ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that the United States acknowledged Great Britain's position as a major power with exclusive interests in the Middle East. It also argues that the United States could always be persuaded eventually to defend British interests as long as British diplomacy persisted in its efforts to convince Washington. These ideas prevented the British political elite from discerning substantive changes in Anglo-American relations. At the start of the Suez crisis, major players in Whitehall, such as Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Lord Salisbury, and John Selwyn Lloyd, would bring these images to the meetings of the Cabinet and the Egypt Committee. The chapter discusses the development of these ideas, which would prove erroneous in the summer of 1956. It examines their foundations, which can be traced to the foreign policy of the post-war Labour government. The chapter demonstrates that these ideas were particularly powerful regarding the foreign policy towards the Middle East of the Conservative government under Sir Winston Churchill.