Pursuing Nasser: The Macmillan Government and the Management of British Policy Towards the Middle East Cold War, 1957–63

Abstract

In the period immediately after the Suez Crisis, Harold Macmillan continued the Eden government's previous efforts to bring down the Nasser regime in Egypt. This policy produced mixed reactions in Whitehall, although officials withheld their doubts while the new government sought to repair relations with the Eisenhower administration in 1957. The inconclusive outcome of the Jordan and Lebanon interventions in 1958 ultimately allowed the Foreign Office to push for a policy of disengagement from the wider region, although a strengthened British military posture in the Gulf and southwestern Arabia threatened renewed difficulties with local nationalists by the time Macmillan left office in 1963.

Notes

 1. For a relevant sample of monographs and articles dealing with the Eden government's conduct of the Suez Crisis see the following: Anthony Gorst and Saul Kelly (eds.), Whitehall and the Suez Crisis (London: Frank Cass, 2000); Keith Kyle, Suez (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991); W. Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand: Britain the US and the Suez Crisis (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991); Howard J. Dooley, ‘Great Britain's “Last Battle” in the Middle East: Notes on Cabinet Planning during the Suez Crisis of 1956’, International History Review 11/3 (Aug. 1989), pp.486–517.

 2. Ritchie Ovendale, Britain, the United States and the Transfer of Power in the Middle East, 1945–1962 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1996); Nigel John Ashton, Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser: Anglo-American Relations and Arab Nationalism, 1955–59 (London: Macmillan, 1996). For Macmillan's attitude towards Anglo-American cooperation and the Middle East see also Richard Aldous and Sabine Lee (eds.), Harold Macmillan and Britain‘s World Role (London: Macmillan, 1996).

 3. Nigel John Ashton, ‘A Microcosm of Decline: British Loss of Nerve and Military Intervention in Jordan and Kuwait, 1958 and 1961’, Historical Journal 40/4 (1997), pp.1069–83; Robert McNamara, Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East, 1952–1967: From the Egyptian Revolution to the Six-Day War (London: Frank Cass, 2003).

 4. Nigel John Ashton, ‘Managing Transition: Macmillan and the Utility of Anglo-American Relations’, from Richard Aldous and Sabine Lee (eds.), Harold Macmillan: Aspects of a Political Life (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), pp.242–54.

 5. UK National Archives, Kew Gardens, London (henceforth cited as NA), CAB 134/2339, OME(57)7(Final), ‘Middle East Policy’, Note by the Foreign Office, 5 Feb. 1957.

 6. NA, PREM 11/1138, ‘Lessons of Suez’, Eden to Cabinet, 6 Dec. 1956; David W. Lesch, Syria and the United States: Eisenhower's Cold War in the Middle East (Boulder CO: Westview, 1992), pp.82–138.

 7. NA, PREM 11/2418, ‘Middle East Policy’, Brook to Macmillan, 6 Dec. 1957.

 8. NA, CAB 158/33, JIC(58)83, ‘Lebanon and Jordan – Infiltration and Subversion by the United Arab Republic’, Report by the Joint Intelligence Committee, Secret Annex, 8 Aug. 1958.

 9. Richard Gott, ‘The Kuwait Incident’, from Donald Cameron Watt, Survey of International Affairs, 1961 (London: RIIA, Oxford University Press, 1965), pp.519–22.

10. Wyn Rees, ‘The 1957 Sandys White Paper: New Priorities in British Defence Policy?’ Journal of Strategic Studies 12/2 (June 1989), pp.215–28.

11. NA, CAB 134/2339, OME(57)27(Revise), ‘Anglo-American Discussions on Middle East Policy’, Note by the Foreign Office, 12 April 1957.

12. Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm: Memoirs, 1956–1959 (London: Macmillan, 1971), p.213.

13. Foreign Relations of the United States 1955–1957 (Washington DC: US Government – henceforth cited as FRUS), vol.27, no.268, Memorandum of a conversation at the Mid-Ocean Club, Bermuda, 21 March 1957; NA, PREM 11/1724, No. 93, Lloyd to Foreign Office, 25 March 1957.

14. FRUS 1955–57, vol.12, no.222, Memorandum of a Conversation, 18 April 1957; NA, PREM 11/1838, BC(P)2nd Plenary Meeting, Bermuda, 21 March 1957.

