Henry William Brands, Jr.
Dr. Brands is Director, Sesquicentennial Oral History Project, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin, and is an historian specializing in United States diplomatic and 20th century history.
Through most of the 1950s, relations between the United States and Egypt were dominated by three individuals: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles and Gamal Abdul Nasser. It was probably inevitable that the two Americans would find Nasser difficult to live with. Though they professed support, in principle, for the anti-colonialist nationalism Nasser represented, Eisenhower and Dulles were constrained by the fact that the United States was a status-quo power, perhaps nowhere more than in the Middle East. Nasser found the status quo obnoxious, tilted, as he thought it was, to the advantage of the West and the disadvantage of Egypt; and he did all he could to right the balance.
Compounding the problem of the different interests of Eisenhower and Dulles, on the one hand, and Nasser, on the other, was a serious clash of personalities. The American president and secretary of state never quite knew what to make of Nasser. At certain times he seemed to them a reasonable, responsible statesman like many others they had encountered in their long careers. At other times, he appeared violent, irresponsible and an unwitting stooge for the Russians. Largely because of their inability to fathom Nasser, Eisenhower and Dulles were unable to shape a consistent policy toward Egypt. As a consequence, U.S.-Egyptian relations during the eight years of the Eisenhower administration oscillated wildly, from relative amicability to spectacular contretemps that led to the decade's most astonishing fiasco and permanently altered the face of the Middle East.
I
It took Eisenhower and Dulles some time, as it did many other observers, to recognize that Nasser was the source of real power behind General Muhammad Naguib. Between the anti-royalist coup of July 1952 and the beginning of 1953, American officials were unable to tell just who was setting Egypt's new course. By May 1953, though, the American ambassador in Cairo, Jefferson Caffery, felt confident enough to cable Washington: “The real direction of affairs in Egypt, it is becoming increasingly apparent, is in the hands of Nasir.” Naguib, Caffery added, was fast becoming merely “a figurehead.”1 Five weeks later, in response to Dulles's query whether reports of a clash between Naguib and Nasser meant that Naguib had lost control of Egyptian policy,2 the ambassador declared: “Naguib never had effective control over policy....Effective control was always in the hands of Nasir and his friends.”3
Dulles had gained more than an inkling that such might be the case on a visit to Cairo the previous month, when he had had an extended conversation with Nasser. The purpose of Dulles's trip was to generate support for a regional alliance, known hopefully as the Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO). Naguib had intimated that Egypt might be interested,4 but after speaking with Nasser, Dulles became convinced that MEDO would never materialize. Nasser told Dulles that Egypt's principal problem was not with the Russians, against whom MEDO was directed, but with the British, who had occupied his country for seventy years. “How can I go to my people,” Nasser said, “and tell them I am disregarding a killer with a pistol sixty miles from me at the Suez Canal to worry about somebody who is holding a knife 5,000 miles away?”5
Dulles was impressed by the depth of Nasser's opposition to MEDO. He was also worried about the stability of the new regime in Cairo, fearing that pressure on Nasser to join MEDO might push the Egyptian revolution further to the left.6 Together these considerations forced a shift in American planning for the Middle East. From reliance on MEDO, with Egypt as the keystone of a Middle Eastern strategic arch, the Eisenhower administration switched to an emphasis on the states of the “northern tier.” The countries from Turkey to Pakistan, feeling what Dulles called “the hot breath” of the Soviet Union more directly than Egypt did, promised to be more amenable to American influence.7
The decision to go with the northern-tier option relieved administration officials of certain worries regarding Egypt, but plenty remained. In the first years of Eisenhower's administration, the most consistently troubling matter relating to Egypt was the smoldering state of that country's relations with Britain. As long as the British retained their base at Suez, Anglo-Egyptian problems irritated, indeed poisoned, relations between the Arab world and the West generally. Dulles, while on his tour of the Middle East, had cabled back to Eisenhower that the troubles between Britain and Egypt promised to push the Arab world into “open and united hostility to the West.” In itself, alienation of the Arabs was not a major problem. Though Dulles would never have stated the matter so bluntly, he might have thought in terms of a paraphrase of Stalin to the effect: How many divisions do the Arabs have? What mattered to Dulles and Eisenhower was the impact alienation of the Arabs might have on relations between the superpowers; specifically, that it might allow the Russians a foot in the Middle Eastern door. Already, Dulles noted with concern, certain groups in the Arab world were turning to Moscow for assistance.8
To Dulles and Eisenhower, it was always the Russian specter that made Nasser a force to contend with. Arab nationalists, like nationalists throughout the Third World, could be expected to seek help where they might find it. If aid were unavailable from the West, they would undoubtedly look to the Soviet bloc. In much of the Third World, American leaders sought to keep countries on the side of the West through economic and military aid. It would have been natural for Eisenhower and Dulles to apply a similar policy to Egypt. To a certain degree, they did. Unfortunately, though, competing considerations complicated matters.
