Eisenhower in War and Peace

In his diary that evening, Eisenhower lamented his failure to bring the two sides together. “Of course, there can be no change in our basic position, which is that we must be friends with both contestants in that region in order that we can bring them closer together. To take sides could do nothing but to destroy our influence in leading toward a peaceful settlement of one of the most explosive situations in the world today.”² ^a With American support, Britain attempted to establish an alliance of Arab states, the “Baghdad Pact,” which was designed to impede Soviet penetration of the Middle East. But Nasser balked at joining the pact, which he saw as an effort to perpetuate Western colonialism. Instead, he sought to put Egypt in the forefront of the effort to create a global “third force” that would be independent of the two Cold War blocs.

The Arab-Israeli dispute, which was complicated enough, was exacerbated by the rise of anticolonialism in the region, the decline of British and French power, the growing influence of the Soviet Union, and Western Europe’s need for oil—all of which conspired to make an intractable problem all the more intractable. In 1950, the United States, Britain, and France issued the Tripartite Declaration pledging to enforce the existing boundaries between Israel and its neighbors, and agreeing not to supply any state in the region with arms that might be used for offensive purposes.³ The declaration was hortatory and left the signatories considerable wiggle room. France discovered Israel to be a natural ally against Arab nationalist movements in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, and soon undertook to provide a wide array of weaponry for the Israeli armed forces. Britain, for its part, was stung when Egyptian Army officers overthrew King Farouk in 1952, denounced the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, and ordered British forces out of the country. The governments of Churchill and Eden also saw Israel as an ally against the rising tide of Arab nationalism and quietly began to provide arms for the Israelis. Only the United States held fast to the strict letter of the declaration, and for the most part ignored the growing tension along Israel’s frontiers.

When the weapons negotiations with the United States broke down, Nasser turned to the Soviet Union. Washington officials, from Secretary of State Dulles down, believed Nasser was bluffing and that in any event the Russians had no surplus arms to give him. Even when Nasser told U.S. authorities that he preferred American weapons to those the Soviets would provide, Washington turned a deaf ear. When the truth finally dawned at the State Department that Nasser was indeed serious, Dulles dispatched Kermit Roosevelt to Cairo to dissuade him. Roosevelt, the CIA head in the Middle East who had masterminded the coup in Iran, was a personal friend of Nasser’s, but by then it was too late. The deal with the Soviets had been struck. Asked by Nasser how he could soften the blow, Roosevelt suggested half-humorously that he might call it a Czech deal. “Say you are dealing with Prague”—which Nasser did. On September 27, 1955, three days after Eisenhower suffered his heart attack in Denver, Nasser formally announced the acquisition of Soviet arms from Czechoslovakia. The equipment was estimated to be worth between $90 and $200 million, far more than the $27 million Nasser had requested from the United States. In Washington, Dulles conceded that it was “difficult to be critical” of Egypt for seeking the weapons, which “they sincerely need for defense.”⁸ When Israel asked the United States for arms to offset those Egypt would receive from the Soviet Union, Eisenhower declined, fearing it would only contribute to the arms race in the Middle East.⁹

Nasser’s weapons deal with the Soviet Union caught Washington by surprise. An even greater surprise arrived several days later as rumors spread that the Russians had offered to finance and build the massive Aswan High Dam on the Nile. The Aswan High Dam was an enormous engineering project—U.S. undersecretary of state Herbert Hoover, Jr., called it “the largest single project yet undertaken anywhere in the world”—designed to store and distribute the waters of the Nile for the irrigation of new farmland and provide electric power for industrialization. Feasibility studies undertaken by the World Bank in 1953 and 1954 indicated that the dam was both technologically feasible and within the economic capacity of Egypt to construct, assuming reasonable outside financing arrangements.¹⁰ Confronted with the Soviet offer, Nasser immediately informed Washington that Egypt would much prefer to deal with the United States and the World Bank rather than the Russians.

