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EGYPT'S OTHER NATIONALISTS AND THE SUEZ CRISIS OF 1956*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

BARNABY CROWCROFT
BARNABY CROWCROFT*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
*
Department of History, Robinson Hall, 35 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USAcrowcroft@fas.harvard.edu
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Abstract

The Egyptian experience of the Suez crisis and subsequent conflict of 1956 has received significantly less treatment than those of the other major players, Great Britain, France, Israel, and the United States. The consensus over Egypt's role in the crisis has, moreover, has advanced very little from the narrative put forward by official participants at the time, portraying the event as a landmark in a nationalist struggle to restore Egypt's independence and national dignity. This article takes a fresh look at the Suez crisis from the perspective of the figures of an emergent Egyptian political opposition in 1955–6, whose responses differed substantially from this received view. By bringing domestic Egyptian political struggles to the foreground of this international crisis, the article will offer a more nuanced view of the origins of Suez in British planning, and of its significance for contemporary Egyptians. The conclusion will seek to explain how a collection of sometimes extreme nationalists could take such a counter-intuitive position in the Suez crisis through exploring the diversity of nationalist thought in the Egypt of the 1950s.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 253 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

For invaluable criticism and comments on this article, I would like to thank Donald M. Reid, Roger Owen, Sue Onslow, Yoram Meitel, Erez Manela, Hazem Kandil, Maya Jasanoff, Niall Ferguson, and David Armitage, as well as the Historical Journal's two anonymous readers.

References

1 For general perspectives, see W. Roger Louis and Roger Owen, eds., Suez 1956: the crisis and its consequences (Oxford, 1989); S. I. Troen and M. Shemesh, eds., The Suez–Sinai crisis: a retrospective and reappraisal (London, 1990); David Tal, ed., The 1956 war: collusion and rivalry in the Middle East (New York, NY, 2001); and Simon C. Smith, ed., Reassessing Suez: new perspectives on the crisis and its aftermath (London, 2008).

2 See, for example, Donald Neff, Warriors at Suez: Eisenhower takes America into the Middle East (New York, NY, 1988); Ali Dessouki, ‘Nasser and the struggle for independence’, in Louis and Owen, eds., Suez 1956; and for reactive, though admirably unmonolithic, see Guy Laron, Origins of the Suez crisis: postwar development diplomacy and the struggle over Third World industrialization, 1945–1956 (Washington, DC, 2011).

3 A summary of literature on Nasser's Egypt can be found in Elie Podeh and Onn Winckler, eds., Rethinking Nasserism: revolution and historical memory in modern Egypt (Gainesville, FL, 2004); and James Jankowsji, Nasser's Egypt, Arab nationalism, and the United Arab Republic (Boulder, CO, 2002). The Suez crisis is directly discussed in some ten pages over both books.

4 The most influential accounts of the Egyptian experience of the Suez crisis are by former government ministers: Mohammed H. Heikal, Nasser: the Cairo documents (London, 1973); idem, Cutting the lion's tail: Suez through Egyptian eyes (New York, NY, 1987); and Mahmoud Fawzi, Suez: an Egyptian view (London, 1987). Other accounts have told similar stories through drawing on contemporary Egyptian newspapers, Ministry of Information publications, and interviews with former regime officials. See, for example, Yoram Meitel, ‘Egyptian perspectives on the Suez war’, in Tal, ed., The 1956 war; and Laura James, Nasser at war: Arab images of the enemy (London, 2006).

5 Margaret Litvin, Hamlet's Arab journey: Shakespeare's prince and Nasser's ghost (Princeton, NJ, 2011), p. 10.

6 Elie Podeh, ‘Regaining lost pride: the impact of the Suez affair on Egypt and the Arab world’, in Tal, ed., 1956 war, pp. 209, 219.

7 Joel Gordon, Revolutionary melodrama: popular film and civic identity in Nasser's Egypt (Chicago, IL, 2007), p. 44.

8 As in, for example, Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 76, or Riyāḍ Najīb Rayyis, al-Ḥarb al-mansīyah: al-suways 1956 [The forgotten war: Suez 1956] (Beirut, 2006), pp. 71–2.

9 To paraphrase David Cannadine, in Ornamentalism: how the British saw their empire (Oxford, 2001), p. 125.

10 Familiar renderings of Arabic names and phrases are used in the text; footnote material follows the IJMES transcription system for ease of reference.

11 Eden to Eisenhower, 5 Aug 1956 (in Peter Boyle, ed., The Eden–Eisenhower correspondence, 1955–1957 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2005), pp. 158–9); and see minutes of the first meeting of the Egypt Committee on 27 July 1956, The National Archives (TNA), CAB134/1217, EC(56)1.

12 ‘“Suez Canal”: cabinet conclusions on future policy’, TNA, CAB 128/30/2, CM54(56), 27 July 1956; printed in David Goldsworthy, ed., The Conservative government and the end of empire, 1951–1957, Part i:International relations (London, 1994), doc. 54, pp. 165–9.

13 Goldsworthy, ed., Conservative government, p. xxxiv. The Israeli attack had begun on 29 Oct.

14 Erskine Childers, The road to Suez: a study in Western–Arab relations (London, 1962), p. 267; Hugh Thomas, Suez (London, 1969), pp. 66, 159.

15 Peter Calvocoressi and Anthony Moncrieff, Suez: ten years after (New York, NY, 1967), p. 45; Humphrey Trevelyan, The Middle East in revolution (Boston, MA, 1970), p. 92.

16 Anthony Nutting, No end of a lesson: the story of Suez (London, 1967), p. 35. Eden privately described Nutting's account as ‘malevolent as well as inaccurate’. See Eden to Lord Salisbury, 6 May 1967, Avon papers, University of Birmingham, AP 23/60/136A.