In the first place, for the United States to bolster the Nasser regime conspicuously, especially with arms, would certainly alienate the British, who, far more than the Americans ever did, considered Nasser the embodiment of evil in the Middle East. In Eisenhower's opinion, the importance of the Middle East lay primarily in its role as supplier of oil to Western Europe — to countries like Britain. The whole point of worrying about Soviet penetration of the Middle East was to ensure that Middle Eastern oil continue to flow to Britain and the other European allies. For Eisenhower, who had risen to world fame and launched a political career on his wartime exploits in the European theater, Europe was always primary. The Middle East, Egypt included, was important, but only — or at least chiefly — insofar as events there affected the security of Europe.
Consequently, for the Eisenhower administration to chart a Middle East policy that undermined American relations with Europe, and especially Anglo-American relations, would be self-defeating. This consideration was not absolute, as the British discovered to their surprise and humiliation in 1956, but it was consistently significant. A National Security Council paper of mid-1953, describing the importance of maintaining good relations with Egypt and other Arab states, added the caveat: “We must steadily be on our guard, however, in the process not to so worsen our relations with the U.K. as to unduly weaken or dissolve the main strength of the free world toward Soviet Russia represented by the NATO alliance.”9
A second impediment to American aid to Egypt, of course, was Israel. Eisenhower was not so personally concerned with the fate of the Zionist experiment as his predecessor, Harry Truman, had been, but neither was he oblivious to the political salience in the United States of the Israel issue. Abba Hillel Silver told Eisenhower in 1956, “You can be reelected without a single Jewish vote,”10 and he was undoubtedly right. Eisenhower liked to make much of his independence of the Israel lobby. At the height of the Suez crisis, he wrote to a friend that he had ordered the State Department to “inform Israel that we would handle our affairs exactly as though we didn't have a Jew in America.”11 But for all his bravado, and regardless of his own lack of enthusiasm for the idea of a Jewish state, Eisenhower understood that Israel had powerful friends in the American Congress. As a general matter, he chose not to antagonize them. Not surprisingly, neither Israel nor its supporters in the United States looked kindly on the prospect of American aid, especially military aid, to Egypt.
Beyond the political ruckus that arms to Egypt would raise, Eisenhower and other administration officials worried that military aid to Cairo might force the Israelis into preemptive action against Egypt. Should such an attack occur, Nasser would surely appeal to the Russians for help, thus increasing the Soviet presence in the region. Further ill consequences could be expected in the event that an Israeli attack succeeded. A paper written for the National Security Council in late 1955 described the probable outcome: “In the chaotic aftermath of an Israeli success, political conditions in the Arab states would be ripe for Communist exploitation. A likely result would be to solidify the Arab world under Soviet political guidance.”12
This fear of driving the Arabs into the clutches of the communists was a constant feature of American policy toward Egypt. It underlay, for example, the tactics the Eisenhower administration used to promote its northern-tier concept of regional defense. Aware that Nasser objected to the idea as splitting the Arab world and dragging the Middle East into the Cold War, the administration tried to keep its role in what became the Baghdad Pact as discreet as possible. In the summer of 1954, a National Security Council paper delineated how the United States ought to proceed:
The U.S. should: (a) Develop secretly plans for the defense of the area with the UK, Turkey, and such others as may be desirable. (b) Conduct secret military-political conversations in the near future with the UK regarding development of the “northern tier” concept as an indigenous movement, not linked formally at this time with the Western powers or with Western defense organizations except through the participation of Turkey.
