Playing the recorder
Hugh Thomas
DESCENT TO SUEZ: DIARIES 1951-56 by Evelyn Shuckburgh, edited by John Charmley Weidenfeld & Nicolson, f14.95 CUTTING THROUGH THE LION'S TAIL by Mohamed H. Helical
Deutsch, f12.95
Some look back to the early 1950s with affection, as a time before crime began to get out of hand, before inflation and unemployment broke the post-war self- confidence, and before the fungus of tele- vision had penetrated far into the old timbers of British public life. The calm was a deception. Churchill was 'going com- pletely gaga' (Robert Menzie's phrase ab- out him to Nasser) and so a highly unsatis- factory Prime Minister. But whenever he seemed at his last gasp, he rallied to make a brilliant speech, and thus disarmed critic- ism for another six months. He kept telling Anthony Eden that he was about to resign but then went back on the decision in order to be available to meet the successors of Stalin (but which one?) and save the world.
This procrastination drove Eden de- mented. So did Churchill's interference in other things: for example, on Egypt where Churchill pontificated without reading the papers on the subject and privately sought to undermine the policy of withdrawal (from the base in the Suez Canal zone) which, for good or evil, his Cabinet had approved.
Eden ultimately inherited. According to Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh, he then behaved much as Churchill had done, belabouring his Foreign Secretary with minor sugges- tions and complaints. He apparently mod- elled himself on Churchill even in small ways, such as seeing his staff whilst still in bed. He treated officials as if they were footmen, as Churchill had done. So far from becoming a strong man when his ambition was achieved, he gave way to new vanities. All Whitehall seemed to shake because of his nervy approach. In the end as everyone knows, the delightful and gallant Eden the peacemaker gave way to Eden the man who decided in March 1956 that 'Nasser must be got rid of: it is either him or us, don't forget that.'
This is the picture of those years pre- sented to us by Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh, private secretary to Eden between 1951 and 1954; and under secretary in charge of relations with the Middle East in the Foreign Office between 1954 and June 1956 (when he seems to have cracked up). Shuckburgh presents a picture of himself as a mild commonsensical Wykehamist who enjoys talk with his fellow commuters on the 8.30 train up from the Chilterns, plays recorder duets with hs wife, does some elegant carpentry, occupies himself with his family when possible and reads Dylan Thomas. The transformation of the alert official depicted in the photographs of this book to the bearded maker of clavichords shown on the dust-cover is a remarkable one. His heroes in the 1950s were few: among Englishmen only Lord Salisbury and Harold Macmillan. He liked the for- mer's detachment. Thus Salisbury says of Eden in 1953 'perhaps his real role is to be a great Foreign Secretary'. Shuckburgh: `But that is not how he sees it.' Salisbury: `That is the trouble with them all. They are so ambitious.' Shuckburgh liked Dulles, admired Eisenhower and thought that the State Department worked harder than the Foreign Office.
Shuckburgh was too close to the machine to see properly that the problems he vividly depicts arose not only because of the characters of his chiefs, but because of institutional weaknesses. The relations be- tween No. 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office are frequently bad because the Prime Minister is often judged by his foreign policy, while being unable to direct that policy in the ways that he desires. The case for a larger Prime Minister's office, such as exists in the Matignon, seems to have been strong in the early 1950s.
A case of course can be made for both Churchill and Eden at this time. Chur- chill's vacillation over his retirement de- rived from the hope that he might be able to make a deal with Russia over nuclear weapons. That view is partially justified by Khrushchev's revision of the Leninist doc- trine of the inevitability of conflict with the capitalist states. Churchill was also doubt- ful whether Eden, whom he had adopted as his heir during the war, was by then really the right man. Procrastination might enable Eden to prove himself; or allow someone who was adequate (Macmillan for example) to emerge as a better candi- date. Eden on the other hand was a statesman who has shown himself dexter- ous in the 1930s and 1940s. It was a combination of ill-health (itself ill-treated) and Churchill's behaviour which ruined him. It is impossible now not to be primari- ly aware when thinking of him of the tragedy which engulfed the end of his career.
Shuckburgh thought that the purpose of his diary was to provide material for biographers of Eden and of Churchill. Between the two only David Carlton has used it in his large biography of the former. Rhodes James apparently did not try to use it: a strange neglect when we see that both Shuckburgh and James are being launched simultaneously on the world by 'a success- ful Jewish publisher called Weidenfeld' (Shuckburgh, 24 February 1956) who then thought that neither political party in Britain had any philosophy, the leaders being 'two rival groups of not very compe- tent administrators'. Eden knew that Shuckburgh was writing a diary. But he could not have known that Shuckburgh had formed so harsh a picture of him. Surely the correct course for Shuckburgh was to have gone to Kirkpatrick, then head of the Foreign Office, and requested an alternative post.
The reader is likely also to feel surprised that Shuckburgh, despite his responsibili- ties, never apparently had time to study in any depth the nature of the Arab national- ism, much less the Israeli nationalism, which then confronted him and Britain. This points to another weakness of our system of policy-making. The omission is not, however, helped much by Mohamed Heikal's book, which is presumably de- signed to be a short account of the Suez crisis for Egyptian readers. Heikal was at that time a newspaper editor very friendly with Nasser, who talked with him through- out the crisis. The book is a rather official Egyptian account. It gives so balanced an impression of Egyptian policy and its method of formulation that Whitehall in Shuckburgh's day seems in comparison to be like Heathrow airport during a strike of traffic controllers. The explanation is that Nasser made his decision without having to take his ministers into account, much less the press and legislature. In their early days anyway dictatorships have many advantages. Heikal, however, presents Nasser as always reacting to Western poli- cies. Surely Nasser cleverly used the West's mistake for carrying out things which he wanted to do anyway.
There are several new contributions. First, Nasser's own account of his con- versation with Eden in Cairo in February 1955: a narrative from which Eden's Ara- bic comes out very well. Second, there is an interesting correspondence between Nasser and Nehru about Suez. Third, the relations of Nasser and Heikal with Kermit Roosevelt and James Eichelberger of the CIA seem to have been so close that the latter is even said to have leaked a British plan to have Nasser assassinated in Febru- ary 1956. So much for the Special Rela- tionship, an entity which indeed gets short shrift in the pages of both these books.
The Suez Affair by Hugh Thomas is re-issued by Weidenfeld Paperbacks this week priced f5.95.
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