Upon returning to the White House, Eisenhower sent Eden a cable, reinforcing the message he had delivered over the phone. He desired “that the UN Force will promptly begin its work and the Anglo-French Forces will be withdrawn without delay. Once these things are done, the ground will be favorable for our meeting.” In short, Eisenhower would not welcome his old friend to the White House until the British had fully conformed to American wishes.68
The next day, in a prolonged NSC meeting, Eisenhower and his advisers discussed the acute oil crisis that Britain and Europe now faced. The falloff in oil deliveries due to the blocked canal and the destruction of the Iraq pipelines had been so severe that rationing of gasoline would soon have to start in Europe. The president was told that in the best-case scenario, the United States and Venezuela could ship to Europe at most 800,000 barrels of oil a day—and even that would leave the Europeans 10 to 15 percent short of their daily needs. Furthermore Britain would use up its scarce supply of dollars in paying for these additional imports.
Eisenhower understood the gravity of the problem but decided to use the oil shortage to his advantage. He wanted to get the British and French to withdraw completely from the Suez Canal Zone. To bail them out now, while their invasion forces remained in Suez, would “get the Arabs sore at all of us, and they could embargo all oil.” Allen Dulles added that prolonged instability in the region would play into Soviet hands, for they wanted to “keep the pot boiling.” Therefore Ike refused to send Eden any reassuring signals. Instead, in a short and terse cable on November 11, he urged Eden to withdraw all British troops from the Canal Zone “with the utmost speed.” Only then would there be any Anglo-American reconciliation.69
Eisenhower’s firmness came as a terrible shock to the British. On November 12 Macmillan told the cabinet that U.K. dollar reserves were dangerously low, and if the hemorrhaging did not stop, Britain would have to devalue its currency, thus delivering a death blow to the sterling area and the entire British Commonwealth. The only way to avoid this dire fate was immediate support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the tune of $1.3 billion. Macmillan privately appealed for help to the U.S. ambassador Winthrop Aldrich. Why must the Americans be so rigid, he wondered? Did Ike not perceive that Britain was suffering? If Britain had to withdraw its forces now, without winning some kind of new international agreement to control the canal, “the loss of prestige and humiliation would be so great that the Government must fall.” Macmillan, who was prone to rhetorical flights, told IMF president Eugene Black the next day that they “were probably witnessing the end of western civilization, and that in another 50 years yellow and black men would take over.” Such were the apocalyptic sentiments of the British leaders.70
The French too continued to stall on withdrawing from the Canal Zone. Prime Minister Guy Mollet spoke heatedly to the U.S. ambassador in Paris, Douglas Dillon, telling him that the Americans had failed to grasp the real problem in the Middle East: the Soviet threat. The Egyptians and Syrians were in cahoots with Moscow, he claimed, and were planning to destroy Israel and take over the Middle East. The American opposition to the Anglo-French strike against Nasser had prevented what might have been a brilliant coup against Soviet plans in the region. Instead the prestige of the Soviets had been increased and France and Britain faced “a new Munich.”71
But it was no use. Eisenhower did not budge. Even when the news came from Ambassador Aldrich that Eden had suffered a physical breakdown due to many weeks of sleepless nights and amphetamine use, the president remained firm. He directed Aldrich to let British leaders know that he sympathized with their financial difficulties, but they must leave Egypt: “If we undertook commitments before the UK and French forces are withdrawn, we would be in the position of going back upon a matter of major principle.”72
On November 23 Eden flew to Jamaica for what became a three-week period of rest and recovery, though it looked as if he was abandoning his post in a crucial hour. Britain was rudderless. That day Churchill, retired now and spending much of his time painting on the French Riviera, wrote the president, begging him to close the rift that had opened up between Britain and America. “If we do not take immediate action in harmony,” he solemnly wrote, “it is no exaggeration to say that we must expect to see the Middle East and North African coastline under Soviet control.” Still Eisenhower did not bend. In a lengthy reply to the former leader, Ike remarked that it was Eden who had created the problem by ignoring American advice and defying world opinion. “All we have asked,” Ike said, is that Britain “conform to the resolutions of the United Nations.” Once that was done, he wanted to see the affair “washed off the slate as soon as possible.”73
