Confidential report from Con Cremin to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
(Confidential)

While it is yet too early to endeavour to forecast the long term effects on the future of the British Government and of the British position generally, both domestic and internationally, of the Franco-British decision last week to take military action against Egypt, it may be worth while to set down some points which are likely to have a bearing on the subject.

2. An important aspect of the whole issue is why the Government took the decision it did. Even if one concedes the sincerity of the motives alleged by the Prime Minister and other Government spokesmen in the course of the thorough debates in Parliament last week (and very few people do), it must have been obvious to the Government, in the light of the earlier developments of the Suez Canal crisis, that the proposed action was bound to be misinterpreted and was equally bound to perturb many and the most important of Britain’s friends, including in particular the USA and several members of the Commonwealth, ignoring altogether the possible repercussions in, and on, the United Nations. It is clear, of course, that as the Conservative Editor of the National and English Review, Lord Altrincham, said in an interview to the News Chronicle on the 2nd November, ‘Eden is in a state of obsession about Nasser’ and also that he is obsessed, in the light of his experiences in the 1930s and the parallels he has tended to see between what was happening then and now, with the fear of failing to take action in time. Even so, one can wonder having regard particularly to the possibility (for this must have been a possibility) that Israel might have single-handed disposed of the Egyptians, why he opted for the course he chose. It seems not improbable that he may have been led to do so by the insistence of the French.
3. While conclusions from the chronology of events may be unsound, especially if this chronology is not known in all its details, one could make an a priori case for thinking that the French in this particular issue ran ahead of the British. According to the French press (e.g. Le Monde of 31st October), the French Government met on the morning of the 30th October (i.e. the day on which the ultimatum was delivered) and took two decisions: to ‘have recourse to force if necessary, if this secured the approval and the co-operation of the British’ and to convene Parliament for that evening to hear a government declaration. This meeting of the French Government was over before 10 a.m. British time and immediately afterwards Monsieur Mollet joined Monsieur Pineau in London. It must have been in the discussions which followed between British and French Ministers that the British definitely decided on their course of action as, although the British Cabinet had met on the previous evening and the Chiefs of Staff had been consulted that morning, it emerged in the course of the debate in the House of Commons that the Prime Minister’s statement was only ready shortly before he delivered it in the House of Commons, i.e. at 4.30 p.m. British time. At least one Labour deputy (Harold Davies) suggested in the debate of 1st November that the French had imposed their views on the British and a Daily Telegraph correspondent in an article from Paris on the same date wrote that ‘politically it is felt that the lead for a firm policy towards Egypt was given by the French Ministers and that the British Government has been exercising a restraining influence’. What is in any event quite certain is that there is a striking contrast between the declarations made in the House of Commons in the afternoon and in the Chamber of Deputies in the evening of 30th October by Sir Anthony Eden and Mr. Guy Mollet respectively announcing the decision taken. That of the British Prime Minister is largely in the nature of a rather rambling and chronologically confusing account of the immediately preceding events. The French Prime Minister’s declaration is more clear cut and categoric – he rests the decision squarely on the ill-treatment of, and French sympathy for, Israel and the hostility and trouble-making activities of Nasser.
4. The possibility that the British were to some extent rushed into the action decided upon might explain their failure to give prior notice to the Commonwealth countries and the USA of what it was proposed to do although it may, of course, have been deliberate inasmuch as they must logically have expected opposition from some members of the Commonwealth and certainly from the USA. It appears to be established in any case that the notification of the proposed course of action to the USA was only made after Sir Anthony Eden had begun to speak in the House – behaviour which provoked the Times to write a leading article deploring the Government’s failure to keep their strongest ally informed. The reaction of the Commonwealth was clearly unfavourable and even though there has been some superficial improvement, of which the Government has made the most, as manifested by successive votes in the United Nations (Australia moving from the position of opposition in the Security Council on the 30th October to support for Britain in the Assembly on the 2nd November; New Zealand moving in the Assembly from abstention on the 1st to support on the 2nd and Canada moving from opposition on the 1st to abstention on the 2nd), recent events can hardly fail to have a weakening effect on the already tenuous links between London and the overseas members.
