It is hard to overstate the gravity of the moment. Just days before a U.S. presidential election, three major American allies agreed to trigger a Middle Eastern war. They kept their actions secret, deliberately lying to their American colleagues about the plan, even though they knew that a wider Arab-Israeli war might well draw the United States into direct conflict with the Soviet Union. Eden’s actions were not merely reckless. They amounted to outright betrayal of Britain’s closest ally.
Incredibly, on October 24 the world picture darkened even further, as appalling news from Budapest, Hungary, flashed across the world’s wire services. “The worst week” of the Eisenhower presidency, as Sherman Adams called it, had begun.16
III
On October 24, the same day that the British, French, and Israelis wrapped up their secret meeting outside Paris and initialed their brazen plot to invade Egypt, another invasion of a sovereign nation began, this time in Eastern Europe. Thousands of Soviet troops, backed by hundreds of tanks and trucks, were rolling into Budapest, firing upon anticommunist protesters. The Western world looked on aghast at this dramatic and tragic confrontation in the heart of the Soviet bloc.
The crisis in Hungary formed part of a wider picture of dissent and unrest in Eastern Europe. And Nikita Khrushchev, the dominant figure inside the Soviet leadership, bore much of the blame. On February 25, 1956, in a bid to strengthen his standing in the Soviet political structure, Khrushchev had issued a stunning denunciation of Stalin and his tyrannical era. In a four-hour address to delegates at the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, Khrushchev bitterly attacked the monstrous legacy of Stalinism, claiming that Stalin had distorted the true purposes of communism and turned the USSR into a police state. Under new leadership, Khrushchev promised, the true principles of communism would be restored. The speech administered a massive shock to the assembled delegates; one leading Polish communist suffered a fatal heart attack moments later.17
Khrushchev’s risky gamble had been part of a series of actions—including his agreeing to the neutralization of Austria, his openness to meet Eisenhower in Geneva, and his effort to improve ties to Yugoslav leader Josip Tito, whom Stalin had excommunicated for his anti-Soviet sentiments—all designed to send the message that the communist experiment in Eastern Europe would no longer rely upon terror. The world would see a new communist bloc, made up of willing socialist states working in harmony toward a common Marxist future.
Having opened up Pandora’s box, however, Khrushchev found himself struggling to contain the demons within. In Poland, long one of the most ardently anti-Soviet nations of Europe, workers called Khrushchev’s bluff and began to agitate for improved pay and working conditions. In late June 1956 a wildcat strike erupted into a major uprising in the city of Poznan, as workers rioted against food shortages, inadequate housing, low wages, and the incompetence of their managers. The protestors carried signs declaring “Bread and Freedom” and “Russians Go Home.” As the march grew, shots were fired into the crowd by the Polish security forces; over 50 marchers died. In October, Khrushchev traveled to Warsaw to meet with Polish leaders and make it plain that the Soviet Red Army would use force to ensure Poland’s continued obedience. Rather than knuckle under, however, Polish leaders insisted that any use of force by the Soviets would trigger a massive uprising, and crowds in the major cities of Lodz, Wroclaw, and Warsaw protested the Soviet threats.18
Meanwhile, in Hungary, anti-Soviet feeling surged. On October 22 students, intellectuals, and factory workers gathered at the Technological University in Budapest and adopted a wide-ranging list of demands, including the removal of Soviet troops and the replacement of the pro-Moscow leadership with Imre Nagy, a former prime minister who was identified with liberalization policies. Protesters also demanded multiparty elections, freedom of press and assembly, and the prompt removal of the massive statue of Stalin that still stood in central Budapest. A mass demonstration the next day led to an outpouring of anti-Soviet rhetoric, and spontaneous demonstrations popped up across Budapest. In the evening a group of ironworkers managed to cut through the metal legs of the statue of Stalin, toppling the grotesque memorial. At about 9:00 p.m. on October 23 the Hungarian Security Police fired into the crowd, killing unarmed demonstrators. Hungary was on the brink of revolution.
Eisenhower watched these events with alarm. He knew the satellite nations were too important for Moscow to tolerate their departure from the communist bloc. Any such gamble, he feared, could end only in a wider conflict, and he did not wish to be drawn into a war to liberate Eastern Europe. His reluctance to stir the pot revealed a yawning gap between his and Dulles’s rhetoric of 1952, when Republicans lambasted the Democrats for passively accepting Soviet dominion in Eastern Europe and the wait-and-see attitude they now adopted.19
Khrushchev, confronted with threats of an uprising in Poland and a full-blown revolt in Hungary, faced the prospect that the entire socialist bloc might be coming unraveled. He was determined not to let Hungary slip away, and almost immediately upon learning of the situation in Budapest decided to use force to crush the rebels. The Soviet Presidium met on the night of October 23 and ordered Soviet troops stationed near Budapest to restore order in the city. These were joined by units from Romania and Ukraine. By early the next morning 30,000 Red Army troops had entered the country, bringing with them over 1,000 tanks. But these invaders only provoked the citizens of Budapest to defend their city. Using Molotov cocktails, as well as thousands of rifles taken from the barracks of army units that had rallied to the side of the rebels, Hungarians defied the Soviet troops, and open combat broke out in the streets.
