CHAPTER NINE
After the Anglo-American withdrawal from the Aswan dam venture, Nasser was probably left without any secure means of financing his scheme to bring Egypt into the modern age. But he was in a strong position domestically: an alleged 99 per cent of Egyptian voters had just elected him President. The nationalization of the Suez Canal Company had been considered earlier as a source of revenue, but even that would not provide all the necessary foreign exchange. It would, however, be something. And, probably, during the diplomatic consultations between Cairo and Moscow that immediately followed Dulles’s interview with Hussein, Russia agreed in principle to help. In any case Nasser felt that his new Egypt had been slighted. He had heard the news of the renege in the company of his fellow neutralist, Jawaharlal Nehru, with whom he had had discussions in Yugoslavia together with Marshal Tito on such subjects of interest to the three non-aligned leaders as the war in Algeria and relations between the Third World and the power blocs. Nehru had commented on the arrogance of people in the West. Nasser made secret plans to seize the Canal Company’s offices. On 26 July, speaking in Alexandria, he referred to his revolution restoring Egypt’s sense of dignity: no longer were Egyptian leaders left waiting in the offices of the British High Commissioner; in Egypt the Russian arms became Egyptian arms. He gave a history of Palestine and accused Britain, erroneously, of promoting Zionism to combat Arab nationalism. The West’s terms for the Aswan dam loan were ‘imperialism without soldiers’: with Eugene Black Nasser had felt he was sitting in front of Ferdinand de Lesseps. That was the signal for the seizure of the company’s premises. Nasser concluded by declaiming that the days of alien exploitation were over: the Suez Canal and its revenues would belong to Egypt. Nasser’s military experts had assured him that it would take Britain and France at least a month to send a military expedition.1
Eden heard the news at a dinner at Number 10 given for Feisal and Nuri al-Said, Nasser’s rivals in the Middle East. Apparently the guests encouraged the Prime Minister to respond with resolution, but warned him of the danger of allying Britain with France and Israel to destroy Nasser because of the effect that would have on Britain’s relations with the Arab world. The leader of the opposition, Hugh Gaitskell, was also there. After the guests had departed those members of the Cabinet, Eden, Lord Salisbury, Lord Kilmuir, Lord Home and Lloyd, together with three of the service chiefs, Lord Mountbatten, Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer and Sir Dermot Boyle, discussed the matter. The American chargé d’affaires, Andrew Foster, and Jean Chavel, the French ambassador, were present as well. Jacques Georges-Picot, the director-general of the Canal Company, was kept waiting outside. The Prime Minister and his colleagues rejected recourse to the Security Council: the issue would just be delayed there. Their concern was how far the United States would support economic sanctions against Nasser and, if necessary, military action. The chiefs of staff were instructed to produce a study of the forces needed to seize the canal and how they would be disposed if military action were necessary. Lloyd told Foster that he inclined to the view that the only solution would be for a Western consortium to take over and operate the canal, establishing itself by military force if necessary.2
Initially, London wanted to act together with Washington and Paris, but most of the British leaders failed to appreciate the significance of American elections. In 1949 the Permanent Under-Secretary’s committee at the Foreign Office, headed by William Strang, had pointed to the dangers of this factor for Anglo-American relations. Bevin had had bitter experience of it. Eisenhower wanted to be re-elected President: this time on the platform of peace. It was his main preoccupation. He could not afford to have the principal allies of the United States fighting what the American public would probably regard as an imperial war. His administration had, after all, avoided allying itself with Britain and France in the Middle East, and had tried to pursue a policy of even-handedness towards the Arabs and Israelis at the cost of Zionist discontent in the United States. Eisenhower wished to project the image of the United States as an anti-colonial power. Dulles understood this. But the Secretary of State during the previous year had had considerable control of policy towards the Middle East during Eisenhower’s illnesses. Nasser had offended Dulles, and John Foster agreed with Eden that the President of Egypt had to go. The only way of reconciling Eisenhower’s election preoccupation with their objective was to delay any military action until after the presidential elections. As a lawyer, Dulles was also conscious of the possible consequences of Nasser’s nationalization for the American-operated Panama Canal.3
On 27 July Eden told the House of the serious situation Nasser’s action had created. Immediately afterwards the Cabinet met together with some of the chiefs of staff. It was told that the canal was vital to Western Europe: two-thirds of the oil supplies for that area passed through it. The Cabinet decided unanimously that if economic and political pressure failed, then Britain would have to be prepared to use force. The threat might be enough. But as all British interests in the Middle East were threatened, Britain should be prepared to act on its own. This would be a last resort. The chiefs of staff were ordered to make the necessary military preparations. Eden informed Eisenhower that same day that firm action was necessary otherwise Anglo-American influence in the Middle East would be destroyed. Economic pressures on their own were unlikely to be successful, and Britain was, in the last resort, prepared to use force. But the Prime Minister thought that the first step should be for France, the United States and Britain to align their policies, and put maximum pressure on Cairo.4