5. The economic effects of the action taken by Britain and France may be serious. As far as Britain is concerned, there are two aspects to this question – the financial burden which the operations will have imposed and the consequences for shipping and oil supplies. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated at Chester on the 2nd November that ‘the strain of the operations is greater than the economy of the country can bear’. On the other hand it appears that the Suez Canal is now blocked independently of the outcome of the present operations and that some of the pipe lines and pumping-stations in the Middle East have been destroyed or damaged. The British have, therefore, for at least some time, brought upon themselves the situation in this particular regard which all their efforts during the summer were alleged to be designed to prevent.
6. The Government obviously hoped that the present ‘police action’ could be put through swiftly and there is now a growing impatience, even on the part of those newspapers which staunchly stand behind the Government’s action, at the relative protraction of events. The Sunday Times, for instance, of yesterday which devoted the whole of the centre page to a strong defence of Sir Anthony Eden, conceded that if the present operations ‘do not come within a measurable distance of achieving their aims within, say, the next fortnight, reactions will be equally profound’ – for the Government, the Western Alliance, the Commonwealth, the flow of oil and the stability of the Middle East.
7. A particular feature of last week’s events which is deeply deplored even by those organs most favourable to the Government is that they should have created an atmosphere in which Russia has been able to impose her will in the most ruthless manner on a resurgent Hungary. Although as one pro-Government paper remarks, this will probably be a subject for speculation for historians, there is no doubt that the average opinion takes the view that something could have been done to prevent the Russian action if the British and the French had not so undermined international morality – even though the Times and the Daily Telegraph in their desire to find excuses for the action of the Government use what has just happened in Budapest to prove the inefficacy of the United Nations and thus justify the operations against Egypt.
8. Whether Eden will immediately survive this crisis, but with his status both at home and abroad seriously diminished, probably depends to a large extent on the rapidity with which the operations (or at least sole Franco-British responsibility therefor) can be concluded on the one hand and on the other, the extent to which he can keep his supporters together. It is certain that divisions exist within the Conservative party – Mr. Boland mentioned these in his reports of 17th² and 18th September³ – and the resignation of Anthony Nutting (‘one of the Prime Minister’s favoured sons’) from his post of Minister of State for Foreign Affairs is symptomatic of a cleavage: the number of dissidents is put by the Observer at 40; by the Daily Express (pro-Government) at 30. This is, of course, a situation in which party discipline and personal loyalty may keep the Government supporters together: ‘I was brought up to believe’, said one Conservative member on the 2nd, ‘that when friends were in danger, it was a good thing to stand by them’. There is no doubt, however, that public opinion as reflected in the press is, on this issue, very strongly against the Government in general and Anthony Eden in particular. The Observer of yesterday carried on its main page a powerful attack against the Prime Minister and his policies alleging that not since 1783 when the then Prime Minister had to recognise American independence, has Great Britain run into so much international antagonism and that Eden’s removal is ‘scarcely less vital to the prospects of this country than was that of Mr. Neville Chamberlain in May, 1940’; and even the Times, which has generally tried to find excuses for the Government’s conduct, has during the past week mingled with its approval, serious reservations and admonitions.
9. The Labour Party have decided to pursue their opposition to the Government’s policy by all constitutional means. As part of this campaign, they have harried the Government in continuous debates throughout all last week, held a large scale demonstration in Trafalgar Square yesterday and had Sir Anthony Eden’s television address of Saturday night answered by Mr. Gaitskell last night, Gaitskell appearing to be rather more effective and convincing than Eden. The Trade Union Council which endorsed the party’s policy has, however, intimated that it proposes to discourage strike action.
10. The international line-up, for and against Britain and France in the present crisis will be clear from the United Nations voting. Among the countries which have had recourse to abstention is Turkey. I am advised on good authority that Turkey is using its best efforts to restrain the other Arab countries from coming to the assistance of Egypt.