This same paper added that the United States, in relations with Egypt, ought to “make clear to her that the 'northern tier' concept does not derogate from the importance the U.S. attaches to strengthening Egypt.”13
Nasser's opposition to the Baghdad Pact was related to his larger desire to keep the Arab world nonaligned between the great-power blocs. By playing West against East, he hoped to increase his own influence and that of his fellow Arabs. At a time when American officials were trying to line up support for a regional alliance, Nasser's attachment to a neutralist position was annoying. Not that American leaders had anything against neutralism per se. Though John Foster Dulles was notorious for declaring neutralism immoral, such pronouncements were intended primarily for domestic consumption. Yugoslavia, for example, was neutral, but Tito had received American support for half a decade. Neutralism in the Middle East, though, represented a net loss to the United States, since the status quo in the region favored the West. Eisenhower administration officials wanted to keep things that way.
At the same time, American leaders found Nasser's neutralist designs entirely understandable. Ambassador Caffery in Cairo put the issue clearly when he asserted that Nasser's goal was “to play the field without commitments…to refuse cooperation with the West so steadfastly that the other interested powers, including the USSR, will vie for Egyptian favors.”14 State Department analysts saw matters in similar terms. For a small country like Egypt, they said, a neutralist policy made perfect sense, and the United States ought to expect Nasser to pursue such a policy for the foreseeable future. In the words of a report written by the State Department's Office of Intelligence Research: “The role of a weak neutral, maintaining the fiction of international importance and applying its statecraft to best advantages in playing off, one against the other, the primary antagonists in the global conflict, appears to be marked out for Egypt for at least several years to come.”15
Even as convinced a cold warrior as CIA Director Allen Dulles found Nasser's policy of nonalignment thoroughly reasonable. Nor did the fact of Nasser's striking an arms deal with the Soviet bloc in 1955 change his mind. Dulles believed that Nasser understood the risks of close ties with the Russians; he thought Nasser was using the Soviets for his own purposes. In a memorandum to his brother, the secretary of state, Allen Dulles offered his assessment of Nasser and Egyptian policy:
Nasser has won prestige and a position of leadership in the Arab world by the soviet arm deal. He is determined to do everything possible to maintain this position.
He is today no more anxious to come under Soviet domination than to join a Western alliance and is still convinced that he can hold to a middle path.
If he can maintain his independence and prestige through an arrangement with the West, he would prefer that to a close tie-up with the Soviets.
If he feels that the west has definitely turned its back on him, he will accept further Soviet aid, if proffered, and endeavor, probably with a good chance of success, to bring Syria and Saudi Arabia along with him.