With Eisenhower recuperating in Denver, Dulles took the lead in shaping the American response. Nasser’s desire for Western aid provided an opportunity to close the door on Soviet influence in Cairo, and Dulles quickly signed on. Meeting in Geneva, Dulles and British foreign secretary Harold Macmillan agreed to assist in the construction of the Aswan Dam in return for Egypt’s cooperation in arriving at an Arab-Israeli settlement.¹¹ Quadripartite negotiations involving Great Britain, the United States, the World Bank, and Egypt commenced in Washington on November 21, 1955, and by that time Eisenhower was back in control. “Is there any reason not to go all out for the dam in Egypt?” he asked Dulles.¹²

The Western financial package for the first phase of construction of the Aswan Dam was formalized on December 16, 1955. The World Bank would lend Egypt $200 million, the United States and Great Britain would provide cash grants of $56 million and $14 million, respectively, and would consider later grants of up to $200 million as the work progressed. Total cost of the dam was estimated at $1.3 billion, the balance of which would be handled by Egypt spread over fifteen to eighteen years.

Eugene Black, president of the World Bank, carried the proposal to Cairo for Nasser’s approval. “Don’t act like a banker,” Dulles chided him.¹⁴ By mid-February, Black had reached substantial agreement with Nasser on most points, only to find that American support for the project was fast eroding. Continued skirmishing along the Israeli-Egyptian border made it evident that peace was unlikely to be achieved, and Zionist opposition to the dam had become manifest. As Sherman Adams put it, “Any attempt to give aid to the Arabs always met with opposition behind the scenes in Washington, where members of Congress were acutely aware of the … many well-organized pro-Israel lobbies that were always effective and influential in the Capitol.”¹⁵ In addition, Truman Democrats who would normally have supported the administration in foreign policy backed off because of Nasser’s arms deal with the Soviets, while cotton-state Democrats worried that newly irrigated farmland in the fertile Nile Valley would flood the market with long-staple cotton in competition with American growers.¹⁶ ^b

As opposition grew, Dulles began to question the wisdom of the proposal. The British were backing off as well,^c and Nasser was becoming increasingly influential as a leader of neutralist sentiment throughout the world—along with India’s Nehru and Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia. For Dulles, neutralism was heresy in the holy war against Communism. On May 16, 1956, when Nasser recognized mainland China, he moved beyond the pale. As one of Dulles’s biographers has written, in the secretary’s pantheon of devils, “the Red Chinese represented perhaps the highest and purest evil.”¹⁷ For Dulles and many at State, Defense, and in the intelligence community, Nasser was now in the enemy camp. The fact that both Great Britain and Israel had previously recognized the Communist regime in Beijing made no difference.

Eisenhower was more tolerant. At his press conference the week after Nasser’s action, the president noted that he was disappointed, “but a single act on the part of another nation does not, in itself, destroy friendship for that nation.”

“It’s just like your family,” Ike told the reporters. “Every difference or spat doesn’t mean you’re going to the divorce courts. In the same way here, you can’t take any one idea or any one act on the part of another government and say, ‘That’s the end; that’s that.’ ”¹⁸

The difference between Eisenhower and his secretary of state was evident. When the president’s press conference remarks came over the wire, Dulles rushed to the White House to urge Ike to issue a clarification. Eisenhower did so, but his four-paragraph clarification, a genuine fog of words, clarified only that he and Dulles were miles apart on neutralism and how to deal with it.²⁰

Two days later Eisenhower suffered a massive ileitis attack requiring major surgery that kept him out of action for the next five weeks. Shortly after midnight on June 8, 1956, Eisenhower suffered what appeared to be a digestive upset. These were not infrequent, and initially Dr. Snyder saw no cause for alarm. But when the pain did not subside, it was clear the president was far sicker than originally thought. Snyder called it “chronic ileitis.”²¹ At noon, Eisenhower was rushed to Walter Reed and by evening doctors concluded the president had an “obstruction of the intestine in the terminal ileum.”^d He was operated on at 2 a.m. on June 9, and surgeons pronounced the procedure a success. Eisenhower’s life expectancy might even have been enhanced, the doctors said, because they corrected an intestinal condition that had existed for years.²²

