhah u-​
milḥamah be-​Teman (Tel Aviv: Am ‘oved, 1967), 128, claims that UNYOM made
no contact whatsoever with royalists and pretended they did not exist. Fred
Gaffen claims the mission was hampered by the inability to make contact with
royalists (Gaffen, In the Eye of the Storm, 81). Birgisson argues that UNYOM
officials could not make contact or accept complaints made by royalists, for fear
that the mission would compromise its impartiality (Birgisson, “United Nations
Yemen Observation Mission,” 213). Other accounts accused the UN of “acting
as if the Royalists did not exist.” (Meir Ossad, “Legal Aspects of the Egyptian
Intervention in Yemen,” Israel Law Review 5, 1970).
66. UNA, S-​0657-​0012, Folder 5, August 24, 1963, Major L.P. David to Deputy
Commander UNYOM.
67. UNA, S-​0657-​0012, Folder 5, October 13, 1963, Doughty, Najran to Operations.
Doughty did not pass this statement about tribal behavior to the Canadians,
because “it may spread alarm and despondency.”
68. UNA, S-​0657-​0012, Folder 5, October 13, 1963, Doughty, Najran to Operations.
Doughty described the dances as a mixture of “the Twist and Hop Step
and Jump.”
240 Notes to pages 97–100

69. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, April 25, 1964. Spinelli refused to meet with al-​Badr in al-​
Hayat, Yemen because Cairo had criticized the timing and intentions of the
meeting.
70. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 10, August 5, 1964, weekly operations.
71. Richard Deming, Heroes of the International Red Cross (New York: ICRC, 1969),
196. ICRC visits to al-​Badr’s mountain stronghold were to be limited to once per
month. André Rochat, L’homme á la Croix: une anticroisade (Geneva: Editions de
l’Aire, 2005), 77.
72. ICRC, DMO Yemen 1-​
002, Boisard (ICRC) to Kennen (UNYOM), August
12, 1964.
73. UNA, S-​5412, September 4, 1963.
74. UNA, S-​0057-​0001, Folder 12, 1963, Chronological Action Files of Complaints.
75. Ibid.
76. UNA, S-​0057-​0001, Folder 3 and 4, June 1963.
77. UNA, S-​0057-​0001, Folder 11, August 31, 1963, Captain Ibrahim Hamad, Saudi
Liaison Officer to Major B.  Schaathun UNYOM liaison officer. Twelve bombs
were dropped and the bombing continued after UNYOM withdrawal. Major
David threatened to leave Yemen along with von Horn, but was convinced to
stay on until October 23, 1963 (Parker T. Hart, Saudi Arabia and the United
States: Birth of a Security Friendship (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University
Press, 1998), 218).
78. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 7, November 24, 1963, Captain Ibrahim Hamad,
Saudi Liaison Officer to Major C.F. Wrede UNYOM liaison officer.
79. Von Horn, Soldiering for Peace, 383. In discussion with media during the mission,
von Horn claimed that the personnel was near starvation and occasionally sur-
vived only on their doses of iron. (Vered, Hafikhah u-​milḥamah be-​Teman, 129).
80. Gaffen, In the Eye of the Storm, 83.
81. Mayer, “134 ATU.” In Mayer’s recollections he compares the gastrointestinal
condition in El Arish, known as “Gyppo gut” with that equivalent while serving
on UNYOM, claiming that the illness in Yemen was much worse.
82. Doug Poole, “My 115 ATU RCAF Yemen Adventure,” accessed March 13, 2016,
http://​www.115atu.ca/​yem.htm. Following the coup, this old palace had been
converted into the Liberty Hotel, one of the few hotels in the city 1960s and pre-
sumably better than alternative options (UNA, S-​0656-​0002, Folder 5, June 22,
1963, von Horn to U Thant). The Liberty Hotel, however, could not accommo-
date the entirety of the UN staff, leaving a group of others to stay at the Viceroy
Hotel, also a former palace that had since been converted into an American/​
European style bed and breakfast. (UNA, S-​0656-​0002, Folder 5, June 17, 1963,
von Horn to Bunche).
83. Gaffen, In the Eye of the Storm, 81.
84. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, Folder 2, January 1, 1964, Gyani to Spinelli.
85. UNA, S-​0656-​0002, Folder 7, September 30, 1964.
 Notes to pages 100–105 241

86. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, Folder 6, January 27, 1964.

87. BM 1721/​27, Evelyn Bark’s letter from visit to Yemen, July 12, 1964.
88. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, Folder 6, January 27, 1964. Tuborg refers to the Danish beer
company.
89. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, Folder 6, January 23, 1964, Sana’a to Hodeidah, Vanderboon.
Order for increase in whisky rations. The other two examples occurred January
18 and 21.
90. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, Folder 5, December 24, 1963, from Jizan to Jedda. UN
radioman Kenneth Woskett believed that Paulson’s request was more of a joke
than a serious order. No Rémy Martin was ever received and the notions of
receiving a Christmas tree anywhere in Yemen was ridiculous (Interview with
Kenneth Woskett, January 8, 2016).
91. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, Folder 1, December 1, 1963, from Jizan to base (Major
Moe).
92. Poole, “My 115 ATU.” The blonde Poole referred to was Dorothy Stevens,
UNYOM’s secretary and “a remarkable Scottish lady who was efficiency and
dignity itself but could drink and swear like a trooper when necessity arose”
(von Horn, Carl, Soldiering for Peace, 329).
93. Interview with Kenneth C. Woskett, January 8, 2016.
94. Mayer,”134 ATU.” Mayer added that although he retells several humorous
anecdotes, life in Yemen was not all fun and games. The missions were difficult
and the conditions were less than ideal … but the beer was always in stock.
95. UNA, S-​0657-​007, Folder 6, April 1964.
96. Poole, “My 115 ATU.”
97. Mayer, “134 ATU.”
98. Poole, “My 115 ATU.” Wing Commander Olsen left Yemen shortly after this
episode. (Von Horn, Soldiering for Peace, 368). Von Horn’s outburst does not
differ from military talk in general, but was sufficiently harsh to be noted with
surprise by UNYOM personnel.
99. Interview with Kenneth Woskett, July 2, 2015.
100. Poole, “My 115 ATU.”
101. Umbach, “134 ATU in Yemen.”
102. Poole, “My 115 ATU.”
103. UNA, S-​0656-​0001, Folder 4, November 1, 1963, Samper to Spinelli. The opin-
ion was a reaction to a Daily Telegraph editorial.
104. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 2, September 11, 1963, Bunche to Gyani. Bunche
further elaborated that “UNYOM has no mediation, investigation, inspection
functions not directly related to the observation responsibilities.”
105. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 2, October 2, 1963, Gyani to Bunche.
106. Jones, “UNYOM: The Forgotten Mission.”
107. Vered, Hafikhah u-​milḥamah be-​Teman, 87–​88.
108. UNA, S-​0656-​0003, Folder 7, September 24, 1963, Thant to Security Council.
242 Notes to pages 107–110

C h a p t er   5

1. Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to

Despair (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 246. The Cairo and
Alexandria Summits were photo-╉ops for Arab “reconciliation” between Egypt,
Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, creating a massive media spectacle.
2. Blizhnevostochnyĭ konflikt:  iz dokumentov arkhiva vneshneĭ politiki Rossiĭskoĭ
Federat͡sii, vol. 2 (Moscow:  Mezhdunarodnyĭ fond “Demokratii͡a”, 2003), 440–╉
441. AVPRF, Fond 059, Opis 50, Papka 49, Dela 204, List 188–╉195, Erofeev
UAR telegram to USSR Foreign Office, September 13, 1964. Saudi Arabia was
clandestinely supporting British-╉royalist efforts while openly preaching an anti-╉
British rhetoric.
3. Bruce Condé, “British Committee for Relief of Yemeni Wounded Honored by
Overprints on Three Air,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, March 21, 1966, 10.
4. George de Carvalho, “Yemen’s Desert Fox,” Life Magazine, February 19, 1965,
5. Abdullah bin Ahmad al-╉Wazir had been declared Imam, albeit only for several
weeks, following the 1948 assassination of Imam Yahya.
6. Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Yemen, 19. Members of the third-force estab-
lished a center for operations in exile in Lebanon that featured members of the
al-╉Wazir clan and another prominent Egyptian-╉opposition leader Ahmad Jabr
al-╉Afif, who would serve as the Yemeni Education Minister during the 1970s.
7. Ibid., 197. Iryani was nicknamed the “republican Imam” and was given a hero’s
burial upon his death in 1998. The term qadi is both a profession and a heredi-
tary designation. The Iryani family is one of the most prominent qadi families
in Yemen.
8. Schmidt, Yemen, 226. Two suspects were arrested and implicated Egypt in the
assassination.
9. Vered, Hafikhah u-╉milḥamah be-╉Teman, 220.
10. Manfred W. Wenner, “The Civil War in Yemen, 1962–╉70,” in Stopping the Killing,
ed. Roy Licklider (New York: New York University Press, 1993), 105.
11. Embassy in Yemen to the DOS, April 30, 1965, FRUS, 1964–╉1968 Vol. XXI, Near
East Region; Arabian Peninsula, ed. Nina Howland (Washington DC:  GPO,
2000), doc. 369.
12. Alaini, Fifty Years in Shifting Sands, 104.
13. Zaid al-╉Wazir, Mu’tamar Khamir (The Khamir Conference) (Beirut:  Ittihad al-╉
Gowa al-╉Sha’biah al-╉Yamaniah, 1965), 9.
14. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s ICY Set Pays Tribute to Saudi Arabian Aid; First of
Haradh Rush Series,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 20, 1966, 33.
15. O’Ballance, The War in Yemen, 150.
16. Stanko Guldescu, “Yemen: The War and the Haradh Conference,” The Review of
Politics 28, 1966, 323.
17. Mahmud Adil Ahmad, Dhikriyat Harb al-╉Yaman 1962–╉1967 (Remembrances of
the Yemen War) (Cairo: Dar al-╉Ikwa, 1992), 316–╉318.
 Notes to pages 110–113 243

18. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s ICY Set Pays Tribute to Saudi Arabian Aid; First
of Haradh Rush Series,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 20, 1966, 33. Condé
reported hearing about the shooting and the popular protests on Radio Sana’a.
19. O’Ballance, The War in Yemen, 155.
20. al-​Salami, The Tears of Sheba, 200.
21. IWM, Tony Boyle Papers, Boyle/​Johnson—​64/​89/​4, light brown notebook.
22. al-​Salami, The Tears of Sheba, 201.
23. International Committee of the Red Cross Archives (hereafter ICRC), BAG 229
064-​014, Gaillard to Rochat, March 20, 1967.
24. O’Ballance, The War in Yemen, 156.
25. Gause, Saudi-​Yemeni Relations, 69.
26. Schmidt, Yemen, 210. Badeeb blamed Yemeni corruption for undermining
Saudi-​Egyptian peace efforts (Badeeb, The Saudi-​Egyptian Conflict, 133).
27. Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia:  The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 120.
28. Zayd ibn ‘Alī Wazīr, Muḥāwalah li-​fahm al-​mushkilah al-​Yamanīyah (Beirut:

Mu’assasat al-​Risālah, 1971), 173. Ferris bases his analysis on a single article
from The Observer in 1965 (Ferris, Jesse Nasser’s Gamble, 254).
29. Wenner, “The Civil War in Yemen,” 106.
30. Safran, Saudi Arabia, 201–​202.
31. Alan Hoe, David Stirling: The Authorized Biography of the Founder of the SAS
(London: Little, Brown and Company, 1992), 388. Stirling estimated that the sys-
tem would be operational in February 1967.
32. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 36, Brown Book, Jan–​Jun 1965, McLean’s diary
of 1965 visit to Yemen. Imam al-​Badr’s original appeal to the shah of Iran
in 1963 was used as leverage to obtain a greater level of support from Saudi
Arabia who was reluctant to allow the expansion of Iranian influence on the
Peninsula.
33. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box A, Green Government of Aden File. McLean
had this conversation with Prince Muhammad when he returned from Iran in
November 1966.
34. Bissell, “Soviet Use of Proxies in the Third World,” 97. Iranian involvement was
not merely a matter of military aid and supremacy. The religious component, or
the Shi’ite network on Iranians and Zaydi Yemenis was of particular concern to
the Saudis, who were Sunni.
35. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil, 219.
36. O’Ballance, The War in Yemen, 156.
37. Rory Cormac, Confronting the Colonies: British Intelligence and Counterinsurgency
(London: Hurst & Company, 2013), 134.
38. Badeau, John S., The American Approach to the Arab World (New York: Harper &
Row, 1968), 145.
39. Guldescu, “Yemen: The War,” 327.
244 Notes to pages 113–116

40. Al Nadwa, April 7, 1966. Al Nadwa was Mecca’s official newspaper. Al-​Wazir
blamed Israel as well for a conspiracy to keep Nasser occupied in Yemen.
41. Adeed Dawisha, “The Soviet Union in the Arab World: The Limits to Superpower
Influence,” in The Soviet Union in the Middle East: Policies and Perspectives, eds.
Adeed Dawisha and Karen Dawisha (London: Heinemann Educational Books,
1982), 16. Sana’a and Hodeidah were perfectly situated as a refueling station en
route to East Africa (Page, The USSR and Arabia).
42. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 4, October 3, 1963, Brief Yemeni history
written by V. Kornev. Both in response to and in an effort not to be outdone by
American efforts to court the Yemeni regime, the Soviet team of technicians
undertook the expansion of the Yemeni international airport in Sana’a, a project
that was also completed by October.
43. United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 553, 1966, 272–​274. Copied in its entirety in
Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World, 311–​313.
44. al-​Salami, The Tears of Sheba, 201.
45. Donald Chipman, “Admiral Gorshkov and the Soviet Navy,” Air and Space Power
Journal, July–​August 1982.
46. S. G. Gorshkov, The Sea Power of the State (Annapolis:  Naval Institute Press,
1979), 39.
47. Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa:  The Diplomacy

of Intervention and Disengagement (New  York:  Cambridge University Press,
1990), 82.
48. Y. Tomilin, “Indiyskiy Okean v agressivnykh planakh imperializma,” MEiMO, 8,
1971, 27.
49. Alexei Vassiliev, Russian Policy in the Middle East: From Messianism to Pragmatism
(Reading: Ithica Press, 1993), 195. Vassiliev also attributes the importance of the
Hodeidah port to the anti-​British stance in Moscow.
50. Blizhnevostochnyĭ konflikt vol. 2, 461. AVPRF, Fond 087, Opis 28, Papka 75, Dela
5, List 71–​74, February 23, 1965. Marshal Amer appealed to Gorshkov for an
increase in the Egyptian navy size in advance of their meeting in the UAR.
51. Talal Nizaemeddin, Russia and the Middle East:  Towards a New Foreign Policy
(London: Hurst & Company, 1999), 24.
52. Aryeh Yodfat, Arab Politics in the Soviet Mirror (Jerusalem:  Israel Universities
Press, 1973), 13.
53. Guldescu, “Yemen: The War,” 325.
54. Muhammad Haykal, The Sphinx and the Commissar: The Rise and Fall of Soviet
Influence in the Middle East (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 146–​147. Haykal
claims this number to be $500 million.
55. Moussa, al-​Ishtirakiya al-​Misriya, 90. Moussa argues that the United States exer-
cised a similar policy of supporting Egypt in order to keep Nasser’s army away
from the Sinai border with Israel.
 Notes to pages 116–119 245