Dulles added that negotiations designed to entice Nasser closer to the American side would be “long, difficult and uncertain.” He cautioned, however, against an opposite policy of trying to cut Nasser off from the rest of the Arab world. “This presents grave danger,” Dulles concluded, “as it would probably tempt Israel to attack Egypt.”16
The danger Dulles spoke of seemed greater than ever following an Israeli raid on Gaza in February 1955. For the next several months, the Eisenhower administration sought unsuccessfully to bring the Egyptians and Israelis to terms. At the beginning of 1956, Eisenhower appointed Robert Anderson to try one more time to reduce the tension between the two countries.17
Anderson's mission failed, and its failure marked a turning point in the thinking of the Eisenhower administration about Nasser and Egypt. Though the president did not entirely absolve the Israelis of blame for the collapse of the Anderson initiative, he placed most of the onus on the Egyptians. “Nasser proved to be a complete stumbling block,” Eisenhower wrote in his diary. Angered by the futility of his administration's attempts to achieve a Middle East settlement, Eisenhower began to see Nasser in a more sinister light than before. As Eisenhower viewed matters, the heart of the problem in the Middle East was “the growing ambition of Nasser, the sense of power he has gained out of his association with the Soviets, his belief that he can emerge as a true leader of the entire Arab world — and because of these beliefs, his rejection of every proposition advanced as a measure of conciliation between the Arabs and Israel.”18
Until this time — early 1956 — the Eisenhower administration had believed that it might be able to work with Nasser. After this, for a period of more than two years, the administration essentially stopped trying. On the contrary, American officials began to try to isolate Nasser within the Arab world. In March 1956, the joint chiefs of staff recommended that the United States come out in the open with its support of the Baghdad Pact. In light of “the critical situation in the Middle East,” the chiefs said, the United States ought to join the alliance “without delay.”19 Eisenhower was not ready to go that far, believing that the diplomatic repercussions of adherence to the pact still outweighed the alliance's military advantages. Instead, Eisenhower directed the State Department to investigate the possibility of building up Saudi Arabia as a counterweight to Egypt and of promoting King Saud as a rival to Nasser — “in the thought,” as Eisenhower put it, “that mutually antagonistic personal ambitions might disrupt the aggressive plans that Nasser is evidently developing.”20
Foster Dulles did not object to the idea of diminishing Nasser's stature, but, fearing "an open break which would throw Nasser irrevocably into a Soviet-satellite status," the secretary of state urged circumspection. Dulles suggested tightening trade relations with Egypt, reducing such economic aid as the United States was sending to Nasser, providing support to the Baghdad Pact short of formal participation, increasing assistance to Saudi Arabia and other friendly Arab countries, and delaying negotiations regarding the Aswan Dam. Dulles also recommended certain covert actions, the precise nature of which is unclear, since this part of his memorandum remains classified.21
As is well known, the Eisenhower administration's attempt to pressure the Egyptians backfired when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, setting in train the series of events that led to the crisis of October and November. Though the administration ended up, in effect, coming to Nasser's rescue, the affair confirmed American beliefs that Nasser was a reckless and dangerous man. Shortly after Nasser seized the canal, Eisenhower told a group of senators and congressmen at the White House that Nasser's violent rhetoric “seemed much like Hitler's.” Dulles concurred, describing the Egyptian president as “an extremely dangerous fanatic” possessed of a “Hitler-ite personality,” and alluding to Nasser's Philosophy of the Revolution as an Arab Mein Kampf.22
What made Nasser especially dangerous, in Eisenhower's opinion, was the threat he posed to Western Europe's oil supply. Eighteen months after Suez, when a coup in Baghdad brought down the pro-Western government there, the president became convinced that Nasser was striking for Europe's jugular. Eisenhower told Vice President Richard Nixon:
We have come to the crossroads. Since 1945 we have been trying to maintain the opportunity to reach vitally needed petroleum supplies peaceably, without hindrance on the part of anyone. The present incident comes about by the struggle of Nasser to get control of these supplies — to get the income and the power to destroy the Western world.23
Perhaps because Eisenhower and Dulles were personally responsible for American foreign policy, they tended to take personally the problems Nasser posed for that policy in the Middle East. Others in the American national-security establishment managed to maintain a cooler and more objective view. In the late summer of 1957, the State Department's Office of Intelligence Research produced a new assessment of Nasser's foreign policy. This report declared that Nasser's goals were essentially those that would be pursued by any non-conservative Egyptian leader; namely, to rid Egypt of foreign influence, to cement Arab unity under Egyptian leadership, to oppose “imperialism” in the Middle East and Africa and to deal with the great powers on a basis of equality. The State Department analysts described Nasser's tilt toward Moscow as merely a corrective to previous excessive Western influence; Nasser could be expected to tilt back toward the West if Russia overplayed its hand. As Nasser had used Arab nationalism against the West, at some point in the not-too-distant future, he might turn it against Moscow. In the words of the report: “He expects Arab nationalism to save the Near East from Communism just as it is freeing the Near East from Western ‘imperialism.’”24
At times, these cooler opinions prevailed, even in the White House. Near the end of 1957, Eisenhower decided that, since Nasser was likely to remain in power for some time, it might be a good idea to try to come to terms with him. In an “eyes only” memorandum to Dulles, the president asked, “Do you think there would be any percentage in initiating a drive to attempt to bring back Nasser to our side?” Eisenhower said he did not have in mind “anything spectacular, or, indeed, anything that would get in the papers.” Rather, he was thinking in terms of a confidential envoy who would ask Nasser whether he saw “any basis for rapprochement.” If Nasser would agree to an easing of tensions in the Middle East, the United States would try “to help him over some of his difficulties.” Eisenhower added the caution: “If we do this it will, of course, have to be skillfully done — certainly we don't want to be in the position of ‘bootlicking a dictator’.”25
For reasons that remain unclear, nothing came of Eisenhower's interest in pursuing detente with Cairo. Perhaps Dulles quietly vetoed the idea, as he sometimes did to suggestions that Eisenhower only hesitantly supported. Perhaps the president simply changed his mind. In any event, within six months, Eisenhower had shifted back to a belief that Nasser was trying to bring down the Western world by seizing its oil supply, as his comment to Nixon, cited above, indicates.
