UN, and to accepting some of the Hungarian
refugees fleeing across the Austrian frontier.
Eisenhower’s and Dulles’s Middle Eastern
policies were less successful. America’s overriding
concern was to keep the Soviet Union out of this
vital region with its huge oil reserves, though the
US also wished to be regarded as the friend of
the Arabs, sympathetic to their strivings to free
themselves from a semi-colonial status, above all
in relation to Britain. But the unstinting support
the US gave to Israel aroused Arab suspicion and
hostility. Moreover, Britain was America’s most
important ally in Europe. The US could not
escape the inconsistencies in its position. None-
theless, each policy sought to preserve the peace
and the post-1949 status quo in the region. These
aims served the interests of Britain too, and the
two countries worked together to this end until
their cooperation became undone in the after-
math of Suez.
Eisenhower and Dulles had coordinated their
policy with Eden to combat Nasser, who was
leaning to Moscow. They agreed in the spring of
1956 to withdraw their financial backing for the
Aswan High Dam, making this public in July, and
when Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Dulles
exerted what pressure he could to coordinate the
international reaction. Eisenhower and Dulles
wanted to get rid of Nasser, but not at the price
of arousing the whole Arab world against the
West. They were, therefore, unenthused by
British suggestions that military action could
become necessary. They urged caution and delay.
But Britain and France in collusion with Israel
went ahead on 31 October with the bombing of
Egypt and kept Washington in the dark about
their precise military plans.
Suez represented a serious crisis in the US’s
relationship with its principal European allies.
After some initial hesitation Eisenhower decided
that he had to try to end the British–French–
Israeli invasion of Egypt and so backed a UN call
for a ceasefire in November 1956. He exploited
Britain’s financial weakness to force the Eden
Cabinet to accept the UN resolution. The Israelis
and the French bowed to the inevitable. The US
managed to mend fences with Britain the follow-
ing year, but there was no disguising that in
dealing with Nasser’s Egypt, American diplomacy
had been inconsistent.
After Suez, despite efforts to persuade the
invaders to withdraw, the US did not gain many
plaudits from the Arab world. US policy in the
Middle East continued to be hampered by the
question of how support for Israel could be rec-
onciled with Arab friendship. Then in 1958 the
US landed troops in the Lebanon, at the same
time pronouncing the Eisenhower Doctrine
which committed the Americans to providing
help to Middle Eastern states threatened by com-
munist aggression or subversion. As this did not
reflect the reality of the conflicts within the
Middle East, the doctrine was ineffectual. But
uncertainty about how best to handle the Middle
East in the light of America’s conflicting interests
was not unique to the Eisenhower administra-
tions and continued long after.
During his two terms (1953–7 and 1957–61)
as president, Eisenhower, skilfully supported by
Dulles, was generally able to establish clear US
policies for the rest of the decade and beyond.
There could be no military intervention in the
regions of the world under effective Soviet and
Chinese military control, even when rebellion
broke out within the Soviet camp. In Europe, the
US was committed to the defence of the NATO
alliance countries. In Asia, the defensive line had
been drawn close to the Chinese mainland, pro-
tecting the islands of Quemoy and Matsu as well
as Taiwan. In August and September 1958 a new
crisis broke out with mainland China over the off-
shore islands, which Chiang Kai-shek, who still
believed that internal disruption would allow
him to reconquer China, had heavily reinforced.
When the Chinese communists blockaded and
shelled the islands, he saw an opportunity of
embroiling the US in a war with China. Eisen-
hower ordered the Seventh Fleet to sail in support
of the Nationalist Chinese, but once again he
scotched the advice of the joint chiefs of staff to
use atomic weapons against mainland China. Mao
Zedong and Zhou Enlai abandoned their assault
on the islands, thus ending all question of a war
with China. But Eisenhower continued Truman’s
policy of refusing to recognise the communist
republic as the legitimate state of China. With