<P> The British began construction of the first dam across the Nile in 1898 . Construction lasted until 1902, and the dam was opened on 10 December 1902 . The project was designed by Sir William Willcocks and involved several eminent engineers, including Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Aird, whose firm, John Aird & Co., was the main contractor . </P> <P> In 1912, the Greek - Egyptian engineer Adrian Daninos began to develop the plan of the new Aswan Dam . Although the Low Dam was almost overtopped in 1946, the government of King Farouk showed no interest in Daninos's plans . Instead the Nile Valley Plan by the British hydrologist Harold Edwin Hurst to store water in Sudan and Ethiopia, where evaporation is much lower, was favored . The Egyptian position changed completely with the overthrow of the monarchy, led by the Free Officers Movement including Gamal Abdel Nasser . The Free Officers were convinced that the Nile Waters had to be stored in Egypt for political reasons, and within two months, the plan of Daninos was accepted . Initially, both the United States and the USSR were interested in helping the development of the dam, but this movement happened in the midst of the Cold War, as well as of growing intra-Arab rivalries . </P> <P> In 1955, Nasser was trying to portray himself as the leader of Arab nationalism, in opposition to the traditional monarchies, especially the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq following its signing of the 1955 Baghdad Pact . At that time the U.S. feared that communism would spread to the Middle East, and it saw Nasser as a natural leader of an anticommunist procapitalist Arab League . America and Britain offered to help finance construction of the High Dam, with a loan of $270 million, in return for Nasser's leadership in resolving the Arab - Israeli conflict . While opposed to communism, capitalism, and imperialism, Nasser presented himself as a tactical neutralist, and sought to work with both the U.S. and the USSR for Egyptian and Arab benefit . After a particularly criticized raid by Israel against Egyptian forces in Gaza in 1955, Nasser realized that he could not legitimately portray himself as the leader of pan-Arab nationalism if he could not defend his country militarily against Israel . In addition to his development plans, he looked to quickly modernize his military, and he turned first to the U.S. </P> <P> The American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and the American President Dwight Eisenhower told Nasser that the U.S. would supply him with weapons only if they were used for defensive purposes and accompanied by American military personnel for supervision and training . Nasser did not accept these conditions, but then he looked to the USSR for support . Although Dulles believed that Nasser was only bluffing and that the USSR would not aid Nasser, he was wrong--the USSR promised Nasser a quantity of arms in exchange for a deferred payment of Egyptian grain and cotton . On 27 September 1955, Nasser announced an arms deal, with Czechoslovakia acting as a middleman for the Soviet support . Instead of attacking Nasser for turning to the Soviets, Dulles sought to improve relations with him . This explains the later offer of December 1955, in which the U.S. and Britain pledged $56 and $14 million respectively towards the construction of the dam . </P>

Who funded the building of the aswan high dam