Following the coup in Iraq in July 1958, and in the face of incipient civil war in Lebanon, Eisenhower sent American troops into Beirut. The ostensible purpose of the American intervention was to prevent a communist takeover of Lebanon. In fact, Eisenhower's primary objective was to notify the world — Nasser especially included — that the United States would back its perceived interests in the Middle East with military force. This had been the point of the so-called Eisenhower Doctrine, passed by the American Congress in March 1957. The invasion of Lebanon was intended to underline the administration's seriousness.
To supporters of Nasser, the Eisenhower Doctrine seemed tantamount to an American declaration of war on Arab nationalism, and the landings in Lebanon seemed the war's opening offensive. Surprisingly, though, the outcome of the American intervention paved the way for an easing of tensions between the United States and Egypt. A month before the landings, Nasser had told the American ambassador in Cairo that a reasonable solution to Lebanon's problems would be the installation of Fuad Chehab as president and Rashid Karami as prime minister. Nasser went so far as to suggest, half injest, one suspects, considering the state of U.S.-Egyptian relations at the time, that the United States and Egypt ought to join forces to impose this solution.26 The Americans rejected Nasser's offer then, but after American troops occupied Beirut and Eisenhower's special representative, Robert Murphy, personally surveyed the political landscape in Lebanon, the administration decided that Nasser's solution made sense. Under the guns of American soldiers and in the shadow of the American Sixth Fleet, Chehab and Karami took office.
Following this relatively happy — from the perspective of U.S.-Egyptian relations — ending to the Lebanese intervention, a warming trend between Washington and Cairo gradually set in. A major contributor to the thaw was a deepening chill in relations between Egypt and Iraq. In July 1958, American officials had suspected that the overthrow of the Iraqi government was the work of Nasser's agents, and they feared that Nasser's influence would now penetrate the northern tier. This fear was what had made the administration so quick to dispatch the marines to Lebanon. In fact, though, the traditional Cairo-Baghdad rivalry continued unabated, and indeed increased in intensity, to the Eisenhower administration's pleasant surprise.
A National Security Council paper of February 1960 reported with obvious satisfaction that Nasser was “in open conflict” with Iraq. Much of Nasser's distrust of Baghdad owed to growing communist influence there. According to the NSC report, this distrust had spilled over into relations between Egypt and the Soviet Union. Largely as a result, Nasser was turning back toward the West. Of the situation between Egypt and the United States, the NSC paper asserted, “President Nasser himself now views relations between the two countries as ‘normal’.”27
But what did “normal” mean, in the context of U.S.-Egyptian relations? The answer to that question came in September 1960, just a few months before Eisenhower left office. While Nasser was in New York for a session of the United Nations, Eisenhower flew up from Washington, and the two men met.