17 See, for example, Miles Copeland, The game of nations: the amorality of power politics (New York, NY, 1970); Chester Cooper, The lion's last roar: Suez, 1956 (New York, NY, 1978), esp. pp. 178–9; and Wilbur Crane Eveland, Ropes of sand: America's failure in the Middle East (New York, NY, 1980).

18 Both conspiracies had been ‘uncovered’ by the regime's security forces in 1957 and 1958, and the well-publicized accounts of their trials printed in Egypt's government-run newspapers constituted the primary source material for their stories. See Keith Kyle, Suez: Britain's end of empire in the Middle East (London, 2011 edn), p. 149 nn. 38, 39, 41, 42; and W. Scott Lucas, Divided we stand: Britain, the United States, and the Suez crisis (New York, NY, 1991), p. 194 nn. 37, 39, 40. And see Owen Sirrs, The Egyptian intelligence service: a history of the Mukhabarat, 1910–2009 (New York, NY, 2010), pp. 59–60.

19 Onslow, Sue, ‘Unreconstructed nationalists and a minor gunboat operation: Julian Amery, Neil MacLean and the Suez crisis’, Contemporary British History, 20 (2006), pp. 73–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, ‘Julian Amery and the Suez crisis’, in Smith, ed., Reassessing Suez. The Muslim Brotherhood connection is also implied in Kyle, Suez, p. 148; Tom Bower, The perfect English spy: Sir Dick White and the secret war, 1935–1990 (London, 1996), pp. 200–1; and Stephen Dorrill, MI6: the inside story of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service (London, 2000), p. 628.

20 Thornhill, Michael, ‘Alternatives to Nasser: Sir Humphrey Trevelyan’, Contemporary British History, 13 (1999), pp. 11–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Alternatives to Nasser’, Al Ahram Weekly, 735 (24–30 Mar. 2005)Google Scholar; idem, Road to Suez: the battle for the Canal Zone (London, 2006), pp. 218–19.

21 Respectively in Thomas, Suez, p. 165; Nutting, No end, p. 10; Anthony Cave Brown, Treason in the blood: H. St John Philby, Kim Philby, and the spy case of the century (London, 1995), p. 477; Onslow, ‘Unreconstructed nationalists’, p. 95.

22 ‘Could anyone doubt’, one state prosecutor concluded, that ‘Egyptians who plotted against Nasser were imperialist agents and hirelings?’ (see coverage in al-Aḥrām, 11 and 12 Sept. 1957, ‘Al-Niyāba tantahā al-yūm fī qaḍīah al-mu'amārah’ [Prosecution concludes today in conspiracy case], and the Egyptian Gazette, ‘“It was a conspiracy against Egypt”, says prosecution’, 10 Sept. 1957).

23 For an overview of the planning process, see Dooley, Howard J., ‘Great Britain's “last battle” in the Middle East: notes on cabinet planning during the Suez crisis of 1956’, International History Review, 11 (1989), p. 494CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Geoffrey McDermott, The Eden legacy and the decline of British diplomacy (London, 1969), pp. 144–6, for its breakdown.

24 Minutes of Egypt Officials Committee, 24 Aug. 1956, TNA, CAB134–1225, EOC(56)1.

25 Minute by Ralph Murray, 27 Aug. 1956, TNA, FO371–118996, JE11924/40G; ‘Political directive to the allied commander in chief’, 5 Sept. 1956, CAB134–1225, EOC(56)2; minutes of Egypt Officials Committee, 24 Aug. 1956, TNA, CAB134–1225, EOC(56)1; memo by Selwyn Lloyd, 20 Aug. 1956, TNA, CAB134/1217, EC(56)28. Dissenting views were expressed by individual officials: see, for example, TNA, CAB134/1217, ‘Situation in Egypt after Musketeer’, 25 Oct. 1956.

26 Kedourie, Elie, ‘Revolutionary justice in Egypt: the trials of 1953’, Political Quarterly, 29 (1958), pp. 389–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ḥusayn Ḥammūdah, Asrār ḥarakat al-ḍubbāṭ al-aḥrar wa-al-ikhwān al-muslimūn [Secrets of the Free Officers movement and the Muslim Brotherhood] (Cairo, 1985), p. 98; Jankowsji, Nasser's Egypt, pp. 19–23. Yoram Meital's Revolutionary justice: special courts and the making of republican Egypt (forthcoming, Oxford, 2016), details how the trials of 1953 largely failed to destroy the credibility of Egypt's political parties.

27 Hazem Kandil, Soldiers, spies, and statesmen: Egypt's road to revolt (London, 2012), pp. 16, 32–5.

28 Iṣām ʻAbd al-Fattāḥ, Muḥammad Naji¯b: al-rajul al-ladhī ṣanaʻathu wa-dammarathu aqdārah [Mohamed Naguib: the man who was made and unmade by destiny] (Cairo, 2009), pp. 50–7; Mohammed Naguib, Kuntu raʾīs li-miṣr: mudhakkirāt Muḥammad Najīb [I was president of Egypt: memories] (Cairo, 2003 edn), p. 362; Abd al-‘Azim Ramaḍān described the March crisis as the ‘bourgeois counter-revolution’, Al-Sirā’ al-ijtimā’ī wa-al-siyāsī fī Misr [The societal and political struggle in Egypt] (Cairo, 1975), pp. 91–105.

29 Jean Lacouture, Egypt in transition (New York, NY, 1958), p. 191.

30 Literature sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood puts the figure at 30,000 (see Muḥammad al-Sarūwī, al-Ikhwān al-muslimūn fī sijūn misr [The Muslim Brotherhood in the prisons of Egypt] (Cairo, 2006), p. 77). The executions were received badly even by traditional opponents of the Brotherhood, and the death sentence of the Supreme Guide, Hasan al Hudaybi, was commuted to life imprisonment following pressure from Syria and Saudi Arabia. See Childers, Road to Suez, p. 107; and John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the origins of radical Islam (Cairo, 2011 edn), p. 194.

