Reassessing Suez 1956

270 Pages·2008·0.99 MB·English

by  Simon C. Smith

REASSESSING SUEZ 1956
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Reassessing Suez 1956
New Perspectives on the Crisis and its Aftermath
Edited by
SIMON C. SMITH
University of Hull, UK
© Simon C. Smith 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Simon C. Smith has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
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Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
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Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Reassessing Suez 1956: new perspectives on the crisis and its aftermath
1. Sinai Campaign, 1956 2. Egypt – History – Intervention, 1956
I. Smith, Simon C., 1967–
956’.044
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reassessing Suez 1956: new perspectives on the crisis and its aftermath
edited by Simon C. Smith.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-6170-2 (alk. paper)
1. Sinai Campaign, 1956. 2. Egypt – History – Intervention, 1956.
I. Smith, Simon C., 1967–
DT137.S55R43 2008
956.04’4–dc22
2007044475
ISBN 978-0-7546-6170-2
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd. Bodmin, Cornwall.
Contents
List of Contributors vii
Acknowledgements xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Map of Suez Canal xv
Introduction 1
Simon C. Smith
1 Prelude to the Suez Crisis: The Rise and Fall of British Dominance
over the Suez Canal, 1869–1956 13
Steve Morewood
2 Eden, Churchill and the Battle of the Canal Zone, 1951–1954 35
Michael T. Thornhill
3 Britain and the Suez Crisis: The Abadan Dimension 53
Peter J. Beck
4 Julian Amery and the Suez Operation 67
Sue Onslow
5 Who to Fight in 1956, Egypt or Israel?
Operation Musketeer versus Operation Cordage 79
Eric Grove
6 French–Israeli Relations, 1950–1956: The Strategic Dimension 87
Zach Levey
7 Supporting the Brave Young King: The Suez Crisis and
Eisenhower’s New Approach to Jordan, 1953–1958 107
Clea Lutz Bunch
8 A Reluctant Partner of the US over Suez?
Turkey and the Suez Crisis 123
Ayşegül Sever
9 The 1956 Sinai War:
A Watershed in the History of the Arab–Israeli Conflict 133
David Tal
vi Reassessing Suez 1956
10 When Did Nasser Expect War?
The Suez Nationalization and its Aftermath in Egypt 149
Laura M. James
11 The Suez Crisis at the United Nations:
The Effects for the Foreign Office and British Foreign Policy 165
Edward Johnson
12 In Search of ‘Some Big, Imaginative Plan’: The Eisenhower
Administration and American strategy in the Middle East after Suez 179
Richard V. Damms
13 Telling Tales Out of School: Nutting, Eden and the Attempted
Suppression of No End of a Lesson 195
Philip Murphy
14 Post-Suez Consequences: Anglo-American Relations in the
Middle East from Eisenhower to Nixon 215
Tore T. Petersen
15 Suez 1956 and the Moral Disarmament of the British Empire 227
A.J. Stockwell
Conclusion 239
Scott Lucas
Index 243
List of Contributors
Peter J. Beck is Professor of International History at Kingston University, Kingston
upon Thames. His recent publications include a book entitled Using History,
Making British Policy, 1950–1976 (2006) – this includes coverage of Suez – and
an article in Historical Journal (2006) on Suez and British foreign policymakers
in the 1960s. Currently, he is completing an article on British governments and the
parliamentary campaign for an official history and/or inquiry on the 1956 Suez
Crisis.
Clea Lutz Bunch is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas at Little
Rock. She is presently working on a study of Jordanian–American relations during
the early Cold War.
Richard V. Damms earned his PhD in History from Ohio State University and is
Associate Professor of History at Mississippi State University, where he directs the
Center for Historical Studies. He is the author of The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953–
1961 (2002), and is currently working on a book on Eisenhower’s national security
policies.
Eric Grove is Professor in the School of English, Sociology, Politics and
Contemporary History at the University of Salford. His principal publications
include The Royal Navy Since 1815: A New Short History (2005), The Price of
Disobedience: The Battle of the River Plate Reconsidered (2001), Fleet to Fleet
Encounters: Tsushima, Jutland and Philippine Sea (1993), The Future of Sea Power
(1990), and Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy Since 1945 (1987).
Laura M. James is a Middle East analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit,
specializing in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon and Kuwait. Previously, she completed a
doctorate in International Relations at the University of Oxford, based on research
into Egyptian foreign policy performed in Cairo, and worked as a UN consultant in
Rome. Her book, Nasser at War: Arab Images of the Enemy, was published in 2006
by Palgrave Macmillan. She is currently researching the issue of relations between
