Khrushchev's Cold War

by Aleksandr Fursenko

  “Maybe Nasser is right,” Khrushchev announced to his Kremlin colleagues at their first formal discussion of the Suez question since July 26. “Who is choosing the participants?” He then answered his own question: “England, France, and the USA. We shouldn’t go to this. He’s right.”51 He also agreed with Nasser that the General Assembly of the United Nations would be a better venue for discussing the nationalization of the canal. Khrushchev wanted to redefine the question, to broaden it, so that Egypt would no longer be the center of attention. The debate should be “not only about the Suez Canal but on other canals and straits.”

  Khrushchev assumed that the London Conference could be safely boycotted without jeopardizing Egypt. So long as the issue did not become a test of wills between the superpowers, Khrushchev was confident it could be resolved diplomatically at the United Nations. Especially encouraging to him was the evidence that the United States seemed to be acting as a check on the ambitions of its allies. In the meantime Khrushchev believed the Soviet Union had to show self-restraint. On his desk were proposals for a new nuclear test series. He suggested to his colleagues in the Kremlin that these tests be postponed until international tensions had subsided.52 Khrushchev also wanted Cairo to be especially cautious. The Soviet ambassador was to advise Nasser to reaffirm in public Egyptian neutrality in the Cold War and to resist denouncing the 1954 Suez Base agreement with London, even though it provided for British intervention in the canal in an emergency.53

  Over the next two days, however, Moscow’s confidence in this policy of self-restraint and disengagement eroded slightly. News of what seemed to be British and French preparations for war focused Khrushchev on the need for the Soviet Union to press for diplomatic action. The British were doing so much in the open that the Kremlin did not need spies to see that Nasser’s worst fears might actually occur. British newspapers carried reports of naval preparations at Portsmouth. Three British aircraft carriers, HMS Theseus, Bulwark, and Ocean, were due to set sail in the first part of the week. As of Sunday, August 5, the Royal Army’s sixteenth Independent Parachute Brigade would be on board the Theseus.54 The army also appeared to be reinforcing its base in Cyprus. The Somerset Light Infantry, the Suffolk Regiment, and two other infantry battalions had been ordered to move there. In Cyprus they were to be joined by the Royal Marines’ No. 42 Commando, the Life Guards, and the third Battalion, Grenadier Guards. The War Office would only admit to these being “precautionary military measures.”55

  Nasser was also becoming a concern for Moscow. Ambassador Evgeny Kiselev informed Moscow that Nasser was threatening the United States with a reign of terror if Eisenhower did not accept the nationalization of the Suez Canal. “I told the American Ambassador,” Nasser confided to Kiselev, “that the entire canal has been mined and it and all of the Suez Canal personnel could be destroyed within five minutes, if some kind of aggression took place against Egypt.”56 Nasser added that he had also threatened the United States with sabotage against all oil producers in the Middle East, “and especially in Kabul, Bahrain and Aden.”57 If these comments were not enough of a symbol of Nasser’s brinkmanship—at least as described by him to the Soviets—the Egyptian leader mentioned that he was considering tearing up the 1954 Anglo-Egyptian accord under which the British had dismantled their military base in Suez.58

  With the probability suddenly higher that either the British or Nasser might lash out, Khrushchev thought that Moscow had no choice but to involve itself directly as a mediator. Despite having signaled to Nasser on August 3 that the Soviet Union would not send a delegation to the London Conference, Khrushchev now concluded that the Soviets would have to attend. On August 5 he called a special session of the Presidium to discuss sending a team headed by Foreign Minister Shepilov.59

  Khrushchev took charge of determining how this about-face would be explained to Nasser. At the August 5 meeting he dictated the guts of a letter that laid out his reasoning to Nasser. The Soviet assessment of the political situation “remains as it was,” he explained, but because of the receipt of new information, “we are sending our representatives [to London] to foil their military schemes.” Khrushchev hoped that in light of British military activities, Nasser would also change his mind about sending a delegation to London. “You might want to send your Minister of Foreign Affairs. But that is up to you to decide.”60 Khrushchev also wanted to shape Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s opinion of the conference. Nehru’s standing was very high in the developing world, and it could be expected that as the leader of a former British colony, he would back Egypt’s right to nationalize the Suez Canal. The Indians had been invited to the conference but had as yet not decided whether to attend.61