Their conversation began cordially. Nasser thanked Eisenhower for America's “great help” during the Suez affair. He admitted that Egypt and the United States had later had certain “difficulties and misunderstandings,” but he did not dwell on these. On a topic of current concern — a civil war in the Congo — Nasser declared his support for the actions of the United Nations there, though he thought some specific U.N. moves ill-advised. No doubt to Eisenhower's satisfaction, Nasser added that he was as opposed to Soviet domination of the Congo as he was to Soviet domination of Egypt.
But then the discussion turned to Arab-Israeli relations, and much of the cordiality dissipated. Having been speaking of the United Nations, Nasser asserted, “We can never forget that the United Nations has not lived up to the U.N. resolutions regarding Israel.” Nasser said that from the moment he took power in 1952, he had looked forward to good relations with the United States. “But the main barrier always remained — Israel.” He said that he had sought Western military aid but had consistently been turned down. “Meanwhile, Israel did receive arms from the West — airplanes from France, tanks from the U.K., and 105 mm. recoilless rifles from the U.S.”
When Eisenhower objected that the United States had never sent any offensive weapons to Israel — “'just some radar equipment and defensive things” — Nasser replied that, as Eisenhower surely realized, “all weapons have offensive value.” At this point, Secretary of State Christian Herter, the deceased Dulles's successor, quietly pointed out to Eisenhower that there had in fact been “one small shipment” to Israel of the rifles Nasser described.
After several minutes more of fruitless exchange on the issue of Israel, discussion reverted to the Suez affair. Nasser, declaring that the Egyptians were “a very sensitive people,” said that the withdrawal of the American offer of financing for the Aswan Dam had been a grave affront. “We want to keep our dignity,” he insisted.
Eisenhower asserted that his administration had only backed out of the Aswan deal after learning that Nasser was negotiating with the Russians. The United States, Eisenhower said, was always suspicious “when the Soviets touch a country.”
At this point, Nasser stood up and started for the door. But then he changed his mind and returned to his chair. The conversation was nearly over, though. After a brief discussion of the situation in Jordan, whose troubles Nasser attributed to King Hussein's jealousy of his — Nasser's — popularity with the Jordanian people, Nasser and his aides departed.28
II
The meeting just described took place at a moment when relations between the Eisenhower administration and Nasser were as good as they were going to get, and just about as good as they had ever been. Even under such relatively favorable circumstances, the two parties could not see eye to eye. Normalization of relations between the United States and Egypt meant that leaders of the two countries were talking, but it certainly did not mean that they were agreeing about much.
As noted at the beginning of the present article, American troubles with Nasser arose from two sources: differences regarding perceived interests and clashes of personality. Determining which of the sources was more important is a matter not only of historical interest, but of considerable continuing importance as well, for it goes right to the heart of the way the American leaders — and leaders of other countries, for that matter — manage foreign affairs.
The personal differences Eisenhower and Dulles had with Nasser — their belief that he was the chief obstacle to Middle East peace and their suspicions regarding his “Hitlerite” personality and ambitions — were certainly of prime importance in shaping U.S.-Egyptian relations during the 1950s. The Americans' distrust of Nasser was in no small part responsible for touching off the chain of events that led to the Suez crisis. Had Eisenhower not been so convinced that Nasser was waging a personal vendetta against the West, there might have been no Eisenhower Doctrine and no American intervention in Lebanon.
But the Eisenhower Doctrine and the landings in Lebanon, and even the Suez affair, were primarily details — surface manifestations of more fundamental changes in the balance of power in the Middle East. When Eisenhower and Dulles entered office in 1953, the status quo in the region was comfortably favorable to the United States and its allies. The revolution in Egypt, and the heightened challenge it posed to the Western position there and in countries nearby, inevitably threatened that status quo. The form that this challenge took may have depended on Nasser's personality and on the personalities of foreign leaders like Eisenhower and Dulles; but the existence of the challenge did not.