56. Stephen Page, The USSR and Arabia: The development of Soviet policies and atti-
tudes towards the countries of the Arabian peninsula 1955–​1970 (London:  The
Central Asian Research Centre, 1971), 75.
57. Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy, 235.
58. Oles M. Smolansky, The Soviet Union and the Arab East Under Khrushchev
(Cranbury, NJ:  Associated University Presses, 1974), 263. Smolansky explains
that Sino-​Soviet tensions were a major factor in the Soviet decision to maintain
a close alliance with Egypt.
59. Alexei Vassiliev, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia:  Personality, Faith and Times
(London: Saqi Books, 2012), 291.
60. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 43, June 1964, Brief Yemeni history writ-
ten by V. Kornev. Blizhnevostochnyĭ konflikt: iz dokumentov arkhiva vneshneĭ poli-
tiki Rossiĭskoĭ Federat͡sii, vol. 2 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyĭ fond “Demokratii͡a”,
2003), 461. AVPRF, Fond 087, Opis 28, Papka 75, Dela 5, List 71–​74, Erofeev
memorandum following UAR Vice President Marshal Amer’s visit to Yemen,
February 23, 1965.
61. Anthony Nutting, Nasser (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1972), 350.
62. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 451, List 75 and 76, March 31, 1964, assessment
written by V. V. Kuznetsova.
63. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 14–​19, June 1964, intelligence report
compiled by V. Kornev.
64. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 24, June 1964, Intelligence report on
Iryani.
65. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 20, June 1964, Intelligence report on
Makki. Makki also spoke fluent English and Italian.
66. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 21, June 1964, Intelligence report on
Dafa’i.
67. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 22–​23, June 1964, Intelligence report on
Dobbi. The Soviet intelligence report attributed his early absence from the YAR
government to initial hesitancy to join the revolution. He was also married, had
four children, and spoke a little bit of English.
68. Oleg Gerasimovich Gerasimov, Ĭemenskai͡a revoli͡ut͡sii͡a, 1962–1975:  Probl. i

suzhdenii͡a (Moskva:  Nauka, 1979), 43. Among this group were Muhammad
Hassan, chief of the presidential bureau, Galeb Ali Sha’ri, the director of the
Peoples Court, Ahmad Jalil, head of security in Sana’a, and Abdullah Barakam
who also worked in national security. All four served under Dobbi during his
time as national security director in Hodeidah and were among the group that
accompanied Sallal to Moscow. (RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 28, June
1964, report on Sallal’s trip to Moscow.)
69. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 25–​6, June 1964, Intelligence report on
Ashwal. Ashwal also headed the YAR delegation to the DPRK.
246 Notes to pages 119–123

70. RGANI, Fond 5, Opis 30, Dela 452, List 28, June 1964, report on Sallal’s trip to
Moscow.
71. GARF, Fond 4459, Opis 24, Dela 3084, File 74, October 24, 1964, “Soviet Tourists
in Yemen.”
72. GARF, Fond 4459, Opis 24, Dela 3084, File 114, November, 1964, TASS-​Sana’a.
Prior to the concert, the Yemeni minister of information addressed the audience
and gave thanks to the USSR for the concert.
73. GARF, Fond 4459, Opis 24, Dela 3084, File 75, October, 1964.
74. GARF, Fond A2306, Opis 75, Dela 3997, File 2, 1964, Education Plan and
Construction Plan for Hodeidah.
75. GARF, Fond A2306, Opis 76, Dela 1764, File 32, 1967, report from Hodeidah.
The first diesel generators were installed in Sana’a by Italian (1961) and Yugoslav
(1963) companies. The Soviet electrification proposal also included plans for an
intricate sewer system in Sana’a and Hodeidah.
76. GARF, Fond A2306, Opis 75, Dela 3997, File 11, 1964 Education Plan and
Construction Plan for Hodeidah.
77. GARF, Fond A2306, Opis 75, Dela 3997, File 16, 1964, Education Plan and
Construction Plan for Hodeidah. Most of the teachers in these schools were
Soviet-​trained Egyptians.
78. GARF, Fond A2306, Opis 75, Dela 3997, File 7, 1964 Education Plan and
Construction Plan for Hodeidah.
79. Richard E. Bissell, “Soviet Use of Proxies in the Third World:  The Case of
Yemen,” Soviet Studies vol. XXX (1978), 94.
80. Vassiliev, Russian Policy in the Middle East, 196. Oleg Peresypkin made similar
observations.
81. Ambassador David G.  Newton Oral History, The Association for Diplomatic

Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, November 1, 2005.
82. Interview with Aldelmo Ruiz, June 25, 2015.
83. Aldelmo Ruiz, “Efforts of US Agency for International Development to Supply
Water to People of Yemen,” Journal of the American Water Works Association, Vol.
58, No. 10 (OCTOBER 1966), pp. 1247–​1259.
84. USAID Archives, File PD-​AAR-​646, John F.  Kennedy Water System for Taiz,
Yemen Rehabilitation, February 7, 1973.
85. Interview with Aldelmo Ruiz, June 25, 2015.
86. World Health Organization Archives, YES-​HSD-​002, December 1967 Report.
Within a month of Egypt’s departure, there was a noticeable drop in national
water consumption.
87. Interview with Marjorie Ransom, November 5, 2015.
88. Interview with David Newton, November 5, 2015. As a junior officer in 1966,
Newton was instructed to deliver the news to Hariz that he had been declared
persona non grata.
89. Interview with Marjorie Ransom, November 5, 2015.
 Notes to pages 123–126 247

90. Interview with David Newton, November 5, 2015. Newton, who was deputy
chief of mission at the time, recalls that the USAID office had a large freezer
full of meat that all spoiled when the Egyptians cut the compound’s electricity.
91. Interview with Aldelmo Ruiz, June 25, 2015.
92. Marjorie Ransom Oral History, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and
Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, December 18, 2000.
93. James Cortada, The Yemen Crisis (Los Angeles, CA:  University of California,
1965), 11.
94. Quotes of Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Oct 13, 1965 (LBJ Library, NSF
UAR Files, Box 159, Vol. 1, 176a).
95. Johnson, “The Origins of Dissent.” The Gruening targeted both Nasser and
Indonesian President Sukarno.
96. Warren Bass, Support Any Friend: Kennedy’s Middle East and the Making of the
US-​Israeli Alliance (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003), 140.
97. Gerges, “The Kennedy Administration and the Egyptian-​ Saudi Conflict in
Yemen.”
98. Barrett, The Great Middle East and the Cold War, 298. It was clear that Nasser
was not involved in either Ba’thist coup.
99. DOS to US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, December 19, 1963, FRUS, Vol. XVIII,
doc. 389. LBJ Library, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 3, 57, RWK-​LBJ, Dec
16, 1963.
100. Douglas Little, “Nasser Delenda East:  Lyndon Johnson, the Arabs, and the
1967 War,” in The Foreign Policies of Lyndon Johnson: Beyond Vietnam, ed. H.W.
Brands (College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), 152.
101. William J. Burns, Economic Aid and American Policy Towards Egypt, 1955–​1981
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1985), 160.
102. Gamal Abdel Nasser Speech in Port Sa’id on Victory Day celebration, December
23, 1867, accessed January 15, 2013, nasser.bibalex.org/​speeches.
103. Burns, Economic Aid, 144. By 1962, 99 percent of Egyptian wheat imports were
coming from the United States, amounting to 53  percent of Egyptian wheat
requirements.
104. RWK-​Bundy, April 24, 1964, FRUS, Vol. XXI, doc. 331.
105. LBJ Library, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 4, 365, RWK-​LBJ. Mar 9, 1964.
106. LBJ Library, NSF Saudi Arabia Files, Box 155, Volume 1, 175, RWK-​LBJ. Apr 15,
1965. Komer made this statement only weeks after spending a month in Israel
negotiating an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, signed on
March 10, 1965, reiterating commitment to Israeli security and territorial integ-
rity in return for an Israeli commitment not to manufacture nuclear weapons
(Ami Gluska, The Israeli Military and the Origins of the 1967 War: Government,
Armed Forces, and Defence Policy 1963–​1967 (New York: Routledge, 2007), 30).
107. IWM, Neil McLean Papers, Box 20, Brown Book (Diary of visit to

Yemen—​Jan-​May 1965).
248 Notes to pages 126–132

108. Michael Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle
East (New York: Ballantine Books, 2003), 40.
109. Tewfik Moussa, Al-╉Ishtirakiya al-╉Misriya wal Qadiya al-╉Falastinia, 90.
110. Oren, Six Days of War, 15. The term “Nasser’s Vietnam” may have been coined
by David Holden, the Middle East correspondent for the Guardian on December
1, 1965 (David Holden, Farewell to Arabia (New  York:  Walker and Company,
1966), 110).
111. Guldescu, The War and the Haradh Conference, 326.
112. Embassy Saudi Arabia to DOS, August, 19, 1964, FRUS, Vol. XXI, doc. 344.
113. Summary of UN meeting on Yemen, December 11, 1964, FRUS, Vol. XXI,
doc. 356.
114. LBJ Library, Social Files, Bess Abell, Box 15, King Faisal Dinner.
115. CIA Summary:  “Nasser’s Problems and Prospects in Yemen, February 18,
1965, FRUS, Vol. XXI, Doc. 360.
116. Faisal-╉Rusk Conversation transcript, June 22, 1966, FRUS, Vol. XXI, doc. 402.
117. LBJ Library, NSF National Intelligence Estimates, Box 6, Folder 36.1, National
Intelligence Estimate: UAR, May 19, 1966.

C h a p t er   6

1. McGregor, A Military History of Modern Egypt, 263.

2. Richard Price, “A Genealogy of the Chemical Weapons Taboo,” International
Organization Vol. 49, No. 1 (1995): 73–╉103.
3. Conference on the Limitation of Armaments (New York: American Association for
International Conciliation, 1922), 387.
4. Barbara Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue: The Human Rights Revolution of the
1970s (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 14.
5. Richard M. Price, The Chemical Weapons Taboo (Ithica:  Cornell University
Press, 1997), 1.
6. Memorandum from the Secretary of State to the President, August 23, 1962,
FRUS 1961–╉1963, Volume II, Vietnam, 1962, eds. John P.  Glennon, David
M. Baehler, Charles S. Sampson Document (Washington: GPO, 1990), doc. 270.
7. Seymour M. Hersch, “Poison Gas in Vietnam,” New York Review of Books, May
9, 1968.
8. John R. Walker, Britain and dDsarmament:  The UK and Nuclear, Biological
and Chemical Weapons Arms Control and Programmes, 1956–╉1975 (Farham:
Ashgate, 2012).
9. IWM, Neil McLean Papers, Box 3, Green Folder, Dec 1967.
10. Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue, 49.
11. Power, A Problem from Hell, Preface.
12. George W. Baer, Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia, and the League of Nations (Stanford:
Hoover Institution Press, 1976).
 Notes to pages 132–136 249

13. Joost Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
14. Kenneth Cmiel, “The Recent History of Human Rights,” The American Historical
Review 109 (2004): 117–​135.
15. Jonathan B. Tucker, War of Nerves:  Chemical Warfare from World War I  to al-​
Qaeda (New  York:  Pantheon Books, 2006), 191. Price, The Chemical Weapons
Taboo, 5.
16. TNA: DEFE 55/​418/​E101. The Egyptian Use of CW Agents in Yemen, July 1967.
17. Richard Beeston, “Nasser’s Planes Use Poison Gas,” Daily Telegraph, July 8, 1963.
Richard Beeston, Looking for Trouble: The Life and Times of a Foreign Correspondent
(London: Brassey’s, 1997), 83–​84.
18. TNA: DEFE 55/​418/​E101, The Egyptian Use of CW Agents in Yemen, July 1967.
TNA: DEFE 55/​418/​E1, December 11, 1963. Desmond Stewart, “Whose Poison
Gas?,” The Spectator, July 19, 1963, 5–​6.
19. TNA:  DEFE 55/​
418/​E35, Raymond A.  Titt, Munitions Research Division,
“Weapons Fragments from Overseas,” July 26, 1963.
20. TNA:  WO 188/​2058, E.E. Haddon, Director CDEE Porton report November
26, 1963.
21. TNA: DEFE 55/​418/​E34, July 26, 1963, “Examination of Objects from Overseas.”
Copy of US analysis of poison gas bomb fragments sent to them by UN on
August 23, 1963 (UNA, S-​1071-​03-​10 General Narasimhan letter to UN Geneva,
August 2, 1963).
22. Embassy UAR to DOS, July 11, 1963, FRUS 1961–​1963, Volume XVIII, Near
East, 1962–​1963, ed. Nina Noring (Washington:  Government Printing Office,
1994), doc. 294.
23. JFK Library, NSF, UAR, 6/​63–​8/​63, RWK to Bundy, July 15, 1963.
24. Edwin A. Martini, Agent Orange: History, Science and the Politics of Uncertainty
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), ch. 1.
25. USIA to Embassy Vietnam, March 11, 1963, FRUS 1961-​1963, Vol. III, January–​
August 1963, eds. Edward C.  Keefer and Louis J.  Smith (Washington:  GPO,
1991), doc. 55.
26. Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Cable, “Activities Affection
the United Nations: Attitude of Permanent United Nations Representatives to
the Vietnam Conference,” March 26, 1965.
27. D. Hank Ellison, Chemical Warfare During the Vietnam War (London: Routledge,
2011), ch. 2.
28. UNA, S-​1071-​03-​10, U Thant response to William Yates (House of Commons,
London), December 4, 1963.
29. UNA, S-​1071-​03-​10, UAR Statement in response to poison gas charges—​July
8, 1963.
30. Tom Spacey, “Nasser Poison Gas Attacks—​Tories Press for Action,” Evening
Standard, January 30, 1965.
250 Notes to pages 136–143

