Khrushchev's Cold War

by Aleksandr Fursenko

  BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Anthony Eden learned of the nationalization of the Suez Canal late in the evening of July 26, as he was playing host at a state dinner for King Faisal of Iraq and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Said. Nuri, who was as pro-Western as any Arab leader in the 1950s, spoke for many in the room when he privately told the British foreign secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, “You have only one course of action open and that is to hit, hit now, and hit hard…. If [Nasser] is left alone, he will finish all of us.”19 Eden hardly needed any tutoring from the Iraqis on Nasser. He considered himself an expert on the Middle East and had long since become a hawk on Anglo-Egyptian relations. In Eden’s eyes Nasser was the “Muslim Mussolini,” a vainglorious man who was intent on expansion at the expense of British interests.20 In 1938 Eden had resigned from the Chamberlain government over appeasement of Italy’s flamboyant Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, and he was not about to appease Nasser over the Suez Canal.

  There was the sting of recent lessons behind Eden’s resolve. In recent years Nasser had become a delicate political problem for the British prime minister. In 1954, when he was Churchill’s foreign secretary, Eden had taken a risk and negotiated the British military pullout from its base near the canal over the objections of the diehard imperialists along the back benches of his conservative government. From that point on his opponents in the British Conservative Party jumped on Nasser’s every move as proof that Eden had misjudged him.21 As Eden’s biographer Robert Rhodes James concludes, this political vulnerability did not lead Eden to seek the approval of the old-line imperialist, but it did make him see Nasser’s actions as personal betrayals.22 The Soviet arms deal in September 1955 had been a shock to Eden. Jordan’s decision to fire the British commander of King Hussein’s army a few months later, an act associated with Nasser’s meddling in the affairs of other Arab countries, came as yet another blow to Eden’s policy in the Middle East. The nationalization of the Suez Canal was the last straw.

  Eden thought he had no choice but to deal swiftly and harshly with the Egyptian leader. Nasser “stands on our windpipe,” he declared to an emergency session of his inner circle that convened after the Iraqis and the other dinner guests had left.23 Still wearing his formal white tie from the state dinner, the prime minister projected confidence and decisiveness. He had invited the British chiefs of staff as well as the local representatives of his closest foreign allies, the French ambassador and the U.S. chargé d’affaires, to this late-night session to hear his plans. He hoped that the French and the Americans would participate in a coordinated response to Nasser’s challenge.

  The prime minister was determined to force a reversal of the nationalization. His immediate objective was to shut down the canal and deny Egypt any financial gain. The British subjects who worked for the Suez Canal Company would be encouraged to stay away from their jobs, and he hoped that other nationals would also compel their citizens to walk off the job. Ultimately Eden assumed that the major users of the canal, but not including the Soviets or the Egyptians themselves, would need to meet to discuss how to formally take the canal away from Nasser. Eden did not mince words about what “taking away” the canal might entail. In front of the French and American representatives, he instructed his military chiefs to produce as soon as possible a report on what forces would be needed to retake the canal and how the operation could be implemented.24

  Eden’s belligerence was matched in Paris, where the French government interpreted Nasser’s action as yet another blow to French prestige. Since World War II the leaders of the Fourth Republic had witnessed the loss of the Saar, an occupied German province, to West Germany in a plebiscite and German rearmament; the defeat in Indochina; and most recently the start of a bloody civil war in Algeria, the North African colony that was so tightly linked to Paris that it was a fully integrated departement of the country. Although the new Socialist prime minister, Guy Mollet, had called the struggle in Algeria “an imbecilic war leading nowhere,” he, like the rest of the French political class in 1956, was in no mood to cut and run from North Africa.25