As the State Department analysis cited above asserted, Nasser's policies were those that would have been pursued by any non-conservative Egyptian leader: to achieve greater autonomy for Egypt, to diminish Western influence and to enlist Russian help if necessary to achieve these ends. The objectives of the Eisenhower administration were objectives that any American administration would have sought to achieve: to preserve the pro-Western tilt of the Middle East, to maintain access to the region's oil, and to keep the Soviets out. Had Eisenhower and Dulles been on the best of terms personally with Nasser, these policy differences would have remained, and the countries the three men represented would still have been at odds.
1 Cairo to State Department, May 18, 1953, State Department decimal file 774.00/5-1853, record group 59, National Archives, Washington.
2 State Department to Cairo, June 23, 1953,774.00/6-2353, ibid.
3 Cairo to State Department, June 24, 1953, 774.00/6-2453, ibid. Here and below, telegraphic communications have been rendered more readable by the insertion of understood but omitted words and punctuation.
4 See Caffery's reports to the State Department in file 774.00, ibid. Also, Barry Rubin, “America and the Egyptian Revolution, 1950-1957,” Political Science Quarterly 97 (1982), pp. 73-90.
5 Muhammad Heikal, Nasser: The Cairo Documents (London: New English Library, 1972), p. 51.
6 See minutes of 147th National Security Council meeting, June 1, 1953, NSC series, Eisenhower papers (Ann Whitman file), Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas.
7 Minutes of 153rd NSC meeting, July 9, 1953, ibid.
8 Dulles to Eisenhower in Baghdad to State Department, May 18, 1953, Dulles-Herter series, Eisenhower papers, Eisenhower Library.
9 NSC 155/1, July 14, 1953, NSC series, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (OSANSA) papers, Eisenhower Library.
10 Memorandum of conversation, April 26, 1956, White House memoranda series, John Foster Dulles papers, Eisenhower Library.
11 Eisenhower to E. E. Hazlett, November 2, 1956, in Robert Griffith, ed., Ike’s Letters to a Friend (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 1984), p. 175.
12 “Deterrence of Major Armed Conflict between Israel and Egypt or Other Arab States,” October 17, 1955, NSC series, OSANSA papers, Eisenhower Library.
13 NSC 5428, July 23, 1954, ibid.
14 Cairo to State Department, January 9, 1954, 674.002111-954, record group 59, National Archives.
15 Intelligence report 7042, September 11, 1955, Office of Intelligence Research, record group 59, National Archives.
16 Allen Dulles to John Foster Dulles, undated, White House memoranda series, John Foster Dulles papers, Eisenhower Library.
17 On Anderson's mission, see William Bragg Ewald, Jr., Eisenhower the President (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981), pp. 193-7; and Donald Neff, Warriors at Suez (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), pp. 130-6.
18 Robert H. Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diaries (New York: Norton, 1981), pp. 319, 323.
19 Radford for joint chiefs to secretary of defense, March 3, 1956, Special assistants series, OSANSA papers, Eisenhower Library.
20 Ferrell, p. 323.
21 Dulles to Eisenhower, March 28, 1956, Dulles-Herter series, Eisenhower papers, Eisenhower Library. For information regarding American covert operations in the Middle East during this period, see Miles Copeland, The Game of Nations (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969); and Wilbur Crane Eveland, Ropes of Sand (New York: Norton, 1980).
22 Notes of bipartisan leadership meeting, August 12, 1956, Legislative meetings series, Eisenhower papers, Eisenhower Library.
23 Staff notes, July 15, 1958, International series, Eisenhower papers, Eisenhower Library.
24 Intelligence report 7577.1, September 4, 1957, Office of Intelligence Research, record group 59, National Archives.
25 Eisenhower to Dulles, November 13, 1957, White House memoranda series, John Foster Dulles papers, Eisenhower Library.
26 See Robert W. Stookey, America and the Arab States (New York: Wiley, 1975), p. 155. Also Copeland, p. 242.
27 Report on the Near East (NSC 5820/1), February 3, 1980, Operations Coordinating Board series, OSANSA papers, Eisenhower Library.
28 Memorandum of conversation, September 26, 1960, International series, Eisenhower papers, Eisenhower Library; memorandum of conversation with the president, September 26, 1960 ibid.
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