:00:23. > :00:28.Ladies and gentlemen, this is the second of six lectures on post-war
:00:29. > :00:35.political crises in Britain. This lecture is on the Suez crisis of
:00:36. > :00:40.1956, the crisis that began with the nationalisation of the Suez Canal
:00:41. > :00:46.company in which Britain and France had a controlling interest, in July
:00:47. > :00:50.1956 by Egypt's leader. It led to military action by Britain and
:00:51. > :00:57.France in collusion with Israel at the end of October 1956. That
:00:58. > :01:04.military action failed largely because of the opposition of the
:01:05. > :01:09.United States. Suez was the most divisive foreign policy issue in
:01:10. > :01:14.British politics since the war. Exceeded only since then perhaps by
:01:15. > :01:19.the Iraq war. It led to furious arguments between families and
:01:20. > :01:23.friends. It also led to the most serious breakdown in Anglo-American
:01:24. > :01:27.relations since the war and displayed for all the world to see
:01:28. > :01:32.British weakness when faced with the opposition of the Americans. It was
:01:33. > :01:38.from this point of view a turning point in British post-war history.
:01:39. > :01:44.In my last lecture on the National Health Service, said the crisis of
:01:45. > :01:47.1951 was a point Delyn and pointed to the whole future of the National
:01:48. > :01:49.Health Service and the problem of running a health service free at
:01:50. > :01:56.source for which demand was, in theory, unlimited. Today I want to
:01:57. > :01:59.show that Suez was a pointer to the future of international relations
:02:00. > :02:04.and the threat to world order posed by radical third World nationalist
:02:05. > :02:10.leaders. But we can only understand Suez if we look at the context of
:02:11. > :02:17.the times. The world of 1956 was a very different world from that of
:02:18. > :02:20.today. During the immediate post-war reach Delyn and years, Britain
:02:21. > :02:25.sought herself as not primarily of the European power, as she does now,
:02:26. > :02:29.but as a global superpower with worldwide interests. We were still
:02:30. > :02:32.an imperial power though, admittedly, an imperial power in the
:02:33. > :02:37.process of winding down our commitments. This was symbolised by
:02:38. > :02:45.the granting of independence to India Pakistan in 1947. The African
:02:46. > :02:50.empire remained largely intact. With a single exception of the sedan,
:02:51. > :02:54.which had gained independence in 1954, largely through the influence
:02:55. > :03:00.of Sir Anthony Eden who was a minister during the Suez crisis.
:03:01. > :03:03.Some people in thinking about Suez think of Anthony Eden as an
:03:04. > :03:11.imperialist. But he appreciated that the era of imperialism was over and
:03:12. > :03:14.it was no longer possible in the modern world to rule over others
:03:15. > :03:19.without consent. That was the general view of what may be called
:03:20. > :03:25.the British establishment. But we still thought we could retain our
:03:26. > :03:28.global influence in other ways. Firstly, by holding onto a ring of
:03:29. > :03:34.strategic positions such as the Suez Canal, and secondly by ensuring
:03:35. > :03:39.there where friendly Government in areas of strategic importance, such
:03:40. > :03:43.as the Middle East. As after the withdrawal from India, Middle East
:03:44. > :03:46.and Suez were more important to Britain because of the lake with
:03:47. > :03:54.Asia and Australia that its providers. -- link. In the Middle
:03:55. > :03:57.East, the Arab countries were not real directly from Britain but they
:03:58. > :04:02.were mostly at that time ruled by a friendly and subordinate governments
:04:03. > :04:08.which were, so to speak, advised by the British. They were not colonies.
:04:09. > :04:13.That policy came under great pressure under World War II. The
:04:14. > :04:16.first problem came in Palestine in 1847, which the British evacuated
:04:17. > :04:19.and handed over to the United Nations to deal with because Britain
:04:20. > :04:27.was too weak to resolve the problems. One of the few things
:04:28. > :04:31.uniting Jews and Arabs at the time was facility to Britain. The Arabs
:04:32. > :04:36.were hostile because of the Balfour declaration and Jewish immigration
:04:37. > :04:40.to Palestine, Israel because she saw the British Government as pro-Arab.
:04:41. > :04:43.In the Arab world, he could Britain was particularly strong in Egypt
:04:44. > :04:51.because of the long British occupation there. When the British
:04:52. > :04:57.withdrew from Palestine, there was a war in 1848 in which the Arabs led
:04:58. > :05:01.then by Egypt sought to destroy Israel. In fact, it ended with an
:05:02. > :05:04.Israeli victory and a ceasefire. Though, none of the Arab states
:05:05. > :05:10.recognised Israel has said they were still in a state of war with her.