  The rest of the Soviet leadership blessed Khrushchev’s recommendation, but below the surface there was real disagreement over how to prepare for London. Khrushchev, like Eden, had a Nasser problem at home. Many in the Kremlin doubted that Nasser would be able to manage this crisis, but Khrushchev was inclined to support the Egyptian leader. A number of Kremlin insiders and Khrushchev himself believed that Nasser had mishandled the nationalization. His rhetoric had been too strident, and the action seemed rash and ill prepared. Nasser had issued a statement acknowledging the right of all nations to use the canal, but the Kremlin knew that Egypt’s policy of not letting Israel use the canal had created international suspicion that the canal would not be insulated from Egyptian politics. Moreover, even if the canal were protected from Cairo’s whims, some Kremlin chieftains suspected that Nasser would not be able to administer it. The experience of discussing the Aswan Dam with the Egyptians had left an impression that their ambitions were sometimes greater than their technical competence. Aware of these misgivings at home, Khrushchev understood that he had to make his way carefully through the coming diplomatic engagements.

  Six days later the Foreign Ministry circulated first drafts of what Shepilov might say at the conference. It suggested that the Soviet representative make three points: Egypt had a right to nationalize the canal, the users of the canal had a right to expect Egypt to respect the 1888 Constantinople treaty on freedom of passage, and the London Conference was the wrong place to decide how to resolve this problem diplomatically. Forty-five countries used the canal in a significant way, and the three Western powers had invited only twenty-four of them. With the exception of the Soviet Union, the socialist world and some key neutral states had been excluded from the conference to ensure that the body would pass resolutions weakening Egyptian control of the canal. Moscow’s goal was to force a second, broader conference at which the Western powers might be outvoted by countries more sympathetic to Egyptian sovereignty.

  When the Kremlin met again on August 9 and 11 to review the Foreign Ministry’s work, disagreements over Nasser broke out into the open.62 In November 1955 Khrushchev had acknowledged to his colleagues that arms sales to Egypt were “risky” before pushing for more of them.63 In light of the recent developments in the Middle East, his colleagues began to reconsider the reward brought by these risks. Malenkov, who remained on the Presidium despite his loss of authority in early 1955, voiced the concern of those who believed that the Soviet Union should not tie itself too closely to Nasser: “We should never be the prisoners of Nasser’s political enthusiasms.”64 He complained that there were too many references to Egyptian rights in the proposed statements. In response, Khrushchev tried to shift the discussion away from Nasser.65 Khrushchev believed the Western powers were inclined to use force because they misjudged Soviet intentions in the region. “Evidently,” he explained to his colleagues, “the West thinks the following: we [the USSR] wish to deny them their rights under the [1888] convention, we wish to swallow Egypt to seize the Canal.” Khrushchev wanted to defeat these notions by showing that the Soviet Union was seeking a middle road between Egypt and the Western powers. “We understand the anxiety of the English and the French,” he said; “we are no less interested [in this matter] than the English. What is needed: freedom of passage.�
�� Defense Minister Zhukov came to Khrushchev’s assistance in the debate. He accepted that a misunderstanding of Soviet intentions lay behind the aggressiveness that the British and French had been exhibiting in the last two weeks. “They suspect,” said Zhukov, “that we want to win a war without having to fight it.”