31. IWM, Neil McLean Papers, McLean Yemen (2), Notes on Gas Bombs in Yemen,
January 23, 1967.
32. TNA:  FCO 8/​
712/​
129, W.N. Hillier-​Fry, “Mr. Mulley’s Address to the
Disarmament Committee of the United Nations Association,” July 31, 1967.
33. TNA: PREM 13/​1625/​2, “Poison Gas in Yemen,” August 2, 1967.
34. Richard Beeston, “Paris Tests on Gas used in Yemen,” Daily Telegraph, January
20, 1967.
35. International Red Cross Society—​Annual Report 1967 (Geneva, 1968).
36. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​24, W.P. Cranston (Foreign Office) to Jeddah, February 1, 1967.
37. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​10, Foreign Office to Beirut and Jeddah, January 30, 1967.
38. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​37, ICRC Press Release, “The ICRC and Events in Yemen,”
January 31, 1967.
39. Humanitarian Citadel, directed by Frederic Gonseth (Geneva, Switzerland,
2009), DVD.
40. TNA: FCO 8/​718/​4, F.J. Burlsce, Ministry of Defence to T.F. Brenchley, Foreign
Office, February 9, 1967.
41. TNA: FCO 8/​718/​10, Hillier-​Fry, “Gas Masks for Yemen,” February 1967.
42. Dana Adams Schmidt, “British Group Sends Gas Masks to Yemenis,” New York
Times, February 28, 1967.
43. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​41, UAR Use of Gas in the Yemen and Bombing Attacks on
Saudi Arabia, Feb 23, 1967.
44. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​15, UK Mission to NY, January 31, 1967.
45. UNA, S-​1071-​03-​10, U Thant to Baroody, February 18, 1967.
46. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​41, UAR Use of Gas in the Yemen and Bombing Attacks on
Saudi Arabia, Feb 23, 1967.
47. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​46, UK Mission to UN, February 14, 1967.
48. US-​
UK Talks on UN Affairs, August 9, 1967, FRUS 1964–​ 1968. Vol. XXI,
doc, 101.
49. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​41, UAR Use of Gas in the Yemen and Bombing Attacks on
Saudi Arabia, Feb 23, 1967.
50. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​32, House of Lords Discussion, February 3, 1967.
51. TNA: FCO 8/​713/​192, Stephen L. Egerton, August 4, 1967.
52. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​19, Baghdad to Foreign Office, February 2, 1967.
53. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​60, D. J. McCarthy, UAR Use of Poison Gas in the Yemen and
the International Red Cross, March 6, 1967.
54. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​60, Peter W. Unwinn, UAR Use of Poison Gas in the Yemen,
February 28, 1967.
55. TNA:  FCO 8/​710/​43, MP Patrick Wall (Haltemprice) to Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, 20 February 1967.
56. “Jamil the Irrepressible,” Time, December 13, 1971, Vol. 98, Iss. 24.
57. TNA:  DEFE 55/​418/​E99, Jamil Baroody, Saudi representative to UN to UN
Secretary General, April 6, 1967.
 Notes to pages 143–148 251

5 8. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​35, House of Lords Discussion, February 7, 1967.

59. TNA: FCO 8/​710/​51, UN Mission to Foreign Office, Feb 24, 1967.
60. TNA: FCO 8/​711/​67, Baroody to U Thant, April 1, 1967.
61. TNA:  DEFE 55/​418/​E99, Jamil Baroody, Saudi representative to UN to UN
Secretary General, April 6, 1967.
62. TNA: FCO 8/​711/​109, Report on Poison Gas, July 13, 1967.
63. TNA: FCO 8/​711/​114, Poison Gas in Yemen, June 29, 1967.
64. Spencer Mawby, “The ‘Big Lie’ and the ‘Great Betrayal’: explaining the British
collapse in Aden,” in The Cold War in the Middle East: Regional Conflict and the
Superpowers, 1967–​73, ed. Nigel J. Ashton (New York, NY, 2007), ch. 8.
65. TNA: FCO 8/​711/​101, D.J. McCarthy to Brenchley, June 26, 1967.
66. TNA:  FCO 8/​711/​100, W.N. Hillier-​Fry to A.  Campbell (Minister of Defense),
July 3, 1967.
67. TNA: FCO 8/​712/​146, Foreign Office to Washington, August 2, 1967.
68. TNA: FCO 8/​712/​133, “Early Day Motion: Gas in the Yemen,” August 8, 1967.
69. John Finnley, “US is Disturbed by Yemen Reports of Poison-​Gas Use,” New York
Times, July 28, 1967.
70. Embassy Saudi Arabia to DOS, July 23, 1967, FRUS 1964–​1968. Vol. XXI, doc. 454.
71. DOS to the Mission to the European Office of the United Nations, July 22, 1967,
FRUS 1964–​1968, Volume XXI, doc. 453.
72. Memorandum of Conversation, June 2, 1967, FRUS 1964–​1968, Vol. XIX, Arab-​
Israeli Crisis and War, 1967, ed. Harriet Dashiell Schwar (Washington:  GPO,
2004), doc. 130.
73. TNA: FCO 8/​712/​151, United States is Disturbed by Yemen Reports of Poison-​
Gas Use, July 28, 1967.
74. Martini, Agent Orange, 39.
75. Ellison, Chemical Warfare During the Vietnam War, 64, 74.
76. NARA, Agent Orange Litigation Files, Box 184, 1945-​63, “Defoliant Operations
in Vietnam,” Memo, Secretary of State to JFK, November 24, 1961.
77. TNA: FCO 8/​713/​196, Harold Beeley to P.T. Hayman—​“Poison Gas in Yemen,”
September 5, 1967.
78. Roscoe Drummond, “A Plea to Goldberg—​Poison Gas in Yemen,” Washington
Post, August 9, 1967.
79. TNA: PREM 13/​1625/​2, Foreign Office to UK Mission Washington DC, August
2, 1967.
80. TNA: FCO 8/​712/​160, Foreign Office to Oslo, August 13, 1967.
81. TNA: FCO 8/​712/​172, Oslo to Foreign Office, August 16, 1967.
82. TNA: FCO 8/​712/​171, Copenhagen to Foreign Office, August 16, 1967.
83. TNA: FCO 8/​713/​201, D. Thomas (UK Delegation to NATO) to D. J. McCarthy,
Aden Department Foreign Office, September 16, 1967.
84. TNA:  FCO 8/​
712/​
130, D.J. McCarthy to Sir R.  Beaumont, “Poison Gas in
Yemen,” August 1, 1967.
252 Notes to pages 148–154

85. TNA:  FCO 8/╉

713/╉
184, A.B. Urwick (UK Embassy Washington) to Ann
Warburton, UN Foreign Office, August 22, 1967.
86. TNA: FCO 8/╉302/╉3, Aden to Foreign Office, February 19, 1967.
87. TNA:  FCO 8/╉
302/╉
1, C.P. Hope to T.F. Brenchley (Arabian Department),
February 1967.
88. TNA: FCO 8/╉713/╉195, C.P. Hope (UK mission to UN), August 24, 1967.
89. TNA: FCO 8/╉712/╉205, George Brown to Duncan Sandys, September 15, 1967.
90. TNA:  FCO 8/╉713/╉205, Hayman to Harold Beeley (UK Delegation to the 18
Nation Disarmament Conference), September 17, 1967.
91. TNA:  FCO 8/╉
713/╉
202, Brenchley, “Poison Gas in the Yemen,” September
22, 1967.
92. TNA: FCO8/╉713/╉211, Duncan Sandys to George Brown, September 19, 1967.
93. TNA: FCO8/╉713/╉210, George Brown to Duncan Sandys, September 19, 1967.
94. Battle to Rusk, October 3, 1967, FRUS 1964–╉1968, Vol. XXI, doc. 459.
95. TNA: FCO 8/╉713/╉229, Hillier-╉Fry to Brenchley (Parliamentary Office), November
17, 1967.
96. Neil McLean Papers, IWM. A copy of this magazine is found in McLean’s per-
sonal papers.
97. For example:  Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair; Price, The Chemical Weapons
Taboo; “The Shadow of Ypres: How a Whole Class of Weaponry Came to Be Seen
as Indecent,” The Economist, August 31, 2013.

C h a p t er   7

1. Spencer Mawby, British Policy in Aden. Mawby argues that colonial officials
assumed that Aden was far enough on the fringes of the Middle East to make it
safe from Arab nationalist subversion.
2. TNA, Foreign Office Memo, DEFE 13/╉570/╉49, July 1964.
3. Sections of this chapter were previously published in:  Asher Orkaby, “The
Yemeni Civil War:  The Final British-╉Egyptian Imperial Battleground,” Middle
Eastern Studies Vol. 51 Is. 2 (2015), 195–╉207.
4. Eric Marco, Yemen and the Western World (London: Hurst, 1968), 27.
5. British Library, R/╉20/╉E/╉1, June 22, 1837.
6. R.J. Gavin, Aden Under British Rule: 1839–╉1967 (London: C. Hurst & Company,
1975), 25. The British began warning Muhammad Ali about his expeditions
in Arabia as early as 1825 for fear that he would endanger the route to India.
Ibrahim’s troops entered Yemen in 1831 with the intention of conquering South
Arabia.
7. British Library, R/╉20/╉E/╉1, July 6, 1837. Some historical accounts have assumed
the wrecked ship to have been an early case of insurance fraud (David Ledger,
Shifting Sands: The British in South Arabia (London, UK: Peninsular Publishing,
1983), 12). Haines first attempted to negotiate the lease of Aden, but was met with
 Notes to pages 154–158 253

gun shots. (Zaka Hanna Kour, The History of Aden, 1839–​1872 (London: Frank
Cass & Co., 1981), 8–​11).
8. British Library, R/​20/​E/​1, March 26, 1838.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Sir Charles Webster, The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, 1830–​1841:  Britain, the
Liberal Movement and the Eastern Question (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1951), 275.
Written on June 23, 1838.
12. Letitia W. Ufford, The Pasha:  How Mehmet Ali Defied the West, 1839–​
1841
(London: McFarland & Company, 2007), 85.
13. British Library, R/​20/​E/​1, October 16, 1837.
14. Parliamentary Papers, House of Commands and Commands. 1839, Volume XL, 54.
15. TNA, FO 78/​373, 101, February 28, 1839.
16. British Library, R/​20/​E/​3, March 27, 1838.
17. British Library, R/​20/​E/​3, May 12, 1838.
18. Pieragostoni, Britain, Aden, and South Arabia, 21. Pieragostoni agrees that the
occupation of Aden was a check to Ali’s expansion in Syria and the Arabian
Peninsula. He adds that the geographic location of Aden added a level of impor-
tance in protecting the route to India.
19. Elie Kedourie, “Egypt, the Arab State and the Suez Expedition, 1956,” in

Imperialism and Nationalism in the Middle East:  The Anglo-​Egyptian Experience
1882–​1982, ed. Keith M. Wilson. (London: Mansell Publishing Limited, 1983),
123–​24.
20. Gamal Abdel Nasser, The Philosophy of the Revolution (Cairo:  Dar al-​Maaref,
1955).
21. Maxime Rodinson, “The Political System,” in Egypt Since the Revolution, ed. P. J.
Vatikiotis (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968), 87–​113.
22. James B. Mayfield, Rural Politics in Nasser’s Egypt:  A  Quest for Legitimacy

(Austin: University of Texas Press), 1971.
23. Walid Khalidi, “Political Trends in the Fertile Crescent,” in The Middle East in
Transition, ed. Walter Z. Laqueur (New York: F.A. Praeger, 1958).
24. Vatikiotis, Nasser and his Generation, 298.
25. Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha’s Men:  Mehmed Ali, His Army, and the Making of
Modern Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
26. Elie Podeh and Onn Winckler, Rethinking Nasserism:  Revolution and Historical
Memory in Modern Egypt (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2004), 2.
27. Podeh and Winckler, Rethinking Nasserism, 18.
28. Jonathan Pearson, Sir Anthony Eden and the Suez Crisis:  Reluctant Gamble
(Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2003), 18.
29. Macmillan Papers, Oxford Bodleian Library, MS Macmillan.dep.C.431.

