The Collapse of the Imamate and Foreign Intervention

Abstract

This paper considers the various factors at play in the buildup to the 1962 revolution and its immediate aftermath, focusing on the role of foreign and particularly Egyptian intervention. Relying primarily on Yemeni and Egyptian sources, it concludes that the collapse of the Imamate owed primarily to domestic factors, and that Egyptian involvement proved more important to the outcome of the revolution than to its instigation.

Keywords:

• Aḥmad bin Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn
• Gamal Abdel Nasser
• ʿAbd Allāh al-Sallāl
• Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen
• Yemen Arab Republic
• Egypt
• Saudi Arabia
• 1962 Revolution
• Yemeni Civil War

Notes

1 On the globalization of the Cold War, see: Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (2005). For the struggle within the Arab world, see: Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Gamal ʿAbd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958–1970 (1971).

2 Pirie-Gordon, “The Yemen Revisited”, 7 May 1962, FO 371/162943, The National Archives (hereafter TNA), London, United Kingdom, pp. 2, 7. For a general assessment, see: Bailey, “The Yemen: Annual Review for 1961”, 15 June 1962, FO 371/162941, TNA, pp. 2–3. For a Soviet diplomat’s perspective, see: Peresypkin, Al-Yaman wa l-Yamaniyyūn fī dhikrayāt diblūmāsī Rūsī [Yemen and the Yemenis in the Recollections of a Soviet Diplomat] (2005), p. 160.

3 Wenner, Modern Yemen: 1918–1966 (1967), p. 189. Strictly speaking, Aḥmad’s son Muḥammad al-Badr was the last Imam, but he ruled only eight days before being ousted from power in the coup of 26 Sept. 1962.

4 Wenner, Modern Yemen, pp. 20, 83–4, 124–8, 132, 172, 188–9; Vered, Revolution and War in Yemen (1967), p. 47. See also: Al-Juzaylān, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah: Min sanat 1956 ilā sanat 1962 [The Secret History of the Yemeni Revolution: From 1956 to 1962] (1977), pp. 59, 81. Al-Juzaylān recalls telling the inquiring Egyptian representative, probably in early 1962, that “all of the tribes are with us [the revolutionaries] today, but I cannot guarantee they will continue to stick with us” [ibid., p. 89].

5 Peterson, Yemen: The Search for a Modern State (1982), p. 53.

6 On Saudi-British covert efforts in Yemen, see: Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 1962–1965: Ministers, Mercenaries and Mandarins: Foreign Policy and the Limits of Covert Action (2004); Hart-Davis, The War That Never Was: The True Story of the Men Who Fought Britain’s Most Secret Battle (2011).

7 See, e.g., Haykal, Sanawāt al-Ghalayān [Years of Upheaval] (1988), pp. 619–28; and, to a lesser extent, Aḥmad, Dhikrayāt ḥarb al-Yaman, 1962–1967 [Memoirs of the Yemen War, 1962–1967] (1992), pp. 283–5. As I argue elsewhere, this is implausible. Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble: How Intervention in Yemen Caused the Six-Day War and the Decline of Egyptian Power (2013), pp. 84–5.

8 Al-Juzaylān, Muqaddimāt thawrat al-Yaman [Antecedents to the Yemen Revolution] (1995), pp. 28–32, 41 and passim; idem, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah, pp. 147–8. For more on this debate and on Egypt’s decision to intervene in the incipient civil war, see Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble, pp. 30–69.

9 Sharaf, Sanawāt wa ayyām maʿa Gamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣir: Shahādat Sāmī Sharaf [Years and Days with Gamal Abdel Nasser: The Testimony of Sami Sharaf], vol. 2 (2006), pp. 597–8; al-Dīb, ʿAbd al-Nāṣir wa taḥrīr al-mashriq al-ʿArabī [Abdel Nasser and the Liberation of the Arab East] (2000), pp. 27–32; idem, ʿAbd al-Nāsir wa ḥarakat al-taḥarrur al-Yamanī [Abdel Nasser and the Yemeni Liberation Movement] (1990), pp. 15–18, 22. (Anwar Sadat succeeded al-Dīb in 1961 or 1962 when the latter was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland to monitor the Evian negotiations at the close of the Algerian War. Ibid., p. 82). See also: Al-Bayḍānī, Miṣr wa thawrat al-Yaman [Egypt and the Yemen Revolution] (1993), pp. 47–8, 65–6; idem, Azmat al-ummah al-ʿArabiyyah wa thawrat al-Yaman [The Crisis of the Arab Nation and the Yemen Revolution] (1984), pp. 260–6 and passim.