Eisenhower knew the British position both from Foster and Eden. Dulles was in South America, so the President consulted with Hoover and they decided to send Robert Murphy, the Deputy Under-Secretary, to the proposed meeting in London. The president was also told that Pineau had compared Nasser’s action to Hitler’s seizure of the Rhineland: the Foreign Minister argued that the West should act immediately and in strength otherwise Europe would find itself dependent on the goodwill of the Arab powers. On 30 July Murphy met Pineau in London and learnt about American naïvety. Macmillan, with Eden’s acquiescence, impressed on Murphy that Britain and France were prepared to participate in a military operation. Lloyd told the Under-Secretary that Nasser would be unimpressed by economic and political pressures unless there were military preparations in the background. Significantly, Murphy advised that American public opinion was not prepared for the use of force: the possibility of military intervention should be kept in the background. Murphy appreciated Eisenhower’s anti-colonialism and the influence of Hoover, who disliked Britain and that country’s oil interest in the Middle East – the Central Intelligence Agency had constantly tried to undermine the latter, presumably with presidential approval. Murphy saw Lloyd and Pineau on 31 July; that day Paris accepted British command of forces that might be used. Dulles, just back from Peru, met Eisenhower to discuss reports from Murphy that Britain had decided to ‘break Nasser’: it would take six weeks to mount the military operation. The President immediately despatched his Secretary of State with a message for Eden asking for a conference of maritime nations before corrective measures were taken: that would have ‘a great educational effect throughout the world’. Initial military successes might be easy, but the eventual price would be too high. If American forces were to be used it would be necessary to show that every way of resolving the matter peacefully had been tried. Should such efforts fail, then world opinion would understand that ‘we simply could not accept a situation that would in the long run prove disastrous to the prosperity and living standards of every nation whose economy depends directly or indirectly upon East–West shipping’.5
In London Dulles saw Lloyd and Pineau on 1 August. The Secretary of State reiterated Eisenhower’s policy: what was needed was a conference of the users of the canal. Washington did not exclude the use of force, but it needed to be backed by world opinion. Lloyd explained that Britain might have to use force in the end. Dulles conceded that Nasser would have to be made to ‘disgorge’. But Dulles was obviously playing for time: he thought it would take three weeks to prepare for the envisaged conference, but 16 August was the compromise date agreed. Dulles was cheered by a crowd in Downing Street and was pleased. He also saw Macmillan and was told that the question for Britain was one of survival. The Secretary of State met Eden privately the next day. In view of their clash at Geneva in 1954 the two men appear to have had a friendly talk. Dulles was particularly flattered by the Prime Minister’s suggestion that he would go down in history as one of the great foreign ministers. It appears he gave Eden the assurance that he understood the Anglo-French position, and that Britain could always count on the moral support and sympathy of the United States. Eden offered the details of the Anglo-French military preparations, but Dulles interrupted to say that it would probably be better if Washington did not know. Presumably Dulles had possible domestic complications in mind; and the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities were such that it would find out anyway; friendly exchanges between American and British military officials would also keep Americans apprised. After this warm talk both London and Washington were relieved and pleased.6
On 2 August Gaitskell, a friend of Israel, told the House that Nasser’s aggressive intentions were clear: the Egyptian President intended to destroy Israel, subvert Jordan and other Arab states and create his own Arab empire from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. The Suez episode was part of the struggle for the mastery of the Middle East. Nasser’s speeches were reminiscent of those of Hitler. In the Shadow Cabinet Gaitskell’s pro-Israeli stance was countered by George Brown. The Shadow Cabinet later veered away from supporting the government’s position. Though admittedly not fully informed of the Cabinet’s preparations for the possible use of military force, the opposition mounted an attack on government policy virtually without precedent in the post-war era of bipartisan foreign policy.7
Eisenhower became increasingly involved in his election campaign. He wanted to delay the use of force until after its successful conclusion, and was probably disturbed by Eden’s letter to him of 5 August. The Prime Minister did not think Nasser a Hitler, but the parallel with Mussolini was close. Thus Nasser’s removal, and the installation of a regime less hostile to the West, was important. If the forthcoming conference ensured that Nasser disgorged his spoils, he would be unlikely to maintain his internal position. Eden concluded that London was determined that Nasser should not get away with it, because if he did the British people’s existence would be at Nasser’s mercy.8
Britain and France prepared for the possible use of force.9 At the meeting of the maritime nations in London between 16 and 23 August Dulles, in line with Eisenhower’s thinking, suggested an international Suez Canal Board, and it was agreed that Sir Robert Menzies, the Australian Prime Minister, would take the suggestion to Nasser. On 24 August Macmillan again told the Secretary of State that Britain and France were determined that if diplomatic pressure did not work, they would have to use force.10 Eisenhower wrote to Eden on 2 September reiterating that American public opinion flatly rejected the use of force: the President doubted that he could get congressional support for the lesser support measures Britain might want. Peaceful means had to be exhausted first.11 On Duck Island Dulles devised another delaying tactic, what later became known as the Suez Canal Users’ Association: the users should manage the canal themselves and prevent Nasser from making a profit. Lloyd received the plan just before leaving for Paris: he told Pineau that he was worried that Dulles intended to delay matters and so make a military operation impossible.12 Eisenhower stressed the need for delay in another letter to Eden on 8 September: American public opinion was not yet ready for the use of force; though there should be no capitulation to Nasser, slower and less dramatic measures should be explored. But the President implied that force might in the end be necessary if Nasser resorted to violence. Then it would be Nasser and ‘not we’ who were violating the United Nations charter. This policy tied in closely with Eisenhower’s election campaign on the platform of peace.13 Macmillan favoured the Users’ Association, and London decided Dulles was acting in good faith. But the government’s precarious position in the House was undermined when Dulles, during a debate on 12–13 September, said that the United States did not intend to shoot its way through the canal. Britain took the affair to the United Nations, and revised the military plans with France to allow for more time.
