Minister to Egypt
Bert Fish's official title was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Egypt. Usually shortened to “Minister,” the title is no longer in use by the US State Department, but up until the latter half of the twentieth century, it was a common title given to the head of a legation, as opposed to an embassy. An embassy, which is a higher-ranking diplomatic mission, is headed by an ambassador. Though the United States has since converted all its legations to embassies, the legation was once the standard form of diplomatic mission, and ministers far outnumbered ambassadors. Like the ambassadors, ministers had full powers to act on the government’s behalf. As the Minister to Egypt, Fish was the highest ranking United States official in the country.
Photographs by Jean Weinberg showing Bert Fish at the United States Legation and Consulate in Cairo. In most of the images, he is seen attended by kavasses Aly and Mohamed, within view of his Packard Super 8 automobile.
By the time of Bert Fish’s arrival in 1933, the Kingdom of Egypt was an independent state in name only. British forces had exerted control of the country since the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882. A formal occupation began in 1914, but ended after nationalist uprisings compelled the British to recognize Egyptian Independence in 1922. Though the British government recognized Egyptian sovereignty with the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, this document also made provisions for their perpetual fiscal, political, and administrative power. The British retained control of the Suez Canal and the interests of foreigners, as well as authority over Egyptian military and police forces, railways, and communications.
The 1930s saw a gradual loosening of British control over Egypt. Nationalist sentiment ran high among Egyptians, and the Wafd party, which strongly opposed British interference, dominated the Egyptian Parliament. Of particular contention among nationalists was the Capitulations Regime, a series of treaties dating back to the nineteenth century which granted European foreigners in Egypt extraterritorial rights. That is, expatriates in Egypt were not subject to Egyptian courts. Any legal cases that involved foreigners (including disputes between foreigners and Egyptians) were seen by the Mixed Courts, a judiciary composed primarily of European representatives from the capitulatory powers, which were those nations whose citizens had extraterritorial privileges, such as England, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, and the United States. Controversially, the Mixed Courts did not use Arabic in their proceedings, and had few Egyptian representatives.
In April of 1937, the capitulatory powers held an international convention in Montreux, Switzerland to negotiate the abolishment of the capitulations. Acting on the instruction of Secretary of State Cordell Hull to take “a sympathetic and liberal attitude toward the aspirations of the Egyptian government,” Fish made a brief but bold statement on behalf of Egyptian self-determination that reportedly took the diplomatic community by surprise. Delegates at Montreux ultimately decided to abolish the capitulations completely, as Fish urged.
An agreement was signed in May that effectively ended the capitulations and would see the Mixed Courts abolished by October 15, 1949. Over the course of twelve years, European Mixed Court judges were to be replaced by Egyptians; Arabic and Arabic translations were to be used in all court cases; and foreigners would eventually comprise less than one-third of the judiciary. Ultimately, the Mixed Courts would function with an Egyptian majority until they officially ended. Fish’s participation in these negotiations was seen as a victory for American diplomacy, and his mediation skills were lauded in Time magazine and the New York Times.