With Eden out of the country, Macmillan worked behind the scenes to bring the cabinet into line with American demands. The fall in reserves, he told his colleagues, had become desperate. The Americans would not help until Britain made a clear public statement of its intention to withdraw its troops from Egypt. On November 29 the British cabinet, leaderless, facing an economic catastrophe and knowing that only American aid could save the country, capitulated. On December 3, while Eden swam in the warm, silky waters of the Caribbean, Foreign Minister Lloyd announced to the House of Commons Britain’s intention to withdraw its forces from Egypt. The Suez Crisis had ended; the British Empire was not far behind.74
X
Reconciliation came quickly. Within hours of Lloyd’s announcement, the U.S. government activated plans drawn up by the Office of Defense Mobilization to increase shipments of oil to Europe. Director Arthur Flemming reported that within “48 to 72 hours” the oil would begin to flow. Secretary Humphrey unlocked American dollars for Britain; by Christmas, Britain had received almost $2 billion in U.S.-backed loans. The closed American fist now unclenched and proffered the vital oil and dollars needed to keep Britain alive. A few weeks after his return from Jamaica, a ruined Anthony Eden resigned.75
But this was not the end of the story, for at the heart of the Suez Crisis lay a contest between the United States and the European powers about who would guide the future of the Middle East. Eisenhower had definitively answered that question. The invasion had discredited the Europeans, enraged Arab opinion, jeopardized Western access to Middle East oil, and opened the door to Soviet interference. The British and French, in Eisenhower’s eyes, had forfeited any claim to influence in the Middle East. They had to leave, and the United States must now replace them.
Ike understood that the Suez Crisis marked the start of a new American order in the Middle East, which would not be organized around colonies and empires. In his vision, the area would be held together by the appeal of American know-how, technology, economic aid, and military assistance, packaged to win the allegiance of conservative, pro-Western Arab leaders who could protect Western interests. Where American offers of largesse were refused, the United States would find ways to punish defiance. Eisenhower asked Herbert Hoover Jr. at the State Department to draw up a study about “what we could and should do for Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya and even Egypt, by holding out the carrot as well as the stick.”76
Fears of Soviet interference fueled Eisenhower’s anxiety about the need to move fast to replace the discredited Europeans. A telegram from Charles Bohlen in Moscow about a recent meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party painted a worrisome picture. According to Bohlen’s source, the Soviet leadership concluded that “the Middle East will be the focus of Soviet efforts in the future. [Foreign Minister Dmitri] Shepilov and [Defense Minister Georgy] Zhukov were exponents of the view that the Middle East represents a vital link which can be severed to cut West off from East. Destruction of Western position in Middle East will open Africa to Soviet influence and will permit denial to West of strategic bases, vital communications lines, raw materials, and markets. ‘Turn your eyes to the South,’ Zhukov is reported to have told his colleagues.” And, Bohlen’s source added, “Egypt and Syria are considered by Soviet leadership to be reliable instruments of Soviet
policy in the Middle East.” A military agreement with Syria was already inked and would supply the Syrians with tanks, artillery, armored trucks, and jet aircraft. There was not a moment to lose.77
Eisenhower and Dulles decided to make their bid for influence in the Middle East public by seeking a congressional resolution, just as they had done in the Formosa Crisis. The resolution would give them a free hand to distribute the carrots of economic and military aid to friendly regimes in the Middle East while authorizing the president to use the stick of military action against any communist threat. Such a public statement of American ambition in the Middle East might provoke a hostile reply from Moscow, but it was worth the risk. Eisenhower lobbied for the resolution with congressional leaders on New Year’s Day 1957. Middle East oil, he argued, was vital to Europe and to the West. If the Soviets seized it, the security of the United States would be directly at risk. He wanted to “put the entire world on notice that we are ready to move instantly if necessary.” They had to act quickly. “Should there be a Soviet attack in that area he could see no alternative but that the United States move in immediately to stop it.” In the meantime economic and military aid would help build pro-Western sentiment in the area and head off discontent in the region. “The United States just cannot leave a vacuum in the Middle East and assume that Russia will stay out.”78
By the time the president mounted the rostrum in the House of Representatives on January 5, 1957, to announce before a joint session of Congress what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine, the restraint and caution that had characterized his actions during the Suez Crisis had vanished. It was as if a curtain had been pulled back on the real American strategy in the region. In his address Eisenhower boldly asserted an American obligation to police the Middle East.