Between 20 September and 1 October Macmillan was in the United States. He saw Eisenhower on 24 September and found the President very keen to win his election. Eisenhower was sure that Nasser had to go. The question was how to achieve this. Macmillan made it clear that Britain could not play it long without aid on a large scale. Macmillan also saw Dulles, and told the Secretary of State that he devoutly hoped that there was no doubt of the President’s re-election. Dulles hoped that Britain would do nothing drastic that would diminish the Republican chances. Macmillan recalled how helpful the Americans had been with Eden’s general election in that they had arranged an appropriate summit conference to enable Eden to project an image of being a world statesman. Dulles said that he felt that there was a basis for some reciprocity. Macmillan said that ‘he quite agreed’. When he returned, the Chancellor assured Eden that Eisenhower was determined to stand up to Nasser. Dulles had given no indication that he did not recognize Britain’s right to use force. Macmillan acknowledged later that he should have attached greater weight to the date of the presidential election. The Chancellor arrived back in Britain to Dulles’s statement that he did not know of any teeth in the Users’ Association.14 Eden felt that Dulles had placed him in an impossible situation. Under criticism from sections of his party for not taking more resolute action and from others who opposed force, threatened by the French that the weather would preclude military action after the end of October, believing that Pineau did not want a settlement at all, and faced with an opposition determined to undermine national unity, Eden’s health deteriorated. The Prime Minister collapsed on 5 October, and had to resort to benzedrine.15
In New York Lloyd was encouraged by the attitude of the Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr M. Fawzi, who went some way to agreeing on the principles governing the operation of the Suez Canal, but was vague on the important aspect of application. Lloyd warned the Security Council on 12 October against exaggerated optimism. That day Eisenhower undermined Britain’s position with a statement about these developments: ‘it looks like here is a very great crisis that is behind us’. Even Dulles appeared shocked, and murmured to Lloyd that the Foreign Secretary should not pay too much attention to what people said in the middle of an election campaign. That evening the Secretary of State suggested to Lloyd that the Users’ Association should give 90 per cent of the dues to Nasser. Lloyd did not consider this a way of securing reasonable counter-proposals from Egypt. On 13 October the Foreign Secretary warned Eden that Egypt might feel that the critical phase was over: Eisenhower’s naïve statement had shown the danger of excessive optimism. That weekend the Conservative Party appeared to achieve a united front at its Llandudno conference. Eden told the delegates that he agreed with Eisenhower’s dictum that peace needed justice or it was not peace: force was the last resort but it could not be excluded.16
France, Israel, Britain and the question of ‘collusion’
During August and September Paris, which was, in General André Beaufre’s words, ‘obsessed by Israel’, had been increasingly concerned over what it saw as London’s attempts to delay possible military operations – ‘the hesitation waltz’.17 The situation was to Israel’s advantage as that country’s leaders had been working towards a pre-emptive strike against Egypt since early 1955. As Dayan later observed, the Sinai War was the joint product of a sharpening of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours and of the Anglo-French decision to use force to take control of the Suez Canal Zone; but for the Anglo-French action Dayan doubted whether Israel would have been able to launch the campaign.18
As early as 29 July 1956 French defence officials started to draw up contingency plans for a possible operation with Israel, independent of any military moves with Britain: ten officers, Pineau, Mollet and Bourgès-Maunoury were involved. During August Bourgès and a few of the military planned for a joint attack with Israel on the canal. Deliveries of weapons to Israel were accelerated, and defence contacts between the two countries increased. According to André Martin, the Chief of the Air Force, the Israelis were not then apprised of the Anglo-French plans. Until September, when Dulles made it clear that Washington opposed force, the Americans were kept informed.19 On 1 September Dayan was told of the Anglo-French plans and that Admiral Pierre Barjot thought that Israel should be invited to take part. Barjot met an Israeli emissary in Paris on 7 September: soundings were taken as to Israel’s likely attitude. Later that month Peres went with instructions that he was to ensure that in any conflict Britain would not go to Jordan’s assistance. He reported to the Israeli Cabinet on 25 September: Paris had invited discussions on joint military action against Egypt. Ben-Gurion was determined that this should be a co-operation of equals, and that Britain should ensure Jordan’s neutrality. The Prime Minister hoped to gain control of the Straits of Tiran so that Eilat could become a large port and the Negev flourish. He sent Golda Meir, Peres, Dayan and Moshe Carmel to France on 28 September. Pineau told the Israelis that he wanted action before the American presidential elections: Eisenhower would not want to appear to the electorate as one prepared to accommodate the Russians and sacrifice Britain and France. The discussions revealed that France did not have the bombers to take out the Egyptian aircraft that could bomb Israeli cities. British participation would be decisive. Joint talks continued in Jerusalem from 1 October. Ben-Gurion, after discussions with members of his government, emphasized the need for British participation – otherwise Israeli cities could be bombed. Before the French visitors left contingency decisions were taken. Ben-Gurion gave instructions for urgent preparations. During these there were reprisal raids against Jordan. On 5 October London warned Ben-Gurion that an Iraqi division was going to enter Jordan: Britain would go to Jordan’s aid if that country were attacked.20
Barjot and General Paul Ely developed plans for Franco-Israeli action based on the assumption of British and American neutrality. Conferences with the Israelis were held in Paris from 12 October under General Gazin. It was clear that Israel would only attack if guaranteed of Britain’s neutrality. Israel’s action near the canal would be token: its operation would concentrate on securing the Straits of Tiran.21 On 3 September Lloyd had mentioned to Lester Pearson, the Canadian Minister of External Affairs, that Israel could take advantage of the situation and make an aggressive move against Egypt; that could help Britain out of immediate difficulties.22 But, in effect, it was France that asked Britain to help it out of its difficulties with Israel. On 14 October Albert Gazier and Maurice Challe met Eden and Anthony Nutting at Chequers. Eden agreed to ask Nuri to suspend Iraqi movements into Jordan. When reminded by Gazier that Egypt had claimed that it was not bound by the Tripartite Declaration, Eden concluded that Britain was under an obligation to stop Israel from attacking Egypt. After this, Challe outlined a plan for Britain and France to gain physical control of the Suez Canal. Israel should be invited to attack Egypt across Sinai. Once Israel had seized all, or most of the area, Britain and France would then order Egypt and Israel to withdraw from the canal and allow an Anglo-French force to occupy it to safeguard it from damage. This pretext of separating the combatants would restore the canal to Anglo-French management and place the terminal ports, Port Said and Suez, in Anglo-French hands. Britain and France would then be able to supervise the shipping and break the Egyptian blockade of Israel. Gazier and Challe did not say that the Israelis had agreed to this, but it was clear that France had made preliminary soundings. Eden’s response was noncommittal: he would give the suggestions careful thought.23 The Prime Minister summoned Lloyd back to London. Nutting briefed the Foreign Secretary, who thought the French plan a poor one. The Cabinet, including Home, Macmillan, Kilmuir and Nutting, had an indeterminate discussion and Eden decided that he and Lloyd should go and see Mollet and Pineau in Paris.24 On 16 October the four met in Paris. Mollet and Pineau gave no indication of the state of their planning with Israel: Lloyd thought it was limited to France’s supplying aircraft. Pineau said he believed that the Israelis would attack soon. The Prime Minister agreed that, subject to the approval of their Cabinets, Britain and France would implement the Anglo-French military plan (Musketeer Revise), to safeguard the canal and stop the spread of hostilities. In conclusion the French asked if Britain would fight to defend Nasser. Eden thought not, but that Britain would intervene to safeguard the canal. Back in London, Lloyd told Nutting that there would be further consultations in Paris between French and Israeli representatives: the Foreign Secretary hoped that Britain would not be directly associated with these talks, but the possibility could not be ruled out.25 On 18 October the British Cabinet assembled: before it met, Lloyd saw R. A. Butler and mentioned Anglo-French intervention to separate Israel and Egypt in the canal area. The Cabinet agreed that Britain and France should intervene to protect the canal if Israel attacked Egypt.26