  In the days that followed, the KGB provided intelligence that strengthened Moscow’s resolve to use the London discussions to persuade the French and the British to find a peaceful solution to their concerns. From a source in the French Defense Ministry, the Kremlin learned of a signed agreement between France and Britain to launch a joint military attack on Egypt in the near future. According to this agreement, French and British forces would occupy the Suez Canal after the London Conference. The source explained that the United States would not attempt to stop the Anglo-French attack. Although the source spoke of a hardening of the British and French position on the use of force against Nasser, it did not rule out the possibility that France would be happy if it could get its way through blackmail and intimidation.66

  Apparent confirmation that the United States might not be playing the moderating role with its allies that Khrushchev had assumed came from a different confidential source. On the evening of August 13 the KGB reported on U.S. ambassador Charles Bohlen’s conversation with Israeli Ambassador Yosef Avidar at the Leningrad airport while the ambassadors were awaiting their respective flights. Avidar told Bohlen, who was leaving to join the U.S. delegation in London, that he and his government were extremely anxious about the situation in the Suez Canal Zone and its long-term consequences. Surrounded by hostile Arab nations, Israel could not last a year if Nasser were to close the canal to all but Soviet warships and those of Egyptian allies. What made this report so startling was not the Israeli’s professed anxiety but Bohlen’s response, as picked up by the KGB.

  “The Canal question is far from decided,” Bohlen was reported as saying to Avidar. The U.S. ambassador then explained that Israel could help the West in provoking Nasser into making a mistake. “Israel has the task,” Bohlen explained, “of creating in the near future, during the conference, such tension along the Egyptian border that Nasser is compelled to reveal his aggressive intentions toward Israel.” This was the pretext the West needed to crush him. “My government is prepared for any kind of struggle with Egypt,” Avidar reportedly replied. This information was reported quickly to Moscow by a KGB informant who claimed to have overheard the meeting. By the morning of August 14, Khrushchev, Bulganin, and Shepilov had their own copies to read.67

  KHRUSHCHEV WAS NOT in Moscow to read the KGB report on the Bohlen and Avidar conversation. He had left for the southern Ukraine on August 13 to make a personal tour of the Donbass coal region. In 1956 the Donbass produced 30 percent of all Soviet coal but because of political instability in Poland, a major source of the coal burned in the Soviet Union, it might now need to produce more. Polish reformers were calling for a revision of the exploitative Soviet-Polish economic relationship. Since the late 1940s the Soviets had forced the Poles to sell them coal at 10 percent of the world price. Coal was Poland’s chief export, and with most of it going to the Soviet Union in tribute, Poland could not acquire sufficient foreign currency through trade to cover its purchases of Western machinery and food. Khrushchev’s initiation of destalinization had opened the door to the Poles to renegotiate this vestige of the Stalinist era. Still, however sympathetic Khrushchev was to Polish aspirations, he also knew that the Soviet energy industry would have a hard time replacing Polish coal with its own.

  While Khrushchev was in the Ukraine, the remaining members of the Presidium reviewed the Soviet agenda for the London Conference. Once again all the leaders agreed that they did not like the draft statements prepared by the Foreign Ministry. Malenkov stressed that there was still too much in the drafts that spoke of Egypt’s needs and not enough that explained the Soviet interest in a peaceful settlement of the matter. Malenkov wanted to go a step further, and he returned to an idea he had mentioned at the August 11 session. They could ask Nasser to promise to use some of the Suez Canal Company’s reserves to maintain the canal, instead of diverting them all for the Aswan Dam. There had been no encouragement from his colleagues in the earlier session, and Malenkov had no more success this time.

  Lacking any strong consensus on how to guide the parties in London to a peaceful settlement, the Kremlin decided for the present time that Shepilov would not carry any formal proposals with him to submit to the conference. Instead the leadership instructed him to give statements that stressed both Egypt’s right to nationalize the Suez Canal and Moscow’s expectation that the Egyptians would be willing to take some kind of formalized international advice on the administration of the canal. Hidden within the approved language was the suggestion of a compromise, international supervision without international control over the canal. Shepilov was authorized to cooperate with the Western powers, especially the United States, if this would avert a war in the Egyptian desert.

