Conspiracy

[John Little]

It occurs to me that there may be some people on the Org with both the time and the inclination to go having a look round for the truth of this. Some years ago I came across some evidence in the National Archives in Kew which puzzled me. If you go digging round in the Treasury files for April 1956 you will find an appraisal document on the subject of Britain's defence policy. It is part of the lead-up to the notorious Sandys white paper which took a mighty razor to defence spending because we could not afford it.

The main thrust of the appraisal paper - which I may have a copy of - I will fossick round- is that Britain cannot afford to mount an overseas expeditionary force of any scale because of the size of our budget deficit.
After a brief period of solvency in 1950 we had been plunged back into the red by the costs of paying for our part in the Korean war. War is expensive,

The document is initialled at the bottom of each page 'HM' indicating that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Harold MacMillan, had read it.
This doucment actually does exist and establishes that MacMillan knew we could not afford a war.

Then Nasser took the Suez Canal in June.

Another document has Anthony Eden, the prime minister, asking MacMillan if we could afford a war. MacMillan replied that we could.

So we invaded Suez in November 1956, Eisenhower phoned Eden and said 'Anthony - have you gone stark staring mad?.... and the Yanks suspended our credit and cut off our oil supplies...

And Macmillan flew to Washington on 10 November to negotiate... and failed...

And Eden lied to the Commons about there not being a plot with the French and Israel, and then fell ill, so RAB Butler deputised for him and he resigned in Dec 1956.

So the Conservative party had a leadership election in January 1957 which Butler was expected to win
But MacMillan, the man who told Eden we could afford a war when we could not, was elected leader.

And 3 months later flew to meet Eisenhower in Bermuda... and Eisenhower set aside the McMahon act and agreed to sell Polaris to Britain.

I puzzle over this sometimes, and I wonder, just wonder - was there some sort of coup? We lost a Prime Minister who wanted to steer a British line of his own, and we gained a very pro-Washington one.

Was Eden overthrown? .............

[bekisman]

I thought he said "Anthony have you gone out of your mind"?

'Eden failed to understand that defying Eisenhower was a fatal mistake and had to buckle when Washington failed to intervene to stop a disastrous run on the pound. 'Anthony, have you gone out of your mind?' asked an incredulous Ike. Downing Street and the White House both wanted to preserve Western power, but differed on how to do it. The lesson was that never again would Britain act without the US'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/oct/01/historybooks.features1

[John Little]

You are undoubtedly correct - my memory fades into hyperbole.

Given that MacMillan knew war was not possible from a fiscal point of view, he still told Eden that it was.

Was he setting him up to fail?

And when he flew to Washington to 'negotiate' - was that really what he did?

And the closed 'election' for the Tory leadership - why MacMillan? Who was in Suez up to his neck and had greenlighted it.

And why did Eisenhower set aside the MacMahon act which forbade the sale of nuclear weapons abroad and reverse policy so quickly?

Then of course followed the edifying spectacle of US troops wading ashore in Lebanon in 1958 as British paratroopers dropped over Amman- showing that we were now the US's boy.

I do not like the idea that Washington engineered a coup to change the British premier, but they did it in a lot of other places quite overtly so I do consider it. Too many bits to fill in, but that MacMillan knew we would run out of cash is certain.