In My Time by Dick Cheney Page A

spirits everywhere, it seemed, even in a bureaucracy like the OEO.
    IN SEPTEMBER 1970 Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, died of a heart attack while hosting a summit of the Arab League. President Nixon appointed an official delegation to his funeral that included Rumsfeld, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Elliot Richardson, veteran diplomat Robert Murphy, and the distinguished lawyer and banker John McCloy.
    Rumsfeld called and asked if I would like to accompany him as his staff member. I’d have to pack a bag and get out to Andrews Air Force Base, which was easy to do, but the fact that I didn’t have a passport was a bit of a problem. The solution was to get a letter on State Department letterhead signed by the country director for Egypt. Dated September 30, 1970, it certified that I was an employee of the U.S. government and that I’d been born in Lincoln, Nebraska. It also said I was “the bearer of Office of Economic Opportunity Identification card No. 6427, which bears a photograph.” I folded the letter neatly and tucked it inside my coat pocket, not sure it would work if put to the test, but more than willing to take the risk.
    This was my first time ever outside the United States. Stepping off a plane with “United States of America” written on the side at the Cairo airport and then driving into the crowded streets of this ancient city was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Teeming with people in normal times, Cairo was packed to overflowing with mourners who had arrived from all over the country for the funeral. We stayed in a top-floor suite at Shepheard’s Hotel on the banks of the Nile, and after the principals in our party left to participate in official ceremonies, the other staffers and I gathered on the balcony. A helicopter flew overhead, carrying Nasser’s body to the headquarters of his Revolutionary Command Council on Gezira Island in the middle of the river. As the helicopter passed there was a wave of noise, a wall of high-pitched trilling coming from the crowd such as I had never heard before. By the time the bodywas placed on a caisson and the funeral cortege started across the Qasr al Nil Bridge, the police had lost all control of the mourning crowd. We watched people surging toward the coffin, mad with grief. Later we learned that many had been killed.
    I also learned later that Rumsfeld had been down in the crowd. Ignoring all official warnings, he had followed the coffin carrying Nasser’s body across the bridge. He made it back to Shepheard’s, none the worse for wear, and the next evening our group drove out to the Mena House hotel. Rumsfeld, Elliot Richardson, and I rented camels, and wearing our dark business suits, rode out to the pyramids.
    The plane ride home turned out to be just as memorable as those few days in Egypt. I got a chance to spend several hours listening to Robert Murphy and John McCloy talk and reminisce, and I realized that I was hearing history. Murphy had been an ambassador in many key posts, and he had known Nasser well. His memories, his insights, and his thoughts about how this death would impact American relations across the Middle East were fascinating. McCloy, who had been assistant secretary of war during World War II, had helped shape the postwar world as president of the World Bank and U.S. high commissioner in Germany. He was one of the “Wise Men,” the storied handful of advisors whose counsel was sought by presidents from Truman through Nixon.
    Between the two of them, they had about a hundred years of diplomatic and military history and experience. Murphy described being in the room when General Omar Bradley called to fire General George Patton and relieve him of his command of the Third Army. McCloy talked about his time in the horse cavalry in the days before World War I. Listening to them was like having the history book you’re reading come to life and tell you its story.
    IN DECEMBER 1970 RUMSFELD turned over the