The case of Mustafa Amin: the final Verdict. "Battle knew what the CIA's work in Egypt entailed. He had been the American ambassador when a happy-go-lucky case officer carelessly exposed the agency's relationship with a prominent Cairo newspaper editor named Mustafa Amin. Amin had been close to Nasser; the CIA paid him for information and for publishing pro-American news reports. The Cairo station chief had lied to the mabassador about the agency's relationhship with Amin. 'He had been on the U.S. payroll,' Battle said. 'Bruce Odell 0the CIA case officer' had been meeting regularly with Mustafa Amin. I had been assured that no funds had been exchanged in Egypt, but a photograph of such a transaction was made when Mustafa Amin was arrested.'" From Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA. I had not written about this book before but you need to read the full 800 pages to get the nuggets. Mustafa Amin was released when Sadat came to power. Amin quickly assumed leading writing and editing roles in Egyptian and...Saudi media (he had a column in Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat). The Western press doubted Nasser's story at the time, but now we know that the Western press and governments were lying. In fact, the account contained in a book that Haykal wrote in the early 1960s about the case is quite accurate and is based on the long hand-written confessions that Amin wrote. Amin would later publish series of books on his experiences in jail (First Year in Jail, followed by other volumes), and are clearly works of fiction. The books read as if were dictated by somebody living in the West and often from scenarios in Hollywood movies. For example, many of the descriptions would refer to attack dogs in jail: several Nasserist functionaries noted that the jail were Amin was kept had no dogs at all. (Nasser's chief of secret police, Salah Nasr, would write responses to Amin's allegations but the Egyptian and Saudi media did not want to hear, and it was time for the Sadat propaganda, which culminated in the movie Al-Karnak). In fact, Amin from all accounts was not mistreated (like prisoners of the Muslim Brotherhood were) and was visited by journalists and artists. Amin is a lousy writer and a lousy editor: he lied in what he wrote (read his account of his times in the US when he was studying in DC). He promoted Faurq under the monarchy, and later promoted Nasser after the Revolution, and would later promote Sadat and King Fahd after his release.
PS The full text of ambassador Battle's account is kept at the Foreign Affairs Oral History section at Georgetown University library.(not available on line).