31 For lawyers and the legal system, see Farhat Ziaydeh, Lawyers, the rule of law, and liberalism in modern Egypt (New York, NY, 1968), pp. 157–9; for universities, Donald M. Reid, Cairo University and the making of modern Egypt (London, 2002), pp. 170–1, and Ahmed Abdalla, The student movement and national politics in Egypt, 1923–1973 (London, 1985); for media, Ghada Hashem Talhami, Palestine in the Egyptian press: from al-Ahram to al-Ahali (Plymouth, 2007), pp. 130–9.

32 ‘Annual report on situation in Egypt for 1955’, British Embassy Cairo to Foreign Office, 31 Jan. 1956, TNA, FO371–118820, JE1011/1, p. 8. This would not be implemented until the Decrees of 1961 and National Charter of 1962 (see Rami Ginat, Egypt's incomplete revolution: Lufti al-Huli and Nasser's socialism in the 1960s (New York, NY, 1997), pp. 15–29, and Robert Tignor, Capitalism and nationalism at the end of empire: state and business in decolonizing Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, 1945–1963 (Princeton, NJ, 1997), pp. 157–84).

33 Initiating what has been called the ‘Bandung period of entente between intellectuals and the regime’ between 1955 and 1958. See Rolf Meijer, The quest for modernity: radical, liberal, and secular thought in Egypt, 1945–1958 (Amsterdam, 1996), p. 5. A more nuanced view of intellectual responses to Bandung can be found in Roland Burke, Decolonization and the evolution of international human rights (Philadelphia, PA, 2010), pp. 13–35.

34 Cairo to Dept of State, 7 Apr. 1955, and 20 May 1955, United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Record Group (RG)59, Central Decimal File (CDF), Box 3681.

35 Letter from Mohamed Taher and the Free Arab Committee, 8 Feb. 1956, TNA, FO371–118832, JE1015/10. Eden had the letter forwarded to the foreign secretary with the instruction: ‘arrange for it to be attended to’.

36 ‘Intelligence report: Egypt's new constitution’, 29 Feb. 1956, TNA, FO371–118832, JE1015/9(f).

37 Telegram, Free Arab Committee to President Eisenhower, 28 Apr. 1958, White House Central Files, Confidential File, Subject Series – Egypt, Dwight D. Eisenhower papers, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, KS (DDEP); and ‘The Free Arab Committee’, Beirut to Dept of State, 21 Jan. 1956, NARA, RG84, US Consulate Cairo, Classified General Records 1955–8, Box 8; ‘Committee for Free Egypt contacted US embassy Paris’, Douglas Dillon to secretary of state, 23 Oct. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3683.

38 ‘The junta regime in Egypt’, paper by Mahmoud Abul Fath (n.d.). A copy can be found in the Julian Amery papers (AMEJ) 2/1/22, Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge UK, and another in the US State Department files at ‘Letter from Mahmoud Abul Fath to President Eisenhower’, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

39 ‘Reaction to the new constitution’, 24 Jan. 1956, TNA, FO371–118832, JE1015/5. Shishakli was president of Syria from 1953 to 1954. After its first military coup in 1949, Syria's president had been changed eight times by 1956. See Patrick Seale, The struggle for Syria: a study of post-war Arab politics, 1945–1958 (London, 1965).

40 ‘Communism in Egypt’, DDEP, White House Office, National Security Council (NSC) Staff Papers, Operations Coordinating Board Central File, Box 28; and ‘Stability of the military regime – an evaluation’, Cairo to Dept of State, 29 Apr. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

41 Donald Edgar (Alexandria) to Dept of State, 25 Aug. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

42 ‘Anti-government views of canal zone governor’, note by Anthony Cuomo (Port Said), 14 Jan. 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 2682.

43 ‘Visit of ministers to Port Said’, Cuomo to Dept of State, 15 June 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

44 ‘Anti-government views of canal zone governor’, 14 Jan. 1956.

45 Note by Alexander Schnee (Cairo), 9 June 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

46 Cairo to Dept of State, 29 Apr. 1955, and Cairo to Dept of State, 27 June 1955, in NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

47 ‘Notes of a conversation with M. Pineau’, Julian Amery, 3 June 1956, AMEJ 2/1/22.

48 Cited in James, Nasser at war, p. 33.

49 Lacouture, Egypt in transition, pp. 467, 470.

50 Phrase from Yoram Meital, ‘Egyptian perspectives on the Suez war’, in Tal, ed., The 1956 war, pp. 196–7.

51 ‘Amer charged that it was he as commander who would ‘have to defend this decision’ (in ‘Abd al-‘Azim Ramaḍān, al-Ḥaqīqah al-tarīkhīyah ḥawla qarār ta'amīm sharikat qanāt al-suways [The historical truth about the decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company] (Cairo, 2000), pp. 21–3, 27).

52 Calvocoressi and Moncrieff, Suez, p. 46; and Childers, Road to Suez, p. 166; Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 20.

53 Ihsan ‘Abd al Quddus writing in Ruz al Yusuf, 30 July 1956, cited in Meijer, Quest for modernity, p. 188; this view of the nationalization was shared by the US ambassador Henry Byroade (see ‘Telegram from the embassy in Egypt to the embassy in the United Kingdom’, 1 Aug. 1956, in John Glennon, ed., Foreign relations of the United States, 1955–1957, xvi:Suez crisis, July 26–December 31 1956 (Washington, DC, 1990), doc. 45, pp. 105–7).

54 Trevelyan to Foreign Office, 19 Sept. 1956, TNA, FO371–118832, JE1015/47; Kirkpatrick to Lloyd, 12 Sept. 1956, TNA, FO371–118832, JE1015/46.

55 ‘The nature of the Nasser regime’, Cairo to Dept of State, 14 Aug. 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682; Lacouture, Egypt in transition, p. 480.

