Presidential Wisdom and Character Matter.

Presidential candidates win attention and support with their performance skills. 

It isn't enough.

Presidents also need wisdom, experience, good temperament, and good character.

Today's Guest Post is a look back at the Suez Crisis. Jack Mullen is known by this blog's readers for his posts on sports and politics. He also reads history at his home in Washington, D.C. His post today is a reminder to readers that presidents shape history. They send the country in one direction or another, and those lead to very different futures over the decades ahead. The wisdom and judgement of the occupant of that office matter. This isn't a TV show. This is real life. 

Jack Mullen describes a case of presidential leadership. In 2023 Dwight Eisenhower is better known for the interstate highway system than for his firm hand during the Suez Crisis. Both had long-term consequences.

Jack Mullen and wife Jennifer Angelo

Guest Post by Jack Mullen                                                

Ike and Suez 

Hollywood’s production of the movie Oppenheimer forced movie-goers and the general public to take a long look at where we and the world stand in the nuclear age. Despite some chilling moments, we are still around.

Post-WWII saber-rattling moments have come and gone without resorting to atomic weaponry. Fortunately, cooler heads ultimately prevailed during the Korean War and the Cuban missile crisis. I’d add the Suez Crisis to that list.

Egypt seizes the Suez Canal in 1956

After the Korean War, the next test to avoid world war and a possible nuclear conflagration occurred on July 19, 1956, when Egyptian President Gamal Nassar seized control of the Suez Canal. Great Britain and France, eager to regain some of their diminished global prestige after the second World War, dispatched troops to the Middle East to straighten out Nassar. Israel sent in its sizable military to aid the French and British. A complex mixture of 19th century colonialism and 20th century power struggles threatened to ignite World War III over a canal in Egypt.

British and French Colonial imprint on Egypt

French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps received permission from the Ottoman Consul of Egypt to build the Suez Canal in 1854. The French built and completed the canal in 1869. Then the French formed a conglomerate with the British to manage a canal that stretched 109 miles connecting the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Ships from Europe no long needed to sail around the tip of Africa to reach India and the Far East. Europe needed a compliant Egypt to assure safe passage through the canal. The British took care of that.

Opening of the canal, 1869

England invaded Egypt in 1882. Egypt’s status as a “Veiled Protectorate” of the British empire lasted until 1952, when Nassar and the Egyptian military overthrew King Farouk. The playboy Farouk’s demise spread hope throughout the Middle East that Western dominance could be challenged.

Nassar and the Aswan Dam

Nassar adopted a policy of non-alignment. He had no qualms with taking aid from any foreign country willing to assist in Egypt’s development, be it military or economic. Economically, his first big project to aid his country was the planned construction of the Aswan Dam. The United States, France and England assisted in financing the dam. Militarily, he made some small arms purchases from Communist Czechoslovakia, which did not go unnoticed by American officials.

One of the main benefits of 20th century dams, along with flood control, is irrigation for adjacent farm lands. In the case of Aswan Dam, Egyptian cotton farmers would benefit the most from water from the Nile River.

U.S. pulls out of financing Aswan Dam

Farmers from U.S. cotton-producing states met with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles voicing concern about competing in the world market with Egyptian cotton. The Eisenhower Administration, already disapproving Egypt’s recognition of Red China, pulled the plug on America’s part in financing the dam. How would Nassar now finance the Aswan Dam? Easy---Egypt would nationalize the Suez Canal. Ships passing through the canal would pay tolls that would finance construction of the dam.

John Foster Dulles, right, urging Eisenhower to pull funding for Aswan Dam

England, with a feeble Anthony Eden as Prime Minister, and France, with the forgettable Guy Mollet as President, both started referring to Nassar as another Hitler. Trying to regain lost glory and rally their fellow countrymen, both Eden and Mollet invoked Munich of 1938. Nassar must not be appeased! No sooner had these two Allies sent troops to Egypt, along came Israel with an even greater force. The Soviet Union and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who earlier in the year had negotiated an arms deal with Nassar, let it be known that the Soviets were an ally of Arab nationalists. Voices in Moscow expressed thoughts that use of nuclear weapons could be considered.

Ike recovers in time

Meanwhile, most Americans were concerned about President Eisenhower’s health. During his 1955 recovery from a heart attack and his June 1956 bowel surgery, his administrative duties were taken over by his Vice President, his Secretary of State and his Chief of Staff, Sherman Adams. One wonders what might have happened had Ike not recovered enough to return to Washington from his Gettysburg estate. His Vice President, Richard Nixon, had advised using limited nuclear strikes to assist the French during the 1954 battle at Dien Bien Phu. Ike paid no attention to Nixon. The Dulles brothers (Allen was CIA Director) already had intervened to foster coups in 1953 (Iran) and 1954 (Guatemala). We will probably never know whatever kind of intervention the Dulles boys favored in Egypt.

A recovered Eisenhower returned to Washington. The President was worried about the Russian invasion of Hungary. The President worried about the upcoming November Presidential election. The last thing he needed was a Suez Crisis to spiral out of control. No longer willing to acquiesce to the Joe McCarthy right wing of his GOP and the hawkish wing of the State Department and military, the Eisenhower who was the Supreme Allied Commander of World War II returned to form. He persuaded all the participants -- the British, French and Israelis -- to back off. Egypt had the sovereign right to control the Suez Canal. He then allowed the U.N. to enforce the peace with Egypt. The U.N. sent peace-keeping troops into the region.

Eisenhower’s deft handling of the Suez Crisis enhanced the United Nations’ reputation in the eyes of the world. A 1914-type disaster, which saw crumbling empires trying to regain their diminished power, was extinguished in 1956 by one man, Dwight David Eisenhower with the help of the United Nations.

We have survived the 76 years since the last atomic bomb was dropped in war. America, by a combination of diplomacy and plain luck, has played a large part in preventing a nuclear war. We owe it to ourselves and the world to use our power wisely.

 

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