Background
Ahmed Esmat Abdel-Meguid was born in November 1923, at Alexandria.
Ahmed Esmat Abdel-Meguid was born in November 1923, at Alexandria.
Educated at Alexandria, where he graduated in law in 1944, and at the University of Paris, where he gained a diploma in political science in 1949 and a PhD in international law in 1950.
Soon after joining the Foreign Ministry in 1950 he was posted as a junior attache to the embassy in London. He had further experience back at the Ministry at Cairo before his next posting as counsellor at the Egyptian delegation at the UN in 1957. He became deputy director of the Legal Department in 1962 and then head of the Department for Cultural Relations and Technical Cooperation in 1963. Later that year he was posted as Minister at the embassy in Paris.
In 1967 he returned to Cairo to head the Department for Cultural Relations and Technical Cooperation until 1969, when he was appointed head of the Information Department and chief spokesman. A few months later he became Ambassador in Paris and then was appointed Ambassador to the UN in New York in 1971.
His political career began in September 1971 as Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs. He impressed Sadat and was transferred to youth affairs in September 1972. He retained the post in March 1973 when Sadat dismissed Aziz Sidki as Prime Minister and reshuffled the government portfolios.
Intellectual whose extensive academic and diplomatic experience was deemed the right mixture for him to be a moderating influence in the clash between students and the establishment. It was an uphill task to which he dedicated himself in a cautious step-by-step style without wisely promising quick results.