Extract from a letter from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
'The Suez Crisis'
(Confidential)

Last week’s debate in Parliament on the Suez crisis has done little to dispel the general mystification over the British Government’s ultimate intentions. Nor did it contribute significantly to healing the deep division of opinion in the country which has resulted from the Government’s handling of the crisis.

2. Before the debate began, it had been widely believed that the Government would announce its intention of submitting the Suez question to the United Nations.

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7. There are still people to be found here who believe that Colonel Nasser ‘will never be allowed to get away with it’ and that, if necessary, the British and French governments will in the last resort use force to restore the Suez canal to international control. Such people are, however, a small and declining minority. The better opinion, in my view, is that, barring some action on Colonel Nasser’s part which would be regarded by world opinion as a whole as a flagrant violation of the 1888 Convention or some other basic treaty undertaking, Britain is unlikely to have recourse to force, for the simple reason that any such action would inescapably bring the Conservative party into headlong collision with British public and parliamentary opinion, with Britain’s most important ally and with the leading governments of the Commonwealth.
8. Recent public opinion polls show that people in this country are definitely opposed to any recourse to warlike measures against Colonel Nasser. Within recent weeks, British press opinion has been steadily hardening in favour of the same view.

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9. Parliament is not less divided. The whole of the Labour party, and now an influential group of Conservative MPs as well, are opposed to any recourse to force in violation of the UN Charter. The divisions extend into the Cabinet itself. I am reliably informed that while the policy which the British government has been following faithfully reflects the minds of the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury and Mr. Macmillan, Mr. Butler and Sir Walter Monckton,² to mention only two names, are extremely unhappy about it. Monckton, the Minister of Defence, is particularly strongly opposed to the policy; his resignation might easily follow if the policy of sabre-rattling is pushed to further extremes. The fact is that the Cabinet as a whole is gravely split.
10. No British Prime Minister can commit his country to the sacrifices of a war without a united House of Commons and a united public opinion behind him. Sir Anthony Eden has behind him a divided public opinion, a divided Parliament and a divided Cabinet. The disunity in the Cabinet is causing disunity in the Conservative party. The fact that Sir Anthony had to shift his ground during the debate last week in deference to the views of some of his followers is the subject of much comment. For a British Prime Minister to find, in the middle of an important foreign policy debate, that his own party was not united behind him is nothing short of a severe personal humiliation. The question people are asking is how it could conceivably have happened – how the Prime Minister could possibly have so misjudged the feeling in his own party as to put forward in his opening speech a line of policy which some of them felt they could not conscientiously support. The only explanation I have heard suggested is that either Mr. Butler, who as Leader of the House is responsible for keeping the Prime Minister advised of the state of feeling in the party, failed to warn Sir Anthony of the danger or that he did warn him, but Sir Anthony paid no heed to his warnings. The measure of the failure of Sir Anthony’s leadership in the present crisis is that he has failed to preserve unity not only in the country, but even in his own party.
11. And it isn’t only on the domestic front that the bug-bear of disunity dogs Sir Anthony’s efforts. Although Mr. Dulles has gone far to meet British and French views, the divergence of American and British policies is too obvious to require comment. The position as regards the leading Commonwealth governments is even more serious. That any unprovoked attack on Egypt by Britain would precipitate a serious crisis with India, Pakistan and Ceylon is taken for granted. What is more serious, however, is that – as I am reliably informed – the Canadian government’s attitude is similar to that of the United States, so much so that Mr. St. Laurent has given the British government serious warning that if Britain finds herself involved in war or warlike activities as a result of any action on her part inconsistent with the UN Charter, she cannot count on Canadian assistance or support. Even the loyal Pacific partners – New Zealand and Australia – have become restive and uneasy as a result of Sir Anthony Eden’s failure to give a clear disclaimer of any intention of taking action contrary to the UN Charter.
12. For all this, Sir Anthony Eden is personally to blame. From the beginning of the crisis, his policy has been one of shifting objectives, disingenuous pretexts, blustering and threatening tactics, misleading, if not deceptive statements, and hasty and ill-considered initiatives – all pursued with an unpleasant suggestion of vindictiveness and ‘trickiness’ and with a complete absence of that combination of calm and firmness which one expects to mark the foreign policies of a world power. The view is widespread here that, whatever the outcome of the present crisis, the British government’s handling of it bids fair to constitute in retrospect one of the most unsuccessful and discreditable chapters in British diplomatic history.