The end of the colonial era, he explained, had opened promising new vistas for the emerging nations, but had also created instability that “international Communism” now sought to exploit. “Russia’s rulers have long sought to dominate the Middle East.” The United States must frustrate their plans. He asked Congress to approve a program of economic and military aid to friendly Middle East nations. He also asked Congress to permit “the employment of the armed forces of the United States to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid, against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism.”
Ike wanted a clear message sent to Moscow that the Middle East now formed part of America’s beat in the world, and from now on America would police it. This policy “involves certain burdens and indeed risks for the United States,” he solemnly noted. But Americans had already given “billions of dollars and thousands of precious lives” to the cause of freedom in Europe and Asia. The United States would expand its sphere of influence to ensure unfettered access to the black gold beneath the sands of Arabia. In early March Congress overwhelmingly passed the resolution.79
The Eisenhower Doctrine was no improvisation. It formed part of Eisenhower’s grand strategy for waging and winning the cold war—a contest that would unfold especially in the developing world. European countries under Soviet rule, such as Poland and Hungary, could not be saved by American actions. Referring specifically to Hungary, Ike coldly told the press a week after his reelection that the United States did not advocate “open rebellion by an undefended populace against a force over which they could not possibly prevail.” Any kind of “armed revolt” would only bring “disaster.” So much for liberating the captive nations.80
But the Third World was up for grabs. There the contest must be won. Though later historians often praise Eisenhower for his restraint and his aversion to war, in fact during his first term he had deployed American power again and again in order to counter what he saw as the Soviet danger in the developing world. In Iran in 1953 a coup had dispatched a bombastic nationalist leader. In Guatemala in 1954, U.S.-led subversion ousted a radical left-wing president. In Indochina, Eisenhower had seen off the French colonists; by 1955 Americans were pouring millions of dollars into the client state of South Vietnam. Eisenhower had met Chinese communist threats to Taiwan by appealing to Congress for a free hand to respond to any attack and openly threatened to unleash nuclear weapons. The Seventh Fleet stood on permanent picket duty in the watery channel between the two Chinas.
And in the Middle East in 1956 Eisenhower again expanded the range of American global commitments. Not content to compel his European allies to stand down from their ill-conceived Suez adventure, he now sought to impose an American order on the Middle East. Of course the Eisenhower Doctrine was expressed in the language of self-determination and liberty, but beneath the finery of good intentions lay the cold steel of military power. In January 1957 Eisenhower declared that the United States would fight to protect its interests in the Middle East; more than six decades later it is fighting still.
PART III
* * *
RACE, ROCKETS, AND REVOLUTION
CHAPTER 14
* * *
The Color Line
“There must be respect for the Constitution . . . or we shall have chaos.”
I
IN THE DARKNESS OF A warm and humid midnight, a fluttering British Union Jack smartly made its way down a white pole on the top of the National Assembly building in the city of Accra, the capital of the Gold Coast. At 12:01 a.m. precisely, March 6, 1957, the symbol of British rule was replaced by a new standard: a flag bearing three bold stripes of red, yellow, and green with a black star in the center. The new flag told the world a story: Gold Coast had become the free nation of Ghana.