56 Cairo to Dept of State, ‘Estimate of Nasser's position in Egypt’, 3 Oct. 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

57 Trevelyan to Foreign Office, 24 Aug. 1956, TNA, FO371–119117. For reports on dissent in the military in the months before nationalization, see also ‘Middle East subcommittee – report of McLean's visit to Egypt’, 18 June 1956, Conservative Party Archive, Bodleian Library, Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, CRD 2/34/2.

58 Trevelyan to Foreign Office, 30 Aug. 1956, TNA, FO371–118832, JE1015/45.

59 Fath to Amery, 22 July 1956, AMEJ 2/1/22.

60 ‘Memorandum of discussion, 284th meeting of the National Security Council’, 10 May 1956, DDEP, NSC Series, Box 8; and ‘Memorandum of discussion at the 292d meeting of the National Security Council’, 9 Aug. 1956, in Glennon, ed., Foreign relations of the United States, 1955–1957, xvi, p. 174.

61 Many files relating to Operation MASK remain classified but see ‘Operation MASK – US–UK Working Group’, 1–3 Oct. 1956, NARA, RG59, Miscellaneous Lot Files, Documents on Projects Alpha, Mask, Omega, 1945–57, Box 35; ‘Memorandum for the acting secretary by Dulles’, 20 Nov. 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3684, and discussion in Hugh Wilford, America's great game: the CIA's secret Arabists and the shaping of the modern Middle East (New York, NY, 2013), pp. 245–58.

62 ‘Report of US–UK Working Group on Egypt’, 3 Oct. 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

63 The chancellor Harold Macmillan shared this view with his son-in-law, Julian Amery, after conversations in Washington, ‘The Americans…believe that Nasser could be overthrown without our resorting to an armed landing in Egypt. I doubt very much, however, whether a coup d'etat from within, unaccompanied by armed support from outside is any longer possible’ (Amery diary entry, 18 Aug. 1956, AMEJ 1/2/37).

64 ‘Nasser plans to staff Foreign Ministry with army officers’, 25 May 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682; ‘Jealousy between Egyptian military and civilian officials in Alexandria’, report by Donald Edgar (Alexandria), 25 Aug. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681; ‘Analysis of current domestic political events’, report by Schnee (Cairo), 31 May 1956; ‘Egyptian political scene’, Cairo to secretary of state, 3 June 1956, in NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682; and ‘Views of Egyptian businessmen’, 14 May 1956, NARA, RG59, US Consulate Classified General Records, Box 8.

65 ‘Regime controls army but dissatisfied elements still exist’, Cairo to Dept of State, 22 Oct. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3683; and Cairo to Dept of State, 27 June 1955, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

66 Schnee (Cairo) to Dept of State, 9 June 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

67 Cairo to Dept of State, 37 June 1955, and ‘Attitudes toward the RCC regime in Asyut Province’, Cairo to Dept of State, 20 May 1955, in NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

68 Cairo to Dept of State, 26 Feb 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

69 As Guy Laron concluded on the basis of Israeli interviews with captured Egyptian conscript soldiers following the Sinai campaign. See Laron, Origins of the Suez crisis, p. 180; phrase from Osgood Caruthers, ‘Nasser, the Nile, and the fellah: the Suez crisis hardly touches Egypt's forgotten man’, New York Times, 21 Oct. 1956.

70 J. S. Souter to Amery, 22 Sept. 1956, AMEJ, 2/1/24.

71 See instructions in ‘Top secret. Note from Patrick Dean to Ralph Murray’, 17 Aug. 1956, TNA, FO371–118996, JE11924/G40; ‘Egypt: draft instructions to Sir Gladwyn Jebb’, 7 Aug. 1956, TNA, CAB134–1217, EC(56)10. Eden's only later comment on this dimension of the intervention is noteworthy in this context: ‘Militant dictators have more enemies at home than the foreigner ever dreams’ (Full Circle: the memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden (London, 1960), p. 559).

72 Exchange in Watson to Trevelyan, TNA, FO371–118997, JE11924/61G. Phrase from Julian Amery interview in 1990 (transcript at Suez Oral History Project, Liddle Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings College, London (SOHP)).

73 Shlaim, Avi, ‘The Protocol of Sevres: anatomy of a war plot’, International Affairs, 73 (1997), pp. 509–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and interview with Donald Logan, SOHP; and Peter Catterall, ed., The Macmillan diaries: the cabinet years (Oxford, 2003), p. 607.

74 The quality of the information being received from the Cairo embassy had been subject of complaint in parliament; see, for example, Woodhouse to the Middle East subcommittee, 18 June 1956, Conservative Party Archive, Bodleian Library, Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, CRD 2/34/2; and transcript of interview with Frank Brenchley, conducted by Michael Thornhill (Oxford, Apr. 1999).

75 A comprehensive reconstruction of Amery's pivotal role in the internal planning process of the Suez crisis is provided in Onslow, ‘Julian Amery and the Suez crisis’; and for Amery in his domestic political context, see Onslow, Backbench debate within the Conservative party and its influence on foreign policy, 1948–1957 (London, 1997).

76 An argument made in a new interpretation of the Iranian forces behind the 1953 coup by Darioush Bayandor, Iran and the CIA: the fall of Mossadeq revisited (New York, NY, 2010).

77 ‘The Wafd looks forward to 1956’, Cairo to Dept of State, 26 Feb. 1955, and ‘Old regime elements prepare to oppose Nasser if crisis develops’, Cairo to Dept of State, 27 June 1955, in NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

78 As in, for example, Joel Gordon, Nasser's blessed movement: Egypt's Free Officers and the July revolution (Cairo, 1996 edn), p. 4.

79 ‘The Brotherhood and the regime’, Cairo to Dept of State, 25 Mar. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

80 ‘Note of a visit to King Zog’, Julian Amery, 29/30 Jan. 1956, AMEJ 1/2/22.