In Washington the Eisenhower team spent October 24 waiting and watching. The news from Budapest was sporadic and ugly. Dulles wanted to take the matter to the UN Security Council, where he could score points by denouncing the Soviets. He told UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge he feared criticism if he did not act: “It will be said that here are the great moments and when they came, and these fellows [Hungarians] were ready to stand up and die, we were caught napping and doing nothing.” The following day Eisenhower issued a short statement deploring the violence in Budapest and adding, “The heart of America goes out to the people of Hungary.”
But in private he told Dulles to take things slowly. He was not keen to rush to the Security Council, for fear that it might be perceived as a gesture designed for domestic political purposes. That night, October 25, Eisenhower delivered a major campaign address to 20,000 cheering supporters at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was a partisan stem-winder, defending his four years in office and lambasting the Democrats. Ike devoted only one line to the events in Eastern Europe. “The people of Poland and Hungary,” he declared, “they are men and women whom America has never forgotten and never will.” But he did not plan to start a war for them.20
On the morning of Friday, October 26, Eisenhower convened a meeting of the National Security Council to review the increasingly troubled picture in Hungary and the Middle East. Allen Dulles gave a chilling account of what had transpired in Budapest. Soviet soldiers had been engaged in heavy fighting in the city, and some units of the Hungarian forces had deserted and joined the rebels. Tanks plowed up the streets with their heavy steel treads. Crowds of protestors had gathered in front of the now bullet-ridden U.S. Embassy begging for American intervention. It was evident, Dulles stated, that “the revolt in Hungary constituted the most serious threat yet” to Soviet control of Eastern Europe.
Eisenhower did not want to add fuel to the fire. He worried that the Soviet leaders might be tempted “to resort to very extreme measures,” including “global war.” He mused about the final days of the Third Reich: “Hitler had known well, from the first of February 1945 that he was licked. Yet he carried on to the very last and pulled down Europe with him in his defeat. The Soviets might even develop some desperate mood as this.” Any sudden American action designed to profit from Moscow’s troubles might bring about greater tragedy.21
IV
As the shocking news from Hungary trickled in to the White House, it joined disturbing reports from the Middle East. CIA sources learned on October 26 that the Israelis were mobilizing their armed forces for war. The Americans did not know the intended target of the Israeli action but suspected it was Jordan. (The Israelis asserted that a hostile Jordanian-Egyptian-Syrian alliance was poised to attack them.) The next day, October 27, Eisenhower gained more detailed intelligence from U-2 overflights. The invaluable spy planes had been running regular flights over the eastern Mediterranean since late summer, using bases in Germany and Turkey. In late October these flights found clear evidence that French jets had been delivered to Israel and that a large British naval buildup was under way in Cyprus. Eisenhower sent a personal message to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion expressing his concern about the Israeli mobilization and calling for “self-restraint.” At the same time Secretary Dulles reported that America’s key allies, Britain and France, had gone suspiciously quiet, “keeping us completely in the dark as to their intentions” in the Middle East. Dulles’s sensitive diplomatic antennae began to sense that something was amiss.23
That afternoon Eisenhower entered Walter Reed Hospital for a long-planned medical checkup. The timing could not have been worse, but he wanted to put to rest any lingering public worries about his health. For 24 hours the president submitted to a close inspection of his vitals, especially his heart and gastrointestinal tract, and on Sunday his doctors released to the press a detailed and encouraging report of his fitness. Eisenhower quipped of the uncomfortable hospital visit: “Israel and barium make quite a combination.”24
The picture that greeted him back at the White House was an ominous one. More detailed intelligence revealed full-scale Israeli mobilization. When the president spoke with Dulles that evening on the telephone, the secretary conveyed his suspicion that the British and French were egging on the Israelis to attack Egypt. Eisenhower resisted this conclusion, saying, “[I] just cannot believe Britain would be dragged into this,” especially in light of the firm and repeated warnings he had personally given Eden. Dulles was not so sure. The silence of the British and French ambassadors, he noted, “is almost a sign of a guilty conscience.”25
The following day, October 29, revealed just how right Dulles had been. The day began with no news of an Israeli attack, and Eisenhower decided to keep his scheduled campaign appearances that day in Florida and Virginia. He left for Miami soon after breakfast. But just after 10:00 a.m. Dulles conferred by phone with his brother, the CIA director, and they both agreed that the evidence was now overwhelming of a French-Israeli plot to trigger a conflict in the Middle East. Not only was that conflict a serious danger in itself, but Foster Dulles feared “a spark in the Middle East could give the Soviets a shield to do things they can’t do now,” including sending military forces to aid the Egyptians.26
After giving his speech in Miami, Eisenhower was heading back to the presidential airplane when he received the dreaded news: Israeli forces had begun an invasion of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The president flew to Richmond, Virginia, delivered a brief campaign address at the airport, then hastened back to Washington, reaching the White House, and a distraught Foster Dulles, at 7:15 p.m. A tense meeting began.