The same day Mollet invited Ben-Gurion to Paris. France toughened its Algerian policy: Ben Bella and four of his nationalist associates were arrested. On 19 October Israel received from France a document, signed by Eden, stating that Britain would not aid Egypt if there were war with Israel; Britain would, however, defend Jordan if it were attacked; Britain and France would intervene to ensure the operation of the canal if either Egypt or Israel did not withdraw. Paris probably transmitted this without Eden’s authorization. Indeed, French emissaries arrived in Israel on 21 October and tried to negotiate on this ‘British proposal’. It was a French proposal, originally made at Chequers on 14 October by Challe. Paris was probably using London as a stooge. That evening an Israeli delegation including Ben-Gurion, Dayan and Peres flew to Paris.27 That same day a government opposed to the West was elected in Jordan. At Chequers a group of Cabinet ministers including R. A. Butler and Macmillan decided it was important that Britain be represented at the Franco-Israeli meeting scheduled for the next day. Lloyd and one of his private secretaries, Donald Logan, were despatched incognito.28
On the afternoon of 22 October in a villa in Sèvres, Mollet, Pineau, and Bourgès-Maunoury talked to Ben-Gurion, Peres and Dayan. Ben-Gurion outlined a comprehensive plan for the Middle East: Jordan should be divided between Iraq and Israel; Lebanon should give up some of its Muslim districts and become a stable state based on the Christian areas. Britain would exercise influence over Iraq and the southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula; France’s sphere would be the Lebanon, possibly Syria, and France would also have close relations with Israel. There would be international status for the Suez Canal, and the Straits of Tiran would be Israel’s. The French shifted the conversation to the military campaign: it had to be launched within a few days. Pineau suggested a timetable claiming it as being British, whereas in reality it was French. Indeed, French duplicity was apparently evident in the separate talks with both the Israeli and the British representatives. Lloyd was told that Israel had decided to attack Egypt. The French might have decided that, but at that stage Israel had not: Ben-Gurion did not want to hurry the military campaign, but instead to take time to clarify the political possibilities. Lloyd was not informed before he went into the Franco-Israeli meeting of the extent of the latter’s joint military plans. Ben-Gurion said that Israel would not start a war with Egypt, but would only respond if attacked. Dayan, however, said that Israel would take reprisal action which could be in the vicinity of the canal. Britain and France could then demand that Egypt evacuate the zone, and that Israel should not advance beyond the canal. If Egypt refused, Anglo-French bombing raids on Egyptian airfields could start the next morning. Lloyd refused to agree to French planes operating from Cyprus, and insisted that the Israeli action would have to be a ‘real act of war’. Dayan assured him that Israel would do this. Lloyd warned Ben-Gurion of the dangers inherent in this sort of military operation: the uniting for peace procedure could be invoked in the General Assembly to override the British and French vetoes; the American attitude was uncertain; Canada would probably oppose what had happened. The military operation might have to be stopped after a few days. The British Foreign Secretary tried to make it clear that an agreement between Israel, France and Britain to attack Egypt was impossible: it could result in the slaughter of British subjects in Arab countries. There was some discussion as to whether it would be possible for Britain and France to intervene within thirty-six hours of the start of the Israeli campaign. Nothing was agreed at Sèvres: Lloyd left at midnight to report to his colleagues.
On 23 October Lloyd saw his senior colleagues and then the Cabinet: the Foreign Secretary doubted whether Israel would launch an attack in the immediate future. Mention was made of secret conversations held in Paris with representatives of the Israeli government. Eden felt that Britain could not keep its forces in a state of readiness for much longer. Lloyd was doubtful about the prospects for a negotiated settlement, and what was possible would not diminish Nasser’s prestige. Macmillan appears not to have mentioned the crucial factor: the timing of the American presidential elections. The Cabinet then adjourned so that Lloyd and Eden could see Pineau who was flying to London. The meeting of the three over dinner that evening concentrated on defining the actions Britain and France would take if Israel attacked Egypt. Lloyd wrote to Pineau afterwards, making it clear that Britain had not asked Israel to take action: London had only stated its reactions in the event of certain things happening. It was decided there should be another meeting at Sèvres. Lloyd had to answer questions in the House. He and Eden agreed that Patrick Dean, a deputy Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, accompanied by Logan, should go instead. The next morning Eden told Dean that the discussions were only to be about actions which might be taken in certain contingencies: British forces would not go in unless there were a threat to the canal. The Cabinet then met and was told of the military dilemma; it was agreed that the objectives of any military operation would be to secure control of the canal and defeat Nasser. Eden agreed that unless Anglo-French action led to the speedy collapse of Nasser the effect in other Arab countries would be serious. The greater risk was that Nasser’s influence would grow: he was plotting coups in many Arab countries and the seizure of the canal gave Britain a reason for intervention that might not recur. But the action had to be quick and successful.29
In Paris, on 23 October, Ben-Gurion had to be stiffened. Peres and Dayan tried, and in the end Dayan proposed a military schedule to Pineau and explained that it had not been authorized by Ben-Gurion. It was this that Pineau had taken to London, and presumably discussed with Lloyd and Eden. Dayan’s scheme envisaged only localized fighting by Israel on the first day: Israeli forces would operate at Mitla, about 30 miles (50 km) from Suez, and would be large enough to commit what Britain called a ‘real act of war’. Britain, however, would not be told of the Israeli dispositions, and would be misled into thinking that the operation was in the north and not the south.30
Ben-Gurion still hesitated: he wanted to delay the campaign until after the American presidential elections and secure American support. But by the morning of 24 October Ben-Gurion was talking to Dayan about ‘when’ and not ‘if’. Dayan set D-Day for the Israeli army at 5 p.m. on Monday 29 October; for Britain and France it would be the Wednesday. Israel would secure the Straits of Tiran. Ben-Gurion told the French this before Dean and Logan arrived. Clearly, as Dayan noted, Israel would act on its own and not in partnership with Britain and France. This was his assessment of the conclusions of the meeting of the representatives of the three countries that afternoon. Dayan refused to give details of Israel’s operational plan to the French and the British. While the discussions were in progress a document was typed on plain paper in an adjoining room outlining the contingency plan and anticipated action in given circumstances. This outlined a ‘large-scale’ Israeli attack on Egyptian forces on 29 October with the aim of reaching the Canal Zone the following day; an Anglo-French ultimatum followed by an attack on Egypt early on 31 October; Israeli occupation of the west shore of the Gulf of Aqaba and the islands in the Straits of Tiran; provided Israel did not attack Jordan, Britain would not go to its ally’s aid; all parties were enjoined to the strictest secrecy. Dean and Logan did not expect anything to go on paper. They discussed the matter, and decided that Dean should sign the document merely as a record of the discussions. Pineau had suggested that the document provided for ratification by the three governments but, as yet, there is no evidence to corroborate his claim.31