November 23, 1955. Julian Amery later served as Minister of Aviation from 1962
to 1964 and was fundamental in orchestrating mercenary operations in Yemen.
254 Notes to pages 158–161

30. Xan Fielding, One Man in His Time: The Life of Lieutenant-​Colonel NLD (‘Billy’)
McLean, DSP (Macmillan: London, 1990), 103. McLean made his first speech fif-
teen months after first being elected to office. This was indicative of his shadowy
style of politics as he preferred the adventurous exploration to the parliamen-
tary debate. (Sue Onslow, “Unreconstructed Nationalists and a Minor Gunboat
Operation:  Julian Amery, Neil McLean and the Suez Crisis,” Contemporary
British History 20 (2006): 73–​99.)
31. Robert Rhodes James, “Eden,” In The Suez-​
Sinai Crisis 1956:  Retrospective
and Reappraisal, eds. Selwyn Ilan Troen and Moshe Shemesh, 100–​ 109
(London: Frank Cass, 1990), 106.
32. The Times 28 July, 1956.
33. Daily Mail 28 July, 1956. Populist-​Conservative newspaper.
34. Pearson, Sir Anthony Eden. Pearson combines all of these arguments in his
defense of Eden’s actions in 1956.
35. Julian Amery, “The Suez Group:  A  Retrospective on Suez” in The Suez-​Sinai
Crisis 1956:  Retrospective and Reappraisal, eds. Selwyn Ilan Troen and Moshe
Shemesh, (London: Frank Cass, 1990), 110. Julian Amery met him by chance in
Cape Town in January 1953. Although the core group had twenty-​six members,
there was a total of forty MPs associated with the Suez Group.
36. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 18.
37. Ibid., 69.
38. Keith Kyle, Suez: Britain’s End of Empire in the Middle East (London: IB Tauris,
2011), 40.
39. Ibid., 112, 119.
40. Pieragostoni, Britain, Aden, and South Arabia, 5.  His argument is somewhat
overstated in that he does not substantiate the significance of Aden for British
global strategy other than the historical coincidence that the war with Nasser
took place during the final years of the British Empire.
41. Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951–​56 (London: W.W. Norton and
Company, 1986).
42. Sir Charles Watson, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival (New York: Carroll
and Graf Publishers, 2006), 735.
43. Pearson, Sir Anthony Eden, 140.
44. Kyle, Suez, 42.
45. Sue Onslow, “Julian Amery and the Suez Operation,” in Reassessing Suez 1956:
New Perspectives on the Crisis and its Aftermath, ed. Simon C. Smith (Hampshire:
Ashgate, 2008), 76.
46. Onslow, “Unrestricted Nationalists and a Minor Gunboat Operation,” 73.

Onslow, “Julian Amery and the Suez Operation,” 70.
47. Harold Macmillan, The Macmillan Diaries, The Cabinet Years, 1950–​1957, ed.
Peter Catterall (Aldershot: Macmillan, 2003).
48. Amery, “The Suez Group,” 120.
 Notes to pages 161–164 255

49. Tom Bower, The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935–​90
(London: Heinemann, 1995), 242.
50. Nasser, Speeches and Press-​Interviews, 306, Address by Nasser on the Occasion of
the Seventh Anniversary of Victory Day at Port Said, December 23, 1963.
51. Bodleian Library, Papers of Kennedy Trevaskis, MSS.Brit Emp. S 367, 6/​1,
October 31, 1962. In 1839, Captain Haines wrote that the tribes surrounding the
port of Aden were looking to the British to protect them from the rapid expan-
sion of Muhammad Ali’s empire.
52. John Harding, Roads to Nowhere:  A  South Arabian Odyssey 1960–​ 1965
(London:  Arabian Publishing, 2009), 143. Following the war’s outbreak, riots
and protests broke out in Aden as the population presumably regretted the
September 24 vote. William R. Polk, The Arab World (Cambridge:  Harvard
University Press, 1980), 210.
53. Charles Hepburn Johnston, The View from Steamer Point:  Being an Account of
Three Years in Aden (London:  Collins, 1964), 125. Vitaly Naumkin argues that
this “shelter” from Pan-​Arabism was one of the factors that allowed Marxism
to take hold in South Yemen (Vitaly Naumkin, Red Wolves of Yemen (Cambridge,
UK: The Oleander Press, 2004).
54. TNA. PREM 11/​4928, October 14, 1963.
55. Bower, The Perfect English Spy, 244.
56. Bower, The Perfect English Spy, 249.
57. TNA, JK Watkins to FO, CO1055/​3/​61, January 23, 1963, for example.
58. TNA, Michael Webb to Julian Amery, DEFE 13/​570, August 20, 1963.
59. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 20.
60. IWM, Tony Boyle Files, Boyle/​Johnson 64/​89/​3, Green Folder. IWM, Tony Boyle
Files, Boyle/​Johnson 64/​89/​7.
61. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 6, Green Folder, David Smiley’s report on visit to
Yemen 7/​3–​3/​4/​64.
62. Tony Geraghty, Black Ops:  The Rise of Special Forces in the CIA, the SAS, and
Mossad (New York: Pegasus Books, 2010), 170.
63. IWM, Boyle/​Johnson Papers, Box 64/​89/​5, The Diaries and Papers of Mark
Millburn, May 15, 1964.
64. Bodleian Library, Papers of Kennedy Trevaskis, MSS.Brit Emp. S 367, 6/​1, March
31, 1964. This statement was made in relation to sending support to royalists
through Federation territory. Bodleian Library, Papers of Kennedy Trevaskis,
MSS.Brit Emp, S 367, 6/​1, October 14, 1963.
65. TNA, Kennedy Trevaskis to Secretary of State for the Colonies, Duncan Sandys,
FO 371/​174635 BM/​1041/​64, April 23, 1964.
66. David French, The British Way in Counter-​Insurgency, 1945–​1967 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011), 240. The rebels in Radfan, noted for their skill in bat-
tle, earned the British nickname “Radfan red wolves” (Naumkin, Red Wolves of
Yemen, 89.)
256 Notes to pages 165–167

67. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War. Jones notes that the intelligence from the
Aden Group was ignored by the British government, particularly in 1965 when
Nasser was weakest. This led to the premature withdrawal announcement by the
Labor Government.
68. Harding, Roads to Nowhere, 174.
69. Spencer Mawby, “The Clandestine Defence of Empire: British Special Operations
in Yemen, 1951–​1964,” Intelligence and National Security 17:3 (2002), 107.
70. Geraghty, Who Dares Wins, 66. Geraghty observations are purely speculative.
71. McNamara, Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power, 187.
72. Cormac, Confronting the Colonies, 137.
73. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 53.
74. Bower, The Perfect English Spy, 253. Home was replaced by Richard “Rab” Butler.
Butler, closely associated with the defeatist (appeasement was the term used dur-
ing the 1930s) attitude toward Hitler in 1940, seemed eager to pursue a simi-
lar policy toward Nasser by opposing any British policy that might anger the
Egyptian leader.
75. TNA, PREM 11/​4679, 56, April 8, 1964.
76. TNA, FO 371/​174636/​BM 1041/​17, May 11, 1964, Komer conversation with
Eilts (UK-​US Embassy).
77. Bower, The Perfect English Spy, 252.
78. FRUS, 1964-​68, Vol. XXI, doc. 441, Fees exercised a cover as a humanitarian aid
worker.
79. Peter Sommerville-​Large, Tribes and Tribulations: A Journey in Republican Yemen
(London:  Robert Hale, 1967), 123, 161. American charge d’affaire to Yemen
James N. Cortada remarked when hearing Sommerville’s story of pro-​American
royalists:  “we can take it … if the Royalists regard us as allies, it’s all to the
good—​you can’t have too many friends.”
80. Walker, Aden Insurgency, 72.
81. Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, 91.
82. TNA. FO 371 174636. BM1041/​
130, May 12, 1964. Conversation between
Canadian Ambassador Robert Ford and Heikal.
83. Glen Blafour-​Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East: Britain’s Relinquishment
of Power in Her Last Three Arab Dependencies (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991), 81.
84. Jeffrey R. Macris, The Politics and Security of the Gulf: Anglo-​American Hegemony
and the Shaping of a Region (New York: Routledge, 2010), 133–​34.
85. Churchill Archives Centre, Duncan Sandys Papers, 8/​16, Julian Amery to Alec
Douglas-​Home with note on Aden/​Yemen problems, 7 May 1964.
86. Johnny Cooper, One of the Originals: The Story of a Founder Member of the SAS
(London: Pan, 1991), 181. Tony Boyle had written three of those letters hinting
at some activities in Yemen. One letter was addressed to Lady Birdwood, the
director of the Yemen Relief Committee in Great Britain and Johnny Cooper
 Notes to pages 167–169 257

regarding the transfer of medical supplies to Yemen, thereby underscoring the

Egyptian distrust of the ICRC in Yemen.
87. Jeffrey R. Macris, The Politics and Security of the Gulf: Anglo-╉American Hegemony
and the Shaping of a Region (New York: Routledge, 2010), 137.
88. The Times, September 29, 1965. Pieragostini quotes this article as well in an
effort to justify the British 1966 decision to withdrawal from Aden.
89. Jacob Abadi, “Britain’s Abandonment of South Arabia—╉
A Reassessment,”
Journal of Third World Studies vol. 12, no. 1, 1995, 152–╉80.
90. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 190.
91. British Petroleum Archives, 28693, A H Dutton, April 15, 1966.
92. British Petroleum Archives, 9910, Middle East General—╉Aden, D F Mitchell,
June 28, 1966. British Petroleum Archives, 9910, Middle East General—╉Aden,
A H Dutton, June 16, 1966. Soviet involvement, however, later called this conclu-
sion into question.
93. British Petroleum Archives, 9910, Middle East General—╉Aden, A  H Dutton,
August 16, 1965.
94. Trevaskis, Shades of Amber, 189–╉190.
95. British Petroleum Archives. 28693, A  H Dutton, May 6, 1966. Walker, Aden
Insurgency, 176.
96. Paget, Last Post: Aden, 165.
97. TNA, UN HRC, FCO 61/╉219/╉3, February 20, 1967.
98. TNA, Baghdad to Foreign Office, FO 371/╉174627/╉BM 1022/╉62, April 2, 1964.
99. IWM, Tony Boyle Papers, Box 2/╉7.

C h a p t er   8

1. Portions of this sections were previously published in Asher Orkaby, “The 1964
Israeli Airlift to Yemen and the Expansion of Weapons Diplomacy,” Diplomacy
and Statecraft, Vol. 26 Is. 4 (2015), 659–╉677. Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World,
680. Tony Boyle had worked as the aide de camp to Aden Governor Charles
Johnston and had the most intimate knowledge of Yemeni terrain amongst the
group (John Harding, Roads to Nowhere:  A  South Arabian Odyssey 1960–╉1965
(London: Arabian Publishing, 2009), 174).
2. Hart-╉Davis, The War that Never Was, 138 and 185. Sayyid Ahmad Bin Muhammad
Al-╉
Shami, the head of Yemen’s delegation in London and Imam al-╉ Badr’s
Foreign Minister, was the direct contact for the Israeli representatives organiz-
ing the mission. Moshe Ronen, Tehomot u-╉sheḥaḳim (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth,
2013), 180.
3. Aryeh Oz, Shema’ Yisrael (Tel Aviv:  Ofir Publishing, 2011), 130–╉131. It is not
clear how seriously Israeli officials took this offer for recognition, although
Herzog makes reference to this in a letter to Julian Amery.
4. Michael Bar-╉Zohar, Yaacov Herzog: A Biography (London: Halban, 2005), 239.
258 Notes to pages 170–173

5 . Interview with Moshe Bartov, June 30, 2014.

6. Interview with Arieh Oz, June 30, 2014.
7. Interview with Arieh Oz, June 30, 2014. Everyone had a cover story related to a
South American airline. They flew to Yemen in civilian clothes that were pur-
chased for them from the UK department store Marks and Spencer by their
British counterparts.
8. IWM, Tony Boyle Papers, Box 1.
9. Interview with Shaya Harsit, June 25, 2014.
10. IWM, Tony Boyle Papers, Box 2/​7.
11. Hart-​Davis, The War that Never Was, 150–​151.
12. Interview with Arieh Oz, June 30, 2014.
13. Interview with Moshe Bartov, June 30, 2014.
14. “Hamarkiv Hasodi Shel Harotev,” IAF Magazine, Vol. 180, January 2008.
15. Interview with Arieh Oz, June 30, 2014.
16. IWM: Tony Boyle Papers, Box 1, Notebook.
17. Interview with Moshe Bartov, June 30, 2014. Bartov recalled a crowded

Jeddah market which they would have to avoid, but otherwise the flight path
was clear.
18. Interview with Yithak Biran, June 26, 2014.
19. IWM Archives, Tony Boyle Papers, Box 2.
Interview with Nahum Admoni, March 16, 2015.
20. Oz, Shema’ Yisrael, 144–​45.
21. Hart-​Davis, The War that Never Was, 211. IWM, Tony Boyle Papers, Box 64/​89/​3.
22. IWM, Tony Boyle Papers, Box 64/​89/​3, Folder: Leopard, Proposal for Surprise
Attack on Egyptian Aircraft in Yemen (1964).
23. Interview with Arieh Oz, June 30, 2014. Oz, Shema’ Yisra’el, 145.
24. Israel’s Clandestine Diplomacies, ed. Clive Jones and Tore T. Petersen
(London: Hurst & Company, 2013), 114.
25. “The Secret Ingredient of the Sauce,” Israeli Air Force Magazine, April 4, 2008.
26. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 9.
27. IWW, Tony Boyle Paper, Box 1, Notebook.
28. Dorril, MI6, 689. Porton Down, the UK Government’s military science park
determined that the shells contained nothing more than tear gas while the
Israeli laboratories found traces of mustard gas. David Smiley believed that the
lab results were obscured because government officials wanted to avoid a con-
frontation over chemical use.
29. TNA, PREM 11/​4928, October 7, 1963.
30. TNA, PREM 11/​4928, October 7, 1963, Home conversation with Golda Meir.
31. Gluska, The Israeli Military, 200.
32. “Political and Security Situation,” May 22, 1967, Sitting 176 of the Sixth

Knesset, in Major Knesset Debates 1948–​1981, vol. 4, ed. Netanel Lorch (Lanham,
Maryland: University Press of America, 1993), 1561.
 Notes to pages 174–175 259

33. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 3, May 1967. According to McLean, Nasser’s block-
ade of the Gulf of Aqaba in May 1967 was part of the Russian orchestrated plan
of turning the Red Sea into an Egyptian “Mare Nostrum” after the British with-
drawal from Aden. The parallels between the legitimate fears of Muhammad
Ali and Nasser’s efforts to dominate the Red Sea are further testament to the
similarities between the two eras.
34. Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble, 268.
35. Muḥammad ‘Abd al-​Ghanī Jamasī, Mudhakkirāt al-​Jamasī (The October war: mem-
oirs of Field Marshal El-​Jamasi of Egypt) (Cairo, Egypt:  American University in
Cairo Press, 1993), 36. Muhammad Heikal explains that the Egyptian military
debacle in Yemen was the cause of Israeli collusion with oil states and compa-
nies intent on weakening the Egyptian position in Sinai (Mohamed Heikal, Secret
Channels:  The Inside Story of Arab-​Israeli Peace Negotiations (London:  Harper
Collins Publishers, 1996), 124.
36. Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World, 251.
37. Ibid., 252. This opinion was quoted from an interview in Ros al-​Youssef, Cairo,
October 10, 1977, 19.
38. TNA, Foreign Office, FCO 8/​840, June 1967. British intelligence records report
an estimated 22,000 by the end of June 1967. Some estimates go as high as
30,000 (Huwaydī, Amīn, Ḥarb 1967: asrār wa khabāyā (al-​Qāhirah: al-​Maktab al-​
Miṣrī al-​Ḥadth, 2006), 51) or as low as 20,000 (al-​Hadidi, Shahid ala harb 57–​58,
155). Haddad claims there were 27,000 troops remaining in Yemen (Haddad,
Revolutions and Military Rule, 286).
39. Ian Black and Benny Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars: A History of Israel’s Intelligence
Services (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991), 217. This order was intercepted by
Israeli intelligence.
40. Interview with Nahum Admoni, March 16, 2015.
41. Eugene Rogan and Tewfik Aclimandos, “The Yemen War and Egypt’s

Preparedness,” in The 1967 Arab-​Israeli War: Origins and Consequences, ed. Avi
Shlaim and William Roger Louis (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 164.
42. Stanko Guldescu, “War and Peace in Yemen,” Quenn’s Quarterly Vol. 74 Is. 3
(1967).
43. Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble, 273.
44. Sadat, In Search of Identity, 172 and Tariq Habib, Milaffat thawrat yuliyu: Shahadt
122 min san’ha wa mu’asiriyyha (Cairo: al-​Ahram, 1997), 320. Laura James pro-
vides additional sources on Amer’s misleading statements (James, Nasser at
War, 98–​99).
45. Blizhnevostochnyĭ konflikt:  iz dokumentov arkhiva vneshneĭ politiki Rossiĭskoĭ
Federat͡sii, vol. 2 (Moscow:  Mezhdunarodnyĭ fond “Demokratii͡a”, 2003), 558.
AVPRF, Fond 087, Opis 30, Papka 89, Dela 6, List 140–​145, Pozhidaev memo-
randum following meeting with Marshal Amer, May 19, 1967.
260 Notes to pages 176–180

46. For example:  Chief of Land Forces, ‘Abd al-╉Muhsin Kamil Murtagi (Murtagi,
‘Abd al-╉Muhsin Kamil, al-╉Fariq Murtagi yarwi al-╉haqa’iq (Cairo: Dar al-╉Watan al-╉
‘Arabi, 1976) and Chief of Operations Lieutenant General Anwar al-╉Qadi (Oren,
Michael, Six Days of War, 58). Ferris cites these examples and several others
in his discussion of the opinions of Egyptian military officers (Ferris, Nasser’s
Gamble, 285).
47. “Activities of German Scientists in Egypt,” March 20, 1963, Sitting 234 of the
Fifth Knesset, in Major Knesset Debates 1948-╉1981, vol. 4, ed. Netanel Lorch
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993), 1347.
48. Gluska, The Israeli Military and the Origins of the 1967 War, 6.
49. Bar-╉Zohar, Ha-╉Hodesh he-╉’arokh be-╉Yoter, 154.

C h a p t er   9

1. Meir Ossad, “Legal Aspects of the Egyptian Intervention in Yemen,” Israel Law
Review 5, (1970), 225. International law prohibits the use of radio waves to incite
the population of another state to violence. The “Voice of Arabs” radio program
was in constant violation of this convention even before the September 1962
coup when it called for revolution in Yemen (December 29, 1961) and an over-
throw of the imam (April 26, 1962).
2. Kathryn Boals, Modernization and Intervention: Yemen as a Case Study (Princeton
University, PhD., 1970), 149.
3. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 15, Papka 8, Dela 9, File 39, May 30, 1963, news
summary.
4. AVPRF, Fond 585, Opis 16, Papka 9, Dela 5, File 51, June 8, 1963, news summary.
5. Edward B. Proud, The Postal History of Aden & Somaliland Protectorate (East
Sussex, UK:  Proud-╉Bailey Co., 2004). The British colonial authorities in Aden
oversaw an alternate set of postal stamps dating from the mid-╉nineteenth cen-
tury. Richard R. John, Spreading the News:  The American Postal System from
Franklin to Morse (Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1998). John explains
that beyond the ordinary functions of transferring information and commerce,
the postal system has the ability to foster a unified national society out of a loose
union of confederate states.
6. “L’affaire «Moslem Today», en 1953 -╉Bruce Condé, un personnage énigma-
tique,” L’Hebdo Magazine, March 29, 2013.
7. Schmidt, Yemen the Unknown War, 127–╉129. Condé communicated with the
magazine through several handwritten sheets of paper, because his typewriter was
destroyed during airing in transit between Ma’rib and al-╉Jawf. (Bruce Condé, “Free
Yemen PO Carries On, Resumes Operations an West, North and East As Loyalists
Repel Rebels In These Areas,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, April 15, 1963, 15.
8. IWM, Tony Boyle Papers, Box 2.
 Notes to pages 180–182 261

9. Interview with Kenneth C. Woskett, August 10, 2015. Woskett, Puberty at Eighty,
186. Woskett declined the offer, preferring not to be hunted down by Egyptians.
10. Holden, Farewell to Arabia, 83.
11. Bill Richardson, “New Lawrence of Arabia Gallops into Yemen War,” New York
Herald Tribune, June 9, 1964.
12. Yemen was by no means the exception in terms of postal significance in the
Middle East. Stamps were used as propaganda in the Arab-​Israeli conflict as well
(Harvey D. Wolinetz, Arabic Philatelic Propaganda Against the State of Israel (Ann
Arbor, Michigan: LithoCrafters, 1975).
13. Peter Symes, Murray Hanewich and Keith Street, The Bank Notes of Yemen
(Canberra: The Authors, 1997), 13.
14. Ibid., 16–​17. After 1965, the second set of YAR state emblems differed from the
Egyptian version of Saladin’s eagle.
15. Ibid., 21. The Egyptians introduced paper notes for three reasons: The imam-​
era silver coins could often be sold for more than the currency’s value. Coinage
was heavy to transport and impractical in a modern economy. By exchanging
paper bank notes with silver coins, the Egyptians could then use silver riyals to
bribe local tribal sheikhs during the civil war.
16. Interview with David Newton, November 5, 2015.
17. Woskett, Puberty at Eighty, 172.
18. Bruce Condé, “‘Free Yemen’ Overprints are First Philatelic Varieties to Come out
of Latest Revolution,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, December 24, 1962, 10.
19. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemeni Mail Continues; Operations through Territory Held
by Red Backed Invaders,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 17, 1963, 16.
20. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen POD Carries On, Resumes Operations in West,
North and East as Loyalists Repel Rebels in These Areas,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp
News, April 1, 1963, 26.
21. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s Red Cross Set Has Rough Sledding, Consular
Stamp Overprinted as Airmail,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, April 6, 1964, 39.
22. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s First Definitives in Pictorial Theme Appear in
Perf, Imperf, and Sheet Form,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 8, 1964, 14.
The inscription on the bottom of the “Tank” stamp in Arabic and English:
“The Free Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen Fights Egyptian Imperialist
Agression.” The word aggression is misspelled with only one “g,” perhaps a
testament to Condé’s poor editorial skills while working from a dimly lit cave
in Yemen.
23. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s First Definitives in Pictorial Theme Appear in Perf,
Imperf, and Sheet Form,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 15, 1964, 29.
24. Vered, Hafikhah u-​milḥamah be-​Teman, 41.
25. Bruce Condé, “Story Of Free Yemen’s FFH Set in Tragedy of ‘Chickens That Stay
at Home to Roost’,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, October 14, 1963, 28.
262 Notes to pages 183–189

26. Bruce Condé, “YAR ‘Sallal Coup’ Commem Set Includes Map Errors and Soldier
Now Back with Imam,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, November 15, 1965, 78.
27. Yemen Stamp and Postal Stationary Index, accessed on February 25, 2014, http://​
www.ohmygosh.on.ca/​stamps/​yemen/​ryemen.htm.
28. Andreas Abitz, “A Bundle of Historic Letters Tells Yemen’s History,” Gibbons
Stamp Monthly, September 2009, 71–​75.
29. Bruce Condé, “Story Of Free Yemen’s FFH Set in Tragedy of ‘Chickens That Stay
at Home to Roost’,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, October 14, 1963, 29.
30. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s Red Cross Set Has Rough Sledding, Consular
Stamp Overprinted as Airmail,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, April 20, 1964, 41.
31. Bruce Condé, “Odd Battle of Stamp Orders Punctuates Conflict in Yemen,
Philately Safe after Close Call”, Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, February 1, 1965, 36.
32. Bruce Condé, “Loyal Forces Keep Freedom Fire Blazing in Free Yemen; Red
Cross Set Late But Is Issued,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, December 21, 1964,
6. Delegate General of the Swiss Red Cross and hospital André Rochat was
reported to have been delighted with issue of Swiss Hospital stamps.
33. Bruce Condé, “Loyal Forces Keep Freedom Fire Blazing in Free Yemen; Red
Cross Set Late But Is Issued,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, January 4, 1965, 35.
34. ICRC, BAG 251 016-​010, Claude Pilloud, Deputy Director for General Affairs to
André Rochat, note regarding Yemen Stamps, November 27, 1964. ICRC, BAG
251 016-​014, Pilloud to Rochat, Yemeni Stamps, January 12, 1965.
35. Bruce Condé, “Two Yemen Overprints Honor Valiant British Surgical Team for
Services In Battle Area,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, April 19, 1965, 14.
British Red Cross Archives (hereafter BRC), RCC/​1/​12/​4/​105 (18/​09/​10A,
Conflict in Yemen, Vol. 1). Wilson-​Pepper reported agitation when he was ini-
tially barred from venturing far from ‘Uqd and was the first to volunteer for
battlefield service.
36. Vered, Hafikhah u-​milḥamah be-​Teman, 135.
37. Bruce Condé, “British Committee for Relief of Yemeni Wounded Honored by
Overprints on Three Air,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, March 21, 1966, 10.
38. Bruce Condé, “Free Yemen’s ICY Set Pays Tribute To Saudi Arabian Aid; First of
Haradh Rush Series,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 20, 1966, 32.
39. Bruce Condé, “‘Phantom Philately’ Sprouts in Free Yemen; Two Singles and
Sheet Junked by Officials,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, December 28, 1964, 21.
The stamps were previously shipped from Lebanon to the Saudi port of Jizan,
from where they were shipped to the royalist base of al-​Qarah.
40. Bruce Condé, “Yemen Wartime Postal Stationery,” The Arab World Philatelist,
1978, 22.
41. Bruce Condé, “Odd Battle of Stamp Orders Punctuates Conflict in Yemen,
Philately Safe after Close Call,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, January 25, 1965, 22.
42. Bruce Condé, “The Matter of Yemen Postal Use Vs. the Stolow Criteria; Detailed
Report from Abroad,” Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, June 17, 1968, 1.
43. Interview with David Newton, November 5, 2015.
 Notes to pages 190–196 263

44. TNA:  FO 371/​

127066, W.  Morris, Eastern Department to British Embassy
Washington DC, February 27, 1957.
45. Interview with David Newton, November 5, 2015.
46. Linn’s Weekly Stamp News Archive. Bruce Condé letter to Charles W.  Prichett
(Linn’s Weekly), April 24, 1985.
47. Blair Stannard, “Yemen: Booklet Panes,” The Arab World Philatelist 4 (1979), 35.
48. Humanitarian Citadel, directed by Frederic Gonseth, (2009:  Lausanne,
Switzerland: Frederic Gonseth Productions), DVD.
49. The French Red Cross would later send Drs. Maximilien Recamier and Jean-​
Pascal Grellety-​Bosviel to establish mobile surgical unit. Drs. Wolfgang Schuster,
Guido Piderman, Georg Muller, and Edwardo Ermano Leuthold led teams of
doctor-​nurses to the battlefront throughout the course of the civil war.
50. BRC, Yemen in Conflict, 18/​09/​10, Vol. 1, Notes on Yemen Civil War and ICRC,
February 1964; BRC, RCC/​1/​12/​4/​105 (18/​09/​10A, Conflict in Yemen, Vol. 1),
Plummer’s letter April 29, 1964.
51. The ICRC and the Yemen Conflict, International Committee of the Red Cross
(Geneva, 1964).
52. TNA: CO 1055/​260, Acting High Commissioner to Monson, 29 August 1964.
53. TNA: FO to Geneva, International Committee of the Red Cross, May 29, 1964.
TNA: BM 1721/​12, Jeddah to Foreign Office, May 31, 1964
54. Humanitarian Citadel, directed by Frederic Gonseth.
55. Humanitarian Citadel, directed by Frederic Gonseth.
56. TNA: FCO 8/​494/​26A—​Trevelyan to Denis Allen (FO), June 10, 1967.
57. James D. Young, “Gods Miracles for Yemen,” Royal Service, December 1966.
58. John D. Hughey, “Yemen,” The Commission, March 1965.
59. Art Toalstom “Yemen Accepted Doctor’s Office,” Baptist Press, February 21, 1985.
60. International Mission Board (hereafter IMB) archives, Brief History of Jibla
Baptist Hospital 1964–​1986.
61. IMB Archives, Agreement between Yemen Government and Baptist Charitable
Society (February 19, 1966).
62. IMB Archives, Baker J. Cauthen to James Young, December 31, 1964.
63. IMB Archives, June Young letter, December 2, 1971. The letter was written at the
behest of the IMB, a fact that June mentions several times.
64. IMB Archives, June Young letter, December 2, 1971.
65. Aldelmo Ruiz, Reflections: An Engineer’s Story (XLIBRIS, 2013).
66. IMB Archives, J.D. Hughey to Dr. James Young, April 6, 1966.
67. Interview with James D. Young, May 2015.
68. IMB Archives, John D. Hughey, “Hospital in Yemen,” The Commission.
69. Interview with June Young, May 2015.
70. Interview with Star Good, May 2015.
71. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Italy, December 14,
1967, FRUS, 1964-​1968, Volume XXI, Near East Region, Doc. 467.
72. IMB Archives, June Young, “Let me tell you about Yemen,” 1969.
264 Notes to pages 197–200