:05:11. > :05:15.The West, for once, perhaps, in Iraq, had a united response to the
:05:16. > :05:19.problems which the Americans tried to raise in the Suez crisis and that
:05:20. > :05:24.response was in the form of the tripartite declaration of 1950 of
:05:25. > :05:27.Britain, France and America. They said together they which preserve
:05:28. > :05:31.the status quo in the region and come to the aid of any country
:05:32. > :05:36.attacked by another. That they would also control the supply of arms to
:05:37. > :05:42.both sides, so that no side would be able to achieve a superiority over
:05:43. > :05:48.the other one. Palestine was the first pressure point, the second was
:05:49. > :05:53.Iran in 1951. When a radical nationalist Government nationalised
:05:54. > :05:56.the British oil company and that occurred in the last days of the
:05:57. > :06:00.Labour Government. The Labour Government thought of using force
:06:01. > :06:05.but, by contrast with Suez, did not do so in large part because the
:06:06. > :06:09.Americans were opposed to it. The British troops guarding the oil
:06:10. > :06:13.refinery were ordered out and they then went to Suez as a fallback
:06:14. > :06:17.position and I think the success of the Iranians probably did encourage
:06:18. > :06:24.the Egyptians in 1956 to tweak the lion's tale a bit further. Then the
:06:25. > :06:28.rise of Egyptian nationalism cost further problems to Britain. In
:06:29. > :06:32.1852, there was a revolution in Egypt, the monarchy was removed, and
:06:33. > :06:38.an army doctor took power which rapidly came to be controlled by
:06:39. > :06:41.Colonel Nasser, who established a dictatorship in Egypt. This posed
:06:42. > :06:47.new and very difficult problems for Britain. To have a close
:06:48. > :06:52.relationship with Egypt from imperial times, largely due to the
:06:53. > :06:59.need to control as Britain side of the Suez Canal. In 1875, Disraeli
:07:00. > :07:02.had bought shares in the Suez Canal company for Britain. So that the
:07:03. > :07:11.company became a joint British and French enterprise. To ensure that
:07:12. > :07:14.the canal was not threatened by Egyptian nationalists, Glastonbury
:07:15. > :07:21.and Liberal Government in 1882 instituted a temporary occupation of
:07:22. > :07:28.Egypt to ensure stability. That temporary occupation lasted 54
:07:29. > :07:30.years. Until 1936. Even after that, Britain had a strong though
:07:31. > :07:36.undefined role in Egypt under the Egyptian monarch came and Britain
:07:37. > :07:39.retained a base in what was called the Suez Canal zone, actually it was
:07:40. > :07:44.quite white, extracts from the red Sea to the Mediterranean and
:07:45. > :07:48.westward almost to Cairo and that was to protect the Suez Canal. By
:07:49. > :07:54.1954, there were 80,000 British troops there, to that extent
:07:55. > :07:58.Egyptian independence was limited. There was only one occasion on which
:07:59. > :08:02.the two antagonists in the Suez crisis met, Sir Anthony Eden, the
:08:03. > :08:06.British are minister, and Colonel Nasser, the Egyptian leader, and
:08:07. > :08:11.that was in early 1955. They had dinner in the British Embassy in
:08:12. > :08:14.Cairo. Colonel Nasser said he had was wanted to visit the place from
:08:15. > :08:23.which Egypt had been covered for so many years.
:08:24. > :08:30.The Egyptians wanted to remove Britain from the canal base and
:08:31. > :08:33.instituted guerrilla warfare to get the British art. The Americans took
:08:34. > :08:38.the view that Britain should leave because they argued that the British
:08:39. > :08:41.presence encouraged Egypt and other third World countries to believe
:08:42. > :08:48.that the West was still colonialist and that helped the sulphate union,
:08:49. > :08:52.so the Americans argued. Anthony Eden, in 1954, signed an agreement
:08:53. > :08:58.with strong British troops from the base over a period of two years. He
:08:59. > :09:03.believed that we could not maintain our position in the middle east by
:09:04. > :09:07.the methods of the 19th century back to maintain our influence we must
:09:08. > :09:11.try to harness the nationalist movements to our own interests,
:09:12. > :09:17.rather than struggle against them. So, come to terms with nationalism,
:09:18. > :09:22.withdraw British troops, women goodwill from new leaders and you
:09:23. > :09:26.can preserve British interests, not to imperialism, but through
:09:27. > :09:31.goodwill. Moreover, in a nuclear world, it seemed overseas bases were
:09:32. > :09:37.pointless. If that field, there was a safeguard in the treaty because it
:09:38. > :09:44.said that British troops could return in the case of an attack on
:09:45. > :09:50.Egypt by an outside power or by 30. Eden negotiated the agreement in
:09:51. > :09:57.1954. His Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was very unhappy about
:09:58. > :10:02.it. He was supported by around 40 Conservative MPs who called
:10:03. > :10:07.themselves this year 's group. There are remarkably, the Private surgery
:10:08. > :10:11.for Churchill ran one of them after a backbencher in a speech in the
:10:12. > :10:18.Commons and told him the Prime Minister agreed with his criticism
:10:19. > :10:22.of this government. Churchill said, kindly to Eden, that he had not
:10:23. > :10:26.realised that Munich was on the Nile. That was a reference to the
:10:27. > :10:32.Munich conference of 1938 which marked the climax of appeasement.
:10:33. > :10:36.This is important because from this time, Eden was under threat from the
:10:37. > :10:41.right wing of the Conservative Party as an appeaser who was unwilling to
:10:42. > :10:47.defend British interests abroad. The feeling that he was weak increased
:10:48. > :10:52.after Churchill retired in 1955 and Eden succeeded as Prime Minister.