81 Amery to Lloyd, AMEJ 1/2/37.

82 ‘Stability of the military regime in Egypt – an analysis’, membership estimate in Section iv, ‘Organized civilian opposition: the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wafd’.

83 ‘Brotherhood confused but not destroyed’, Caffery to Dept of State, 6 Jan. 1955, ‘Re-emergence of Muslim Brotherhood inevitable’, Cairo to Dept of State, 25 Jan. 1955, ‘Muslim Brotherhood re-grouping’, 4 Mar. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681. These arrests were not publicized in the press, since they would belie the regime's claim to have defeated the movement, and have been overlooked by historians, who describe the period between 1955 and 1957 as the years of ‘silence’ when the organization seemed to ‘have come to an end’. See Barbara Zollner, The Muslim Brotherhood: Hasan al-Hudaybi and ideology (London, 2009), pp. 38–9.

84 For Syria, ‘Regime continues to suppress Ikhwan and Ikhwanis keep up efforts to maintain clandestine organization’, Schnee to Dept of State, 6 Sept. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681; Kuwait, ‘Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait’, US Consulate Kuwait, 10 Jan. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682; Saudi Arabia, ‘Egyptians in Saudi Arabia’, 26 Oct. 1956, NARA, RG59, Bureau of Intelligence and Research Subject Files, Box 11.

85 Hassan al Hudaibi memorably ‘told Nasser to take it up with Abd al Kadir Oba’, the Brotherhood leader who was hanged in December 1954. ‘Muslim Brotherhood refuses to discuss terms with regime’, Cairo to Dept of State, 25 Mar. 1955; and ‘Nasser reported to have indirectly contacted Naguib’, Cairo to Dept of State, 6 Sept. 1955, in NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

86 See, for example, Eden's diplomatic adviser Evelyn Shuckburgh's diary entry, 8 Mar. 1956, ‘Today both we and the Americans really gave up hope of Nasser and began to look around for means of destroying him’ (Descent to Suez: diaries, 1951–1956 (New York, NY, 1967), p. 345).

87 Mahmoud Abul Fath to Eden, 1 July 1955, AMEJ, 2/1/22.

88 Salah Nasr later wrote that Naguib was the replacement ‘requested by the aggressor states’ (in Ṣalāḥ Naṣr, Mudhakkirāt Ṣalāḥ Naṣr: al-juzʾ al-awwal: al-suʻūd [Memoirs of Salah Nasr: part one: the rise] (Cairo, 1999), p. 428), while Mohammed Heikal identified a divided Egyptian opposition with ‘two possibilities’ under consideration for replacing Nasser, ‘a take over by Nahas Pasha and the old Wafd Party, or the replacing of Nasser by General Naguib’ (Heikal, Nasser, p. 89).

89 Ramaḍān, al-Ḥaqīqah al-tarīkhīyah, p. 19; Naguib's first book, Egypt's destiny (New York, NY, 1955), written before his fall from power, provides a more apologist account of this period than his later books.

90 Naguib, Kuntu raʾīs, pp. 362–3; Naṣr, Mudhakkirāt, p. 356.

91 Naguib's response is reported in Cairo to Dept of State, 6 Sept. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681. For conditions of Naguib's detention, see Naguib, Kuntu raʾīs, pp. 356–61, Naguib, Kalimati lil-tārīkh (Cairo, 2011 edn; orig. publ. 1975), pp. 188–95, and Muḥammad Tharwat, Muḥammad Najīb: al-awrāq al-sirrīyah li-awwal ra'īs li-Miṣr [Naguib: Secret documents of the first president of Egypt] (Cairo, 2013), pp. 179–96.

92 Though they admitted that Naguib was ‘largely inaccessible’ due to the severity of his incarceration and some Wafdist planners worried that he would be liquidated before he could be utilized. The Wafd's longer-term use for Naguib was, moreover, also questionable. See ‘Report of conversation with Mahmoud Abul Fath’, note by Dillon, 9 Nov. 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3683; and Schnee to Dept of State, 4 Apr. 1957, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682; and Mahmoud Abul Fath, ‘Junta regime in Egypt’. In his memoirs, Naguib denied the widespread accusations of his collaboration with the invading forces, as would all members of the opposition after the movement's ultimate failure; but he noted cryptically Nasser did have reason to fear during the Suez crisis that the people would turn against him and demand Naguib's return (Kuntu raʾīs, pp. 365–7).

93 Transcript of interview with Muhammad Salah al-Din, conducted by D. M. Reid, Cairo, 6 Feb. 1978.

94 ‘Alaa al-Din Al-Hadidy, ‘Mustafa al-Nahhas and political leadership’, in Charles Trip, ed., Contemporary Egypt: through Egyptian eyes: essays in honour of P. J. Vatikiotis (London, 1993), p. 85.

95 ‘Egyptian personality series’, no. 114: Mustafa al Nahhas, TNA, FO371–125423, JE1012/1.

96 Detailed in Schnee to Dept of State, 4 Apr. 1957, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682. The Wafd's former party chairman, Fuad Siraj al Din, also claimed to meet frequently with Nahhas after being released from prison in late 1955 (detailed in interview with Fuad Siraj al Din, conducted by D. M. Reid, Cairo, 4 May 1978).

97 Lacouture, Egypt in transition, pp. 242–3.

98 ‘Confidential minute on Mr Aziz Abid’, Adam Watson, containing ‘personal message from Nahas’, 14 June 1956, TNA, FO371–118832, JE1015/42.

99 Schnee to Fraser Wilkins, Near Eastern Affairs Department, inc. memorandum by P. R. Chase, ‘Wafd seeks contact with American embassy’, 25 Mar. 1957, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

100 Zollner, Hudaybi, pp. 25–7.

101 Ḥammūdah, Asrār, p. 101; Zollner, Hudaybi, pp. 34–8; and see Hudaybi's open letter to the revolutionary command council, 4 May 1954, in Richard Mitchell, The Society of Muslim Brothers (New York, NY, 1969), pp. 133–4.