15. McNamara, Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East, pp.71–2.

16. For background to the Syrian Crisis see Lesch, Syria and the United States, pp.138–72, and Andrew Rathmell, Secret War in the Middle East: The Covert Struggle for Syria (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995), pp.125–44.

17. FRUS 1955–57, vol.13, no.367, Dulles to Whitney, 21 Aug. 1957.

18. NA, FO 371/128228, VY1015/211, no. 1471, Lloyd to Macmillan, 17 Sept. 1957.

19. Stephen Blackwell, ‘Britain, the United States and the Syrian Crisis of 1957’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 11/3 (Nov. 2000), pp.78–95.

20. NA, PREM 11/2521, M480/57, Macmillan to Sandys, 24 Sept. 1957, and M486/57, Macmillan to Sandys, 26 Sept. 1957.

21. NA, PREM 11/2520, Brook to Macmillan, 18 March 1958; Harold Macmillan, Memoirs: Tides of Fortune 1945–1955 (London: Macmillan, 1969), p.560.

22. Alistair Horne, Macmillan: The Official Biography 1957–1986 (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp.58–9.

23. NA, PREM 11/2521, Morris to Hayter, 11 Oct., Top Secret Enclosure, Paper XVIII: ’Decisions Required in Connection with a “Containment plus” Policy’, Anglo-American Middle East Working Group Report.

24. Selwyn Lloyd Papers, Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge, SELO, File 4/22, Lloyd's notes on his tenure as foreign secretary.

25. NA, CAB 128/31, CC(57)76th Conclusions, 28 Oct. 1957.

26. PREM 11/2689, Record of a Conversation between Lloyd and Whitney, 28 May 1958.

27. Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p.511.

28. NA, FO 371/134159, VL1092/17, Record of a Telephone Conversation Between Macmillan and Eisenhower, 14 July 1958; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace: The White House Years 1956–61 (London: Heinemann, 1965), p.273.

29. NA, FO 371/133823, V1078/7, no.4832, Macmillan to Lloyd, 19 July 1958; Horne, Macmillan 1957–1986, p.97.

30. Mountbatten Papers, Hartley Library, University of Southampton, MB1/I283, ‘Position in the Middle East’, Mountbatten to Templar, 24 July 1958; Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p.524.

31. Horne, Macmillan 1957–86, p.98.

32. NA, PREM 11/2380, M251/58, Macmillan to Sandys, 18 July 1958.

33. NA, FO 371/133808, V1051/46G, ‘Policy in the Middle East’, Riches to Hayter, 22 July 1958.

34. Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p.536.

35. NA, FO 371/133799, V10345/3, Hayter to Caccia, 28 March 1958.

36. Roger Stevens Papers, Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge, File 1/36, letter from Stevens to his parents, 10 Nov. 1956.

37. NA, FO 371/133808, V1051/75, ‘Middle East (Official) Committee’, Ramsbotham to Stevens, 26 Nov. 1958.

38. NA, CAB 134/2342, OME(58)45, ‘Points for a Middle East Policy-Part I’, Note by the Foreign Office, 15 Oct. 1958.

39. NA, CAB 134/2342, OME(58)46, ‘Points for a Middle East Policy-Part II’, Note by the Foreign Office, 19 Nov. 1958.

40. The final draft of the Foreign Office paper discussed at this meeting (OME(59)3) remains classified but is probably similar in essentials to NA, CAB 134/2342, OME(58)53, ‘Points for a Middle East Policy: Proposed Ministerial Paper’, Note by the Foreign Office, 10 Dec. 1958.

41. NA, CAB 134/2230, ME(M)(59)1st Meeting, 16 Jan. 1959.

42. FRUS 1958–60, vol.13, no. 230, Memorandum of a Conference with the President, 23 Dec. 1958.

43. NA, PREM 11/2735, no. 8516, Lloyd to Caccia, 30 Nov. 1958.

44. Yaacov Ro'i, From Enroachment to Involvement: A Documentary Study of Soviet Involvement in the Middle East, 1945–1973 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1974), pp.307–26.

45. FRUS 1958–60, vol.12, no. 170, 401st Meeting of the NSC, 2 April 1959.

46. NA, PREM 11/4173, no. 1939 and 1940, Lloyd to Caccia, 14 April 1959; McNamara, Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East, pp.139–58.

47. NA, CAB 128/33, CC(59)24th Conclusions, 20 April 1959; NA, FO 371/143701, ZP19/3, ‘Planning For the Persian Gulf’, Minute by Wilding, 3 June 1959.

