1959-01-31 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 1959.

SUEZ Randolph Churchill

Why Eisenhower got so mad

when he heard

what we had done

A MONG

the most serious... consequences of the Suez debacle was that it nearly destroyed the Anglo-American alliance. It was one of Mr Harold Macmillan's greatest acts of statesmanship that he was able to heal the breach so became very soon after he Prime Minister in January 1957.

In brief, the British complaint is that the Americans let us down, while the American answer is that the British have no right to complain sure the Americans were not only not informed of what we intended to do but were actively deceived,

Unhelpful

From the very day that Nusser grabbed the Canal, Amèrica made it plain that the would not countenance any m!)- tary netlon taken by France and Britain outside the context of the United Nations. It was to discourage any violent action

August, that all through the months of September, and October Mr John Foster 37uiles laboured unceusingly to involve Britain and France in a series of abortive discus:Jong

With an ingenuity which one cannot but admire, he pro- duced an endless series of pro- posals for discussions on dif- ferent levels and at different

venues,

Whatever may have been the wrong- headedness of American policy now and heretofore about the Middle East, neither the British nor French Cablaets could possibly pretend that they were unaware of the American altitude which had been consistently unhelpful from start to inish.

By a curious aberration of judgment Sir Anthony Eden contrived that there

PRESIDENT COTY

HE HAD HIS DOUBT8

should be no British Ambassador in Wo- shington during the critical month before he struck at Suez.

The retiring ambassador, Sir Roger Mnkins, left the United States on October 11. The new ambassader, Sir Harold Cacela, did not take up his duties in Washington U November 0, two days after the cease-Me

and two days after the Ameri- can presidential election.

This can hardly have|

been an accident.

Embarrassing

DX

The Foreign Office may,

wished to course, have

врате the new ambassador the possibility of being asked cm- he barrassing questions which could not answer, and thereby scerning stultified at the outset

FOSTER DULLES

HE HAD INGENUITY

no plans for war and assured him of France's most honourable intentions,

Never again

M. Alphand returned from the White House to his embassy; where. he Was handed 21 copy of the Anglo-French ultimatum.

When Mr Dulles saw M. Alphand shortly after the cease-fire, the American Secretary of State told him:-

"I will never again trust the word of a French Ambassador."

By the middle of October some mem- bers of the British Cabinet who were getting wind of what was planned for the end of the month and the beginning of November began to express concern us to whether any proposed action on our part would carry with it the support or at least the good will of the United States.

Reassuring

Eden let it be discreetly known that he had had a letter from the President of a reassuring character. Simultaneously in Parls the President of the Republic, M. Rene Coty, who evidently had some doubts about the proposed Israelf invasion of Sinal and the Anglo-French synchru- nised Intervention, consulted a number of important oficials and military leaders who were not directly concerned in the Propused operations.

In the course of these

consultationa

M Coly showed a copy of the letter which President Elsenhower had written to Sir Anthuny. It was dated October 16.

This was doubtless the com- munication

on which Sir Anthony was relying when he reassured his colleagues about the likely American reaction to the proposed Franco-British in- tervention.

The letter of October 10 indicated that, while there was some divergence of opinion between the United States and Brituln as to how the Suez situation should be handled, it would be possible

after the elections to come to same agree ment acceptable to both Britain and the United States.

The true interpretation of the force and meaning of this letter has been the couse of much misunderstanding on either

side of the Atlantic.

Some of Sir Anthony's friends seem to have gained the Impression that Pre- sident Eisenhower had in effect given 9ir Anthony the green light to go ahead,

Others, who had seen the text of the letter, considered that ni inost it was an orange light that flickered from the White House; but one that unmistakably carried the message: "Keep quiet till after the election."

On any calculation It seems fantastic that Eden and Mollet and their colleagues in the British and French Cabinets should

SIR HAROLD CACCIA

HE WAS THE NEW BOY

have disregarded the naked implications

So wrong, Mr, Head!

by RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

EAST BERGHOLT, Suffolk.

of Commons

IN the course of a graceless and unconvincing

intervention in the House recently, Mr Antony Hend, successively Secretary of State for War and Minister of Defence during

the Suez crisis, is reported to have said:

"I went to see General are best left in the hand of Keightley in Cyprus], not experienced, competent pollt!- for the reason reported by

cians.

that very fine imaginativo No one could possibly

judge

he was

writer Mr

Randolph from Mr Head's speech that he was a politician and would-be Churchill he Can be statesman; and he was a con- brucketed with Edgar Allan senting party to the abandon- Poe for imagination but ment of the Suez enterprise, for to see whether the airborne the planning of which

so largely responsibte, drop could be made earlier,

Mr Head was one

of the to overcome the beach

numerous Ministers of the Suez dofences and eliminate the period who had an oppertunity naval bombardment, which of reading my articles would inevitably cause more they came out. destruction ut Port Said. Unlike mesl of his crstwalle colleagura he availed himself of it.

**That Wis done and the airborne drop went, abiclutely without a hitch and was 100 per cent successful."

1

Strange

The reason which i steriled In the Dally Express of Decum- ber 4 10 Mr Head's visit to Cyprus was to "sssure himseif, and also the Cabinet, that the Anglo-French plans had been perfectly concerted. He cccepted the final plan for a parachute descent en Port Said the follow- ing morning and returned home."

It is strange that Mr Head should recuse me of Imagina- tion.

before

He made only one detailed complaint of inaccuracy.

I sought to meet his point. He could, of course, en grounds of principle, have refused, CS did, to comment many others at all.