102 Ḥammūdah, Asrār, pp. 100, 108–11; al-Sarūwī, al-Ikhwān, pp. 71–93.

103 Cairo to Dept of State, 11 Jan. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

104 For the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, see Ian Johnson, A mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West (New York, NY, 2010); and Sylvain Besson, La conquête de L'occident: le projet secrets des islamistes (Paris, 2005).

105 A doctrine further developed during the 1960s, leading Qutb's posthumous followers to refuse to support Nasser in the 1967 war with Israel. See Zollner, Hudaybi, pp. 43–6; and for Qutb's trial and early years in prison, Calvert, Sayyid Qutb, pp. 14, 191–5.

106 Ḥammūdah, Asrār, pp. 120–1; note by Abul Fath, Hotel Meurice (n.d.), AMEJ 2/1/23; Abul Fath to Amery, Hotel Frankfurter Hof, AMEJ 2/1/23; Souter to Amery, 22 Sept. 1956, AMEJ 2/1/24.

107 Talhami, Egyptian press, pp. 135–9.

108 McLean to Hill (draft), 4 Nov. 1958, Billy McLean papers, Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Box 34.

109 Muṣṭafá Bayyūmī, Maḥmūd Abū al-Fatḥ: al-ṣuḥufī (Cairo, 2010), pp. 72–3; Ahmed Abul Fath, L'Affaire Nasser (Paris, 1962); ‘Egyptian personality series’, no. 48: Mahmoud Abul Fath, TNA, FO371–125423, JE1012/1.

110 Bayyūmī, Maḥmūd Abū al-Fatḥ, pp. 74–5.

111 Lebanon declared Mahmoud a political refugee and gave him asylum; he subsequently received Iraqi citizenship and became close to the Iraqi prime minister Nuri al Said. See Cairo to Dept of State, 16 Mar. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681; Julian Amery diary entry, 18 July 1956, AMEJ 582/4; and Bayyūmī, Maḥmūd Abū al-Fatḥ, p. 87.

112 ‘Young Wafdists’, note by Schnee, 10 Sept. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

113 Amery to Lloyd, 22 June 1956, AMEJ 2/1/22 (Folder 3); and letter from Mr Mahmoud Aboul Fath, TNA, FO371–118809, JE1002/8; note on Ilhamy Pasha, Philip de Zueleta, FO371–118809, TNA, JE1002/2, 17 Mar. 1956.

114 ‘Egyptian personality series’, Ahmed Mortada al Maraghi, TNA, FO371–125423, JE1012/1, and Gordon, Nasser's blessed movement, p. 37. Biographical detail about the Prince ‘Amr Ibrahim was kindly provided by H. R. H. Prince Osman Rifat Ibrahim (author interview, Madrid, Dec. 2013).

115 Schnee (Cairo) to Dept of State, 4 Apr. 1957, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

116 Amery to Young, 5 Nov. 1956, AMEJ 2/1/24; Ibrahim to Amery, 8 Nov. 1956, AMEJ 2/1/23; Ibrahim to Amery, 20 Dec. 1956, AMEJ 2/1/24; Julian Amery diary entry, 11 Aug. 1956, AMEJ 582/4.

117 ‘Note on Mohammed Salah el Din’, John Heyworth-Dunne (n.d.), AMEJ 1/2/70.

118 Notably, the govenors of Alexandria and Port Said, who even after the passing of the crisis continued to communicate the discontent of Alexandria's army officers to the American consulate and spoke hopefully of Nasser's demise (see ‘Conversation with governor's secretary’, Alexandria to Dept of State, 16 Apr. 1957, and Cairo to secretary of state, 3 May 1957, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682). For a list of those indicted in subsequent trials, see ‘Indicted in conspiracy trial’, Cairo to Dept of State, 30 July 1957, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682; and features in Al Ahram, 14 Aug. 1957, and 13 Sept. 1957. For Rashad Mehanna's role in anti-regime plans, see Cairo to Dept of State, 27 June 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

119 Fath, ‘Note for an American friend’, 10 Sept. 1956, AMEJ 1/2/71; Amr Ibrahim, ‘Compatriotes, a cette heure si grave pour l'histoire de notre pays…’ (draft radio address, n.d.), AMEJ 2/1/25.

120 Souter to Amery, 22 Sept. 1956; Julian Amery diary entry, 11 Sept. 1956, AMEJ 582/4.

121 Cairo to Dept of State, 27 June 1955: ‘On the basis of [the]…conviction that a struggle with Israel is imminent, the former Egyptian leaders have led themselves to believe that there is now an excellent chance that the regime will fall…[since] according to available information the Army would be defeated…’, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

122 Note by Abu al Fath, Hotel Meurice (n.d. c. Nov. 1956), AMEJ 2/1/23; Ibrahim to Amery, 8 Nov. 1956, AMEJ 2/1/23 (Folder 2); for Alexandria, Schnee (Cairo) to Dept of State, 10 July 1956, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

123 Record of telephone conversation, Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles, 1 Nov. 1956, John Foster Dulles papers, DDEL, Telephone Conversation Series, Box 5.

124 The only descriptions of the Cairo meetings of these members of the opposition are from the confession of Abd al Hamid al Islambouli, one of the conspirators, in the participants’ trial (see Egyptian Gazette, 19 July 1957). Abd al Fattah Hassan later denied any knowledge of the entire plot but did not deny the meeting with Islambouli on the night of 2 November. See ʻAbd al-Fattāḥ Ḥasan, Dhikrayāt siyāsīyah [Political memories] (Cairo, 1974), p. 149; Salah al Din admitted decades later that he was aware of the plot, saying that while ‘he had not joined it, [he] had not reported it to the authorities either’ (transcript of interview with Muhammad Salah al-Din, conducted by D. M. Reid, Cairo, 6 Feb. 1978).

