The Conqueror and the Victorious: Missiles, Nukes and the Middle East Arms Race During the Cold War

In July 1962, Egypt surprised the world by unveiling an ambitious program to develop long-range missiles with the assistance of West German scientists. Israel immediately portrayed the project as an existential threat and sought to halt it through diplomatic pressure, sabotage, and assassination.

This presentation examines this largely forgotten chapter of the Middle Eastern missile age. It traces Egypt’s efforts to build a missile capability, Israel’s campaign to disrupt the program, and Egyptian countermeasures to protect it. By bringing together the technical, military, intelligence, and diplomatic dimensions of the crisis, the presentation argues that Egypt’s missile program played a pivotal role in the regional arms race of the 1960s.

Khaled Fahmy is Edward Keller Professor of North Africa and the Middle East at Tufts University. He is an historian of the modern Middle East during the nineteenth end twentieth centuries. His books and articles deal with the history of the Egyptian army in the first half of the nineteenth century, as well as the history of Egyptian medicine, law, and urban planning in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. His current project deals with the military, social, and cultural history of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.