Sudanese, Egyptian and British elites in the early 1950s.
Edward Johnson teaches History and Politics at Birmingham City University,
where he is Reader in Politics and Public Policy. He has written widely on British
policy in the United Nations, over Suez, Cyprus, Spain and Greece and on the role
of the UN Secretary-General. He is the co-editor (with Keith Hamilton) of Arms and
Disarmament in Diplomacy (2007).
viii Reassessing Suez 1956
Zach Levey is Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Sciences at the University
of Haifa. He is the author of Israel and the Western Powers, 1952–1960 (1997) and
co-editor (with Elie Podeh) of Britain and the Middle East: From Imperial Power to
Junior Partner (2007).
Scott Lucas is Professor of American Studies at the University of Birmingham.
He is the author/writer of numerous books, articles and documentaries on US and
British foreign policy, including Divided We Stand: Britain, the US, and the Suez
Crisis (1991), The Lion’s Last Roar: Britain and Suez (1996) and Suez: The Archive
Hour for BBC Radio 4 (2006).
Steve Morewood is a Senior Lecturer in International History in the Institute of
Archaeology and Antiquity, School of Historical Studies, University of Birmingham
and the author of The British Defence of Egypt, 1935–1940: Conflict and Rivalry in
the East Mediterranean (2005).
Philip Murphy is Professor of British and Commonwealth History at the University
of Reading. He is the author of Party Politics and Decolonization: The Conservative
Party and British Colonial Policy in Tropical Africa 1951–1964 (1995), Alan
Lennox-Boyd: A Biography (1999) and British Documents on the End of Empire:
Central Africa (2005).
Sue Onslow has lectured and taught at the London School of Economics since 1994,
and is currently a Tutorial Fellow (2005–2007) in the International History Department
at the LSE. She is also a Cold War Studies Fellow in the LSE’s Cold War Studies
Centre, responsible for the Centre’s Southern Africa Initiative. Her original thesis was
on Conservative Party politics and British foreign policy after the war, with particular
reference to Empire. Building on this research, Dr Onslow is now working on the
Rhodesia question in the 1960s and 1970s from the standpoint of London, as well
as the relationship between Pretoria, Salisbury and Lisbon in the same period. Her
forthcoming monograph looks at the ‘unholy alliance’ that developed between Pretoria
and Salisbury in the UDI years, and the process of its disintegration.
Tore T. Petersen is Professor of International and American Diplomatic History at
the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is the author of The Middle
East between the Great Powers: Anglo-American Conflict and Cooperation, 1952–7
(2000) and The Decline of the Anglo-American Middle East 1961–1969: A Willing
Retreat (2006), and he has edited Controlling the Uncontrollable: The Great Powers
in the MiddleEast (2007). His current research interest includes the project ‘Richard
Nixon, Great Britain, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, 1969–1974’.
Ayşegül Sever is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University
of Marmara, Istanbul. Her areas of interest include the international politics of the
Middle East, and Turkey’s Middle East and foreign policies. She is the author of
Turkey, the West and the Middle East in the Cold War Era, 1945–58 (in Turkish,
List of Contributors ix
1997). She has also had various articles published in academic journals pertaining to
Turkey–Middle East relations (in Turkish and in English).
Simon C. Smith teaches International History at the University of Hull. He has
published five books on different aspects of British imperialism and decolonization,
including the Malta volume for the British Documents on the End of Empire series
in 2006.
A.J. Stockwell is Emeritus Professor of Modern History, Royal Holloway, University
of London, and President of the Royal Asiatic Society. He was joint editor of the
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History from 1989 to 2007, and his Malaysia
was published in the British Documents on the Empire series in 2004.
David Tal is an Associate Professor of History and International Relations and a
Visiting Professor at Syracuse University. Professor Tal has published several books,
including War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy (2004), edited The 1956
War: Collusion and Rivalry in the Middle East (2001), and his work in progress,
U.S. nuclear Disarmament from 1945 to 1963, will be published by the Syracuse
University Press.
Michael T. Thornhill is Academic Director of Boston University’s EUSA study
abroad organization, and was previously Research Co-ordinator of the Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, which was published in 60 volumes in 2004.
He is the author of Road to Suez: The Battle of the Canal Zone (2006), and is now
writing a book about King Farouk.