10 Al-Dīb, Ḥarakat al-taḥarrur al-Yamanī, pp. 22–37.

11 Sharaf, Sanawāt wa ayyām maʿa Gamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣir, pp. 605–6; al-Dīb, Taḥrīr al-mashriq, pp. 131–4; idem, Ḥarakat al-taḥarrur al-Yamanī, pp. 44–6, 50–1; Ḥamrūsh, Qiṣṣat thawrat 23 yūliyū [The Story of the July 23 Revolution], vol. 3 (1983–4), p. 200.

12 Sharaf, Sanawāt wa ayyām maʿa Gamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣir, pp. 606–9; Wenner, Modern Yemen, pp. 114–17.

13 Ferris, “Soviet Support for Egypt’s Intervention in Yemen, 1962–1963”, Journal of Cold War Studies 10.4 (Fall 2008), pp. 9–10.

14 Al-Juzaylān, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah, p. 24; Sharaf, Sanawāt wa ayyām maʿa Gamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣir, pp. 610–12.

15 Al-Maḥrizī, Al-ṣamt al-ḥāʾir wa thawrat al-Yaman [The Embarrassed Silence and the Yemen Revolution] (1998).

16 Ibid., p. 106.

17 Ibid., pp. 8–23, 48; Al-Juzaylān, Muqaddimāt thawrat al-Yaman, pp. 35–40; Sharaf, Sanawāt wa ayyām maʿa Gamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣir, p. 613.

18 Al-Maḥrizī, Al-ṣamt al-ḥāʾir wa thawrat al-Yaman, pp. 25–49, 68; Al-Juzaylān, Muqaddimāt thawrat al-Yaman, pp. 36–7.

19 Al-Maḥrizī, Al-ṣamt al-ḥāʾir wa thawrat al-Yaman, pp. 71–4.

20 Ibid., pp. 74–80; Sharaf, Sanawāt wa ayyām maʿa Gamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣir, p. 613. On the Soviet mission, see: Al-Juzaylān, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah, pp. 30–8.

21 Al-Maḥrizī, Al-ṣamt al-ḥāʾir wa thawrat al-Yaman, pp. 82–3.

22 Ibid., pp. 92, 105.

23 Al-Juzaylān, Muqaddimāt thawrat al-Yaman, pp. 28–32, 73.

24 Vered, Revolution and War in Yemen, pp. 19–20.

25 Al-Juzaylān, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah, pp. 77–80, 86; Bayḍānī, Azmat al-ummah, p. 319; Muṭahhar, Yawm walada al-Yaman majdah: Dhikrayāt ʿan thawrat sibtimbir sanat 1962 [The Day Yemen Delivered Its Glory: Reminiscences of the September 1962 Revolution] (1984), pp. 144–5.

26 Al-Juzaylān, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah, pp. 79, 89, 108–9. For discussion of Egypt’s options, see Ferris, Nasser’s Gamble, pp. 50–61.

27 Al-Juzaylān, Muqaddimāt thawrat al-Yaman, p. 41.

28 Baydānī also authored a book on the revolution: Azmat al-ummah al-ʿArabiyyah wa thawrat al-Yaman (1983). Ten years later, he released an updated version with the new title Miṣr wa thawrat al-Yaman (1993).

29 Al-Juzaylān reports tuning into Voice of the Arabs with a group of like-minded officers to hear Aḥmad Saʿīd’s incendiary broadcasts as the war of words escalated between Yemen and Egypt in 1961–2. They kept the volume low so as not to alert pro-Imam officers nearby. But al-Juzaylān complains about Bayḍānī’s ignorant attacks on the “Hashemites” of Yemen, oblivious to the fact that 80% of the revolutionary officers were Sayyids. Al-Juzaylān, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah, pp. 77–8.

30 Al-Juzaylān, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah, pp. 139, 147–8, 153–5 and passim; Idem, Muqaddimāt thawrat al-Yaman, p. 30. For Baydānī’s perspective, see: Azmat al-ummah, p. 327. On Baydānī, see also: Aḥmad, Dhikrayāt ḥarb al-Yaman, pp. 259–63.

31 Al- Juzaylān relates how pivotal tribal leaders such as Shaikh Nājī al-Ghadr of the Khawlān turned against the republic because they objected to Sallāl’s presidency. Al-Juzaylān, Al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-l-thawrah al-Yamaniyyah, pp. 141–2.

32 On this point, see: Aḥmad, Dhikrayāt ḥarb al-Yaman, pp. 263–9.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jesse Ferris

Jesse Ferris is Vice President for Strategy at the Israel Democracy Institute, 4 Pinsker Street, Jerusalem 9223202, Israel