The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (51 page)

Salisbury’s support was critical to the Prime Minister. Not only was Salisbury one of Eden’s few close friends, but he was also his trusted confidant and central figure within the Cabinet. His concurrence or dissent could influence the Cabinet as a whole. On 27 August he had written to Eden that the UN Charter must prevail over all other considerations, at least before force could be brought to bear as a last resort:

Salisbury and most others in the Cabinet were willing ultimately to use force, but only if it were clear that a genuine effort had been made at the United Nations to resolve the issue peacefully. Another irony of the Suez crisis is that the Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, nearly achieved the goal of a UN solution but abruptly became a key figure in the Franco-British-Israeli military alliance leading to war.

Selwyn Lloyd had become Foreign Secretary in late 1955 for the pre-eminent reason that Eden himself wanted to control foreign policy.
²²
In Lloyd he found a compliant, competent, and loyal lieutenant. A lawyer by training, Lloyd had served in 1951–4 as Minister of State in the Foreign Office during the Churchill government and had helped to resolve the complex problems of Sudanese independence and British withdrawal from the Canal Zone. He held no brief for the United Nations but his inclination was to work towards a peaceful solution to the Suez crisis. Only because of his loyalty to Eden did he find himself pulled into the collusion with France and Israel.

In the earlier stages of the conflict, Lloyd had laboured tenaciously in the London maritime conference in August to discover principles acceptable to Egypt and the Soviet Union as well as the Western powers. At the Security Council – with Hammarskjöld taking the initiative in acting as an intermediary between the representatives of Britain, France, and Egypt – these points eventually evolved into what became know as the six principles of 13 October 1956:

• free and open passage through the Canal;

• respect of Egypt’s sovereignty;

• insulation of the operation of the Canal from the politics of any country;

• Egypt and the users to agree on tolls and charges;

• allotment of a fair proportion of the dues to development of the Canal;

• arbitration to settle affairs between Egypt and the old Canal Company.
²³

The acceptance of the six principles, embodied in a report by Hammarskjöld to the Security Council, occurred at a time when the Suez crisis reached a turning point. Eisenhower at a press conference exclaimed that the work at the United Nations had saved the peace of the world. ‘It looks as if a very great crisis is behind us.’
²⁴
Dulles believed Eisenhower’s comment to be too optimistic, as indeed it proved to be. No sooner did Lloyd arrive back in London than Eden commandeered him for a mission to Paris on 16 October. Thus began the fateful steps that led on to the secret military accord in a suburb of Paris, Sèvres, a week later.
²⁵
Yet the odds on turning away from the United Nations in favour of military action would still have appeared to most contemporary observers to be no more than 50–50. Military operations were by no means inevitable.

By September–October a declaration of war to reverse the nationalization of the Canal Company was no longer a matter of practical politics, though the directors of the company itself now took certain measures to force the reversal. On 15 September the company withdrew European pilots. Of a total of 205, there remained 26 Egyptian and 7 Greek pilots.
²⁶
Contrary to many assumptions of what would happen, the Egyptians managed to operate the Canal just as effectively as previously. They gave no ground for complaint. The pretext for declaring war on the issue of running the canal now virtually disappeared.

The archival evidence is ambiguous, but there is good reason to believe that from mid-September Eden began to look for a way out. The country was divided and the House of Commons unmanageable. ‘Difficult days in the House’, Eden wrote in his diary at one of his low points in the crisis.
²⁷
Probably a majority in the House of Commons and the country at large would have been satisfied with Egyptian guarantees endorsed by the United Nations. When Eden decided, however reluctantly, that he must refer the issue to the Security Council on 13 September, he began to prepare the way for a peaceful solution that found expression in the six principles a month later.
²⁸
But the military discussions came to a head at the same time. The French proposed an ingenious solution (so it seemed to Eden at the time) of intervention by encouraging the Israelis to strike first, thus providing the British and French with a pretext to advance into Egypt by conducting a police operation. Eden, along with his loyal lieutenant, cast Britain’s fate towards war rather than peace through the United Nations.

The climax at the United Nations in late October and early November took everyone by surprise, not least the British Ambassador, Sir Pierson Dixon.
²⁹
On 29 October Israeli forces attacked the Egyptian army in Sinai. On the next day Britain and France issued an ultimatum to Israel and Egypt to stop fighting within twelve hours and withdraw from ten miles of the canal. Israel would retreat from within enemy territory, but Egypt would withdraw from part of her own country under Egyptian sovereignty. British and French forces would occupy strategic points at Port Said at the north end of the canal, Ismailia towards the centre, and the port of Suez on the southern entrance. Israel accepted the ultimatum but Egypt, not surprisingly, rejected it. The subterfuge of Britain and France – claiming that they were conducting a police operation as peacemakers – deceived few people at the time. As one British commentator put it later, ‘If anybody in America believes the story of mere “police action,” let him stand up and be counted.’
³⁰

Dixon had no direct knowledge of the decision to support the Israelis and then to invade. He was not in the inner-circle of those making decisions (nor were the British Ambassadors or representatives in Paris, Washington, Cairo, or Tel Aviv). But he harboured no illusions about what was taking place. According to Harold Macmillan, he possessed ‘the most subtle mind in Whitehall’
³¹
At the United Nations he was put to the test. The normally gentle and congenial Dixon now had to use the first veto ever exercised by the British. Britain, one of the founding members, now seemed to be undermining the purpose of the organization itself. Though he maintained self-control and a dignified presence, Dixon occasionally revealed the anguish of defending a position he believed to be false.