C h a p t er   1 0

1. Yevgeny Primakov, Russia and the Arabs:  Behind the Scenes in the Middle East
from the Cold War to the Present (New York: Perseus Books Group, 2009), 100.
Despite the title, no plans were put into place for an oversight of local Yemeni
reconciliation.
2. Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy, 195.
3. Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble, 293.
4. Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World, 238–╉289.
5. George M. Haddad, Revolutions and Military Rule in the Middle East: The Arab
States PT. II:  Egypt, the Sudan, Yemen and Libya (New  York:  Robert Speller,
1973), 287.
6. Interview with David Newton, November 5, 2015.
7. Schmidt, Yemen: The Unknown War, 295. Over the course of five years, the royal-
ist radio station had announced an attack on Sana’a so often that listeners hardly
took these claims seriously anymore.
8. “The Siege of San’a,” Time, December 15, 1967, 53.
9. Andrew McGregor, A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest
to the Ramadan War (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 264.
10. Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, 114.
11. Ledger, Shifting Sands, 215.
12. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Yemen (1)–╉63/╉1/╉21.
13. Primakov, Russia and the Arabs, 99.
14. Peter Mangold, Superpower Intervention in the Middle East (London:  Croom
Helm, 1978).
15. Schmidt, Yemen: The Unknown War, 296.
16. Bruce Condé, “Yemen Stamp Roundup Sorts Recent ‘Crop’; Only Postally Available
Material Recognized” in Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, February 26, 1968, 46.
17. O’Ballance, The War in the Yemen, 189–╉202.
18. Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Yemen, 29–╉30. Although al-╉‘Amri may have been
mentally unstable, he managed to repel the “Sana’a Mutiny” of left-╉wing factions,
ensuring that the emerging republic would remain conservative. After al-╉‘Amri
murdered a journalist in 1971, al-╉Iryani exiled him to Egypt when he died in 1989.
19. Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World, 239-╉240.
20. Badeeb, The Saudi-╉Egyptian Conflict, 86-╉87.
21. Muhhammad Said al-╉Attar, Le Sous-╉Développement Economique et Social du Yemen
(Algiers: Tier Monde, 1964). Al-╉Attar argues that the presence of a foreign power
in Yemen served as a uniting force for the tribes of North Yemen.
22. Fred Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967–╉1987
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 17.
23. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1990), 1967.
 Notes to pages 201–204 265

24. Page, The USSR and Arabia, 99.

25. Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, 124. Stipends were also given to leaders
exiled from South Yemen after the British withdrawal.
26. Bruce D. Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts: Soviet Arms and Diplomacy in
Local Wars, 1945–​1980 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 85.
27. al-​Jadid, November 10, 1967.
28. TNA: FCO 8/​494/​37, H. Trevelyan (Aden) to FO, November 25, 1967
29. IWM, Boyle/​Johnson Papers, Box 64/​89/​5.
30. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box Yemen (2).
31. Alan Rush, “Obituary:  Bruce Condé,” The Independent, August 5, 1992. Don
Meadows Collection, MS-​R001, University of California, Irvine.
32. Alfonso Yorba Collection, Blas Aguilar Adobe, San Juan Capistrano, CA.
33. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Yemen (1)–​63/​1/​21.
34. IWM, Boyle/​Johnson Papers, Box 64/​89/​5, copy of the letter sent to Kerry Stone
on May 24, 1967.
35. Ian Clovin, “Rhodesia plane flew Iron Curtain arms to Yemen Royalists,” Daily
Telegraph, February 5, 1970.
36. IWM, Boyle/​Johnson Papers, Box 64/​89/​7. Interview with Nahum Admoni,
March 2015.
37. Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel’s
Intelligence Community (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 1990), 149. Prior to being
transferred to Yemen, Mizrahi was stationed in Syria where he had been serv-
ing as the principal of a foreign language school, before his cover was blown in
February 1965 forcing him to flee the country.
38. Nixon Library, NSC 5551, July 17, 1972, Cairo 02818. One of the Yemenis Mizrahi
recruited was referred to as Saleh al-​Sukkari.
39. Black and Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars, 269. According to Shmuel Segev, Mizrahi
was arrested while the Egyptian authorities were still stationed in Yemen.
(Shmuel Segev, Boded BeDamesek (Jerusalem: Keter, 1986), 14.
40. Nixon Library, NSC 5551, Harold Saunders to Henry Kissinger, “US involve-
ment in Israeli Spy Case in Yemen,” July 17, 1972.
41. Nixon Library, NSC 5551, Tel Aviv Embassy to Department of State, July 17, 1972.
42. Backchannel Message From Secretary of State Kissinger to the Egyptian

Presidential Adviser for National Security Affairs (Ismail), November 28, 1973,
FRUS, 1969-​1976, Vol. XXV, Arab-​Israeli Crisis and War 1973, ed. Nina Howland
and Craig Daigle (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2011), doc. 362.
43. Efraim Halevy, Man in the Shadows:  Inside the Middle East Crisis with the Man
Who Led the Mossad (New  York:  St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 198-​200. Mizrahi’s
release was a contentious point in Israeli-​Egyptian negotiations, as he was a spy
rather than a captured soldier. Zvi Zamir, the director of the mossad in 1974,
threatened to resign if Prime Minister Golda Meir did not press the negotiations
for Mizrahi’s release.
266 Notes to pages 204–208

4 4. Interview with Nahum Admoni, March 16, 2015.

45. Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble. Ferris argues in his book that the Yemen Civil War
played a role in Nasser’s downfall and the Egyptian defeat in 1967.
46. TNA, Prendergast (Director of Intelligence) to T.  Oates Deputy High

Commissioner of Aden, FCO 8/╉ 169/╉
78, May 6, 1967. As a reaction to an
increased number of FLOSY assassinations in 1967, NLF officials were “increas-
ingly of the opinion that the Egyptians are assisting in keeping interactional ten-
sions alive so as to render impossible any stable government in South Arabia.”
47. Gause, Saudi-╉Yemeni Relations, 73.
48. Robert G. Patman, The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa:  The Diplomacy of
Intervention and Disengagement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990),
82. One third of those ships that visited were considered combatants.
49. Patman, The Soviet Union, 71. This Soviet ideology was based on Lenin’s con-
cept of “Proletarian Internationalism” and the solidarity of the international
working class.
50. Adeed Dawisha, “The Soviet Union in the Arab World: The Limits to Superpower
Influence,” in The Soviet Union in the Middle East: Policies and Perspectives, eds.
Adeed Dawisha and Karen Dawisha (London: Heinemann Educational Books,
1982), 16.
51. P. Demchenko, ‘Khozyaeva yemenshikh got’ Aziya I Afrika segodnya, 1968.
52. IWM, McLean Files, Box 6, October 1964.
53. Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Yemen, 333–╉334. Sallal was invited back to
Yemen in 1981, where he became an elder statesman until his death in 1994. He
was celebrated as a war hero. The first anniversary of Baydani’s death in January
2013 was similarly sponsored by the Yemeni embassy and hosted in the Cairo
Opera House (“Anniversary of Yemeni Politician’s Death to be Marked in Cairo,”
in The Cairo Post, January 3, 2014.

E p ilo g ue

1. “Yemen’s Forgotten War,” Newsnight, British Broadcasting Corporation (London,

UK: BBC, September 10–╉11, 2015)
2. Hassan Abu-╉Taleb, “The State Crisis in Yemen and Libya,” Arab Center for
Research and Studies, Al-╉Ahram Foundation, 2015.
3. Portions of this Epilogue have previously been published in Asher Orkaby,
“A Passing Generation of Yemeni Politics,” Middle East Brief, Crown Center
for Middle East Studies, Vol. 90 (2015) and Asher Orkaby, “The UN’s Yemen
Problem: The International Community and an Elusive Peace,” Foreign Affairs,
May 11, 2015.
4. IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box A (Yemen 1960s).
5. Gabriele vom Bruck, Islam, Memory, and Morality in Yemen: Ruling Families in
Transition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
 Notes to pages 209–214 267

6. Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement, 162.

7. See Alaini, Fifty Years in Shifting Sands. Al-​‘Ayni served four terms as prime min-
ister from 1962 to 1975, after which he became a career diplomat.
8. Burrowes, “The Famous Forty and Their Companions,” 87.
9. Rosser, “Education, Revolt, and Reform in Yemen,” 77–​78. Al-​Sayyid ‘Ali al-​
Saqqaf never returned to Yemen; he worked as a medical librarian at New York
Medical College and then at Johns Hopkins University (Burrowes, “The Famous
Forty and Their Companions,” 89).
10. “The Death of the President of Yemen’s Shurah Council,” Al Jazeera, August
22, 2011.
11. Accessed March 14, 2016, http://​www.elbaydany.com.
12. The complete study is available through the Ministry of Higher Education and
Scientific Research at http://​www.yemen.gov.ye/​portal/​mohe.
13. Murad Alazzany and Robert Sharp, “Yemen’s Brain Drain,” Yemen Times, August
28, 2014. They report that Yemeni university professors are applying for a sab-
batical year abroad and not returning to their positions the following year.
14. Roby Barrett, Yemen:  A  Different Political Paradigm in Context (Tampa:  Joint
Special Operations University, 2011). According to Barrett, Yemen never existed
as a nation-​state in the Weberian sense, as it was always forced to share central
authority and territorial control with tribes and competing political groups, and
had to reckon with foreign influence as well.
15. “Revealed:  The Mercenaries Commanding UAE Forces in Yemen,” Middle

East Eye (http://​www.middleeasteye.net/​news/​mercenaries-​charge-​uae-​forces-​
fighting-​yemen-​764309832, accessed December 24, 2015.)
16. P. Demchenko, ‘Khozyaeva yemenshikh got’ Aziya I Afrika segodnya, 1968.
Bibliography

B ibl io g r a ph ic a l   Not e s

The goal of presenting this international history of the Yemen Civil War is to draw
from multiple historical viewpoints and construct a single comprehensive analysis
of a landmark conflict. This study uses archives from Britain, Canada, Israel, Russia,
Switzerland, the UN, the United States, and Yemen along with the secondary litera-
ture from each, in an effort to explain how and why the Yemen Civil War became
an arena for global involvement and what the implications were of international
participation in the conflict.
When New York Times correspondent Dana Adams Schmidt published his book
on the Yemen Civil War in 1968, he was justified in referring to the conflict as “the
unknown war.” Relatively little media attention had been given to this remote region
of Arabia. Around the time of Schmidt’s book three additional media accounts were
published by British, Israeli, and French journalists, collectively providing a thor-
ough chronological description of the war. Since the publication of these four jour-
nalistic accounts, other works have focused on various aspects of the conflict such as
Saudi-​Egyptian rivalry and the history of Saudi-​Yemeni relations.
Firsthand accounts and analyses of the final years of British occupation in Aden
represent the largest single body of literature on Yemen during the 1960s. There are
dozens of memoirs written by former British diplomats, Special Air Services (SAS)
members, and colonial officials in Aden, and an equal number of historical studies.
Two recent books by Clive Jones and Duff Hart-​Davis have focused on the British
covert war in Yemen. The collection of books and articles on the end of the British
Empire are singularly focused on internal British politics, border wars with Yemeni
tribes, and nationalist terrorism in Aden and do not, for the most part, contextualize
British policies within an international framework.
Significantly less attention has been devoted to original research on US policy
toward the Yemen war, with only a few articles or chapters devoted to Kennedy and
270 Bibliography

Johnson’s policy toward the conflict. Perhaps a reflection of the minimal attention
given to Yemen by the US State Department, the Yemen Civil War appears as a foot-
note or at most a small section in studies of the Arab-​Israeli conflict and relations
with Nasser. Multiple works in English provide a history of Yemen, covering the civil
war from a domestic perspective as a chapter within a larger work without studying
the conflict as a topic in its own right.
Literature in Arabic and Russian on the Yemen Civil War is extensive, but lacking
in sources and academic analysis. Several Russian books focus on the Yemen Arab
Republic, the September 1962 Revolution, and Soviet involvement in South Arabia.
Recently declassified documents compiled on Soviet-​Egyptian relations from 1957
to 1967, collectively titled “The Near East Conflict,” focus mostly on the Arab-​Israeli
conflict, while devoting only minor attention to events in Yemen.
The great majority of Arabic writing on the civil war was published in Yemen.
Dozens of eyewitness and historical accounts provide an interesting local perspec-
tive, albeit with few, if any, verifiable sources. Mohsin al-​‘Ayni and ‘Abd al-​Rahman
al-​Baydani, two former YAR prime ministers, published the most organized and well-​
known recollections of the first decades of the YAR. As is the case with political mem-
oirs generally, the recollections of al-​Ayni and al-​Baydani are intended to unabashedly
whitewash their involvement in the civil war. Yemeni government-​financed historical
accounts of September 1962 portray the years of the civil war as an idealistic struggle
for Yemeni nationalism. For example, from 2003 to 2010, the Yemeni Department of
Moral Guidance based in Sana’a released a seven-​volume series following a national
conference to commemorate the forty-​year anniversary of the revolution. The volumes
include selected essays, speeches, and original documents. The historic analysis, how-
ever, amounts to little more than propaganda for Yemeni nationalism and the ideal-
ized life of Yemeni revolutionaries, while the most substantial archival sources in this
series are merely translations of documents from the British National Archives.
A significant number of Egyptian war veterans have written historic recollections
and assessments of the Egyptian occupation of Yemen. The most well-​known among
these books, written by Egypt’s former chief of intelligence Salah al-​Din al-​Hadidi
and Mahmud ‘Adil Ahmad, are used in this book to elucidate elements of Egyptian
politics and decision making. The two best overviews and incorporations of these
Egyptian memoirs were compiled by Jesse Ferris in his work on Nasser’s interven-
tion in Yemen and its impact upon the Egyptian political class, and by Laura James
in her book on Nasser’s foreign policy. While extensive, Egyptian literature does
not venture beyond the immediate confines of military barracks and the political
world of Cairo. In addition to these accounts, this book’s analysis of Egypt’s military
strategy is based on captured Egyptian military manuals held at the Intelligence and
Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) located at the Gelilot army base in Israel.
Furthermore, this international history of the Yemen Civil War makes use of
recently available multinational and multilingual archives which both complement
previous accounts of the war and allow for a more comprehensive synthesis of
 Bibliography 271