:10:53. > :10:56.Many backbenchers contrasted his consensual, rather than only in
:10:57. > :11:00.style with the more rumbustious approach of Churchill. Throughout
:11:01. > :11:04.the Suez crisis, Eden was under pressure, not from the left urging
:11:05. > :11:08.him to reach a peaceful solution, but from his right wing, that he
:11:09. > :11:13.shouldn't surrender British interests. This pressure was also
:11:14. > :11:17.strong from within the Cabinet and in particular from his Chancellor,
:11:18. > :11:22.Harold Macmillan was the second most powerful man in the government, very
:11:23. > :11:26.much a rival to Dunedin and he eventually supplanted him. They won
:11:27. > :11:33.important effect of British withdrawal from the base, it removed
:11:34. > :11:39.a buffer between Israel and Egypt and in consequence, Egyptian
:11:40. > :11:45.commando raids began in Egypt, into Israel rather, worsening the Arab
:11:46. > :11:50.dispute. For the moment, eating one over the doctors by saying it
:11:51. > :11:54.protected British interests because they could always return to the base
:11:55. > :11:59.if there was trouble. He didn't answer the question, if we couldn't
:12:00. > :12:03.hold the base while there, how on earth did we return to the base
:12:04. > :12:08.against the wishes of the Egyptians? The idea that we could return was a
:12:09. > :12:13.hollow pretence. The truth is that agreement was sold in the
:12:14. > :12:17.Conservative Party on the basis that Nasser was a reasonable man and once
:12:18. > :12:21.his grievances were dealt with, he would take a reasonable approach on
:12:22. > :12:26.relations with Britain. One cannot understand the actions of Eden in
:12:27. > :12:31.1956 unless one remembers this. It was like Neville Chamberlain after
:12:32. > :12:35.the Munich agreement in 1938. Chamberlain said Hitler was a
:12:36. > :12:40.reasonable man and his work could be trusted. The Oxford Chamberlain were
:12:41. > :12:45.shattered when Hitler occupied Prague in 1939 and so Eden's hopes
:12:46. > :12:48.were shattered by the nationalisation of the canal company
:12:49. > :12:54.which occurred just two weeks after the last British troops left the
:12:55. > :13:00.base in July 19 56. Eden felt he had been personally cheated. The aim of
:13:01. > :13:03.the 1954 agreement had been to win Egyptian goodwill, that didn't
:13:04. > :13:07.happen and there was continual Egyptian propaganda against Britain
:13:08. > :13:11.and the Egyptians sought to undermine the pro-British regimes in
:13:12. > :13:15.the area and the sort of the unity of the radical Arab regimes so that
:13:16. > :13:22.Israel could be destroyed, avenging the defeat of 1948. So Nasser, two
:13:23. > :13:27.British eyes, seemed less a nationalist and more an arab
:13:28. > :13:32.imperialist. Worse for Britain and America, Nasser began to purchase
:13:33. > :13:36.arms from countries in the Soviet bloc. This brought the Soviet Union
:13:37. > :13:40.into the middle east which had been a question sphere of influence. It
:13:41. > :13:45.made the tripartite declaration useless because the West could no
:13:46. > :13:48.longer control the balance between the two sides. Nasser said he was
:13:49. > :13:53.doing that because the French were selling arms to Israel
:13:54. > :13:55.surreptitiously with the encouragement of America and that
:13:56. > :14:01.was not in accordance with the tripartite declaration. There were
:14:02. > :14:05.faults on both sides. Still, Egyptian friendship with the Soviet
:14:06. > :14:09.bloc and with the British and the Americans. They began to wonder
:14:10. > :14:15.whether they should cut aid to Egypt as a result. In particular, whether
:14:16. > :14:20.they should end the financing of the Aswan Dam in Egypt which they had
:14:21. > :14:25.promised. The British and Americans consulted and decided jointly to let
:14:26. > :14:31.the loan with on the vine and fade away, as it were. But the Americans
:14:32. > :14:36.faced a problem from the Senedd. It was extremely annoyed at Egyptian
:14:37. > :14:39.flirtation with the Soviet bloc and asked, reasonably, white countries
:14:40. > :14:44.which were hostile to America should get as much aid as countries which
:14:45. > :14:49.were friendly to America. The Senedd Appropriations Committee was
:14:50. > :14:54.proposing that no funds be spent on aid to Egypt without specific
:14:55. > :14:57.Congressional approval. The American Secretary of State, the last thing
:14:58. > :15:01.he wanted was for his foreign policy to be determined by his Senedd.
:15:02. > :15:07.Britain and America agreed they should terminate the loan pretty
:15:08. > :15:10.quickly. This was agreed by the American Secretary of State, John
:15:11. > :15:17.Foster Dulles, but he did it in an abrupt and humiliating way and he
:15:18. > :15:21.could indeed be very tactless. Churchill, referring to Dulles, said
:15:22. > :15:28.that he was the only people who carried his own china shop with him.
