F. D. Amr Bey - Diplomatic Career

Diplomatic Career

Amr retired from squash in 1938 while still the top player in the game in order to pursue his career as a diplomat. He served as Egypt's ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1952. At the time, King Farouk of Egypt was eager to improve Egypt's relations with the United Kingdom. Since Amr was known to be on good terms with the British authorities, the king appointed him on 11 November 1944 as minister plenipotentiary at the Egyptian Embassy in London, where Amr had previously held the post of honorary counselor. Amr replaced Hassan Pasha Nashaat, who was removed from his position after marrying a non-Egyptian. Amr was promoted to the rank of ambassador in August 1945, and always tried to influence King Farouk's decisions in favour of British interests. This led famed intellectual Taha Hussein to state that Amr was "more suited to be Britain's ambassador in Egypt than Egypt's ambassador in Britain."

During his ambassadorship, Amr did not forget his sporting roots: along with the rest of the expatriate Egyptian community in the United Kingdom, he received with great enthusiasm Egypt's Olympic delegation to the 1948 London Olympics, which won five medals and was one of the most successful in Egypt's Olympic history. Amr was also involved in the inauguration of the Islamic Cultural Centre in London, also known as the London Central Mosque. In 1940, the British government had allocated £100,000 for the acquisition of a mosque site in London by Britain's Muslim community, in exchange for the allocation by the Egyptian Government of a piece of land in Cairo for the construction of an Anglican church. The Islamic Cultural Centre was opened in November 1944 by King George VI. Since Egypt was at the forefront of efforts to establish the centre, Amr was chosen as its first Director of the Board. The Centre went on to become the largest and most important Islamic institution in Europe.

In 1951, Egypt's Wafdist government, led by Prime Minister Nahhas Pasha, decided to unilaterally abrogate the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, a move which the United Kingdom deemed illegal and refused to recognize. As a result, confrontation erupted in the Suez Canal zone between Egypt's police and fedayeen on the one hand, and British military forces on the other hand. As a sign of protest, the Egyptian Council of Ministers decided to recall Amr from London on 11 December 1951. Amr was appointed on 25 December as the king's special advisor for foreign affairs, while keeping his original post of ambassador. After the outbreak of the devastating Cairo Fire of 26 January 1952—which remains unexplained to this day—, there were numerous conspiracy theories regarding the identity of the perpetrators. Some such as newspaper Al-Masri defended the idea that the fire was started by King Farouk, and accused Amr Pasha and the British Embassy of being part of the plot. According to this view, the appointment of Amr as the king's special advisor only a month prior to the fire's breakout, as well as the selection of Hafez Pasha Afifi, another pro-British official, as chief of the royal cabinet, were measures aimed at undermining the nationalist Wafd government. Supporters of this conspiracy theory allege that Amr and Afifi served as intermediaries between the King and the British in their joint planning of the fire.

The Cairo Fire resulted in the dismissal of Nahhas Pasha and the formation of a new short-lived government headed by Ali Maher Pasha. The new government decided to send an official Egyptian delegation to the funeral of King George VI as a reconciliatory measure towards the United Kingdom. Amr Pasha was dispatched to London in his capacity as ambassador, along with Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim, in order to attend the funeral, which was held on 15 February 1952. Nevertheless, Amr did not present new letters of credence to the new British sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II. The Maher government had to address two major national issues: the departure (Arabic: الجلاء‎) of British military forces from the Suez Canal zone, and the unification (Arabic: الوحدة‎) of Egypt and Sudan, which had hitherto been jointly administered by Egypt and the United Kingdom as a condominium. As a result, Anglo-Egyptian talks about negotiations were conducted, in which Amr Pasha played a major role. As Egypt's ambassador to the United Kingdom, he shuttled between London and Cairo trying to convey the Egyptian position to British politicians, notably Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, and then advise Egyptian leaders on the response. After the fall of the Maher government and its replacement by that of El-Hilali Pasha, the first official negotiating meeting took place on 22 March 1952. Amr was part of the Egyptian negotiating team, which also included El-Hilali Pasha himself as well as Foreign Minister Abdel-Khaleq Hassouna Pasha. The British side refused to commit itself publicly to "the principle of evacuation" before the start of the negotiations. The day after the official start of the negotiations, the Egyptian Parliament was dismissed. New elections were scheduled for 18 May, and martial law was extended indefinitely. The extreme political instability Egypt was witnessing at the time resulted in a military coup on 23 July 1952. After King Farouk's abdication in favor of his infant son Fuad II, the new Regency Council forced Amr into retirement at the end of August of the same year, replacing him as ambassador in London by Mahmoud Fawzi.