the multitude of perspectives involved. US national archives and the presidential

libraries serve a central role in presenting official US government policy in Yemen.
The Soviet perspective is based on the Russian Archive of the Foreign Policy of the
Russian Federation (AVPRF), Government Archive of the Russian Government
(GARF), and the Russian Government Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI).
Gleaned from these sources are governmental cables, expert analyses of Yemen,
reports of the communist committees operating in Yemen, commentary on news
reports, and news briefs.
Given the vantage from Aden and the sheer number of individuals involved in
the Yemen conflict, British archives feature prominently in this work. In addition
to the plethora of Yemen files in the National Archives at Kew and the nineteenth-​
century India Office Records accounts of the British landing in Aden at the British
Library, this book relies on a number of important collections of personal papers.
These include the personal papers of Neil McLean, Tony Boyle, and other mercenar-
ies at the Imperial War Museum; the papers of Julian Amery and Duncan Sandys at
the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge University; and the papers of Kennedy
Trevaskis, Michael Crouch, and other British administrators at the Bodleian Library
and Middle East Centre at Oxford.
The role of international organizations featured prominently in the conflict. ICRC
records in Geneva elucidate the impact of Rochat and his medical team on events
in South Arabia. The UN mission to Yemen 1963-​64 has received scant scholarly
attention. The analysis of the UN mission in this book makes use of recently declas-
sified UN and Canadian national archives to clarify the historical account of this
forgotten mission. Interviews conducted by the author with UN radioman Kenneth
Woskett, who was stationed in the region during the civil war, further add to our
understanding of the UN mission to Yemen and the dispositions of the mission
head Carl von Horn.
In addition to interviews with Woskett, the author has conducted interviews with
many other individuals who played a role in the civil war in order to shed light
on previously neglected perspectives. Interviews with former Southern Baptist mis-
sionaries to Yemen, for example, reveal the backstory behind the establishment of a
medical mission to Ta’iz in 1964. The details and significance of Israel’s clandestine
airlifts to Yemen between 1964 and 1966 were best understood from interviews with
the Israeli pilots and navigators who flew these missions. In another instance, the
author analyzed dozens of articles written by Bruce Condé in Linn’s Weekly Stamp
News, which were further supplemented by interviews with US diplomatic person-
nel who were stationed in Yemen during the 1960s in order to add detail to the mys-
terious story of a homosexual American philatelist in Yemen.
This introduction of new perspectives goes beyond the current accounts of the
Yemen Civil War, often still referred to as the “Unknown War,” in the both scope of
its historical time period and the extent of its archival resources. Through an exten-
sive narrative of international participation in this conflict, it is the intention that
272 Bibliography

Yemen during the 1960s will no longer remain an obscure and “unknown” conflict.
Rather, it will be seen as a significant moment in history with ramifications for the
Yemeni state, the Middle East, and the broader international community.

Archives

Alfonso Yorba Collection, Blas Aguilar Adobe. San Juan Capistrano, CA, USA.
Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVPRF). Moscow, Russia.
Bodleian Library, Oxford University. Oxford, UK.
British Library, India Office. London, UK.
British Museum (Captain Rundle Collection). London, UK.
British Petroleum Archives, University of Warwick. Coventry, UK.
British Red Cross Archives. London, UK.
The Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University. Cambridge, UK.
Don Meadows Collection. University of California, Irvine. Irvine, CA, USA.
Government Archive of the Russian Government (GARF). Moscow, Russia.
Imperial War Museum Archives. London, UK.
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC). Gelilot, Israel.
International Committee of the Red Cross Archives (ICRC). Geneva, Switzerland.
Israel State Archives (ISA). Jerusalem, Israel.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library. Boston, MA, USA.
Library and Archives Canada (LARC). Ottawa, Canada.
Linn’s Weekly Stamp News Archives. Sidney, Ohio, USA.
Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. Austin, TX, USA.
The Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College. Oxford, UK.
The National Archives (TNA). Kew, Surrey, UK.
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). College Park, MD, USA.
Republic of Yemen Presidential Archive. Sana’a, Yemen.
Republic of Yemen Military Museum. Sana’a, Yemen.
Richard Milhous Nixon Presidential Library. Yorba Linda, CA, USA.
Russian Government Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI). Moscow, Russia.
Southern Baptist International Mission Board Archive. Richmond, VA, USA.
United Nations Archives. New York, NY, USA.
United National High Commissioner for Refugees Archive (UNHCR). Geneva,
Switzerland.
United States Agency for International Development Archive (USAID). Washington
DC, USA.
World Health Organization Archives (WHO). Geneva, Switzerland.

Interviews Conducted for this Book

Nahum Admoni, former chief of Mossad and Israeli liaison to Aden Group, March
16, 2015.
 Bibliography 273

Moshe Bartov, Israeli navigator who flew missions to Yemen, June 30, 2014.
Yithak Biran, Israeli pilot who flew missions to Yemen, June 26, 2014.
Star Good, daughter of Reverend Merrell Callaway, who served as part of the
Southern Baptist medical mission to Yemen, May 18, 2015.
Shaya Harsit, Israeli navigator who flew missions to Yemen, June 25, 2014.
David Newton, US deputy chief of mission to Yemen during the 1960s, November
5, 2015.
Arieh Oz, Israeli commander on missions to Yemen, June 30, 2014.
Marjorie Ransom, served with USIS in Yemen during 1960s, November 5, 2015.
Aldelmo Ruiz, USAID engineer during the 1960s, June 25, 2015.
Kenneth C. Woskett, chief radioman for UNYOM, August 10, 2015.
James D. Young, head of Southern Baptist medical mission to Yemen, May 20, 2015.
June Young, married to James Young, May 20, 2015.

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Index

Abha, 41, 98 Amery, Julian, 158–​165, 201,

Abu Luhum, Sinan, 41, 67 253–​254n29–​30
Abu Shawareb, Mujahid, 42 Amery, Leo, 158–​159
Abu Zeid, Ahmad, 21 Amit, Meir, 170
Ahmed, Ould Cheikh, 212 Amnesty International, 141, 168
Al-​Adabiya, 70 Al-​‘Amri, Hassan, 14, 30, 110–​111, 120,
Aden, 53, 111, 160 187, 198–​200, 264n18
British withdrawal from, 111, 113, 137 Antonov planes, 70–​71
military base, 126, 141, 152 Arab Summit, 78, 106–​107, 147, 197
capture of, 153–​156 Arab Nationalism, 1–​4, 12, 112, 162, 194
Group, 161–​68 in Egypt, 20, 43, 113, 124–​125, 156, 174
High Commissioner and governance, in Yemen, 16, 22–​23, 118, 166, 190
139, 142, 148–​149 Arabian Peninsula, 32, 40, 114, 190, 205,
port, 68, 71, 161 213 (see also South Arabia)
Protectorate, 52, 86 British policy in the, 7, 153–​164, 177
Admoni, Nahum, 202–​204 Egyptian policy in the, 19–​21, 49, 177
Afro-​Asian bloc, 81, 132, 141, 147, 149 Soviet policy in the, 16, 22–​25, 44, 114
Ahmad bin Yahya (Imam), 8, 12–​49, US policy, 26–​28, 50
59–​61, 80, 206, 221n61 ARAMCO, 45, 53–​54
Al-​Ahmar, Abdullah Hussein, 41, 66 Arhab, 64–​66, 73
Al-​Ahnumi, Muhammad, 13 ‘Arif, ‘Abd al–​Salam, 20
Ali, Muhammad, 153–​158, 161 El-​Arish, 87, 100
Algerian FLN, 20 Al-​Ashwal, Saleh Ali, 118–​119
Amer, ‘Abd al–​Hakim, 20, 41, 60, 69, ‘Asir, 11, 38–​41
111, 197 Al-​Atam, 98
Amer, Ali, 41 Al-​Attar, Muhammad Sa’id, 42, 200,
American Overseas Investment 228n57, 264n21
Corporation, 26, 224n114 Al-​‘Ayni, Mohsin, 12, 109, 209, 270
288 Index

Bab al-​Mandeb, 70, 153, 213 Empire/​Colonial, 2–​7, 113, 190–​192,

Badeau, John, 36, 50, 54, 113, 117, 134–​135 200–​201, 205
Al-​Badr, Muhammad (Imam), 2, 6–​8, Israel and, 168–​177
30–​41, 132, 150, 169 mercenaries, 19, 66, 123, 202, 213
on the battlefield, 75–​80, 97, 108–​110, Petroleum (BP), 26, 161, 167
164, 198 Porton Down, 134, 173n28
British and, 201–​202, 207 Red Cross, 187, 191
Israel and, 169–​173 Special Air Service (SAS), 112, 152,
Nasser and, 10, 19–​23, 60–​64, 68 163–​164, 269
postal wars and, 178–​180, 187, 190 Yemen Relief Committee, 133
Saudi Arabia and, 50, 54 Brown, George, 144–​145, 148–​150
Soviets and, 4, 15–​18, 44–​46, 115–​118 Bunche, Ralph, 53–​54, 79, 83, 104–​105,
tribal supporters, 41–​44, 133, 137, 166, 148, 212
200, 211–​213 (see also royalists) Bundy, McGeorge, 48–​50, 125
United States and, 23–​28, 49 Bunker, Ellsworth, 53, 79, 107, 197, 212
Al-​Baghdadi, ‘Abd al-​Latif, 10, 36
Bailey, Ronald, 8 Cairo, 107, 125
Bakil tribal federation, 41, 67, 109 al-​Badr’s visits to, 19–​22,
Ball, George, 55 Radio, 8–​10, 15, 49, 178
Bandung Conference, 45, 81 Sallal’s visits to, 34, 46, 110–​111, 116
Baroody, Jamil, 140–​144 Yemeni political opponents and,
Bartlett, William C., 187, 191 12–14, 197–​98, 129, 204
Bartov, Moshe, 171–​172, 258n17 Campbell, Patrick, 156, 162
Battle, Lucius, 125 Camp Mansur, 75
Al-​Baydani, ‘Abd al–​Rahman, 69, 105, Canada, 87, 92–​102
206, 210, 270 Caribou aircraft, 87, 91–​92, 97, 103
and the YAR, 9–​10, 15, 32–​42, 56 Casey, William, 26
Bayoumi, Hussein Ali, 148–​149 Cauthen, Baker, 194
Beaumont, Richard, 141 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
Beeley, Harold, 146 24–28, 122, 138, 145, 149,
Beeston, Richard, 134 165–​66, 189
Beihan, 166, 191–​192 Chauvel, Jean-​Francois, 32
Bell, David, 124 Chemical Defence Experimental
Benomar, Jamal, 212 Establishment (CDEE), 134
Bombay, 154–​155 Chemical Weapons/​Warfare (see
Boyle, Tony, 168–​172, 204, 271 also poison gas), 106, 129–​151,
Brenchley, Frank, 149–​150 175–​177, 191
Brezhnev, Leonid, 106, 113–​115, 128 China, 17, 49, 116, 121, 127, 215n3, 221n61
British, 269–​271 Church, Frank, 124
Conservative Party, 136, 144, Churchill, Winston, 158–​160
158–​161, 167 Cold War, 1–​5, 133
Egypt and, 8–​10, 36, 153–​168 Arab Cold War, 1–​5
 Index 289

Condé, Bruce, 58, 179–​190, 196, 199, United Kingdom and, 7–​8, 152–​153,
202, 233n18 161–​168
Counterinsurgency, 3, 58, 70, 74, 133, Unites States and, 122–​128
164, 178 Eilts, Hermann F., 145
Counter-​guerilla, 66, 69, 75–​78, 129, Eisenhower Doctrine, 23, 159
146, 163, 168, 174 Enlai, Zhou, 116
Crichton, John Alston, 25, Eshkol, Levi, 172, 258n16
223–​224n108–​109
Congo, 82–​83, 89, 125 Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al-​Saud, 40,
Crowe, Colin, 90 49–50, 107–​112
Cuba, 44, 51 Farakh, Muhammad Galeb, 27,
224n119
Al-​Dafa’i, Hussein, 118 Famous Forty, 11–​15, 208–​210
David, Larry, 95–​97 Federation of South Arabia (FSA), 113,
Dayfallah, ‘Abd al-​Latif, 19–​20 156, 161–​162, 166–​168, 200, 205
Deffarge, Claude, 31–​32, 43–​44 fellahin, 3, 125–​126, 157
Denmark, 81, 87, 148, 185 Free Officers, 11, 19–​20, 118, 156–​157
Deria Dawlat, 154–​155 “Free Yemen”, 43, 75, 181, 182, 188–​189
Dharan, 54, 231n116 Free Yemeni Movement (FYM), 11–​15,
Dinsmore, Lee, 148 19–​21, 28, 60, 107, 166
Djibouti, 167, 169, 172 Front for the Liberation of Occupied
Dobbi, Abdullah, 118–​119 South Yemen (FLOSY), 167–​168,
Doughty, Nicholas, 96–​97 192, 198, 205
Douglas, Thomas Clement, 87
Douglas-​Home, Alec, 165, 173 Galkin, V. A., 16, 221n60
Drummond, Roscoe, 147 Al-​Gamasy, Muhammad ‘Abd
Duce, James Terry, 53 al-​Ghani, 174
Dulles, Allen, 24 Gandy, Christopher, 165
Geneva Protocol and Conventions,
Eden, Anthony, 157–​160 130–131, 142, 187, 191–​192
Egypt Al-​Ghani, ‘Abd al-​Aziz ‘Abd,
air force, 38, 41, 71–​75, 96 209–​210, 225n4
chemical warfare, 129–​151 Goldberg, Arthur J., 147
economy, 55–​56, 124–​125 Gorshkov, Sergei, 114–​115
imperialism, 2–​3, 20–​22, 108–​111 Gruening, Ernest, 124–​126
Israel and, 173–​177 Guillet, Amedeo, 8, 31
military, 42–​46, 54–​78, 270 Gyani, P.S., 92–​93, 104
under Muhammad Ali, 153–​161
Saudi Arabia and, 4, 49–​52, 205 Hadi, ‘Abd Rabbuh Mansur, 211–​212
Soviet Union and, 44, 50–​51, 115–​119 Al-​Hadidi, Salah al-​Din, 10, 270
support for UNYOM, 85–​94, 97 Haines, Stafford Bettesworth, 153–​156,
support for YAR, 8–​11, 32–​37 163, 252n7, 255n51
290 Index