:15:29. > :15:32.What he should have said to the Egyptians was that they would not
:15:33. > :15:36.get the money because they were being helped by the Russians, but
:15:37. > :15:40.what he said instead was that the Egyptians didn't have the technical
:15:41. > :15:44.understanding to run the dam and that was very insulting. The
:15:45. > :15:50.response was the canal company was nationalised. Nasser said this was
:15:51. > :15:54.in response to the withdrawal of the funding of the dam but there is
:15:55. > :15:57.evidence to believe that he was going to do this in any case
:15:58. > :16:03.Antipater admitted that the Egyptians would have taken some
:16:04. > :16:13.similar action in the future. -- and he later. Now, the canal was
:16:14. > :16:16.Egyptian sovereign territory but the company which supervised the
:16:17. > :16:19.operations of the canal was controlled by the British and French
:16:20. > :16:25.and was meant to secure international control of it so it
:16:26. > :16:29.was not under the policy of any particular country, so its status
:16:30. > :16:34.was different from that of the Panama Canal which had been leased
:16:35. > :16:39.to the Americans and was an American and international waterway. Still,
:16:40. > :16:44.some could argue that if an was under the unfettered control of a
:16:45. > :16:49.single country, why not also Suez. Suez was nowhere near as important
:16:50. > :16:53.to the Americans as it was Europeans. Britain and France but
:16:54. > :16:58.the international status of the Suez Canal was at risk and the canal was
:16:59. > :17:03.crucial to them at that time because a quarter of British imports and two
:17:04. > :17:07.thirds of her boy passed through the canal and they were very worried
:17:08. > :17:12.that it could come under the control of a hostile power, Egypt, perhaps
:17:13. > :17:20.with Soviet influence. Earlier, in 1956, Soviet leaders had come to
:17:21. > :17:24.Britain and Anthony Eden had told them that the uninterrupted supply
:17:25. > :17:29.of oil was literally vital to our economy is that I said I thought I
:17:30. > :17:34.must be absolutely blunt about the annoyed because we would fight for
:17:35. > :17:38.it. The trouble was it was not clear what Nasser had done was actually
:17:39. > :17:42.illegal because he seemed to be doing no more than buying the assets
:17:43. > :17:49.of the company and offering full compensation to those affected. Most
:17:50. > :17:53.international lawyers, not all, but most, believe the Act was not
:17:54. > :18:00.illegal in international law. The British cabinet which met the day
:18:01. > :18:05.after decided, we should be on weak ground in basing our resistance on
:18:06. > :18:10.the narrow argument that Colonel Nasser had acted illegally. The Suez
:18:11. > :18:14.Canal Company was registered as an Egyptian company and Egyptian law
:18:15. > :18:20.and Colonel Nasser had indicated he attempted to compensate the
:18:21. > :18:23.shareholders at market prices. From a narrow legal point of view, the
:18:24. > :18:28.action amounted to no more than a action amounted to no more than a
:18:29. > :18:33.decision to buy out shareholders. The Cabinet then went on to argue,
:18:34. > :18:37.are accused must be presented on wider international brands. Our
:18:38. > :18:40.argument must be to Egypt could not be allowed to exploit it for a
:18:41. > :18:46.purely internal purpose. The canal was a vital link between East and
:18:47. > :18:49.West. It was not a piece of Egyptian property, but an international asset
:18:50. > :18:53.of the highest importance and it should be managed as an
:18:54. > :18:57.international trust. In other words, it should not be in the hands of the
:18:58. > :19:01.single power. The West wasn't in a very strong position to insist on
:19:02. > :19:06.this because Nasser had refused to allow Israeli chips to use the
:19:07. > :19:11.canal, saying he was still at war with Israel. Some international
:19:12. > :19:17.lawyers supported that position, but most did not and Egypt was condemned
:19:18. > :19:20.by the UN and could have an obligation to meet Israeli chips. It
:19:21. > :19:25.did not do so and no one did anything about it. Even if
:19:26. > :19:29.nationalisation of the canal was not illegal, it was condemned by almost
:19:30. > :19:33.everyone in Britain, by politicians on both right and left as an Act of
:19:34. > :19:37.thunder that could be allowed to succeed. One of the leaders of the
:19:38. > :19:43.British left at that time, the Labour politician Bevan, said if the
:19:44. > :19:48.sending of 1's police and soldiers into the darkness of the night to
:19:49. > :19:54.seize property belonging to someone else is nationalisation then Ali
:19:55. > :20:00.Baba used the wrong terminology. The action by Nasser reminded many
:20:01. > :20:03.people of the 1930s and none more so than Anthony Eden, he was deeply
:20:04. > :20:09.scarred by the events of that decade. Eden had first become
:20:10. > :20:16.Foreign Secretary in 1935 at the early age of 58. He had been Foreign
:20:17. > :20:20.Secretary in 1936 when Hitler had preoccupied and re-militarised the
:20:21. > :20:24.Rhineland. He felt very guilty that he had done nothing to resist this
:20:25. > :20:28.though, in my view, there was no support in Britain for such
:20:29. > :20:34.resistance. This reputation had been made when he resigned in 1938 when
:20:35. > :20:38.he was just 40 years old from the government of Neville Chamberlain in
:20:39. > :20:40.protest against the appeasement of Mussolini and then made his
:20:41. > :20:47.reputation establishing himself in the public eye as the young,
:20:48. > :20:51.handsome, idealistic founder of collective security and
:20:52. > :20:58.international agreements. He seemed to personify the struggle against
:20:59. > :21:02.dictatorship in Europe. Some argued that Eden resigning was misjudged.
