The Ugly American and the Soviets struggled for preeminence in the Third World through proxies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In the Middle East, the US feared the spread of Communism starting in Egypt and attempted to secure the region's most populous and politically powerful country for the West by guarantees of funding for construction of the Aswan Dam but it was eventually the Soviets who prevailed. Soviet diplomatic and political successes in the Third World left the West worried about losing one country after another to Communism according to the domino theory evoked by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was in
Economy of Egypt border, behind the Aswan High Dam. Just north of Cairo, the Nile spreads out over what was once a broad estuary that has been filled by riverine deposits to form a fertile delta about wide at the seaward base and about from south to north. Before the construction of dams on the Nile, particularly the Aswan High Dam (started in 1960, completed in 1970), the fertility of the Nile Valley was sustained by the water flow and the silt deposited by the annual flood. Sediment is now obstructed by the Aswan High Dam and retained in Lake Nasser. The interruption