Teleprinter message from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
(No. 3345)

I will report to you fully about the Suez crisis when I see you on Thursday morning. British opinion is in a highly nervous and excited state. Nothing serious is likely to happen, of course, before the conference meets.¹ But most people here think the conference is bound to fail and what Britain and France will do in that event is still a question mark. On the whole opinion here is disinclined to believe that France and Britain will attack Egypt. If they do so, the matter is bound to come up at the United Nations and the result may be that, on top of the bankruptcy of Middle Eastern policy, Britain may find her whole existing system of alliances disrupted also. Although an Anglo-French attack on Egypt is considered unlikely, there is still a great deal of anxiety as well as a great deal of criticism of the way in which the matter has been handled by the British government.