:21:03. > :21:07.Mussolini was a minor figure and it was worth trying to bring onside so
:21:08. > :21:13.better to resist Hitler. Eden rejected that view. He argued that
:21:14. > :21:17.if the democracies were firm with Mussolini, this would impress Hitler
:21:18. > :21:22.and deter him or at least ensured that the German generals refused to
:21:23. > :21:27.take the risks of four and my own personal view is that Eden was right
:21:28. > :21:31.in that judgment. What he was fundamentally concerned with in the
:21:32. > :21:35.1930s and in the 1950s was the fundamental problem of how to secure
:21:36. > :21:42.the conditions of international order. Eden went back to the Foreign
:21:43. > :21:47.Office in 1940, shortly after Churchill became Prime Minister and
:21:48. > :21:52.again in 1951 in the eastern government led by Churchill. As
:21:53. > :21:55.Foreign Secretary he had a record of almost unbroken success and was
:21:56. > :21:58.described by the Australian the performance at the time as the
:21:59. > :22:02.greatest Foreign Secretary of the century. It was generally felt he
:22:03. > :22:10.had a great flair and instinct for foreign policy. In the 1950s he saw
:22:11. > :22:12.the same syndrome is in the 1920s with international agreements being
:22:13. > :22:18.broken and international order being threatened. He compared Nasser with
:22:19. > :22:23.Mussolini, in particular. The opposition leader, she gets girl,
:22:24. > :22:27.went further. He said in Parliament, it is all very familiar. It is
:22:28. > :22:33.exactly the same that we encountered from Mussolini and Hitler in those
:22:34. > :22:37.years before the war. It was just 20 years since Hitler had quite
:22:38. > :22:42.militarised the Rhineland and such comparisons were frequent. The daily
:22:43. > :22:47.Herald, a liberal paper, said no more settlers. The Secretary-General
:22:48. > :22:51.of the United Nations told the British Foreign Secretary in 1955
:22:52. > :22:58.that Nasser was comparable to Hitler. Gaitskell, the Leader of the
:22:59. > :23:00.Opposition, give the objections to the action by matter which with the
:23:01. > :23:09.same as those of the government. The first was that the company was
:23:10. > :23:13.not a normal company, but because it controlled a waterway, a matter of
:23:14. > :23:17.international concern, it could not be in the power of one person,
:23:18. > :23:23.secondly, the manner done without discussion and force, and thirdly
:23:24. > :23:27.and a skilled's view, part of a policy of Egyptian imperialism. He
:23:28. > :23:33.said we cannot forget that Colonel Nasser has repeatedly boasted of his
:23:34. > :23:38.intention to create an Arab empire from the Atlantic to the Persian
:23:39. > :23:42.Gulf. He said the bridge by minister had called it a speech of Nasser's
:23:43. > :23:47.and rightly said it could remind us of the speeches of Hitler before the
:23:48. > :23:51.war. At the same time, date skill said what Nasser had done so far
:23:52. > :23:57.offered no justification for the use of force unless authorised by the
:23:58. > :24:03.United Nations, that is where he differed from the United Nations
:24:04. > :24:07.committee wanted to abide by United Nations decisions. The Cabinet to
:24:08. > :24:10.give different view. It's met on the day of the nationalisation and paste
:24:11. > :24:14.the following question, I caught from the minutes. The fundamental
:24:15. > :24:17.question before the Cabinet was whether they were prepared in the
:24:18. > :24:24.last resort to pursue their objective by the threat or even the
:24:25. > :24:27.use of force and whether they were ready, in default of assistance from
:24:28. > :24:31.the United States or France, to take military action alone. The Cabinet
:24:32. > :24:36.answer the question the following way. The Cabinet agreed that our
:24:37. > :24:42.essential interest in this area must, if necessary, be safeguarded
:24:43. > :24:47.by military action and that the necessary preparations to this end
:24:48. > :24:52.must be made. Failure to hold the Suez Canal would lead inevitably to
:24:53. > :24:56.the loss, one by one, of all our interests and assets in the Middle
:24:57. > :25:01.East and even if we had to act alone, we could not stop short of
:25:02. > :25:06.using force to protect our position if all other means of protecting
:25:07. > :25:08.improved unavailable. But the restoration of international control
:25:09. > :25:14.was not the only aim of the Government. The Cabinet set up an
:25:15. > :25:18.Egypt committee. This met on the 30th of July, shortly after
:25:19. > :25:23.nationalisation. According to the minutes, decided as follows. While
:25:24. > :25:28.our ultimate purpose was to place the canal under international
:25:29. > :25:33.control, our immediate objective was to bring about the downfall of the
:25:34. > :25:36.present Egyptian Government. This might perhaps be achieved by less
:25:37. > :25:41.elaborate operations than those required to secure physical
:25:42. > :25:45.possession of the canal itself. On the other hand, it was argued that
:25:46. > :25:47.our case before world opinion was based on the need to secure
:25:48. > :25:54.international control over the canal. To most of us, it will seem
:25:55. > :25:59.shocking the British Government sought to remove the Egyptian
:26:00. > :26:02.Government. Regime change, if you like. That would not have seemed
:26:03. > :26:08.shocking to British and American governments at that time. In 1953,