The operation was conducted without incident. But recovery was far more difficult for Eisenhower than his recuperation from the heart attack nine months earlier. Four weeks later he was still wearing a surgical drainage tube and his mood was morose. Ann Whitman described the president as uncomfortable and depressed, unable to concentrate on the issues at hand. Nixon said Eisenhower “looked far worse than he had in 1955. The ileitis was not half as serious [as the heart attack], but he suffered more pain over a longer period of time.”²³ The slowness of the president’s recovery was never revealed to the public, but for the next four weeks Eisenhower was effectively out of the loop. Meetings with staff members were minimal, and as one scholar has put it, “Foster Dulles was left to his own devices.”²⁴

Without Eisenhower’s restraining hand, Dulles moved discreetly to scuttle the financing for the Aswan Dam. On June 20, Nasser met with Eugene Black in Cairo and resolved all outstanding differences. Black returned to Washington and reported to Dulles on June 25. Everything was set, said Black, and Nasser still preferred to deal with the West rather than the Russians. Dulles was uninterested. When Black cautioned the secretary, “If you call it off I think all hell will break loose,” Dulles rose from his seat and walked out of the room, terminating the conversation.²⁵

At this point Dulles began to prepare the public for the cancellation of the Aswan project. On July 9, The New York Times, reflecting a leak from the top, reported that the State Department was “fundamentally re-examining United States relations with Egypt,” including the Aswan Dam.²⁶ Henry Byroade, who was one of Nasser’s most consistent supporters in the State Department, was eased out as American ambassador in Cairo, and congressional leaders were quietly informed that the Aswan Dam was no longer a priority for the administration.

Eisenhower was on the sidelines. Not until five days after Ike’s surgery did Dulles travel to Gettysburg for his first substantive conversation with the president. The meeting was short, with numerous items on the agenda, and the Aswan Dam was briefly alluded to at the conclusion. Dulles said simply that the State Department’s view of the merits of the matter “had somewhat altered” and let it go at that. Eisenhower did not respond. “For Eisenhower, this discussion of Aswan must have sounded like something happening on another planet,” said one biographer. “He had no up-to-date information and did not seek any.”²⁷

The cancellation of the Aswan Dam was the greatest diplomatic debacle of the Eisenhower era, and the West was totally unprepared to respond to Nasser’s action.^f Britain and France feverishly organized military forces to retake the canal, and Dulles was away from Washington attending conferences in Latin America. Eisenhower, who was still recovering from his operation, was thrust back into command. It was a blessing in disguise. With the president back on the bridge, the American ship of state resumed its steady course. Ike refused to panic. What authority did Nasser have to seize the canal? he asked Herbert Brownell. “The entire length of the Canal lay within Egyptian territory,” the attorney general answered.³¹ It was a matter of eminent domain. From that point on, Eisenhower’s policy was clear. “Egypt was within its rights,” he told Dulles, “and until its operation of the Canal proves incompetent, there is nothing to do.”³² ^g

Eisenhower immediately wrote Prime Minister Anthony Eden to emphasize “the unwisdom even of contemplating the use of military force at the moment.”³³ When Britain and France persisted with plans to intervene, Dulles, the Joint Chiefs, and the congressional leadership, particularly Lyndon Johnson, argued that America’s allies deserved moral and economic support. Eisenhower rejected the argument. When Dulles suggested an international consortium to operate the canal, Eisenhower would have no part of it. “How would we like an international consortium running the Panama Canal?” asked the president.³⁴ Admiral Arleigh Burke said the Joint Chiefs agreed that “Nasser must be broken.” Eisenhower disagreed. “Nasser embodies the emotional demands of the people of the area for independence and for ‘slapping the White Man down.’ ” Unless we were careful, said the president, Muslim solidarity could “array the world from Dakar to the Philippine Islands against us.”³⁵

Eisenhower was back to working seven days a week. He had temporarily averted war over Suez, the British and French stood down, and the Republican National Convention was due to convene at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on August 20, 1956. The Democrats, meeting in Chicago, had renominated Adlai Stevenson for president, and Estes Kefauver had secured the vice presidential nomination after a bruising floor fight with Senator John F. Kennedy. The Republican convention held no surprises. Eisenhower was renominated by acclamation on the first ballot, as was Nixon. A brief boomlet led by Harold Stassen to replace the vice president with Congressman Christian A. Herter of Massachusetts collapsed when Leonard Hall made it clear that such a move would disrupt party unity.³⁶ In his acceptance speech, which critics believe was one of Eisenhower’s best, Ike did not mention Suez or the crisis in the Middle East. “The Republican Party is the Party of the Future,” said Ike, “because it is the party through which many of the things that still need doing will soonest be done.”³⁷

The autumn of 1956 was the lull before the storm. Eisenhower took a leaf from Grant’s book in 1872 and campaigned sparingly. (Grant did not campaign at all.) Except for intensified cross-border skirmishing, the Middle East remained calm, and Eden took pains to assure Ike that Great Britain preferred a negotiated settlement concerning Suez. In reality, Britain, France, and Israel were organizing to retake the canal by force. On October 24, 1956, at Sèvres, outside Paris, Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion signed a secret protocol with Britain and France putting the plan in motion. Israeli troops would invade the Sinai Peninsula on October 29 and advance toward the Suez Canal. Britain and France would issue an ultimatum to Israel and Egypt to cease hostilities and accept Anglo-French occupation of the Canal Zone. Egypt presumably would refuse, at which point Britain and France would launch their own invasion of Suez. With American voters going to the polls on November 6, planners in London, Paris, and Tel Aviv assumed the American government could not respond until after the seizure of the canal was a fait accompli.

A good night’s sleep did nothing to improve Ike’s temper. “The French and British do not have adequate cause for war,” he told Dulles and Sherman Adams the next morning. “Egyptian action in nationalizing the Canal is not enough to justify this.”⁴⁰ At Eisenhower’s direction, Henry Cabot Lodge introduced a motion in the UN Security Council calling for an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. When the vote was taken that afternoon, Britain and France cast vetoes—their first in the history of the United Nations. A follow-on Soviet motion to the same effect was also vetoed. The British and French vetoes upset Ike. Later that afternoon, when Defense Mobilization Director Arthur Flemming warned Eisenhower that the Israeli attack imperiled Western Europe’s oil supply, the president barked back that “those who began this operation should be left to work out their own oil problems—to boil in their own oil.” The United States would not provide assistance.⁴¹ Lodge was instructed to appeal the cease-fire resolution to the UN General Assembly—a procedure that had not been used since the beginning of the Korean War in 1950—and Treasury Secretary George Humphrey was told to look at the financial implications of the invasion for Britain and France. “This cost of war was not irrelevant,” said Eisenhower.⁴²

On October 30, as planned, Britain and France issued ultimatums to Egypt and Israel to stop fighting, withdraw from the canal, and permit Anglo-French occupation of the Canal Zone to ensure canal traffic would not be interrupted. If they did not, Britain and France would take the canal by force. Dulles told Eisenhower the ultimatums were “about as crude and brutal as anything he had ever seen.”⁴³ The Israelis announced their readiness to comply, the Egyptians ignored the ultimatums, and twelve hours later Britain and French planes commenced attacks on targets in Cairo, Port Said, and Alexandria. The New York Times reported sightings of “the largest naval concentration seen in the eastern Mediterranean since World War II.”⁴⁴ Nasser responded by sinking a 320-foot freighter loaded with cement at the narrowest point of the canal, effectively blocking transit.⁴⁵

On November 1, Admiral Burke ordered the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean to stay near the Egyptian coast and be ready for any contingency.