Dayan immediately ordered his Chief of Operations to mobilize Israeli units in secrecy, and to give the impression that this was aimed against Jordan. Dean reported that evening to Eden, Lloyd, Macmillan, Butler and the Secretary for Defence, Anthony Head. Earl Mountbatten was also present. The contingency plan was referred to the full Cabinet on 25 October. The Prime Minister said that Israel was likely to attack Egypt on 29 October. There should be an Anglo-French ultimatum so that the two countries would seem to hold the balance between Egypt and Israel. Lloyd supported him: unless prompt action were taken to check Nasser’s ambitions Britain’s position would be undermined throughout the Middle East. The Cabinet considered whether such action would offend the United States. Disapproving noises were anticipated, but it was thought that, in view of American behaviour, Washington would have no reason to complain. The significance of the date of the presidential elections does not seem to have been considered. The Cabinet decided, without dissent, to act as Eden had suggested in the event of an Israeli attack on Egypt. Eden wrote to Mollet affirming that, in the situation envisaged in the talks at Sèvres between 22 and 24 October, Britain would take the planned action. Britain did not, it appears, communicate this to Israel. Mollet, however, saw fit to send Ben-Gurion a copy.32
On the available evidence it seems that Paris concealed from London the extent of prior Franco-Israeli planning. In effect the contingency plan typed at Sèvres on 24 October was in origin French, and modified by Dayan to overcome Ben-Gurion’s objections. As Dayan had observed, it preserved Israel’s independent action, and enabled that country to fight its own war to secure the Straits of Tiran. Where the British Cabinet miscalculated was on the importance of the timing of the presidential election. Macmillan failed to emphasize Dulles’s warnings on this. It has been claimed that as military action appeared likely – and the Americans knew this both from Central Intelligence Agency sources and through military exchanges between both joint chiefs of staff – Eisenhower specifically asked Eden to delay the operation until after the presidential election of 6 November. Provided this were done, the President agreed to form a common front with Britain and France. Eden possibly communicated this to Pineau.33
Dayan’s forces, on 29 October, mounted an attack 30 miles (50 km) from the Suez Canal. Israel maintained its independent action: it merely used the dispute over the Suez Canal to secure the Straits of Tiran. Israel’s campaign plans, withheld from London and Paris, made a nonsense of the Anglo-French ultimatum when it was issued: Israel could hardly withdraw 10 miles (16 km) from the canal when it was still 30 miles (50 km) away. By 3 November, when the United Nations was demanding a cease-fire, Israel had occupied nearly all of Sinai except Sharm el Sheikh. Isreal’s lack of interest in the Anglo-French operation could be attributed to the British delay in bombing the Egyptian airfields owing to the American evacuation in progress. On 14 November the Knesset agreed to withdraw from the territories captured in the Sinai campaign, provided there was a satisfactory arrangement with the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF). Eban, working with Murphy, assisted by the party leaders in the Senate, Lyndon B. Johnson and William K. Knowland, and Abba Hillel Silver who synchronized the Zionist pressure groups, secured freedom of passage through the Straits of Tiran: on 24 April 1957 an American ship, the Kernhills, docked in Eilat carrying a cargo of crude oil. An Egyptian administration, but not an Egyptian army, returned to the Gaza Strip. The pre-emptive strike by Israel in the Suez–Sinai War of 1956, largely planned by Dayan, achieved its objectives.34
The American reaction
Dulles was angry over the Anglo-French ultimatum. At a time when Russia was taking repressive action against Hungary he denounced Britain and France in the United Nations. The uniting for peace resolution was used to overcome the veto. But Dulles then entered hospital for a cancer operation. Perhaps he was annoyed as well about London’s ignoring his warnings over the importance of the presidential election. In the middle of November he protested from his hospital bed to Eisenhower and Lloyd about Britain’s not going through with the venture and dispensing with Nasser. The Secretary of State later attributed his stand in the United Nations to his illness. Throughout Britain and the United States had the same objective: to dispose of Nasser. The only difference was in the timing.35
But that timing was crucial for Eisenhower. Few doubted that he would be re-elected, but Eisenhower felt that the least Eden owed him for arranging the summit conference in 1955 to help his general election was to hold off the Suez operation until after the presidential election. Shortly after the Anglo-French invasion Eisenhower confessed to Air Chief Marshal William Elliot that he had known that Britain intended to strike at Nasser, but had thought that it would be after the American elections.36 London adhered to Dulles’s wishes that no official information be passed about the military operation: both Eisenhower and Dulles were worried that Adlai Stevenson could use that against them in the election campaign if he found out. But Washington knew through unofficial contacts. By 2 November Eisenhower was aware of the Sèvres discussions; Dulles knew of the impending Israeli attack by 28 October.37
Before the election results came through in which the Republicans, Eisenhower’s party, lost both Houses of Congress (though Eisenhower himself was returned as President), Eisenhower seemed open to Eden’s reasoning. The President’s secretary, Mrs Ann Whitman, recorded that on 30 October at the time of the Israeli invasion of Sinai Eisenhower was in ‘remarkably good humor’ while drafting a message to Eden, and that the President that day spent all his free moments reading his own book on the Second World War, Crusade in Europe. Eisenhower, however, did write to Alfred M. Gruenther on 2 November about Eden’s reaction in the Victorian manner, and the pointlessness of entering into a fight to which there could be no satisfactory outcome, and one in which the rest of the world viewed Britain as the bully, and even the British population as a whole was not able to back. The following day Eisenhower confided to his friend, Lew W. Douglas, that he thought that the British had been stupid, and that the leaders had allowed their hatred of Nasser to warp their judgement and that they were trying to deflate the Egyptian leader in the wrong way. The President wrote that it was clear that France and Israel had concocted the crisis, but the evidence of Britain’s involvement in the hoax was less persuasive. Although Eisenhower felt that Britain must have known something of what had been going on, the President was not prepared to use the British government as a whipping boy. On 5 November the Prime Minister explained to the President that he had always felt that the Middle East was an issue on which, in the last resort, Britain would have to fight. He appreciated that Dulles thought that Britain should have played it longer. But Eden remained convinced that if the affair had been allowed to drift, everything would have gone from bad to worse: ‘Nasser would have become a kind of Moslem Mussolini and our friends in Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and even Iran would gradually have been brought down.’ Nasser’s efforts would have then spread westwards and Libya and all North Africa would have been brought under his control. The French and British ‘police action’ had to be carried through: this was ‘our opportunity to secure an effective and final settlement of the problems of the Middle East’. If Britain and France withdrew, the Middle East would go up in flames. They had to hold their positions until responsibility could be handed over to the United Nations: ‘we shall have taken the first step towards re-establishing authority in this area for our generation’. Eden assured Eisenhower that he believed as firmly as ever ‘that the future of all of us depends on the closest Anglo-American co-operation’. The temporary breach in this had been a sorrow for Eden. But Britain had acted with a genuine sense of responsibility not only to itself but to all the world.