125 Letter from Mahmoud Aboul Fath, Hotel Frankfurter Hof, 2 Dec. 1956, AMEJ 2/1/23.

126 Sulaymān Ḥāfiẓ, Dhikrayātī ʻan al-thawrah [My memories about the revolution] (Cairo, 2010), p. 212; Naṣr, Mudhakkirāt, p. 428. Both suggest (though with a different purpose) that Hafiz was seeking to ‘smooth the way for a party government’ to parley with the invading forces.

127 Naṣr, Mudhakkirāt, p. 427.

128 Heikal, Nasser, p. 111; Heikal, Cutting the lion's tail, p. 180.

129 Naṣr, Mudhakkirāt, p. 427.

130 Ramaḍān, al-Ḥaqīqah al-tarīkhīyah, pp. 41–3.

131 ‘Recalling how Samson pulled down the pillars of the temple of Gaza burying himself and everyone else in the ruins, Nasser stated that he would do the same if Britain and France attacked Egypt’ (John Slade-Baker, cited in Thornhill, ‘Alternatives to Nasser: Sir Humphrey Trevelyan’, p. 23). The threat was dismissed by officials. ‘Egyptian guerilla warfare, note from Trevelyan to Ross on Nasser's communication to Slade-Baker’, 16 Aug. 1956, FO 371/118999 JE11924/2. ‘Hero’ from Joel Gordon, Nasser: hero of the Arab nation (New York, NY, 2006), and see James, Nasser at war, ‘Suez and the Arab hero’; Robert Stephens, Nasser: a political biography (New York, NY, 1971), p. 230.

132 Naṣr, Mudhakkirāt, p. 427.

133 The phrase was Miles Copeland's, ‘When Nasser goes out it will not be with a whimper but a bang – Gotterdamerung, even’, Game of Nations, p. 236.

134 Allen Dulles intelligence summary, in MemCon. 303rd meeting of the National Security Council, 8 Nov. 1956, DDEL, NSC Series, Box 8; ‘Public security in Alexandria’, Alexandria to secretary of state, 14 Aug. 1956, NARA, CDF, Box 3683.

135 The Cairo meeting was implicated in the expectation of the defeat of the army as essential to the collapse of the regime detailed in Cairo to Dept of State, 27 June 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

136 ‘Memorandum by COS for Cabinet Egypt Committee’, TNA, CAB134/1217, EC(56)67, 8 Nov. 1956, doc. 56, in Goldsworthy, ed., Conservative government, pp. 171–3; and ‘Transcript of telephone conversation between President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Eden’, 6 Nov. 1956, in Glennon, ed., Foreign relations of the United States, 1955–1957, xvi, pp. 1025–6.

137 Abul Fath to Amery, Hotel Frankfurter Hof, 2 Dec. 1956, AMEJ 2/1/23.

138 ‘Memoranda of conversations in Alexandria’, Heyward Hill (Alexandria) to Dept of State, 20 June 1957, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682. ‘[W]ith twenty-four hours more’, one Arab diplomat lamented to the American consul, ‘Nasser would have been overthrown and Egypt might have had a chance to restore itself from its difficulties.’ See Hill (Alexandria) to Dept of State, 4 June 1957, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682.

139 Supporting his biographer David Carlton's conclusion that, rather the pursuit of a personal vendetta, the ‘removal of Nasser was for Eden never more than an aspiration’, and the steps he eventually took to this end merely ‘the desperate throes of a politician facing intolerable domestic pressure’, Anthony Eden: a biography (London, 1981), p. 411. Julian Amery reached a similar if less charitable conclusion at the time, writing in his diary: ‘I can't help feeling that Eden going to war against Nasser was Baldwin playing at Bismarck. It was out of character. Eden's basic approach to the Middle East has been one of appeasement. When suddenly he turned round and decided to smash Nasser, he had no more idea how to play the hand than Chamberlain had when he turned against Hitler in 1939’ (12 Nov. 1956, AMEJ 582/4).

140 Phrase from Matthew Connelly, A diplomatic revolution: Algeria's fight for independence and the origins of the post-Cold War era (New York, NY, 2002), p. 122.

141 As Trevelyan warned Eden in 1955 (report from Trevelyan, 7 Dec. 1955, TNA, FO371–118832, JE1015/1).

142 ‘France and the Middle East: note by the cabinet secretary’, TNA, CAB134–1217, EC(56)9.

143 For Eisenhower's view of the intervention as something from the ‘nineteenth century’, see ‘Memorandum of conversation between the president, Secretary Hoover, and Secretary Dulles’, 30 Oct. 1956, John Foster Dulles papers, White House Memorandum Series, Box 4.

144 Elizabeth Monroe, Britain's moment in the Middle East, 1914–1971 (London, 1981 edn), p. 219, and Wm Roger Louis, Ends of British imperialism: the scramble for empire, Suez, and decolonization (London, 2006), p. 9.

145 As in Adeed Dawisha, Arab nationalism in the twentieth century: from triumph to despair (Princeton, NJ, 2003); Rashid Khalidi, ‘The consequences of the Suez crisis in the Arab world’, in Louis and Owen, eds., Suez; and Wynn Wilton, Nasser of Egypt: the search for dignity (Cambridge MA, 1959).

146 Meijer, Quest for modernity, p. 205; Manfred Halpern, The politics of social change in the Middle East and North Africa (Washington, DC, 1962), p. 29.