I had supposed that Mr Head was a friend of mine and I om naturally taken aback that he should prefer to correct me publicly rather than privately.

The Smear

a!

What distresses nest, how- ever, is behind the privilege Parliament he should think iL proper to drag my family name Into this controversy. Even if I had the protection of partia-

I had the good fortune to see him in London when I was en route from New York 10 Tel Aviv on the night of Sunday, mentary privilege, I should not November 4,

in

He had returned carlier the day from his 17-hour round trip by a Canberra alrcraft to Cyprus.

Difficult

I find it difcult to bellove

of the President's letter. Three months that I imagined what Mr Head had already passed since Nasser's grab. It told me that Sunday, evening.. would have cost little to have waited an- other week.

Outraged

Of course Rt is possible that Mr Head may not have given me-the true or full explanation of his fight, but 1 find impossible to accept the explana- This Is one of the key episodes on ton he gives us now.

remorseless which history will turn a

that I feel sure scrutiny, but until the text of President Eisenhower's letter is made publle it is lection is at fault, impossible to divide with exactitude the culpability for a tragic misunderstanding

and miscalculation.

seek to animadvert on whether Mr Head has added to or de- tracted from the stre of the name he bears.

I do not like this sort of per- sonal family smear, I shall content myself with saying that Mc Head, 36 C Cabinet Minister, had a political respon- sibility,

he seemi of which vecuously unaware, for deciding that several thousand

British

troops were landed in whai proved to be a dead-end enter- prise halfway down a causeway.

I will only tad tals,

Mr Head, like all my other critics from the Forelga Offee his recal downwards, refuses 10 szy

detall where I am wrong.

(London Express Service).

The Anglo-French paratroop landings were made on Monday, November 5. shortly after 10 a.m. Egyptian time.

Against this background it is hardly surprising that the President, already ovestired by a strenuous election cum- It is hard to see how Mr paign now in its last few days, was out- Head, as he now clalms, could Saturday raged by the Anglo-French ultimatum. have accelerated en

The head of the New York Times night an airborne drop that Bureau in Washington, Mr James Reaton, was due in 30 hours.

test informed and most accurate poli- tical reporter in the United Stales, wrote Indeed (us chown on October 31:-

General Keightley's despatches) 12 "When Eisenhower first on the Sunday night, Just

hours before H-hour, the allied heard of the ultimatum the c-c. In Cyprus reeeived a London usking White House crackled with bar-message from

him to state the latest Lime rack-room language the like of which a decision would have to which had not been heard since be made should a postponement the days of General Grant.”

TUESDAY:

My summing up

Married Students A

Problem In The US

of the airborne landings prove necessary,

Dangers

Thus, it Ma Head is correct in claiming that he accelerated the airborne landings, we are

that driven to the conclusion under his original planning the paratroops would have landed afler, Instead of before, the sea- borne troops-which seems tactical absurdity unless he had been prepared to keep the troops who were already five dayn waterborne from Malta wallowing around indefinitely in

the sea,

D

I have read Mr Head's speech

According to him the plan was perfectly executed. But was the right plant

STUDENT marriages - one of the features of the post-war Americanin Hansard with fascination.

college campus — have now affected high schools throughout the country. They are presenting difficult problems for the young brides and grooms, the schools and even the courts.

the: summoned

on

Mr Head chais no light this important point. It is here that history will finger, ultimately pronounce.

Ind

orgu-

Is

(against

Henry Toy, Jar, presi- decided that every child Mr. Toy rescaled detalls of

of the of his mission; and, in view of dent

National had the right to go to school another case In Midland Paric, what happened to the French Citizens' Council for Better, as long as his moral stan board elterly debated the right New Jersey, where the school

The other dascinating Ambassador, M. Herve Alphand, Schools, has revealed that dards are not objectionable, at a 10-year-old bride of threement in Me Head's speech one can see there may have been some forca in this const-reports of student marriages A Mississippi court ruled months to finish her senior year. that he tells the only thing Be that went wrong was that the. ara reaching his deal with that marriage is a domestic deration,

Some parents demanded that operation was "slopped."" On October 30, the day after growing frequency.

relationship highly favour she leave mchool; others wanted

But Me Head war a member the Inraolt altack, President

A Right

ed by law, and "pupils the young bride excluded from

of the Cabinet which Elsenhower

bo benanted by extra-curricular activities.

the advice of the goldiers on the French Ambassador and called The key problem raised would upon him to explain theby

By a voto of four to three the apot) "slopped it." these marriages insociating with a married

Riri was permitted to graduate. rumours that had been pouring whether or not the youthful student.

Har father cast the deciding the political imbroglio, lo which He casta no light whatever on into Washington about "French

In Nottoway, Virginia, A Intentions in the Middle East. husbands and wives should

ho when party, and which led He demanded" to know

Me Thy noted that there cùượn | so, this stustination. France's plans wore.

with other youngsters In ceming marriage with his parents refected a changing pattem in M. Herve Alphand, who had public schools.

and school principal.

meden ecciety, When, I'vent only taken up his appointment

Several court decisions "But if he then goor shoud to college married students were n French. Ambassador to the United States on September 7 have tried to clarify this and marries" Mr Toy weld, "the bold Times have

tosid does not guaronies that certainly changed." A court in Kansus he can continue in school,"

Landon Saprass ↳ Herulós), adenostly replied that he knew logue.

What be permitted to associate student must discum his forth- school, bourd declared that m

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vote,

Hi posch goes to show the danger Inherent inputting & military men in charge of gener- ala, sidentenia, and ale marshals. Perilous-enterprises such as Buen

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