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National Geographic : 1982 Apr
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Tumbled chairs. Tumbled dreams. The images return to mind again and again. Bodies sprawled like rag dolls. The moans of the wounded. The astonishing brightness of their blood. It has a dreamlike intensity about it even now. I could hardly have conceived that the laminated plastic identity card issued to me the morning of October 6 in Cairo would be a press pass to an assassination. Photographer Kevin Fleming and I had hoped to see Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the annual military parade near Cairo-a display of pomp celebrating 452 Egypt's 1973 breakthrough into Sinai. Sadat's fate had been intertwined with Sinai ever since his early years as an army officer at El Qantara, El Arish, and Rafah. Into this desert, in 1973, he had launched the war that won him the title, Hero of the Crossing. Here he came to worship at the foot of Mount Sinai on the second anniversa ry of his bold visit to Jerusalem. Here, too, he built a lovely retreat where he could retire for rest and meditation. And here, he once said, he hoped to be buried. At the parade grounds, after placing a wreath and praying at Egypt's Tomb of the NationalGeographic,April 1982
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