Born in Baghdad, the 1963 change of power brought in at the helm an old associate of the ex-Prime Minister, and the prime mover behind the military movements that affected the 1958 revolution, Abdul Salam Mohammad Arif. He was known to be a very faithful pan-Arab and an admirer of the Egyptian president Nasser. He disliked the position of Qassem who rejected the pan-Arabs' projects of wide unplanned series of federations among Arab countries. He was tried and imprisoned in the time of Qassem, but Qassem issued a special pardon for him. Eventually he and other officers and the right-wing forces especially the Ba'ath party planed to overthrow Qassem by military coup, they successfully managed to execute on the 8th of July 1963. Arif assumed the presidency directly and a very bloody wave of political revenge swept the entire country in which the infamous National Guard committed speechless crimes. The first victim was Qassem and many members of his cabinet who were subjected to a phony trial then shot on the spot. A.S. Arif assumed the presidency from 14th February 1963 to end on 15th of April 1966 in a helicopter accident. His helicopter had lifted off from a political rally in Basra just at dusk to return to Baghdad. Two other helicopters in the convoy made it home, but his wasn't found until the next morning, on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab, with all of its occupants killed in the crash. Abdul Salam Arif attended the first Arab summit 1964, and signed the Unity agreement with United Arab Republic on the 21st of May 1964. Prosecuted the Baathist, and Communists.