He learned of the Israeli attack in the late afternoon of 29 October. Hammarskjöld immediately engaged him in conversation along with Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (the US Permanent Representative at the United Nations), and Bernard Cornut-Gentille of France who two days later collapsed. Dixon and Cornut-Gentille were disconcerted at the possibility of an emergency meeting of the Security Council – understandably enough, since neither had instructions. Neither welcomed the prospect of being put in the dock. That evening Lodge and Dixon both attended the Metropolitan Opera in formal dress. Lodge summoned Dixon out of one of the theatre stalls to say that he now had instructions from Eisenhower himself to request an urgent meeting of the Security Council to demand Israeli withdrawal.
³²
Dixon and Lodge had always regarded themselves as friendly colleagues.
³³
But Lodge remarked later the same night that the exchange with Dixon was ‘one of the most disagreeable and unpleasant experiences’ in his entire life. ‘Dixon until now had always been amiable but at this conference the mask fell off and he was virtually snarling.’ Dixon said to Lodge: ‘Don’t be silly and moralistic. We have got to be practical.’
³⁴
The remark is ironic because Dixon himself possessed a keen sense of ethical conduct. He had once written that Britain’s place in the world depended largely on ‘prestige’, by which he meant ‘what the rest of the world thinks of us.’
³⁵
A veto would call universal attention to Britain’s isolated moral position at the United Nations.

The next day the Security Council met morning, afternoon, and night. To Dixon’s own chagrin, he first learned of the British and French ultimatum from the Russian representative, who read an Associated Press report to the Security Council. At the meeting in the afternoon, Dixon read verbatim from Eden’s speech and tried as best he could to explain the rationale of the ultimatum. He was ‘obviously shaken’.
³⁶
Lodge then introduced a resolution demanding Israeli withdrawal. Dixon and Cornut-Gentille thereupon exercised the veto. ‘We were opposed by the Americans on every point’, Dixon wrote in his diary.
³⁷
In an extraordinary scene – unique in the annals of the cold war – the Russian representative then embraced the American position by submitting virtually the same resolution only to have it again vetoed by Britain and France. According to an American account, ‘Both Dixon and Cornut-Gentille were white-faced and hostile to any conciliatory suggestions.’
³⁸
In words that became famous in Foreign Office lore, Dixon wrote of the casting of the vetoes as the climax of ‘a thoroughly unsatisfactory day’s work.’
³⁹
The world had witnessed the drama of Britain and France defying the United Nations. Paul Johnson, then a young editor at the
New Statesman
, caught the spirit of those who believed in the United Nations when he wrote some months later that ‘Britain and France were lurching towards a moral disaster.’
⁴⁰
The
New Statesman
itself summed up at the time what many believed to be a shattering truth: ‘The British government has broken the Charter of the U.N.’
⁴¹

On the next day, on the night of Wednesday 31 October, Britain and France launched air attacks on Egypt. It is revealing to study Dixon’s reaction to events at the United Nations because he as much as anyone else felt the tension between Britain’s commitment to the UN Charter and the military operations in the Middle East. But it is also useful to keep in mind the more general background. From the time of the Anglo-French air bombardment to the ceasefire less than a week later, events in Egypt took place against the background of the Hungarian uprising and the entry into Budapest by Soviet forces. The British economy seemed to be spiralling towards collapse because of the drain on gold and dollar reserves. On 2 November Israeli troops were on their way to completing the occupation of Gaza and Sinai.

Through the procedure of ‘Uniting for Peace’, the matter now passed immediately to the General Assembly, where the veto does not apply.
⁴²
A resolution sponsored by the United States called on Israel to withdraw and urged an immediate ceasefire. With 6 abstentions, the vote was 64 to 5. Only Australia and New Zealand voted with Britain and her two collusionist allies against the resolution.
⁴³
The resolution constituted one of the most emphatic censures voiced by the General Assembly up to that point.

Eisenhower was re-elected President on 6 November, the same day that British and French seaborne troops landed at the northern end of the canal. In a letter to Eden on 5 November the Soviet Prime Minister, Marshal Bulganin, had hinted at possible rocket attacks on London and Paris. The Soviet government would have been aware that a ceasefire was already under active discussion. Less than 24 hours later, on 6 November, when the invasion forces had advanced only 23 miles down the canal, they received orders to cease fire.

Along with his British and French colleagues, Dixon found himself shunned as an outcast. Condemnation mingled with anger and sorrow in oblique glances. Scornful and embarrassed silence sometimes concealed genuine grief. Dixon recalled the emotionally tense general mood: ‘Flanked by our faithful Australians and New Zealanders, we wandered about the U.N. halls like lost spirits. Our best friends averted their gaze or burst into tears as we passed.’
⁴⁴
The British delegates were avoided as if they were lepers, but some proximity remained necessary. In the General Assembly the seating arrangement was alphabetical, the United Kingdom next to the United States. Dulles himself represented his country on 1 November. He entered while Dixon was attempting to persuade the General Assembly to allow British and French forces to fly the UN flag as peacemakers. Dixon paused on seeing him, perhaps in presentiment of impending danger. ‘There was a strained moment as the two men eyed each other.’
⁴⁵

Dulles’s speech to the General Assembly on 1 November stands as one of the most eloquent statements made during the Suez crisis. He spoke urgently and simply but with deep reserves of sincerity and no ambiguity. He described the theme of his career as upholding international principles, at the Peace Conference in 1919 no less than the San Francisco Conference in 1945. He expressed sorrow at the United States finding itself in disagreement with historic allies. He re-endorsed the purpose of the United Nations in such a way as to cause acute discomfort among the British, French, and Israelis: