Book: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden
Author: DR Thorpe
Price: Chatto & Windus, ?25
I first met Anthony Eden at a Conservative rally in the autumn of 1949. He had been Churchill's heir for seven years. I was a Cambridge undergraduate who had just become the Tory candidate for an unwinnable coal mining seat.
I don't remember anything that Eden said at the rally; his speeches rarely contained any memorable phrases. But I do remember shaking hands with him. Politicians who may have to meet thousands of people in a month tend not to favour over-muscular handshakes; a quick clasp will do. But Eden's handshake was so limp that I remember having my first doubts about his ability to lead his party and country.
I was not alone in harbouring those doubts. As Richard Thorpe notes in his friendly and authoritative biography, many of Eden's close colleagues over the years had doubts about his ability to handle the tasks faced by any prime minister. Churchill himself was the most prominent of these doubters and on the night before he finally resigned as prime minister in 1955, he said "with some passion" to his secretary Jock Colville "I don't believe that Anthony can do it."
Yet Eden seemed at the height of his powers. The year 1954 had seen his reputation as foreign secretary soar-amongst other things he sorted out an Iranian oil crisis, settled the Trieste dispute and established the Western European Union. But his most controversial decision in 1954 was the deal with Egypt that British troops would leave the canal zone in 1956.
Eden had longer exposure to the subtleties of Egyptian politics than any other British minister. After his outstanding service with the King's Royal Rifle Corps in the first world war, Eden had studied classical Egyptian and Persian as an undergraduate at Oxford. He was sympathetic to Arab nationalism and had presided over the signing of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty.
By agreeing to withdraw from the canal-"the hinge of empire"-Eden realised that he was gambling with his own political future. The idea of withdrawal was unpopular in the Tory party. There was an economic risk too. By the mid 1950s, Britain had become dependent on middle eastern oil shipped through the canal. Eden, however, had decided that he could do business with Nasser and commended the agreement to the House of Commons in an eloquent speech
The honeymoon with Nasser did not last long. Within weeks, Nasser's Cairo Radio was violently attacking the Baghdad pact, which was meant to tie various middle eastern countries to the western alliance. Eden turned the other cheek, and also gave Nasser the benefit of the doubt about the Egyptian leader's decision to obtain weapons from the Soviet Union.
Then in March 1956, King Hussein of Jordan dismissed Glubb Pasha, the British commander of Jordan's army. Nasser's friends in Jordan had promoted this move. Eden at last recognised that Nasser was implacably opposed to British influence in the middle east. Two years earlier, Nasser had spelt out his loathing of British imperialism in a book that was carefully studied by the prime minister of Israel and the foreign minister of France, even if it had been overlooked in Whitehall and Downing Street.
Five months after Glubb's dismissal and six weeks after the last British troops left Egypt, Nasser nationalised the canal. There could be no swift military response. Cyprus was now the only British base in the eastern Mediterranean.
Ten weeks after the canal's nationalisation Eden was faced with a desperate situation. He believed that Britain's economic survival depended upon the forcible overthrow of Nasser. Most of his cabinet shared this view. But there was no "smoking gun" to trigger the use of force. The foreign office legal adviser and many of the senior foreign office officials were doubtful or hostile. The cumbersome military plan that had been drawn up was reminiscent of the second world war. Both the minister of defence (Monckton) and the first sea lord (Mountbatten) were dubious. As in 2003, public opinion was divided over war-but in 2003 Tony Blair could count on the support of the opposition. In 1956, after early support from the Labour party, Eden was faced with hostile opposition.
In the middle of October, Eden grasped at the suggestion made by a French air force general that Israel should be persuaded to attack Egypt. British and French forces would then occupy the canal to separate the combatants. The Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, suspected that the British would double-cross him; but most of his closest advisers were eager to strike at Nasser before the Egyptian army had learnt how to use their new Russian weapons.
This devious scheme might have worked militarily. The swift Israeli attack followed by the ponderous Anglo-French landing at Port Said soon swept aside the Egyptian forces. Politically, however, it was a disaster. It had been expected that President Eisenhower, who was days away from an election, would express mild disapproval at the use of force. In fact, the Americans organised a diplomatic assault on their Nato allies in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Faced with the threat of US economic sanctions, the military operation was halted.
In the spring and summer of 1953, Eden had undergone three serious gall bladder operations and there were doubts about his health. At the height of the Suez crisis, some critics claimed that he was heavily drugged to keep going. Thorpe has had access to Eden's medical records and produces strong evidence that he remained quite calm and was not drug-dependent. When the Suez expedition had been halted, however, Eden collapsed. He continued in office for a few more weeks, but his decision to recuperate in Jamaica marked the end of his political life.
Thorpe argues that Eden's positive contribution to British political life has been unfairly overshadowed by his gamble at Suez. In any case, the trauma of Suez healed surprisingly quickly in the middle east and in America. The oil continued to flow and within a year Eisenhower was tacitly admitting that Eden had been right. The departure of Eden and the death of John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state, helped to heal the Anglo-American rift. Eisenhower had not cared for Eden, but his successor, Harold Macmillan, was a personal friend. When the American president visited London in 1959, he was greeted by cheering crowds and dined happily with Macmillan's cabinet. Eisenhower's visible support was a substantial help to Macmillan in the 1959 election.
It is difficult to believe that the transatlantic and cross-channel strains produced by the war in Iraq will heal so quickly or so completely.