On 6 November London accepted a cease-fire. Eisenhower told Eden over the telephone that he did not care a damn how the election went. Eden wrote to Eisenhower the following day about the lack of understanding, since the end of the Second World War, between Britain and the United States on the Middle East. London and Washington needed to work towards common objectives there. Should the Soviet Union seize the opportunity of intervening by giving substantial support to Nasser, there could be major war. Eden had been going to Washington to see Eisenhower. The Republican losses in Congress changed that. Eisenhower would have to consult with the new congressional leaders.
Before the cease-fire, Eisenhower concerted action with the anti-British Humphrey and Hoover. Intelligence information was not passed to Britain, with the exception of the American assessment that the Russian nuclear threat was a bluff.38 Eisenhower and Humphrey co-ordinated economic sanctions against Britain: the American Federal Reserve sold quantities of sterling; they held up emergency oil supplies to Europe; and in Macmillan’s view almost illegally blocked Britain’s drawing rights on the International Monetary Fund. No documentation on this has been found in the Department of State files. It has been argued that Macmillan’s allegations of heavy selling of sterling in New York are unfounded, and that the figures he gave to the Cabinet about the drop in the reserves were also untrue. There is evidence, however, that Eisenhower did block Britain’s drawing rights on the International Monetary Fund.39 That act forced Britain to stop a successful military operation before it had secured both ends of the canal. The parity of sterling was considered important.40 There was spectacular domestic opposition to the operation in Britain, but probably over 75 per cent of the population supported the venture.41 Members of the Commonwealth disapproved.42 Members of successive American administrations have publicly regretted Eisenhower’s ‘humiliation’ of Britain and France: Henry Kissinger has argued that it forced the United States to take over Britain and France’s burdens.43
Myths have proliferated about the Suez crisis. Often these were fuelled by Labour politicians for domestic political ends. Nutting resigned. Unlike Sir Graham Bower, who, after the Jameson Raid in 1895–96, recorded his information about the complicity of Joseph Chamberlain and had his papers closed for fifty years,44 Nutting published his account of Suez in 1967. This backfired on the sitting Labour government: it led to a spate of memoirs which, perhaps, undermined the sanctity of Cabinet confidentiality on which the British political system had been based for over 200 years. The ‘Nutting attitude’ was only partly balanced by another legend current in British political thinking in the 1950s: that of the iniquity of ‘appeasement’. Both Eden and Macmillan emphasized reputations made on opposing Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement of Europe. This view was assisted by the perhaps rather hasty publication of the British documents for 1938–39. It was only effectively undermined when Harold Wilson opened the actual records in the late 1960s. But as the ‘anti-appeasers’ faded from British political life, another school of politicians emerged who had either supported Neville Chamberlain, like Sir Alec Douglas-Home, or who had not been involved. By the 1970s it was the Americans who persisted in perpetrating the myth of ‘appeasement’ – probably to draw attention away from Roosevelt’s supposed ‘sell out’ at Yalta in 1945.45 These myths have possibly obscured the realities of the British and French diplomacy that enabled Israel to launch the Suez–Sinai War.