  The hatred for Nasser was more a product of this political commitment to Algeria than of the French financial investment in the Suez Canal.26 The Egyptians were arming the Algerian rebels and had offered strong rhetorical support. Many French politicians and military officers believed that the road to victory in Algiers led through Cairo. Many were also convinced that Nasser was not acting alone. The French had seen the machinations of the Kremlin behind their defeat in Vietnam in 1954, and now they considered Khrushchev Nasser’s chief inspiration. “It is virtually against France, in effect,” noted the chief of the French General Staff, General Paul Ely, “that the Soviet effort to destabilize the Western World is being applied to the maximum.”27

  Once word of Eden’s late-night meeting reached Paris, the French rushed to begin planning for joint military action. On July 27 the Mollet government formally decided to use force, if necessary, to break Egyptian control of the canal. This was followed the very next day by the visit to London of a French military representative, Admiral Henri Nomy, with the message that France was absolutely determined to join the British in acting militarily against Egypt as soon as possible.28 An immediate attack was not feasible. Between them the British and the French had less than one airborne division in the Middle East, while British estimates assumed it would take at least three divisions to capture and hold the canal.29 A successful attack would require the movement of forces to the eastern Mediterranean. France offered to redeploy some of its forces in Algeria for this operation but understood that even more were required. On its own initiative, Paris began discussions with the Israelis to increase the firepower available for the strike.30

  NASSER DID NOT evoke the same passions in the Eisenhower administration as he did on the other side of the Atlantic. President Eisenhower and his secretary of state, Foster Dulles, the two principal architects of U.S. foreign policy, mistrusted Nasser but did not feel threatened by him. Unlike the French or the British, the Americans viewed the Nasser problem almost entirely through the lens of their struggle with the Soviet Union. Since April 1956 Washington had undertaken a series of measures, the most dramatic of which was the refusal to help with the Aswan Dam, to break Nasser of his seeming fondness for Khrushchev. “The primary purpose,” wrote Dulles, “would be to let Colonel Nasser realize that he cannot cooperate as he is doing with the Soviet Union and at the same time enjoy most-favored-nation treatment by the US.”31 It was administration policy to give Nasser a second or third chance, “to avoid any open break which would throw Nasser irrevocably into a Soviet satellite status and we would want to leave Nasser a bridge back to good relations with the West if he so desires.”32

  Nasser’s sudden nationalization of the canal suggested that the Egyptian leader might be irredeemable, but neither Eisenhower nor Dulles was quick to make up his mind. The legal team at the State Department concluded that Egypt was acting well within its rights in expropriating the canal, and the president agreed. “The inherent right of any sovereign nation to exercise the power of eminent domain within its own territory could scarcely be doubted,” Eisenhower later recalled, “provided that just compensation were paid to the owners of the property so expropriated.”33 The question mark for Eisenhower was what Nasser planned to do with the canal now that he had it. Would he guarantee that the canal and its ports would remain open to all merchant ships? This was still unclear in late July. Equally uncertain to Eisenhower and Dulles was whether the nationalization was an end in itself or the first step in a series of blows designed by Nasser to undermine the Western position in the Middle East and perhaps to help the Soviets gain ground. Neither man was prepared to accept the French belief that the seizure of the canal was akin to Nazi Germany’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936, which turned out to be the first step in Hitler’s bid for hegemony. But Eisenhower wanted to keep his options open. Should Nasser not be able to run the canal and refuse internationalization, then th
e United States would have to consider military action.34

  In the meantime Eisenhower believed that the worst thing the United States could do was to rush into military discussions with the British and the French. He and Dulles agreed that the solution had to come from a much broader group of states, it would have to involve diplomacy, and any decision to use force would have to await further developments in the Middle East. Domestic politics reinforced Eisenhower’s characteristic caution. It was a presidential election year in the United States—election day was November 6—and the president saw no possible political advantage from a Mideast war. An American delegation left the day after the nationalization for London to urge the British to relegate military intervention “to the background.”35

  AUGUST 1 was a great day for Nikita Khrushchev. He was the star of the dedication ceremony for Moscow’s Lenin Stadium, the largest sports facility in Europe and one of the largest in the world. He decided to use this occasion to go on record in support of Nasser and Egypt. Since Shepilov’s meeting with the Egyptian ambassador, Moscow had provided the requested rhetorical support.36 The Soviet government used Pravda to indicate its recognition of Nasser’s right to nationalize the canal, and the newspaper had reprinted the text of Nasser’s Alexandria speech on July 28. But there was nothing to suggest that Moscow considered the Suez matter to be a crisis demanding a broad political and diplomatic campaign. No private communiqués were sent from Moscow to Cairo, and Khrushchev had said nothing publicly.