147 Amr Ibrahim, draft radio address, AMEJ 2/1/25.

148 Amery to Lloyd, 16 May 1956, AMEJ 1/2/37; Abul Fath, ‘Junta regime in Egypt’, AMEJ 2/1/22; Mitchell, Society, p. 133. The Brotherhood's position in 1956 challenges the tendency to treat the movement as one of ‘violent reaction’ whose primary goal was the ‘destruction’ of the liberal nationalist order. See, for example, Nadav Safran, Egypt in search of political community: an analysis of the intellectual and political development of Egypt, 1804–1952 (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 231–4.

149 ‘Former political leaders favor restoration of the monarchy’, Schnee to Dept of State, 10 Sept. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681; ‘Canal governor expresses sympathy for return of monarchy’, report by Cuomo, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3682; and Amery to Selwyn Lloyd, AMEJ 1/2/37. Phrase from Riyāḍ Sāmī, Shāhid ʻalá ʻaṣr al-raʾīs Muḥammad Najīb [A witness on the age of President Mohamed Naguib] (Cairo, 2002), p. 85. Most argued for the installation of Prince Abbas Hilmi as king in a restoration, the grandson of Abbas II who had been controversially dethoned and exiled from Egypt by the British Resident Lord Kitchener, in December 1914. See, for example, Heyworth-Dunne to Amery, 29 May 1953, AMEJ 1/2/71.

150 Cairo to Dept of State, 6 Sept. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681. Salah al Din attributed the phrase to Sa'ad Zaghoul, though Mustafa Kamil had made similar assertions before him. See ‘Telegram from Sir R. Stevenson (Cairo) reporting conversation with Muhammad Salah al Din’, 31 Aug. 1950, FO 371/80387, no. 14, reprinted in Douglas Johnson, ed., Sudan (British Documents on the End of Empire) (2 vols., London, 1998), i, doc. 191. For the similar views of Mahmoud Abu al Fath, see Bayyūmī, Maḥmūd Abū al-Fatḥ, pp. 77–9; for Mohammed Naguib, see his Risālah ʻan al-Sūdān (Cairo, 1954), and Tharwat, Muḥammad Najīb, pp. 155–76. The origins of this component of Egyptian nationalism is detailed in Eve M. Trout-Powell, A different shade of colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain, and the mastery of the Sudan (Berkeley, CA, 2003), pp. 156–80.

151 ‘Telegram from Sir H Trevelyan to FO’, reporting conversation with Prime Minister Nasser, 1 Oct. 1955, FO371/113616, reprinted in Johnson, ed., Sudan, ii, doc. 420; ‘surrender’ from Aḥmad Mansūr, Ḥusayn al-Shāfi ʻī – shāhid ʻalá ʻaṣr Thawrat Yūliyū (Beirut, 2004), pp. 143–4.

152 Cairo to Dept of State, 27 June 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

153 ‘[A] current opinion being stated openly by disaffected officers is that the Palestine problem, which is not Egypt's concern, should be settled amicably with Israel’ (Cairo to Dept of State, 27 June 1955). For earlier perspectives, see Michael Doran, Pan-Arabism before Nasser: power politics and the Palestine problem (Oxford, 1999).

154 Letter from Mr Mahmoud Aboul Fath, 12 Apr. 1956, TNA, FO371–118809, JE1002/8.

155 Abul Fath, ‘Junta regime in Egypt’, and letter from Mr Mahmoud Aboul Fath, 12 Apr. 1956. For opposition impressions of perceived Western support ‘keeping the RCC in power’, see Cairo to Dept of State, 29 Apr. 1955, NARA, RG59, CDF, Box 3681.

156 As in Nasser's Egypt's liberation: the philosophy of the revolution (New York, NY, 1955), pp. 20–6; phrase from Nasser's statement to Khaled Muhi al Din (‘Our people are not able to determine their true interests…[and] a people not able to carry the responsibility of freedom is not able to enjoy freedom’), Khālid Muḥī al-Dīn, Wa-alān atakalam [Now, I speak] (Cairo, 1992), p. 272.

157 Michael Walzer, ‘The paradox of national liberation: India, Israel, Algeria’, Henry Stimson Lectures, Yale University, 5 Apr. 2013, subsequently edited and published as The paradox of liberation: secular revolutions and religious counter-revolutions (New Haven, CT, 2015).

158 P. J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and his generation (London, 1978), and discussion in Roger Owen, The rise and fall of Arab presidents for life (Cambridge MA, 2010), pp. 24–36.

159 Transcript of interview with Fuad Siraj al Din, D. M. Reid (1978).

160 Zollner, Hudaybi, p. 40–6.

161 Sāmī, Shāhid, pp. 55–6; Naguib, Kuntu raʾīs, p. 362; discussion in Ramaḍān, al-Ḥaqīqah al-tarīkhīyah, p. 19.

162 As recalled in the memoirs of his cell-mate and fellow former-minister, ʻAbd al-Fattāḥ Ḥasan (Dhikrayāt, p. 164).

163 McLean, notes on conversation with Prince Amr Ibrahim, n.d. (1958), McLean papers, Box 34; Bayyūmī, Maḥmūd Abū al-Fatḥ, pp. 89–91.

164 McLean to Charles Hill, 4 Nov 1958, McLean papers, Box 34.

165 Aḥmad Abū al-Fatḥ, Jamāl ʻAbd al-Nāṣir (Cairo, 1991); idem, Taḥaddī (Cairo, 1978).

166 The so-called ‘Royalist plot’ is conventionally treated as having occurred concurrently with the Suez crisis, and it contained some of the same characters. For the distinction, however, see Ibrahim to Amery, 2 Jan. 1957, AMEJ 2/1/26, and Amery to Young, 12 Mar. 1958, AMEJ 2/1/30.

167 Aḥmad Murtaḍa al-Marāghī, Gharāʾib min ʻahd Fārūq wa-bidāyat al-thawrah al-Miṣrīyah [Oddities from the age of Farouk and the beginning of the Egyptian revolution] (Beirut, 1976); for Maraghi's pardon, see al-Aḥrām, 5 Oct. 1974.