Suez was not ‘the lion’s last roar’. Britain was already retreating from empire. Suez did not force Britain to turn to Europe: Macmillan only decided on that after South Africa’s exclusion from the Commonwealth in 1961.46 Suez was not an unfortunate break in the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’. Britain had been demoted to the status of just one among a number of allies as soon as Eisenhower came into office. Rather Suez led to the revival of the special relationship on old terms. Macmillan was chosen Prime Minister by Queen Elizabeth II, acting on advice. Perhaps he was seen as the man best able to heal the breach with the United States. But it was Eisenhower who was particularly anxious to make amends. At the Bermuda Conference in March 1957 there was a return to an Anglo-American management of world affairs.47 For a while this did not apply to the Middle East. After the Suez crisis Churchill wrote to Eisenhower about the dangerous vacuum in the Middle East into which Russia could move. The former Prime Minister urged, in effect, Anglo-American action to stop this.48 Eisenhower agreed about the dangers of Russian penetration.49 Dulles modified Churchill’s suggestions into unilateral American action with the Eisenhower doctrine for the Middle East. That was implemented in Jordan in April 1957 to restore a pro-Western government and to substitute American for British influence. But during the Syrian crisis of August 1957 there was close Anglo-American consultation, and that was maintained in 1958 during the crisis in the Lebanon and Jordan.50 A government sympathetic to Britain was overthrown in Iraq in July 1958, but other than that there was no immediate significant lessening of British influence in the Middle East. British paramountcy in the area was over before Suez; perhaps Suez was an attempt to reassert it. Suez was not the last imperial war. It did not relegate Britain to minor power status, and was not the last wag of the lion’s tail after which the British people were prepared to turn inwards and leave the upholding of the international system to others. Admittedly that view gained wider acceptance in Britain than abroad. But it was confounded in 1982 when troops returned from the Falkland Islands, 8,000 miles (12,900 km) away in the South Atlantic, having triumphantly fought both an imperial war, and one to maintain an international system as tenuous as that of the 1930s. On 11 July, as the Canberra berthed in Southampton docks, the Royal Marine brass band played ‘Rule Britannia’. It was loudly sung by over 2,500 marines lining the decks and waiting crowds waving Union flags as red, white and blue balloons were released into the air. This was followed by ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Over 250 British servicemen gave their lives and many more were terribly wounded to unseat another dictator.51 It was possible partly because this time the United States backed Britain, in the words of President Ronald Reagan, ‘its closest ally’. Macmillan later observed that if the Suez-Sinai War did nothing else it ended for at least ten years Nasser’s claims to be a great Pan-Arabic leader. It arrested for a while the development of the Philosophy of Revolution.52
The immediate origins of the Suez–Sinai War lie more in the diplomacy of Britain, France and the United States than in the wish of Ben-Gurion and his colleagues for a pre-emptive strike against Egypt to enable Israel to force a peace on the surrounding Arab states. That Israeli policy had been decided in 1955; what was needed was the opportunity to implement it. As Dayan has observed, Israel was only able to launch the Sinai campaign because of the decision by Britain and France to use force to retake the canal. The origins of the Suez–Sinai War lie partly in a mythology, current in the West in the 1950s, of Chamberlain’s policy for the appeasement of Europe, and in the perhaps dangerous and inaccurate idea that history can repeat itself – that historical analogy can be used to determine political policy. Britain and France, and Israel conducted their own separate wars. The outcomes of both were largely determined by the United States. It was that country which forced Britain and France to stop, and effectively secured Israel’s rights to the Straits of Tiran. And American policy was influenced, if not decided, by domestic electoral politics and pressure groups.
References
1Leonard Mosley, Dulles: A Biography of Eleanor, Allen and John Foster Dulles and Their Family Network (London 1978), pp. 403–404; Anthony Nutting, Nasser (London 1972), pp. 141–146; Robert Stephens, Nasser. A Political Biography (London 1971), pp. 193–197.
2Anthony Eden, Full Circle (London 1960), pp. 423–424; Roy Fullick and Geoffrey Powell, Suez: The Double War (London 1979), pp. 12–13; Selwyn Lloyd, Suez 1956 (London 1978), pp. 74–75; Foster to Dulles, 27 July 1956, quoted by Kennett Love, Suez. The Twice-Fought War (London 1970), pp. 355–356; Earl of Kilmuir, Political Adventure. The Memoirs of the Earl of Kilmuir (London 1964), pp. 263–282; Jacques Georges-Picot, The Real Suez Crisis. The End of a Great Nineteenth Century Work (New York 1975), pp. 74–76.
3Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace (London 1966), pp. 3–19; FO 371, 76386, PUSC 51 (Final) Second Revise, Anglo-American Relations, Present and Future, 1949.
4Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 82–85; Eden, op. cit., pp. 424–428; Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 36–37.
5Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 38–42; Eisenhower to Eden, 31 July 1956, pp. 664–665; Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 86–96; Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm (London 1971), pp. 104–106; Eden, op. cit., pp. 432–434; Robert Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors (London 1964), pp. 463–465.
6Ritchie Ovendale, Britain, the United States, and the Transfer of Power in the Middle East, 1945–62 (London 1996), pp. 157–158. Mosley, op. cit., pp. 411–413; Eden, op. cit., pp. 437–438; Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 97–100; Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p. 106.
7United Kingdom Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 557, cols 1610–12, 2 Aug. 1956; Philip M. Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (London 1979), pp. 421–422; Harold Wilson, The Chariot of Israel. Britain, America and the State of Israel (London 1981), p. 248.
8Eden to Eisenhower, 5 August 1956, quoted by Love, op. cit., p. 394.
9André Beaufre, The Suez Expedition 1956 (London 1969), pp. 26–48; Robert Jackson, Suez 1956: Operation Musketeer (London 1980), pp. 14–23.
10Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p. 108, Diary, 24 Aug. 1956.
11Eisenhower to Eden, 2 Sept. 1956, quoted in Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 666–668.
12Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 124–130.
13Eisenhower to Eden, 8 Sept. 1956, quoted in Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 669–671; see also pp. 11–19.
14John Foster Dulles Papers (Eisenhower Library, Abilene), 1951–1959, General Correspondence and Memoranda Series, Box no 1, File Memoranda of Conversations – General L through M (2), Memorandum of Conversation with Macmillan, Personal and Private, shown to Hoover but no further distribution, Personal and Private, 25 Sept. 1956; FO 800, 726, Foreign Office to Washington, Telegram no. 4540, Top Secret, 1 Oct. 1956. Macmillan, Riding the Storm, pp. 133–139, Diary, 24 Sept. 1956; Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter cited as FRUS), 1955–7 (16), pp. 577–581.
15Lloyd, op. cit., p. 151, Eden to Butler, Sept. 1956; Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p. 128, Diary, 20 Sept, 1956; Eden, Full Circle, pp. 474–506.
16Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 151–165; Eden, op. cit., pp. 507–509; Macmillan, Riding the Storm, pp. 139–145; Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 52–54; Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles (Boston 1973), pp. 363–368.
17Beaufre, op. cit., p. 63.
18Shabtai Teveth, Moshe Dayan (London 1972), p. 252.
19Sylvia Crosbie, A Tacit Alliance. France and Israel from Suez to the Six Day War (Princeton, N.J. 1974), pp. 68–71; Shimon Peres, David’s Sling. The Arming of Israel (London 1970), p. 185.
20Moshe Dayan, The Story of My Life (London 1976), pp. 151–173; Teveth, op. cit., pp. 251–258; Abba Eban, An Autobiography (London 1977), pp. 208–209; Beaufre, op. cit., pp. 64–69.
21Beaufre, op. cit., pp. 69–73.
22Lester Pearson, The International Years 1948–1957 (London 1974), pp. 231–232; Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 123–124.