:26:09. > :26:11.the British and Americans had helped remove the radical Government in
:26:12. > :26:19.Iran that I'd nationalise the oil company in 1851 and re-established
:26:20. > :26:26.the Shah in power. In 1854, the Americans had helped remove the
:26:27. > :26:30.Government that Allah -- what Allah, and under Kennedy, it helped remove
:26:31. > :26:36.the Government in the Nam, in Granada in 1883, in Panama in 1989,
:26:37. > :26:40.leaving aside Iraq. None of these governments, it is fair to say, had
:26:41. > :26:45.been democratically elected, nor were the governments that displace
:26:46. > :26:49.them. The bridges, where the Americans oppose the man Suez, but
:26:50. > :26:53.this was an example of American hypocrisy -- British. Later on you
:26:54. > :27:02.will see examples of British hypocrisy as well. In my view, a
:27:03. > :27:06.minority view, most people disagree, they except I have caught it from
:27:07. > :27:12.the British Government, the Cabinet minutes, -- quoted -- the British
:27:13. > :27:16.Government was not committed to using force against Egypt. It is
:27:17. > :27:20.true they meet military preparations during the summer but, in my view,
:27:21. > :27:24.these were contingency plans to be put into practice only if other
:27:25. > :27:28.methods of achieving a satisfactory settlement had failed. If that
:27:29. > :27:32.happens, it have to go back to the Cabinet which would decide on the
:27:33. > :27:35.use of force. In my view, the British had had too much trouble
:27:36. > :27:39.over the Suez space to wish to go back with a renewed physical
:27:40. > :27:44.presence in Egypt. I believe the hope was that a united front by
:27:45. > :27:49.Britain, America and France would compel a settlement acceptable to
:27:50. > :27:56.Britain, as in Iran, a settlement on the Thames untestable to Egypt would
:27:57. > :28:00.lead to the removal of Nasser's Government and the replacement of a
:28:01. > :28:03.more pro-Western Government. There was also a general presumption that
:28:04. > :28:09.Nasser would undertake some further action, such as blocking the canal,
:28:10. > :28:13.which may well provide a justification for source but he was
:28:14. > :28:16.far too shrewd to do that. Yet it moderately during this period.
:28:17. > :28:19.Whatever the Cabinet minutes say, the British were unwilling to act
:28:20. > :28:27.alone. From the start they were anxious to secure American support.
:28:28. > :28:30.American support was essential because, though Britain and France
:28:31. > :28:33.intervened in Suez, that led to Soviet action. The two countries
:28:34. > :28:39.would then need the protection of the Americans. American acquiescence
:28:40. > :28:43.was essential. Anthony Eden told an American diplomat, we do hope you
:28:44. > :28:52.will take care of the bat, the bad being Russia. At first sight,
:28:53. > :28:58.chapters at the United front seemed good -- bear. The president of the
:28:59. > :29:03.US was Eisenhower, a strong Anglo file, he had known Anthony Eden and
:29:04. > :29:06.Harold Macmillan the Chancellor, he was particularly good at
:29:07. > :29:09.understanding the British sensibilities and popular in
:29:10. > :29:13.Britain, he worked with Churchill as well. His particular skill essential
:29:14. > :29:17.on D-Day was handling coalition politics between different
:29:18. > :29:23.countries. For him, the unity the Allied armies was more important
:29:24. > :29:26.than any national interest, even national interest of America. He
:29:27. > :29:31.would immediately sent back on the next boat home any officer, however
:29:32. > :29:35.senior, who disparaged Britain. One such officer complains to Eisenhower
:29:36. > :29:42.that he was being sent back to America for calling the British
:29:43. > :29:45.officer a son of a bitch. And Eisenhower were replied, you called
:29:46. > :29:51.him a British son of a bitch, that is unforgivable. Britain was to
:29:52. > :29:55.complain during the Suez crisis that and Erica had not understood the
:29:56. > :29:59.British point of view. I think it is also true that Britain didn't
:30:00. > :30:04.understand the American point of view. There was a tendency in the
:30:05. > :30:08.post-war years Elliot, perhaps it is still there, for the British to
:30:09. > :30:11.think of the American Government as a checkout a charitable institution
:30:12. > :30:15.whose purpose was to provide the money to sustain British interest in
:30:16. > :30:20.the world without asking too many questions about what Britain did
:30:21. > :30:26.with that influence. President Eisenhower himself complained to a
:30:27. > :30:31.colleague in 1953. He said, at times I get weary of the European habit of
:30:32. > :30:40.taking our money, presenting any slight hint as to what they should
:30:41. > :30:43.do, and then criticising us as bitterly as they may desire. The
:30:44. > :30:48.Americans felt they were being patronised by the British. They were
:30:49. > :30:53.worried, understandably, that Britain may present them with a fait
:30:54. > :30:59.accompli in Suez, that they would invade and the Americans would offer
:31:00. > :31:03.support. Indeed, to the Suez invasion, the American Secretary of
:31:04. > :31:07.State, John Foster Dulles, told the president, they deny they are
:31:08. > :31:12.thinking maybe that they will confront us with a de facto
:31:13. > :31:15.situation in which they may acknowledge they have been rash but
:31:16. > :31:22.would say the US could not sit by and let them go under economically.