  AS THE SOVIETS prepared for the London Conference, the White House was unsure whether it should take a leadership role in settling the dispute between its Western European allies and Egypt. Subtle differences were appearing between Eisenhower’s and Dulles’s positions; though both wished to avoid a war over the canal, they disagreed on the best long-term solution to the troubles in the Middle East. Dulles was increasingly convinced that Nasser had to be removed from office, and he saw forcing the Egyptian leader to accept international control of the canal as the first step to making that happen.

  Eisenhower, however, was uncomfortable with the hard-line view of the French and the British on international control. He was not prepared to give up on the policy of leaving Nasser a bridge to come back to the West. Better than almost any of his advisers, Eisenhower was able to put himself in the shoes of the leader he confronted. He had his own canal in Panama, and he understood why Nasser had no interest in allowing others to control Suez. As a result, Eisenhower was inclined to accept international supervision of the canal once Nasser rejected international control.

  At the last meeting in the White House before the secretary of state left for London, the president expressed his doubts about Dulles’s strategy. An all-or-nothing approach bent on achieving international control of the canal would not stabilize the region because Nasser would never accept this kind of international regime.68 Egypt, after all, had the right to own the canal, and ownership implied a management right.

  Despite these concerns, Eisenhower did not rein in Dulles. He had a lot on his mind that August. The Republican National Convention in San Francisco was only a couple of weeks away. Rumors abounded that he was considering replacing Richard Nixon as his running mate. Although Eisenhower wasn’t really considering this, it remained a distraction. Perhaps bad health is the best explanation for the president’s passive response. Eisenhower was still recovering from a recent attack of ileitis, a painful intestinal disorder, and had suffered a major heart attack the year before, and his energy level was not what it should have been.

  DIMITRI SHEPILOV was a refreshing departure from his taciturn and stiff predecessor, Vyacheslav Molotov. This Soviet foreign minister smiled frequently and seemed comfortable with himself. On August 15 Shepilov left Moscow for London. “He appears more like an athlete than a politician,” the Reuters news agency observed after he arrived. His clothes were sporty, and unlike the other delegates to the conference, he didn’t bother to wear a fedora or a bowler. He did, however, constantly comb his thick black hair, which occasionally fell onto his face.69

  The London Conference opened at historic Lancaster House the next day. Beautifully appointed, said to be even grander than Buckingham Palace, this former residence of the duke of York was in picturesque Pall Mall, next to the queen mother’s official residence. Shepilov’s behavior quickly indicated to the British and the other Western allies that more than better grooming set him apart from Molotov. After arriving in London, Shepilov gave a statement to
the press in a transit lounge at the airport. Short and sweet, it laid out the principles upon which Moscow sought a peaceful settlement. “In our times international disputes can be settled only through negotiations by the countries concerned being guided by the principles of justice and a spirit of the times.” That “spirit” Shepilov defined as “strict observance of…full equality between States.”70 In other words, the USSR would not accept any proposed solution that undermined Egyptian sovereignty.

  Shepilov’s actions in the first few days telegraphed that he would define success in London in two ways. First, he wished to build international pressure to restrain the British and French from taking military action in the Mediterranean. This was the consideration that had prompted Soviet participation in London, and it had to be Shepilov’s sine qua non. The other sign of success would be more difficult to pin down. The conference allowed the Soviet Union to demonstrate itself as the protector of young nationalist movements worldwide. There could be no better way to show Soviet commitment to these fragile new states than to be supportive of acts of self-determination.

  Shepilov was also breaking the Soviet mold in ways not always appreciated in Moscow. He rewrote the draft statements telegraphed to him from his deputy, Vasily Kuznetsov. Where Kuznetsov had written “we,” Shepilov wrote “I.”71 What Moscow found annoying, the Western foreign ministers found dazzling. Not only was Shepilov’s manner different, but his words seemed to imply more flexibility in the Soviet position than they had ever heard before. The British foreign secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, told Secretary Dulles that Shepilov had privately agreed that “control of [the] canal could not be placed under one man such as Nasser.”72