President Gamal Abd al-Nasser receiving ex-President Hashim al-Atasi at the Presidential Palace in Damascus in 1958. Between them stands ex-President Shukri al-Quwatli. Atasi had opposed the spread of Nasserism in Arab politics during his final tenure as president in 1954-1955, and as a result, officers in the Syrian Army arrested his son Adnan in 1957.