:31:23. > :31:26.Eisenhower made clear from the very beginning that he thought there was
:31:27. > :31:29.no justification for the use of force. He shared the critics view
:31:30. > :31:33.that Nasser was a menace to best interest and that policy had to be
:31:34. > :31:36.worked out a deal with him but he did not believe that the
:31:37. > :31:42.nationalisation of the canal company was the right issue on which to act.
:31:43. > :31:46.He drew a strong distinction, which I think the British perhaps did not
:31:47. > :31:51.graph, between military action and covert operations. Again, you may
:31:52. > :31:55.say that is a sign of American hypocrisy but we will come to
:31:56. > :31:59.British hypocrisy later on. Eisenhower made his view absolutely
:32:00. > :32:02.clear, not much in public statements, though there were public
:32:03. > :32:06.statements, but letters to Eden and these have now been published. The
:32:07. > :32:10.letters are very courteous, he was writing to a friend and ally, but
:32:11. > :32:14.there was no room for misunderstanding that he was
:32:15. > :32:17.particularly insistent on a peaceful sedition expect solution because he
:32:18. > :32:20.was facing a presidential election on November the 6th on watching this
:32:21. > :32:25.containing as the candidate who would maintain the peace between the
:32:26. > :32:29.jury difficult days of the Cold War. The last thing he needed was a war
:32:30. > :32:33.in the Middle East which may undermine that claim. In his
:32:34. > :32:37.memoirs, Eisenhower said, my conviction was that the Western
:32:38. > :32:40.world had got into a lot of difficulties by selecting the wrong
:32:41. > :32:45.issues about which to be tough. To choose a situation in which Nasser
:32:46. > :32:48.had legal and sovereign rights and in which world opinion was on his
:32:49. > :32:55.side was not, in my opinion, a good one on which to make a stand. Still,
:32:56. > :32:59.even if the Americans didn't support what the British were doing, there
:33:00. > :33:04.may be acquiescence, that the Americans would turn a blind eye,
:33:05. > :33:07.perhaps opposing in public but in practice doing nothing to stop the
:33:08. > :33:11.operation. Part of the reason for this was that Eisenhower did not say
:33:12. > :33:14.what he would do if the British did use force, partly because he
:33:15. > :33:17.believed they would not do it without American support and he did
:33:18. > :33:21.not want to appeared to threaten and ally. The British were encouraged in
:33:22. > :33:28.their view that they may win American support for force by an
:33:29. > :33:33.American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. That was paradoxical
:33:34. > :33:38.since, while British leaders like Eisenhower, almost everyone in the
:33:39. > :33:44.faces of the 1950s, like Ike, they put British leaders did not like
:33:45. > :33:48.Joss deliver John Foster Dulles very much and they were irked by his
:33:49. > :33:52.self-righteous approach to foreign policy. He prided himself on his
:33:53. > :33:57.flair and intuition on foreign policy, didn't like listening to
:33:58. > :33:59.sermons and moralising for the Secretary of State of America.
:34:00. > :34:05.Aren't Macmillan rather unkindly said of him, his speech was slow but
:34:06. > :34:13.it easily kept pace with his thoughts. Eisenhower like Dulles but
:34:14. > :34:17.few others did and Eden certainly didn't. He called on in his memoir
:34:18. > :34:20.is the preacher in a world of politics. It is fair to say that
:34:21. > :34:26.Dulles and many other Americans did not like Eden, with his languid,
:34:27. > :34:33.aristocratic manner and his habit of calling colleagues, my dear, which
:34:34. > :34:37.rather grated on American opinion. Dulles's long-winded speeches left
:34:38. > :34:41.many wondering what precisely they meant. That was in parts deliver it
:34:42. > :34:47.cost Dulles was deliberately using delaying tactics. He thought the
:34:48. > :34:53.danger of war would disappear once negotiations started. And that he
:34:54. > :34:58.should keep the pot boiling so that tempers cooled down a bit. To get
:34:59. > :35:02.the British and French fully committed to negotiations, he had to
:35:03. > :35:07.give the impression that if these failed, the Americans may consider
:35:08. > :35:11.supporting force. In other words, he wanted to string the British and
:35:12. > :35:15.French along. Despite all this, despite the fact that he was
:35:16. > :35:18.disliked by British leaders, Dulles, oddly enough, was more sympathetic
:35:19. > :35:26.to the British position than Eisenhower was. He couldn't disguise
:35:27. > :35:30.that sympathy in Britain. So there were a crucial misunderstandings on
:35:31. > :35:33.both sides of the Atlantic. In particular, boar crucial mistakes
:35:34. > :35:39.were made in handling that American relationship. -- boar. The first
:35:40. > :35:45.mistake was the British assumed that Dulles, it was more sympathetic than
:35:46. > :35:48.Eisenhower, was in charge of American foreign policy, because he
:35:49. > :35:53.tended to be more outspoken. That wishful thinking. The British
:35:54. > :35:57.assumed that Dulles was under the power of the British Foreign
:35:58. > :36:01.Secretary, at that time a powerful politician with the constituency of
:36:02. > :36:07.his own, as Eden had had under Churchill, and Iris Bevan -- Aneurin
:36:08. > :36:10.Bevan and the Labour Government. But the American Secretary of State
:36:11. > :36:15.position is not like that. He is a delegate of the president. He is
:36:16. > :36:18.more like the permanent secretary of the Foreign Office that he British
:36:19. > :36:21.Foreign Secretary. He cannot act independently of the president.
