Extracts from a memorandum from Frank Biggar to Con Cremin (London)
'Suez Crisis'
(Secret) (Copy)

I had a discussion yesterday afternoon about the present position in the Suez crisis with Mr. Snelling,¹ Assistant Under-Secretary in charge of the Foreign Affairs Division, who is now dealing with the matter in the Commonwealth Relations Office. Mr. Snelling spoke quite freely. He was at little pains to hide the fact that the British Government, having taken a hasty decision over the weekend to refer the Suez question to the United Nations, are still trying to make up their minds how to handle it there.
[matter omitted]

10. In a reply to an enquiry whether the British Government had taken any emergency measures to conserve supplies, Mr. Snelling said that so much oil had come in at the beginning of the crisis that storage tanks were full to overflowing and that the last thing the British Government wanted to see at the moment was a falling off in the use of petrol. If the Canal was cut, they had certainly enough oil in reserve to carry them over the three or four weeks that would be necessary to organise alternative supplies from American sources. The real snag here was, of course, that such oil would have to be paid for in dollars. The Americans had so far suggested no more than a loan from the Export-Import Bank and nothing further was to be expected until after the Presidential election but things might change then.
11. It seems clear from all this that the British are still floundering desperately in their search for a policy to deal with the Suez crisis. They have abandoned the idea of force, if indeed they ever seriously entertained it. They are hoping that financial and economic measures will be sufficient to bring Nasser to heel but they are far from optimistic because they realise that there are too many gaps, particularly in the direction of the Communist countries, for sanctions to prove really effective. A boycott of the Canal is impracticable, the Canal Users Association is merely an innocuous façade and UN approval of the 18 Power proposals is improbable in the extreme. Meanwhile the French are complaining bitterly that they have been let down, the Americans will run no risks until at least after the Presidential elections and the Egyptians are operating the Canal so effectively that the shipping conferences concerned have abandoned the 15% surcharge on freight though the waterway which they had decided upon a fortnight ago. All these considerations seem to lead inevitably to the conclusion that Britain and her associates will be forced to an ultimate accommodation with Nasser which appears only conceivable on the basis of a drastic modification of the demand for the internationalisation of the Canal.