Hotel close to Pyramids emptied for Allied talks
Pacific conference site converted into spy-proof, enemy-proof and reporter-proof perimeter
By Richard Mowrer
Cairo, Egypt –
One bright morning, in the second week of November, an indignant British major stomped into the office of the manager of the swank Mena House hotel, famous tourist establishment within an easy walk or camel ride of the Sphinx and the Pyramids and, since the war, the favorite residence of GHQ officers.
“What’s the meaning of this?” the irate major demanded, thrusting a piece of paper at the manager.
“This,” was a short notice of request to the client to leave Mena House and find residence elsewhere.
Sixth to protest
The hotel manager barely bothered to look up from his desk.
Glancing at the crowns on the major’s shoulder, he said:
I am very sorry, sir. You are the sixth client to have protested this morning and four of them were brigadiers. Sorry.
This, according to the story, was the first intimation of the impending Mena conference. The following day, Cairo newspapers carried an item stating that Mena House was being closed down for repairs and cleaning, probably preparatory to the arrival of important personages.
Things move fast
At Mena, things began to move fast. Twenty British and American officers, assisted by 200-300 enlisted men, started the job of converting Mena House and 43 private villas near there into a strongly-protected, spy-proof, enemy-proof, reporter-proof perimeter.
Residents of Mena House having been dismissed, all the hotel staff was fired. Each servant was checked by security officers and in most cases rehired. The inside of Mena House, meanwhile, was revamped, bedrooms on the first, second and third floors being converted into 80 officers, while halls and salons on the ground floor became conference rooms.
Delegates were to live outside the hotel in villas.
One gets 1,500 pounds
Acquiring the needed villas was not easy. Owners were offered monetary compensation in return for immediate evacuation for a one-month period, from Nov. 18 to Dec. 18. One villa owner declared that he was damned if he would move out of his own home for anybody. The officers mentioned compensation. The obdurate subject remarked jokingly, “make it 1,500 pounds, Egyptian.”
One of the officers pulled out a checkbook and wrote out a check for that sum. They got the villa.
On the other hand, some villa owners were most gracious about the business. An Egyptian woman, when told the reason why her house was wanted, refused any compensation, declaring she was glad thus to contribute to the cause of the United Nations.
In the area enclosed by the Mena conference perimeter lived Egyptian peasants. There were checked by security officers and permitted to remain.
Trenches dug
Not since the gloomy days of El Alamein, when the enemy was still heading for Alexandria and Cairo felt directly threatened, has there been so much barbed wire in Mena and the Pyramids area. Each villa was surrounded by barbed-wire entanglements. Air-raid shelters and slit trenches were dug.
Mena House swimming pool was fitted with two pumps and kept filled with water in case of fire. Numerous anti-aircraft batteries were set up; searchlight emplacements were prepared. There were several British Army camps within the perimeter. An American camp to house 1,080 American drivers, MPs, guards and other personnel was also built.
On Sunday night, Nov. 21, after the arrival of Mme. Chiang Kai-shek and the Generalissimo and before the arrival of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, the perimeter’s searchlights swept the skies for half an hour while a place droned overhead. Everything was all set for the conference.