How Britain France and Israel Got Together

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Delay & Foreknowledge. The two days of crisis were Monday and Tuesday of last week. All through those hectic 48 hours, there was a clear pattern: the British and French knew what the Israelis were doing, and in advance; the U.S. did not. Eleven hours before the first Israeli vehicle rolled across the Egyptian border, Pineau dashed over to London. To an aide who asked whether there would be a war, Pineau was reported as saying: "I can't tell you yet." In Jerusalem, Britain's Ambassador Sir John Nicholls was told that morning that the Israeli army would jump off at nightfall, and relayed the news to Eden. Eden said nothing to the U.S. In Washington, knowing only of the Israeli mobilization, Eisenhower announced that the U.S. would "honor our pledge" under the Tripartite Agreement of 1950, which pledged the U.S. to act in concert with Britain and France "within and outside the United Nations" against an aggressor in the Middle East. Only last February, Eden had come to Washington to press for a firm U.S. commitment to back that agreement.

But in a matter of hours after Eisen hower's statement, State Department officials concluded that Britain considered the Tripartite Agreement a dead letter. That afternoon Dulles summoned British and French diplomats to get their cooperation in calling an early emergency meeting of the Security Council. They stalled. Apparently they had orders to delay until the ultimatum could be delivered next day.

It soon became apparent that the British were not interested either in halting the Israeli attack or in branding the Israelis as aggressors. In London, Lloyd summoned U.S. Ambassador Winthrop Aldrich early Tuesday morning to urge that the U.S. resolution omit any reference to aggression. Significantly, though Britain and France were going to deliver an ultimatum to Egypt that day, Lloyd said nothing to Aldrich about Britain's intent.

According to Plan. At 4:30 p.m. British time (11:30 a.m. Washington time), Eden announced the ultimatum—an ultimatum that demanded in effect that Egypt withdraw 100 miles from its own frontiers and accept British-French occupation of the Canal Zone on the ground that the British and French had to protect the canal from the Israelis (they then proceeded to bomb not the Israelis but the Egyptians). Neither the U.S. nor the Commonwealth was notified until 15 minutes later. The President of the U.S. learned of the ultimatum in Jacksonville, Fla. by news ticker.

In Paris, the Assembly had to wait until 10 o'clock for Premier Mollet to get back from London and make a parallel announcement of the ultimatum. After the Assembly's vote of confidence, Defense Minister Maurice Bourges-Maunoury stopped off at his office for ten minutes to clean up some papers, and then went home to bed. Apparently, everything had been all arranged, long before.