ABSTRACT
The Suez crisis of 1956 was the culmination of a long and drawn out dispute, which had a disastrous impact on the UK’s world profi le, power and reputation. At its heart were several, related factors: the UK’s role in the Middle East; the rising tide of nationalism and anti-colonial sentiment; the perception of a growing Soviet infl uence; and, inevitably, preoccupation with supplies of oil. Of these four factors, the fi rst was in decline, the second was in the ascendant, the third exaggerated and the fi nal one always a concern. All of these were of varying importance in Eden’s thinking during the Suez crisis. More has probably been written on Suez than on any other episode of British foreign policy. There may well be more government fi les on this than any other Cold War crisis. For instance, on the original transfer of fi les at the thirty-year point in 1986, one archivist noted that in the FCO alone there were ninety linear feet of papers, weighing almost one ton.1 Nonetheless, signifi cant gaps remain in our understanding of the intelligence dimension.