  Moscow’s initial response had not pleased Nasser, who had expected more from the Soviets. Earlier on August 1 the Egyptian ambassador had delivered a message from Nasser to Khrushchev in which Nasser had pledged to keep the canal open and to provide “free use” by all countries.37 It seemed that Cairo feared that the Soviet Union’s low-key response reflected some skepticism over Nasser’s willingness to insulate the canal from politics. There is no evidence that Moscow had raised this matter with Cairo, but Nasser wished to be sure that Khrushchev had no doubts on that score. In handing over the message, his representative in Moscow assured the Russians that Egypt was making every effort “not to give these powers [Britain, France, and the United States] a way or justification to interfere in Egypt’s internal affairs.”38

  Cheered on by tens of thousands of Soviet citizens, Khrushchev took the opportunity of the speech to slip in some comments about the developing Suez situation in an effort to calm Nasser. “Nationalization of the Suez Canal,” said Khrushchev, “was…within the competence of a sovereign government like the Egyptian government.” Cautioning the French and the British not to overreact, Khrushchev added: “It must be emphasized Egypt has committed herself to respect free navigation in the Suez Canal and pay compensation to shareholders of the company. Therefore,” he concluded, “it is necessary to evaluate this act calmly, soberly considering the new situation and the spirit of the times.”39

  Khrushchev resisted the temptation to grandstand or threaten. Instead he publicly reminded Britain of its successful policy of disengagement in India, Burma, and, until recently, Egypt itself. And if this were not evidence enough of Moscow’s cautious line in this developing situation, Khrushchev identified the Soviet Union as no less an interested party in Egypt’s management of the canal. “The Soviet Union, being directly interested in maintenance of free navigation of the Suez Canal and considering the declaration of the Egyptian government that the Suez Canal will be free for all, concludes there is no basis for this display of nervousness and distress in this connection.”40

  Having an incomplete understanding of what was happening in the Western capitals, Khrushchev did not share the nervousness of his Egyptian ally and believed these words to be enough. “We have no evidence,” a Foreign Ministry official told the Egyptian ambassador on the day of Khrushchev’s speech, “that the Western powers are preparing a military intervention.”41 Soviet intelligence had not detected the bellicose discussions in Paris and London. However, the KGB provided the Kremlin leadership with an interesting window through which to watch how the United States reacted to the developing situation in the Middle East. From at least April 1956, the Soviet had so thoroughly bugged the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that the Kremlin could make copies of virtually every telegraphic message it sent or received.42 These stolen confidential messages confirmed for the Soviets that the United States was not taking a confrontational position on Suez, and Khrushchev and the Kremlin leadership assumed that no Western military action could take place against Egypt without U.S. participation. Khrushchev did not yet know this, but this rich source of top secret information on U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union ultimately proved an unhelpful guide to developments in the Middle East.

  Because of its sensitivity, the Kremlin merely hinted to the Egyptians the source of its confidence. Cairo was told not to discount the possibility that the United States would play a peaceful role in Egypt’s dispute with the Western Europeans. “The United States follows a somewhat different line on the Suez question,” a Soviet official explained to the Egyptian ambassador.43 In an effort to be reassuring, Moscow put forward the theory that economic reasons would prevent Washington from embracing British or French extremism. “U.S. oil companies understand,” the Soviet official continued, “that there are enormous oil reserves in the Middle East and that any extreme measures taken against Egypt would be bad considering the mood of the Arabs is very fixed.”44

  THE MESSAGE that came back from London at the end of July after the U.S. delegation had met with British officials was not what Eisenhower had wanted. The British government and especially Eden were determined “to drive Nasser out of Egypt.”45 Not only did London seek to reverse the nationalization, but overthrowing Nasser was the principal goal of British action. The Americans were told that the British had begun planning the invasion of Egypt, which would take six weeks to set up. To lend some legitimacy to the attack, the British were planning a conference of the key Western users of the canal to present Nasser with an ultimatum he could be expected to refuse.

