I'm unashamed to admit that my perceptions of several historical crises--especially Suez and the Cuban Missile Crisis--are shaped by rhetorical asides in the novels of James Clavell.  Mr. Clavell, in Noble House, convincingly portrays both as catastrophes for the West.  The result of the Missile Crisis was that JFK promised that the U.S. would no longer try to topple Castro.  Forty years later we see the foolishness of that pledge.  Meanwhile, in the Suez Crisis, America gratuitously humiliated its own democratic allies, ending even the illusion that Britain and France were still significant geopolitical players, while boosting a Middle Eastern dictator.

Hugh Thomas--who in later years has published a series of monumental and excellent histories including Conquest : Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico and The Slave Trade--in this shortish but thorough account of the whole balls up, lays much of the blame at the feet of John Foster Dulles and a U.S. State Department that was hostile to what it mistakenly perceived as British neocolonialism.  But he also reserves healthy shares of blame for Ike, who let Dulles his way and failed to communicate clearly that he too opposed the adventure, and for the French and British governments (especially Prime Minister Anthony Eden) who erroneously believed that Ike was still the ally they remembered from WWII.

Basically the Israelis sought to destroy the Egyptian military threat but also to occupy the Sinai and Gaza and the French and British sought to put a stop to the rise of Islamic nationalism, which had just seen Nasser nationalize the Suez Canal (July 26, 1956).  Military operations, begun by the Israelis on October 29, went fairly smoothly, though by simply sinking ships in the canal Nasser was easily able to make it impassable.  However, Eisenhower was infuriated, not least because he was facing re-election in a few days and had not wanted to have to rebuke Israel at the risk of losing Jewish votes in New York.  Accordingly, the U.S. sponsored a UN cease-fire resolution on November 1.  The Brits, French and Israelis withdrew and UN peace keeping forces took over supervision of the Sinai and the Gaza Strip.  In the meantime, the Soviets brutally repressed the Hungarian Revolt in early November.  So whatever Eisenhower and Dulles may have thought they'd accomplish, the result was to make it look like the Soviets had forced a withdrawal in the Middle East while crushing internal problems, thereby elevating them, and at the same time France and Britain would never again act on their own.  Having had the lost illusions of great power stripped away, they became virtual dependents of the U.S..  Even more disastrous for all concerned, these events gave added impetus to the movement for European Union and resulted in the creation of the Common Market, the initial step towards the centralized, bureaucratic nightmare that is now descending on Europe.

Mr. Thomas, writing from a mostly British perspective, is deeply dubious about the plausibility of the plan and the rather undemocratic and deceptive way in which Eden's government prepared, presented and pursued it.  Perhaps his most valid criticism of the entire operation is that there was really no planning for what might follow a Nasser government if things went that far.  Still, with the wisdom of hindsight, it's hard to believe things in the Middle East would be any worse today if the West had established in the 50s that it would not allow the rise of governments that were openly hostile to its interests.  And it certainly might have prevented much subsequent misery if the U.S. had allowed its allies to continue their mission while we dealt with the Soviets, intervening on Hungary's behalf.  Instead, the Cold War was allowed to drag on for another thirty years and even forty-five years on we're still dealing with the problem of Islamicist governments in the Middle East.  Even if Mr. Thomas is right and the Suez takeover was ill-considered and unlikely to be a permanent solution to the problem of Egypt, it certainly seems that the American intervention to end operations prematurely made a potentially bad situation much worse.  What a mess.

(Reviewed:27-Aug-02)

Grade: (B+) Orrin C. Judd

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