23Anthony Nutting, No End of a Lesson. The Story of Suez (London 1967), pp. 90–99.
24Lloyd, op. cit., p. 166; Nutting, No End of a Lesson, pp. 96–99; Geoffrey Warner, ‘“Collusion” and the Suez crisis of 1956’, International Affairs, 55 (1979), pp. 226–239 at p. 233.
25Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 173–175; Nutting, No End of a Lesson, p. 98.
26Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 176–177; R. A. Butler, The Art of the Possible (London 1971), p. 192; Eden, op. cit., p. 514.
27Nutting, No End of a Lesson, pp. 100–101; Lloyd, op. cit., p. 175; Dayan, op. cit., pp. 173–176; Wilson, op. cit., pp. 268–269.
28Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 180–181.
29Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 179–189; Dayan, op. cit., pp. 177–182; Keith Kyle, ‘Britain and the Crisis, 1955–1956’, in Wm. Roger Louis and Roger Owen (Eds.), Suez 1956. The Crisis and its Consequences (Oxford 1989), pp. 103–130 at p. 126; Fullick and Powell, op. cit., pp. 75–84; Christian Pineau, 1956 Suez (Paris 1976), pp. 149–151; Nutting, No End of a Lesson, pp. 101–104; Alistair Horne, Macmillan 1894–1956 (London 1988), pp. 418–434; Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London 1986), pp. 520–532.
30Dayan, op. cit., pp. 185–186.
31Dayan, op. cit., pp. 187–193; Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 187–188; Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 187–188; Pineau, op. cit., pp. 149–153; Warner, op. cit., pp. 237–238; Fullick and Powell, op. cit., pp. 84–86.
32Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 188–194; Warner, op. cit., p. 238; Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion (London 1978), p. 243.
33Mosley, op. cit., pp. 413–417; Pineau, op. cit., p. 124; FRUS 1955–1957 (16), p. 790, No. 384; the published American documents do not confirm these claims.
34Eban, op. cit., pp. 222–258; Dayan, op. cit., pp. 195–217; Teveth, op. cit., pp. 259–280; Trevor N. Dupuy, Elusive Victory: The Arab–Israeli War 1947–1974 (London 1978), pp. 145–208; Yigal Allon, The Making of Israel’s Army (London 1970), p. 60; David Ben-Gurion, Israel: A Personal History (London 1971), pp. 507–536; Robert Henriques, One Hundred Hours to Suez (London 1957); Edward Luttwak and Dan Horowitz, The Israeli Army (London 1975), pp. 138–164; Netanel Lorch, ‘David Ben-Gurion and the Sinai campaign, 1956’, in Ronald W. Zweig (Ed.), David Ben-Gurion: Politics and Leadership in Israel (London 1991), pp. 293–311.
35Hoopes, op. cit., pp. 369–393; Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 219, 257–258; FRUS 1955–1957 (16), pp. 1112–1114, No. 570.
36Lloyd, op. cit., p. 220; FRUS 1955–1957 (16), pp. 580–581, No. 265.
37Ann Whitman File (Eisenhower Library, Abilene), Ann Whitman Diary Series, Box no 8, File Oct. 1956 Diary ACW(2), Diary 30 Oct. 1956; DDE Diary Series, Box no 20, File Nov. 1956 Miscellaneous (4), Eisenhower to Gruenther, Personal, 2 Nov. 1956; Eisenhower to Lew W. Douglas, Personal, 3 Nov. 1956; FO 800, 726, Foreign Office to Washington, Telegram no. 5181, Secret, 5 Nov. 1956; FRUS 1955–1957 (16), pp. 1025–1027. Elizabeth Monroe, Britain’s Moment in the Middle East, 2nd edn (London 1981), p. 207; Mosley, op. cit., pp. 416–417.
38Chester Cooper, The Lion’s Last Roar (New York 1978), pp. 192–200.
39Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p. 164; Cooper, op. cit., pp. 192–200; FRUS 1955–1957 (16), pp. 1012–1013, Editorial note; Diane B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (Chapel Hill 1991); Lewis Johnman, ‘Defending the pound: the economics of the Suez crisis, 1956’, in Anthony Gorst, Lewis Johnman and W. Scott Lucas (Eds), Post-war Britain, 1945–64: Themes and Perspectives (London 1989), pp. 172–181.
40Fullick and Powell, op. cit., pp. 192–193.
41D. A. Farnie, East and West of Suez. The Suez Canal in History 1854–1956 (Oxford 1969), pp. 730–733; L. Epstein, British Politics in the Suez Crisis (London 1964); Russell Braddon, Suez: Splitting of a Nation (London 1973).
42James Eayrs, The Commonwealth and Suez. A Documentary Survey (London 1964).
43Henry Kissinger, ‘Suez weakened Europe’, The Listener, 20 May 1982, pp. 9–11.
44Bower Papers (South African Public Library, Cape Town), 61, Bower to Montague Ommanney, 8 April 1905 (copy).
45Althan G. Theoharis, The Yalta Myths: An Issue in US Politics (Columbia 1970).
46Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way 1959–61 (London 1972), pp. 285–305.
47Macmillan, Riding the Storm, pp. 180–205, 249–262; Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 121–125; Richard Neustadt, Alliance Politics (New York 1970), pp. 30–31.
48Macmillan, Riding the Storm, pp. 175–176.
49Eisenhower, op. cit., pp. 680–681.
50Ovendale, Britain, the United States, and the Transfer of Power in the Middle East, 1945–62, pp. 178–215; Macmillan, Riding the Storm, pp. 269–287, 313–341, 502–537; Michael Ionides, Divide and Lose. The Arab Revolt of 1955–1958 (London 1960), pp. 216–252; United States Policy in the Middle East September 1956–June 1957 Documents (New York 1968), passim; M. S. Agwani (Ed.), The Lebanese Crisis, 1958. A Documentary Study (Bombay 1965); Donald Neff, Warriors at Suez: Eisenhower takes America into the Middle East (New York 1981).
51The Times, 12 July 1982.
52Ritchie Ovendale, Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century (London 1998), pp. 144–156; Harold Macmillan, ‘The Cuban missile crisis of 1962’, The Listener, 30 Jan. 1969, pp. 142–143.