“Who’s the enemy?” asked Vice Admiral Charles R. (“Cat”) Brown, commanding.

“I don’t know,” Burke replied. “We are still having that discussion.”⁴⁶

Eisenhower did not have wine with dinner that evening on the train back from Philadelphia, but he drank two tall scotches before the meal and three after.⁵⁰ The presidential party arrived back in Washington shortly after midnight. Four hours later Dulles reported from New York that the General Assembly had approved the U.S. cease-fire resolution 64–5, with only Australia and New Zealand joining Britain, France, and Israel voting against. Following passage of the resolution, Canada’s Lester Pearson proposed that a UN police force be organized and deployed between the combatants to ensure the effectiveness of the cease-fire.^h

“Life gets more difficult by the minute,” Ike wrote Alfred Gruenther. “I could really use a good bridge game.”⁵¹ To Swede Hazlett he wrote,

By the weekend, Israeli troops had taken most of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip; the aerial bombardment of Egyptian targets continued, but British and French forces had yet to come ashore. In Washington, Dulles was rushed to Walter Reed for emergency surgery. What doctors initially assumed to be a kidney stone turned out to be a cancerous tumor in the colon. The operation to remove it was successful, but the secretary would be out of action for at least a month.

For Eisenhower it was not that simple. The president recognized the precariousness of the situation, the possible escalation of the crisis into nuclear war, and the fact that Hungary was surrounded by Soviet-bloc and neutral nations. It was, as he later phrased it, “as inaccessible as Tibet.”⁵⁴ When the CIA sought approval to air-drop arms to the Hungarians, Eisenhower said no. “We have never asked for a people to rise up against a ruthless military force,” he told his press conference shortly afterward. “We simply insist upon the right of all people to be free to live under governments of their own choosing.”⁵⁵ Eisenhower dispatched a sharp letter to Bulganin asking that Soviet troops be withdrawn from Hungary, but with the Middle East on fire, chose not to press the issue further.⁵⁶

On Monday, November 5, the British and French armada finally arrived off the Egyptian coast: some two hundred ships including five aircraft carriers, six battleships, a dozen cruisers, and an assortment of lighter craft. What followed was a textbook World War II amphibious landing. Paratroopers jumped before dawn; commandos went ashore at first light, and by noon most of Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, was in the hands of British and French forces. To minimize damage on shore, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Britain’s first sea lord, had restricted the preinvasion bombardment to guns of 4.5 inches or less. Mountbatten had argued strongly in Whitehall against the invasion, and better than the politicians of the Eden government, he knew the enormous destruction that would be caused by the fleet’s 15- and 16-inch guns. With the British and French ashore, the issue was now a military problem, and Eisenhower instinctively assumed command. “If we could have for the next two or three days a period of relative calm while your troops did nothing but land,” he told Eden, “we might much more swiftly develop a solution that would be acceptable to both sides and to the world.”⁵⁷

On Monday afternoon the stakes were raised when Soviet premier Nikolai Bulganin fired off messages to Eden, Mollet, and Ben-Gurion announcing that Russia was prepared to use force to restore peace in the Middle East and suggesting the situation might escalate. The use of nuclear weapons was implicit.⁵⁹ Bulganin also dispatched a letter to Eisenhower suggesting that the United States and Soviet Union join forces to restore peace and tranquility in the Middle East. “If this war is not stopped,” said Bulganin, “it is fraught with danger and can grow into a third world war.”⁶⁰

Eisenhower remained calm. He assumed Bulganin’s message was most likely an attempt to divert attention from the situation in Hungary, but the United States could take no chances. “Those boys are both furious and scared,” he told a meeting of senior officials in the Oval Office. “Just as with Hitler, that makes for the most dangerous possible state of mind. And we better be damn sure that every Intelligence point and every outpost of our armed forces is absolutely right on their toes.… If those fellows start something, we may have to hit them—and, if necessary, with everything in the bucket.”⁶¹ Eisenhower instructed Allen Dulles to send U-2 reconnaissance flights over Syria and Israel, but not over Russia. If the U-2s discovered Soviet planes at Syrian air bases, that would create a serious problem. But Ike thought the Russians were bluffing. “Look at the map,” he told those present.⁶²

