GREAT BRITAIN: Collision Over Collusion

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The word "collusion" hung like a mushroom-shaped cloud over the Suez debate in the House of Commons last week.

"If collusion can be established." said Labor's Aneurin Bevan, "the whole fabric of the government's case falls to the ground." The main theme of Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd's defense was to show that while "it is true that we were well aware of the possibility of trouble," there was no secret agreement between Prime Ministers Anthony Eden, Guy Mollet and David Ben-Gurion over the timing of their respective attacks on Egypt, and that there was neither deceit nor fraud in Eden's declared objective of "separating the combatants" and "removing the risk to free passage of the canal."

Lloyd's denial did not cover what the real accusation of collusion was about (TIME, Nov. 12). This was that Britain and France knew in advance that BenGurion was going to attack Egypt, though they expected the invasion to take place nearer U.S. Election Day, a few days later than it actually did (thus accounting for the initial slowness of the Anglo-French operation). France viewed with enthusiasm, and Britain with at least equanimity, an Israeli attack on Nasser, and both France and Britain conspired to keep the U.S. in the dark about their Israeli intelligence and their own military intentions.

Now that Britain had to withdraw from Suez without getting the canal or bringing down Nasser, Selwyn Lloyd had two options: to confess defeat or to brazen it through. He chose to claim a victory.

Speaking in cold, forensic tones, Lloyd raised his voice only slightly in an effort to make himself heard above the laughter and vaudeville din of the Labor Opposition, whose parliamentary behavior was about as zoolike as the House of Commons gets. Lloyd argued that the Anglo-French attack on Egypt was justified by the "failure of the U.N. to keep the peace" in the area. He claimed three important objectives achieved: 1) the Israeli-Egyptian war had been stopped. 2) an international police force had been put into position to prevent its resumption, 3) Russian designs had been exposed and dislocated. Nye Bevan called Lloyd's performance "sounding the bugle of advance to cover the retreat."

Lloyd's weak defense against the charge of collusion was meat for Labor's Big Bad Wolf. Said Bevan: "It is believed in France that the French [government] knew about the Israeli intention. If the French knew, did they tell the British government? The fact is that all these long telephone conversations and conferences between M. Guy Mollet, M. Pineau and the Prime Minister are intelligible only on the assumption that something was being cooked up." Bevan had his own picturesque fable for the situation. "Did Marianne take John Bull to an unknown rendezvous? Did Marianne say to John Bull that there was a forest fire going to start, and did John Bull then say, 'We ought to put it out,' but Marianne said, 'No, let us warm our hands by it. It is a nice fire'? Did Marianne deceive John Bull or seduce him?"