Ghana’s independence ceremonies captured world attention. Journalists, political delegates from 70 countries, literary and cultural figures, all traveled to Accra to see the historic transfer of power. Speaking to thousands of guests gathered in the city’s polo grounds, the nation’s new leader, Kwame Nkrumah, declared that Ghana’s independence marked the start of a new era of African freedom and the arrival of “an African personality in international affairs.” Nkrumah, educated in Catholic schools in Ghana, had spent 10 years in the United States in the 1930s, earning academic degrees in economics and theology from Lincoln University and the University of Pennsylvania. From 1947 on, he led a political movement in Gold Coast that gradually wrested political power from the British colonial authorities and put his country on a path to independence. His assumption of power marked the beginning of a new era for the continent. To African American journalists attending the ceremony, it seemed that “the black man of Africa has taken another giant step forward.”1
Among the honored guests at the celebrations was Vice President Richard Nixon, sent by Eisenhower to bear America’s good wishes to Ghana. Eisenhower believed that by acclaiming the end of the colonial era and the independence of African peoples, the United States could more readily keep these nations out of the clutches of Soviet influence. In the wake of the Suez Crisis, America had a chance to benefit from its public opposition to the European invasion of Egypt by embracing the global anticolonial movement. Just a few weeks after his reelection, on December 16, 1956, Eisenhower had welcomed Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Washington and devoted almost three full days to Nehru during his stay. In an unprecedented gesture of welcome, he took Nehru on an overnight trip to Gettysburg, where they spent 14 hours in private discussions, mostly seated on the glassed-in porch of the Eisenhower home. They walked the farm and gazed companionably at Eisenhower’s Black Angus bulls. Mamie honored Nehru’s daughter and adviser, Indira Gandhi, with an elaborate official luncheon in the White House State Dining Room. Eisenhower understood, he wrote later, that Nehru, as well as many other Asian and African leaders, resented “Western condescension,” and above all else they wanted “recognition as equals by the ‘white’ race.” Bringing Nehru to Washington for such personal talks, Ike believed, could help demonstrate America’s genuine desire to remain on the best possible terms with India—as long as India
resisted the blandishments of Khrushchev and the communists.2
And so Eisenhower, sensitive to the desires of Third World leaders for gestures of respect, asked Nixon to lead the American delegation to the independence celebrations in Ghana. Nixon made the most of it. In typical Nixonian overachieving fashion, he planned a trip of 18,000 miles to eight African countries—Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Liberia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Sudan—bringing his youthful charm, his pretty wife, and his tireless desire to please. His entourage was unusually diverse for the time; it included Congresswoman Frances Bolton of Ohio, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a specialist on Africa, and a young black Democratic congressman from Michigan, Charles C. Diggs Jr. Nixon also traveled with Frederic Morrow, the only black member of the White House staff. Asked later what impressed him most about Africa, Morrow quipped, “For the first time in my life, I was a member of the majority, and it was a damn nice feeling.”3
Ghana’s historic celebrations attracted other visitors from the United States, notably a delegation of distinguished African Americans, expressly invited by Nkrumah. Ralph Bunche of the United Nations was there, along with A. Philip Randolph, the venerable leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of New York; Lester Granger of the National Urban League; and Martin Luther King Jr., the pastor from Montgomery, Alabama, who had so recently led the boycott of segregated buses in that city. All these dignitaries, as well as hundreds of other leading Africans, Asians, and Europeans, gathered on March 5 for a reception at the University College of Ghana. Standing just outside the university’s large hall, King and Nixon met for the first time. As they shook hands, Nixon smiling warmly, King did not miss his opportunity. “I’m very glad to meet you here,” he said. “But I want you to come visit us down in Alabama where we are seeking the same kind of freedom the Gold Coast is celebrating.”4
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