ABSTRACT
In an optimistic and self-congratulatory Cabinet discussion in London following the October 1957 summit in Washington, Selwyn Lloyd credited Harold Macmillan’s excellent personal relations with President Eisenhower as the main factor behind the restoration of the Anglo-American alliance. However, Lloyd also cautioned that the new spirit of cooperation had to be demonstrated at the lower levels of each government. 1 The foreign secretary touched on an issue that was to lead to the dissipation of the momentum created in Washington. Although the Eisenhower administration fulfilled its pledge to deepen military cooperation over Jordan and Lebanon, regional developments in early 1958 contributed to increasing uncertainty in overall US policy towards the Middle East. In London, the tentative progress of joint military planning also led to renewed tensions between the military and civilian elite in Whitehall. The outbreak of a crisis in Lebanon in May 1958 both helped to reaffirm Washington’s sense of direction in the region while also revealing that the British were keener on sending troops into the Levant than their American counterparts. By mid-1958, it was clear, despite the warm words exchanged the previous October, that significant differences still existed between London and Washington on the question of military intervention in aid of the pro-Western Middle Eastern regimes.