48. SELO, File 4/22, Lloyd notes on tenure as foreign secretary; NA, FO 371/150850, V1015/1, Draft letter from Stevens to Johnston, [undated] Jan. 1960.

49. NA, CAB 129/100, FP(60)1, ’Future Policy Study 1960–70’, Part I, ‘The International Setting’, 24 Feb. 1960.

50. NA, T 236/5640, ’Future Policy: Oil Studies’, Minute from Lucas to Taylor, 20 Aug. 1959; ’Oil Aspects of Future Overseas Policy’, Draft Memorandum by the Treasury, 10 Sept. 1959.

51. Douglas Little, ‘The New Frontier on the Nile: JFK, Nasser and Arab Nationalism’, Journal of American History 75/3 (Sept. 1988), pp.501–27.

52. NA, DEFE 4/136, JP(61)Note 2, ‘Operation Vantage: Summary of Present Position’, Report by the Joint Planning Staff, Top Secret Annex, 29 June 1961. For background to the British intervention in Kuwait, see Mustafa Alani, Operation Vantage: British Military Intervention in Kuwait (Surbiton: LAAM, 1990); Morice Snell-Mendoza, ‘In Defence of Oil: Britain's Response to the Iraqi Threat to Kuwait, 1961’, Contemporary Record 10/3 (Autumn 1996), pp.39-62; Nigel John Ashton, ‘Britain and the Kuwait Crisis’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 9/1 (Spring 1998), pp.163–81.

53. NA, PREM 11/3427, ‘Intervention in Kuwait’, Geraghty to Macmillan, 26 April 1961; NA, FO 371/156694, B1198/1/G, ‘Planning for Intervention in the Gulf’, Minute by Beaumont, 8 May 1961.

54. Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way: Memoirs 1959–1961 (London: Macmillan, 1972), pp.384–5; NA, PREM 11/3427, de Zulueta to Macmillan, 29 June 1961.

55. Miriam Joyce, ‘Preserving the Sheikhdom: London, Washington, Iraq and Kuwait, 1958–61’, Middle Eastern Studies 31/2 (April 1995), p.289.

56. NA, PREM 11/3429, no. 1789, Caccia to Home, 25 July 1961.

57. NA, PREM 11/3452, Minute by Macmillan, 4 July 1961.

58. NA, T 236/6719, ‘Middle East Oil and our Defence Strategy’, Milner-Barry to Rickett, 31 July 1961; PREM 11/3452, ‘Kuwait and Middle East Oil’, Note by Officials, 2 Aug. 1961.

59. NA, PREM 11/3452, ‘Persian Gulf’, Home to Macmillan, 4 Aug. 1961; FO 371/156670, B1019/3, Richmond to Luce and Minute by Stevens, 10 Dec. 1961.

60. NA, PREM 11/3430, ‘Kuwait’, Brook to Macmillan, 13 Sept. 1961 and ‘Kuwait’, Bishop to Macmillan, 4 Oct. 1961; DEFE 4/142, JP(61)143(Final), ‘Report by the C-in-C Middle East on Operations in Support of the State of Kuwait in July 1961’, Report by the JPS, 8 Dec. 1961.

61. Harold Watkinson, Turning Points (Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1986), p.156.

62. Gott, ‘The Kuwait Incident’, p.530.

63. NA, FO 371/162812, B1195/1, Ormsby Gore to Stevens, 2 Jan. 1962.

64. Macmillan, Pointing the Way, p.386.

65. NA, PREM 11/3783, Record of a Meeting at the White House, 28 April 1962.

66. NA, CO 1015/2597, Johnston to Morgan, 6 Nov. 1962; CAB 128/36, CC(62)68th Conclusions, 13 Nov. 1962.

67. NA, PREM 11/4173, ‘Nasser and “Nasserism” in Relation to British Interests’, Beeley to Home, 25 Feb. 1963.

68. Harold Macmillan, At the End of the Day: Memoirs 1961‐1963 (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp.266–78.

69. W. Taylor Fain, ‘John F. Kennedy and Harold Macmillan: Managing the “Special Relationship” in the Persian Gulf Region, 1961–63’, Middle Eastern Studies 38/4 (Oct. 2002), pp.95–122.

70. William Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East 1945–1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States and Post-War Imperialism (London: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp.15–21 and 128–46.