Hajjah, 41, 43, 61, 71, 109, 185 Israel, 58, 69, 82, 173–​177, 202
Prison, 13–​14 Air Force (IAF), 168–​170, 204
Hammarskjöld, Dag, 53, 80–​84 Egypt and, 111–​113, 116, 119, 126, 137
Hamid al-​Din International Squadron, 170–​173
Abdullah al-​Hussein, 16, 64
family, 13, 30, 53, 64–​65, 108, 111, 180, Jabadiyya, Salah, 139
200, 227n39 Jabal al-​Loz, 76
Hassan ibn Yahya, 28, 32–​33, 40–​45, Jabal Bani Awar, 130–​134
61, 64, 108–​109, 138 Jabal Masur, 67
Muhammad ibn Hussein, 112, 198 Jabal Nuqum, 59
Saudi Arabia and, 37, 40–​45, 56 Jabal Razih, 77, 107–​108
Yahya al-​Hussein, 76 Al-​Jaifi, Hamoud, 30
Haradh Jamil, Jamal, 13, 220n46
Conference, 106–​115 Al-​Jawf, 61, 64, 72, 75, 109, 181–​190
Offensive, 77–​78, 106 Jeddah city, 97, 101, 109, 154, 181, 188, 200
Harib, 64, 164 Defense Pact, 19, 34–​40, 106,
Harriman, Averell, 55 110–​116, 226n24
Hart, Parker, 38, 50, 126 Jibla, 194–​96
Hashid tribal federation, 41, 62, 66, 109 Jizan, 11, 38, 189, 211
Hay’at al-​Nidal, 12 royalist base, 41, 110
Heikal, Muhammad, 115, 166, 259n35 UNYOM and, 87, 90–​95, 239n59
Helms, Richard, 165 Johnson, Jim, 164, 168–​169, 202–​204
Hillier-​Fry, William Norman, 139, 145, Johnson, Lyndon B., 106, 113, 125–​128
149–​150 Johnston, Charles, 8, 162
Hindmarsh, Mike, 213 Jordan, 7, 22–​23, 26, 27, 49–​51, 169, 188
Hodeidah, 100, 129, 197, 204 Juzaylan, Abdullah, 12, 20
port, 85, 90, 114–​118, 120, 137
Houthi, 1, 208, 212–​214 Kennedy, John F., 23–​25, 47–​57, 113,
Howard, Bushrod, 125 124–​125, 135, 187
Hughey, John D., 193–​195 Memorial Water System, 120–​122
Kerr, Malcolm, 3, 216n7
Ilyushin bombers, 70–​71, 232n5 Khamir, 109
Indian Ocean, 44, 114–​115, 205 Khamis Mushayt, 41, 172
International Committee of the Khrushchev, Nikita, 18, 45–​47, 56,
Red Cross (ICRC), 97, 100, 111, 115–​119
186–​187, 190–​96 Kitaf, 138–​140, 144–​145
chemical weapons and, 138–​143, 150 Komer, Robert W., 48–​55, 125–​126, 135,
Iran, 106, 112–​113, 132, 204, 207, 243n32 165, 229n80, 247n106
Iraq, 4, 7, 11, 23, 35–​37, 125, 130 Al-​Kuba, 91–​91, 94–​95
Al-​Iryani, Qadi ‘Abd al-​Rahman, 14, Kuwait, 23, 35, 145, 212
108–​111, 118, 198–​200 Kuznetsov, Vasiliy, 82, 117
 Index 291

Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, 180, 184, 271 Norway, 87, 147–​148

“Long-​Breath Strategy,” 106, 129, 136, Nu’man, Ahmad, 12–​14, 108–​109, 198
167, 175
Loyalist, 75, 181 Operation Hard Surface, 54, 231n116–​118
Operation Ranch Hand, 135
Macmillan, Harold, 25, 28, 160–​165 Otter aircraft, 87, 93
Makki, Hassan, 117–​118, 198–​199 Oz, Arieh, 170–​173, 204
Ma’rib, 61, 64, 72
Martin, Paul, 87, 91 Pahlavi, Muhammad Reza Shah, 112
Mayer, George E., 99, 101 Palmerston, Lord, 153–​162
McCarthy, Donald J., 142, 144 Pavlovic, Branko, 90–​92, 239n55
McLean, Neil, 112, 129–​130, 158–​163, Peres, Shimon, 169
168–​169, 173–​174, 201, 207 Plummer, Arnold, 187, 191
Mecom, John (Mecom Oil), 26–​28, 125 Poison gas (see also chemical weapons),
Mediterranean Sea, 44, 115, 125 129–​151, 173, 176–​177, 199
Meir, Golda, 173, 176, 265n43 Poole, Doug, 102–​104
MiG planes, 115, 172, 199 Porton Down, 134
Millburn, Mark, 66, 164 Portugal, 147
Mizrahi, Baruch Zaki, 202–​204, 265n37 Powell, Enoch, 159
Mocha, 121, 153–​156 Public Law (PL)–​480, 76, 124–​126, 187
Mohanny, Ahmad, 193, 195
Mohieddin, Khaled, 7, 35 Al-​Qadi, Anwar, 69, 74
Moscow, 114–​119, 197, 199, 200 Al-​Qarah, 75, 77, 107
Mubarak, Hosni, 69 Qasim, ‘Abd al-​Karim, 20, 35
Al-​Mutawakil, Yahya, 6–​7, 30 qat, 43, 54, 171

Najran, 11, 38, 41, 138, 143, 180, 211 Radfan, 164, 164n66, 191
UNYOM and, 87, 90, 93, 96, 99–​101 Ramadan Offensive, 63, 68–​74, 78
Nasser, Gamal Abdel (see also Egypt), Ransom (David & Marjorie), 122–​124
106–​112, 115–​119, 122–​128, Red Sea, 2, 125, 203–​205
132–​135, 197 Egyptian strategy, 7, 70–​71,
United Kingdom and, 113, 136, 153–​161, 259n33
152–153, 156, 168 Soviet strategy, 16, 22, 44, 114–​115, 120
Nasserism, 23, 156–​157 Riad, Mahmoud, 34, 36, 50
National Liberation Front (NLF), Rikhye, Indar Jit, 92–​94
166–167, 192, 198, 200, 205 Riyadh, 40, 54, 208, 212–​213
Newton, David, 121, 181, 189 Rochat, André, 97, 111, 138–​139, 190–​96,
Non-​Aligned Movement, 81, 84, 201, 213
132, 236n8 Royalist, 95–​97, 104, 150, 179, 189–​194
North Atlantic Treaty Organization military, 41–​43, 52–​78, 137–​138, 197–​201
(NATO), 147–​148, 158 opposition, 107–​111
292 Index

Ruiz, Aldelmo, 121–​123, 195 Soviet Union

Rusk, Dean, 54, 127, 145–​146 Cold War and, 4–​5, 23–​25, 57, 106
Egypt and, 50–​51, 113, 134, 160, 173
Sa’dah, 32, 43, 59–​71, 77–​78, 109, 201 Hamid al-​Din family and, 15–​18,
Sadat, Anwar, 9, 20, 36, 69 44–45, 221n61–​65
Saleh, Ali Abdullah, 208–​209 naval strategy, 20–​23, 114–​115
Al-​Sallal, Abdullah, 266n53 South Arabia and, 44, 189–​190,
1962 coup and, 6–​7, 11, 14, 39–​32 205, 215n4
Nasser and, 33–​37, 46, 51 United Nations and, 82–​84,
opposition to, 107–​111, 117–​119, 197–​198 132, 237n28
Saudi Arabia and, 38–​43 YAR and, 32–​33, 46–​47, 55, 114–​121,
Sallam, Muhammad ‘Abd al–​Aziz, 193 198–​201
Sana’a, 40–​41, 78, 120, 151, 197–​200 Spinelli, Pier Pasquale, 53, 94, 97,
Radio, 30, 32, 46 104–​105, 240n69
airport, 46, 71–​72, 85, 91, 103, Stamp Wars, 5, 178–​190
116, 172 Stirling, David, 112
Sandys, Duncan, 149–​150, 162–​166 Stookey, Robert, 9–​10, 49
Saud bin Abdulaziz Al-​Saud, 20, 32, “Strategic Triangle,” 60–​61, 69, 78,
37–​40, 49–​50 106–​109, 167
Saudi Arabia Royalist attack on, 111, 129, 136–​137,
Egypt and, 1–​5, 106, 110, 140–​44, 205 164, 198
support for royalists, 33–​34, Stratocruiser, 170–​172
37–​44, 76–​77 Sudan, 107, 147, 156, 167, 197
UNYOM and, 53–​56, 79–​80, 85–​99 Suez, 7, 152, 205
YAR and, 32, 109, 200–​201 Canal, 70–​71, 132, 152–​153, 197,
Sinai, 5, 82–​83, 111–​113, 126, 169, 173–​176 205, 213
Sirwah, 64, 72 Group, 156–​167
Six-​Day War, 175–​177, 202 Suleiman, Omar, 69
Smiley, David, 163, 201, 258n28 Syria, 7, 15, 20, 35–​36, 125, 130, 165
South Arabia (see also Arabian
Peninsula) Ta’if Pact of 1934, 22, 37–​41, 211, 226n38
British involvement in, 43, 113, 142, Ta’iz, 17, 54, 61, 120–​123, 179, 194
148–149, 153–​164 airport, 111, 232n5–​6
Egyptian involvement in, 15, 19, 32, 152 Talbot, Phillips, 48–​49
geography and politics, 1–​5, 58, Tear gas, 130–​133, 138, 142, 146
128–​129 Tehran, 112
ICRC and, 139, 178, 196, 207, 271 Thant, U, 53–​54, 80–​94, 104–​105,
Soviet involvement in, 16, 44–​51, 134–​144, 212
114–119, 205, 270 Al-​Thawra, 15, 36, 220n56
Southern Baptist mission, 178, 193–​196 “Third-​Force,” 108, 113, 118, 198, 242n6
“Soviet Five,” 117–​119, 198 Thorneycroft, Peter, 162
 Index 293

“Tin-​cup peacekeeping,” 83 Uqd, 97, 100, 138, 186–​187, 190–​192

Trevelyan, Humphrey, 192 USSR. see Soviet Union
Trevaskis, Kennedy, 22, 161–​64 Uthman, Muhammad ‘Ali, 198
Troeller, Gordian, 31–​32, 35, 43–​44
Tupolev bombers, 71 Vietnam, 126, 131–​35, 142, 146
Von Horn, Carl, 83–​92, 99, 101–​105
Umbach, Ian, 103
Union of Popular Forces, 108 Waterhouse, Charles, 158, 160
United Arab Republic (UAR). Al-​Wazir
see Egypt Abdullah Ahmad, 13
United Nations Ibrahim Ali, 108, 113, 131
Charter Article 99 and, 141 Webb, Michael, 163
chemical weapons and, 133–​135, Weizman, Ezer, 169–​170, 204
140–​150, 176 Wilson, Harold, 166–​167
General Assembly, 132, 141–​143, Wilson-​Pepper, Colin, 187
81, 236n10 Woodhouse, John, 171–​172
Human Rights Commission (HRC), Woskett, Kenneth, 101, 103, 180,
141–​142, 145 241n90, 261n9
Security Council, 53–​54, 82–​85, 94,
105, 140–​142, 145 Yahya Muhammad Hamid al-​Din
UN Operation in the Congo (Imam), 11–​13, 21, 38, 193,
(ONUC), 82–​83 206, 227n39
UN Emergency Force (UNEF), Yak planes, 71
82–83, 100, 237n30–​32 Yates, William, 135
UN Yemen Observer Mission Yemen
(UNYOM), 77–​105, 168, 171, 180, Development Corporation
190, 212 (YDC), 25–​27
UN Truce Supervision Organization Free Yemen, 43, 75, 181, 182,
(UNTSO), 83 188–​189
United States Mutawakkilite Kingdom of, 179–​184,
Agency for International 187–​190, 202
Development (USAID), 90, North, 16, 25, 51, 166–​168, 205, 208
121–​124, 195 People’s Democratic Republic of
chemical weapons and, 130–​135, 138, (PDRY), 200–​202, 205
142–​149 People’s Republic of South Yemen
Egypt and, 114, 124–​128 (PRSY), 200
Hamid al-​Din Family and, 23–​29 South, 161–​167, 191–​192
Information Services (USIS), 122–​123 Yemen Arab Republic (YAR),
Soviet Union and, 4–​5, 106 al-​Baydani and, 9–​10, 15, 32–​42, 56
YAR and, 47–​57, 63–​64 Egypt and, 8–​11, 32–​37
Unwin, Peter W., 142 Saudi Arabia and, 32, 109, 200–​201
294 Index

Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) (cont.) outbreak of, 7–​11, 31–​35, 69,

Soviet Union and, 32–​33, 46–​47, 55, as Nasser’s cage, 125
114–​121, 198–​201 Yemeni Union, 14–​15
United States and, 47–​57, 63–​64 Young, James D., 193–​196
Yemen Civil War, 1–​5, 44–​49, 53–​56, Yugoslavia, 87–​92
Anglo-​Egyptian rivalry and, 152–​153,
161–​162 Zaydi, 2, 22, 38–​42, 227n39
Israel and, 177 Al-​Zubayri, Muhammad Mahmud,
legacy of, 204–​206 12–14, 34–​36, 107–​109