  The news from London dismayed the U.S. president. Eisenhower assumed the Egyptians could be defeated easily but then worried about the reaction across the Arab world to a British attack before there was any serious effort at negotiating with Nasser. He foresaw sabotaged pipelines and terrorist attacks against British troops and other Western targets. “The British,” Eisenhower told his senior advisers, “were out of date in thinking of this as a mode of action in the present circumstances.”46

  Concerned that his British allies were seriously underestimating the consequences of a war, Eisenhower sent the secretary of state to London with a proposal for a diplomatic solution. Dulles, who arrived on August 1, brought an American proposal designed to begin the process of establishing international management of the canal. Instead of a bogus conference, Washington suggested bringing together all twenty-four original signatories and their successor states to the seventy-year-old international treaty that governed use of the Suez Canal. In 1888 the principal great powers—Russia, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, France, and Germany—had met in Constantinople (now Istanbul) to draft an agreement to ensure the free use of this strategic waterway. The British had closed the canal in World War II, but since the war Egypt had been the principal violator of the Constantinople Convention by its refusal to allow Israeli ships to traverse the canal.

  While assuring the British that it was the U.S. intention to see Nasser weakened and the nationalization undermined, Dulles refused to commit the United States to any military planning or even to the military option.47 Reflecting his differences with Eisenhower, Dulles also explained that the administration shared the ultimate goal of removing Nasser, but he believed this could be achieved diplomatically and through the skillful use of world public opinion. The French and the British agreed to the proposed conference, and Dulles assured them that it would approve a set of resolutions designed to force Nasser to turn administration of the canal over to an international board that would set
tolls, undertake proper maintenance of the canal, and ensure open access to all countries. Egypt would be promised a percentage of the tolls, but its share would be determined by the international board.

  Despite his usual hard-line approach to the Kremlin, Dulles believed that the Soviets, whose predecessor government had signed the Constantinople Convention, would have to be invited to this conference; otherwise it would lack all legitimacy. He assured the British and French that the invitation would not imply real consultation or cooperation. The conference could be organized, he explained, so as to “insulate the Russians.”48 The powers would go into the conference assuming what they expected to get out of it, and the Soviets would have no choice but to accept or stay in the minority. The United States also believed that Egypt would have to be invited.

  On August 2, Great Britain, France, and the United States jointly issued a statement proposing a conference of all parties to the Constantinople Convention and other nations with substantial interest in the maritime trade carried through the canal. The meeting would begin in London on August 16.

  Although temporarily slowed by Washington’s insistence at exploring diplomatic options, Eden instructed his military planners to continue preparing for an attack on Egypt. Initially the British military chiefs had planned a September 15 attack after an August 1 ultimatum. Eden wanted them to understand that the London Conference was merely going to alter the timetable of the ultimatum. The prime minister still expected military action in September.49 He assumed—and hoped—Nasser would reject the conference’s demands.

  THE FORMAL INVITATION to the London Conference, which the Soviets received on August 3, had the effect of finally attracting serious attention in the Kremlin to the situation in the Middle East. It also prompted Nasser to make his first significant demand of the Kremlin since the nationalization speech. Hours before the Presidium met to discuss what to do about the invitation, Nasser sent word through the Soviet Embassy in Cairo that he hoped the Soviets would refuse to attend. Egypt had no intention of participating in any conference organized, sponsored, or otherwise choreographed by the British and hoped that its close ally the Soviet Union would act the same way.50 If there had to be an international discussion, Nasser preferred that it be held at the United Nations.