Rather than answer Bulganin’s letter, Eisenhower chose to issue a White House press release, a more effective way, in his view, of making his point without threatening the Soviet leader directly. It was “unthinkable” that the United States join military forces with the Soviets in Egypt, said the White House. Moreover, “Neither the Soviet or any other military forces should now enter the Middle East area except under United Nations mandate.” If they did, the United States would “oppose any such effort.” The message was a clear warning to the Russians to stay out.

Tuesday, November 6, 1956, was election day. At 9 a.m. Eisenhower and Mamie drove to Gettysburg to vote, and then returned to Washington by helicopter. They arrived about noon. Ike was informed that the U-2s had found no evidence of Russian planes in Syria, nor were any moving into Egypt. But the best was yet to come. At 12:30 Washington time, Eden announced that Great Britain was ready to accept a cease-fire.

American financial pressure had done the trick. On Tuesday morning the British government had requested the International Monetary Fund to make available the dollar funds the British had on deposit. The U.S. Treasury Department, as was its prerogative under IMF rules, blocked the transfer. At that point, Harold Macmillan, who was now chancellor of the exchequer, told an emergency meeting of the British cabinet that he could “not any more be responsible for Her Majesty’s exchequer” unless a cease-fire was ordered. Eden had no choice.^j

When he learned of the decision of the British cabinet, Eisenhower placed an immediate call to Eden.

When Eden continued to evade a commitment, Eisenhower got tough. “If you don’t get out of Port Said tomorrow, I’ll cause a run on the pound and drive it down to zero,” said Ike.⁶⁴ Eden capitulated. France followed suit. Israel did not agree to withdraw until the following day, and did not complete the movement until January 1957, after receiving American assurance of its right of free passage through the Gulf of Aqaba. Eden stepped down as prime minister and was succeeded by Harold Macmillan. Guy Mollet survived for another seven months, and in Israel the war was viewed as a success. The state had demonstrated its military prowess, and henceforth would be a power to be reckoned with.

In the closing days of the campaign, Governor Stevenson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and former president Truman excoriated Eisenhower for turning his back on Israel and America’s allies. Their criticism may have ensured that most of the Jewish vote remained in the Democratic column.⁶⁵ But at a time of international crisis, the overwhelming majority of Americans preferred to keep Eisenhower in the White House. When the votes were tabulated on election night, Eisenhower swamped Stevenson 35 million to 26 million—the largest presidential majority since FDR routed Alf Landon in 1936. Ike carried forty-one states to Stevenson’s seven.^k

^a Eisenhower was keenly aware of the strategic importance of the Arab states, but he was also mindful of the moral claims of the Jewish people to their newly re-created homeland. In his diary, Ike observed: “The oil of the Arab world has grown increasingly important to all of Europe. The economy of European countries would collapse if those oil supplies were cut off. If the economy of Europe would collapse, the United States would be in a situation of which the difficulty could scarcely be exaggerated. On the other hand, Israel, a tiny country, surrounded by enemies, is nevertheless one we had recognized—and on top of this, that has a very strong position in the heart and emotions of the Western world because of the tragic suffering of the Jews throughout twenty-five hundred years of history.” DDE diary, March 13, 1956, 16 The Presidency, 2668–70.

^b Not only did Walter George of Georgia, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, come from the deep South, but of the twelve Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, ten were from cotton-growing states. Congressional Directory, 84th Cong., 1st sess., 207 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1955).