:36:22. > :36:26.Dulles was aware of that because of what had happened in 1947. An
:36:27. > :36:32.American Secretary of State had tried to do just that, James Burns,
:36:33. > :36:36.he rather underestimated Truman and was attempting to carry out a
:36:37. > :36:41.foreign policy of his own but was dismissed by President Truman for
:36:42. > :36:47.insubordination. That was even Bill Burns had a political base of his
:36:48. > :36:52.own, had not been a senator. In 1982, President Reagan was to
:36:53. > :36:56.dismiss Alexander Haig as the Secretary of State because they find
:36:57. > :36:58.personally incompatible. Dulles, by contrast with Burns, had no
:36:59. > :37:03.electoral constituency or political base. He had been defeated in a
:37:04. > :37:08.attempt to secure a Senate seat in 1850 and was dependent on the
:37:09. > :37:13.president. His only claim to his post was his technical ability and
:37:14. > :37:18.his confidence, the confidence secretary to the Mac president
:37:19. > :37:22.placed in him. Whatever his views were, he would not challenge the
:37:23. > :37:27.president. Eisenhower had made the decisions, his ideas were what
:37:28. > :37:31.happened to Lima counted. The British did not understand that. The
:37:32. > :37:35.second mistake was made by Dulles. He were dead British opinion and saw
:37:36. > :37:37.the Labour Party together with some conservatives are members of the
:37:38. > :37:44.public were against the use of force. He assumed a force would not
:37:45. > :37:48.be used. He was comparing parliamentary opposition in Britain
:37:49. > :37:53.to senatorial opposition in America. He no doubt remembered the havoc
:37:54. > :37:56.that Senator McCarthy had caused in American foreign policy through his
:37:57. > :38:01.wild charges concerning commonest in the State Department and he noticed
:38:02. > :38:04.the great power wielded by Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic leader in
:38:05. > :38:09.the south. The British system is different. The British by Minister,
:38:10. > :38:13.unlike the president, controls the legislature. There could be no
:38:14. > :38:18.American comparison to the House of Commons and opposition and hostility
:38:19. > :38:21.to Government policy is standard, expected. Cameron said he would not
:38:22. > :38:26.act in Syria without opposition support but he does not have to take
:38:27. > :38:28.such a line. A determined by Minister need not bother with the
:38:29. > :38:32.opposition in parliament and as far as Parliament founded in 1956, it
:38:33. > :38:35.was in the form of the right wing of the Conservative Party, pressing
:38:36. > :38:42.Eden to adopt more forcible measures. Clamouring for the use of
:38:43. > :38:44.force. Contrary to what Dulles of thought, Parliamentary pressure was
:38:45. > :38:49.spurring Eden on, not holding him back. The third mistake was made by
:38:50. > :38:56.the British. They saw Eisenhower at a fairly passive figure who would go
:38:57. > :39:00.along with British policy. There was a idea at the time in Britain but
:39:01. > :39:02.also amongst Americans that he was a lazy president who spent more time
:39:03. > :39:09.on the golf course and in his office. One of Eisenhower's letters,
:39:10. > :39:14.Eden said, the only thing that is true to Eisenhower is his signature
:39:15. > :39:21.and that is illegible. Churchill told his doctor, the president is no
:39:22. > :39:24.more than a Ben Toolis's doll. With an election due in November, the
:39:25. > :39:29.British hope he would not go against Israel, the allies there, because of
:39:30. > :39:36.the importance of the Jewish vote in New York on a swing state then.
:39:37. > :39:47.Eisenhower was then in control of American foreign policy and Dulles
:39:48. > :39:51.was his agent. To be seen as a concert use about the battle and
:39:52. > :39:56.retain popularity, Eisenhower was a strong president with strong views
:39:57. > :40:00.on foreign policy. Far from being a golf playing amateur, you had from
:40:01. > :40:04.his wartime experiences in his post what leadership in Nato, an
:40:05. > :40:07.unrivalled experience of foreign policy.