The president, Admiral Radford, Allen and Foster Dulles, Defense Secretary Wilson, and Sherman Adams hastily gathered in the Cabinet Room. Allen Dulles and Radford provided a detailed account of the scale and scope of the Israeli invasion. Eisenhower asked if the United States should invoke its obligation under the 1950 Tripartite Declaration, an agreement signed by the United States, Britain, and France that pledged the Great Powers to stop any nation in the Middle East that launched an aggressive attack against its neighbors. That implied supporting Egypt against Israel. Radford, who was personally inclined to support Israel in its attack, laconically said that he guessed the invasion would be “all over in a few days” because of Israel’s strategic advantage over a weak Egyptian military.
Secretary Dulles broke in and alerted the group to the larger picture. The Israelis had not acted alone. Dulles now fully grasped that he had been lied to for weeks by America’s closest allies. “British and French intervention must be foreseen,” he told the group. “They appear to be ready for it and may in fact have concerted their action with the Israelis.” It was a bitter pill for Dulles to swallow.
Eisenhower exploded. How would they like it, he asked, if “we were to go in to aid Egypt to fulfil our pledge [under the Tripartite Declaration]. . . . We cannot be bound by our traditional alliances.” The British certainly had plenty of reason for complaint against Nasser, but “nothing justifies double-crossing us.” America must stand by its word, or else “we are a nation without honor.”
As soon as the meeting ended, the British chargé, Sir John Coulson, was ushered into the Oval Office. Eisenhower, his face flushed, told Coulson that the United States was going to take the question of Israeli aggression to the UN Security Council “first thing in the morning—when the doors open—before the USSR gets there.” Not knowing yet just how deeply the British had colluded with the Israelis about the invasion, he all but demanded the British pledge their support for a resolution condemning Israel’s invasion.27
But just over an hour later, at 10:00 p.m., word came to the president from Ambassador Lodge at the UN in New York. He had met with his British counterpart, and endured “one of the most disagreeable and unpleasant experiences” of his career. Sir Pierson Dixon had mocked America’s commitment to the Tripartite Declaration, calling the American position “moralistic,” and said Britain “would never go along with any move against Israel in the Security Council.” The whole picture now came plainly into view: Britain wanted Israel to attack Egypt, knew about it, and would use it as a screen to wage its own war on Nasser. The painful realization set in: the Americans had been duped.28
V
Eisenhower arrived in the Oval Office on the morning of October 30, “his face drawn, eyes heavy with fatigue, worry or both,” speechwriter Emmet Hughes recalled. He canceled his planned one-day campaign trip to Texas and instead worked with his key advisers on a message to Eden. The president invoked their longtime friendship and asked Eden to explain “exactly what is happening between us and our European allies.” The Israeli invasion, he wrote, was a grave matter that ought to be taken up by the UN immediately. Eisenhower described himself as “astonished” to learn that Sir Pierson Dixon refused to join Ambassador Lodge in a common front at the UN. Britain and America now found themselves “in a very sad state of confusion” which, if allowed to continue, could open the door to a general war in the Middle East and Soviet intervention on Egypt’s side. “Then the Mid East fat would really be in the fire.”29
Eisenhower’s message was a study in diplomatic finesse. Yet in reply Eden redoubled his duplicity. He claimed that Egypt was responsible for the tensions in the region, having seized the canal and provoked Israel. “And now this has happened,” he said of the Israeli invasion, as if he knew nothing about it. Egypt had “brought this attack on herself,” Eden argued—an outrageous falsehood, since the attack had been carefully planned by the British, French, and Israelis. Britain, he continued, had urged “restraint” upon the Israelis (another lie). Eden felt
“no obligation to come to the aid of Egypt” under the Tripartite Declaration since Egypt had started all the trouble. Britain wanted only to protect the canal and the shipping that passed through it. And to do that would require “decisive action.” What did that mean?30
Eden gave an answer a few hours later in the House of Commons. Following the script he and his co-conspirators had written, he delivered an ultimatum to Israel and Egypt. Britain and France called upon both states to cease fighting, to withdraw their troops from a 10-mile zone along the Suez Canal, and to accept the stationing there of Anglo-French forces to ensure continued operation of the canal. Egypt and Israel were given 12 hours to respond, and if they refused, the Anglo-French forces would launch an invasion of the Canal Zone. In a phone call with Eisenhower Foster Dulles called the ultimatum “as crude and brutal as anything he had ever seen” and predicted that “by tomorrow they will be in.”31
Later in the day Dulles met with the British and French ambassadors and tore into them, calling this “the blackest day which has occurred in many years in the relations between England and France and the United States.” He declared that their action would damage NATO and the UN and all but accused both nations of collusion with the Israelis. Perhaps most galling, the Anglo-French action “may well obliterate the success we have long awaited in Eastern Europe” by giving the Soviets the cover they needed to crush Hungary. Dulles’s words packed months of anger and resentment into a few moments of unadulterated hostility.32
The Age of Eisenhower Page 43