The diplomatic and intelligence documents over these two decades reveal vivid imagery of two very different Egyptian leaders who both exploited, indeed mastered, the art of political surprise. Comparing Egypt's presidents several decades on, the notorious Arabist Sir James Craig reflected that Nasser

Sadat, he suggested,

As the previous chapter demonstrates, the diplomatic and intelligence community proved significantly more sceptical.

Indeed, it is true to say that over the two decades following Nasser's dramatic nationalisation of the Suez Canal, intelligence analysis performed better than scholars have conventionally thought. In fact, at times it is striking how far-sighted contemporary analysis proved to be with the benefit of retrospect. Moreover, bringing the ‘missing dimension’ of intelligence to the forefront of international history, it becomes apparent that historians of intelligence and diplomacy can do more with these analyses than merely identify which predictions emerged as either right or wrong, although this is of course an interesting undertaking in itself. A deeper examination reveals how ‘official wisdom’ on both sides of the Atlantic thought about critical events in the region and the role of ‘cultural Otherness’ in their assessments.