Suez Scenario: a Lamentable Tale

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FULL CIRCLE. THE MEMOIRS OF ANTHONY EDEN. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960, 676 p.

FEW differences have so estranged the American and British Governments as the one that resulted from the seizure of the Suez Canal. None has been revived more resentfully than by Anthony Eden, then Prime Minister of Britain, in his memoirs. This is the provocation to inspect the slithering course of consultation between the two Governments during this experience.

Eden, two years before, had prevailed upon his colleagues, even upon his imposing senior, Winston Churchill, to assent to the evacuation of the British base in the Canal Zone. In the agreement with President Nasser signed at that time, the two governments had confirmed their recognition that the canal was a waterway of international importance, and avowed their wish to uphold the International Convention of 1888 which provided that "the Suez Maritime Canal shall always be free and open, in time of war as in time of peace, to every vessel of commerce or of war without distinction of flag."

Even as the British were getting out of Egypt, and the French from Tunis and Morocco, Nasser had striven with slanderous bluster to get all the Arab nations and tribes from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf to follow his call. He had used every means and method in an effort to destroy the state of Israel. Funds needed for improvement of Egyptian life were devoted to purchase of weapons from the Communist countries.

At the same time Nasser had sought financial aid for the construction of a great dam at Aswan on the Nile. The American and British Governments had joined with the World Bank in a loan program. To this they had attached three restrictive conditions. One was that Egypt should reach a fair agreement with the Sudan about Nile water rights; another was that Egypt should accord this project priority upon its financial resources; the third was that Egypt should not accept aid from Communist sources.

Nasser had not liked these terms. He was encouraged by the Soviet Government to resist them. By Nasser's account, the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, Shepilov, while visiting Egypt in June 1956, "expressed his readiness to help Egypt in all fields in which he asked for assistance to the extent of granting longterm loans. He said that everything in which they coöperated would be without restrictions or conditions; all we had to do was ask them . . ."