^c On March 1, 1956, King Hussein abruptly dismissed Sir John Bagot Glubb (Glubb Pasha) as commander of the famed Arab Legion in Jordan, a move the British (incorrectly) attributed to Nasser. “The world is not big enough to hold both me and Nasser,” Anthony Eden was quoted as saying. Anthony Nutting, No End of a Lesson: The Story of Suez 18 (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1967).

^d On May 10, 1956, less than a month before, Eisenhower underwent a complete physical at Walter Reed, and X-rays revealed “several constricted areas in the terminal ileum.” Dr. Snyder chose not to inform Eisenhower because he thought it would cause the president “unnecessary anxiety.” No remedial surgery was suggested. “DDE’s Ileitis Operation,” Snyder Papers, EL.

^e The Soviets followed through on their offer to build the Aswan Dam. The money was provided in 1958, and construction began in 1960. The dam was designed by the Soviet Hydroproject Institute in Moscow, and employed more than twenty-five thousand Egyptian engineers and workers. It was completed on July 21, 1970, and the reservoir, Lake Nasser, reached capacity in 1976. The Aswan Dam is 4,189 yards long, 1,072 yards wide at its base, and 365 feet tall. Lake Nasser, which was formed by the dam, is 342 miles long, 22 miles wide, and holds nearly 90 million acre-feet of water. Irrigation from the Aswan Dam increased Egypt’s arable land by 500 percent, and when opened, the dam produced half of Egypt’s electricity.

^f Maurice Couve de Murville, the veteran diplomat who was France’s ambassador in Washington, and who had served two years in Cairo, explicitly warned the State Department several days earlier that if the United States reneged on financing the Aswan Dam, Nasser would most likely seize the Suez Canal. His warning was ignored by Dulles. Herman Finer, Dulles over Suez: The Theory and Practice of His Diplomacy 47 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964).

^g The Suez Canal, conceived and constructed under the direction of Ferdinand de Lesseps, was opened to traffic on November 17, 1869. (Giuseppe Verdi wrote the opera Aida to commemorate the opening.) One hundred and one miles long and two hundred feet wide at its narrowest point, the canal was owned by the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez, a private stock company. Of the company’s 32 directors, 16 were French, 9 British, 5 Egyptian, 1 Dutch, and 1 American. The British government held 44 percent of the stock, another 44 percent was held by assorted French institutions, and the balance was held by individuals of various nationalities. In 1955, 14,666 ships passed through the canal, of which roughly one-third were British. Most of those were oil tankers. Two-thirds of Britain’s crude oil imports passed through the canal. Lyon, Eisenhower 693.

^h In 1957, Lester Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work organizing the peacekeeping UN Emergency Force.

ⁱ Following publication of Nikita Khrushchev’s “secret speech” to the Twentieth Party Congress detailing the horrors of the Stalin era, riots in Poland swept out the Soviet-dominated government and installed Wladyslaw Gomulka as premier. Gomulka announced that “there is more than one road to socialism,” and warned that the Polish people “would defend themselves with all means.” On October 22, 1956, the successful Polish action triggered widespread rioting in Hungary, demanding among other things that Imre Nagy, who had been deposed by the Russians in 1955, be returned to power. Nagy was installed as premier on October 23, and order was briefly restored. The leadership of the Soviet Union apparently was at a loss how to proceed. Initially they announced that Soviet troops would be withdrawn, but evidently had a change of heart. On November 4, two hundred thousand troops of the Red Army supported by four thousand tanks converged on Budapest.

^j In their post-Suez memoirs, numerous British officials indicated that they thought the U.S. government had engineered the run on the pound in New York. Harold Macmillan explicitly accused the New York Federal Reserve of selling pounds at a rate that was “far above what was necessary to protect the value of their holdings.” Macmillan, Riding the Storm 163–64; Diane B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis 131–33 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991). Also see Full Circle: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden 623 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960).

^k Stevenson carried six states in the Deep South, plus Missouri. His majority in Missouri was a minuscule 3,984 out of almost 2 million votes cast (50.1 percent to 49.9 percent). Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections 295.

TWENTY-FIVE

Suez