SIR, — Mr. Erskine Childers is obviously getting very near the truth,
but he has, I think, rather glossed over what, to my mind, is the most interesting feature of this whole. Suez affair—the motive working in the mind of Anthony Eden.
I only met Eden once. It was before the war, at the time of the Italian invasion of Abyssinia: The Rome-Berlin axis was, of course, an established' fact at that moment in history, and Eden was convinced that if a determined effort could be made by the West to stop Mussolini in his tracks, there was a reasonable possibility of averting Hitler's war. I think myself that later events have proved him wrong, and that ' nothing could have prevented Hitler's war.
Nevertheless, Eden was not allowed by popular sentiment to go to war with Mussolini in defence of Abyssinia, either with or without the auspices of the League, and it has become an idee Ave in his mind. ever since that appeasement achieves nothing, and that the only way to •prevent war is to attack,
Mr. Erskine Childers has in fact omitted from his account of the proceedings the main argument in Eden's mind. I refer to the threat from Russia.
I ant quite certain that Eden regarded Nasser as another Mussolini and Russia as another Hiller- Germany. He thought, in fact, that Nasser was Russia's stooge, and that the only way to prevent a third world war was to stop NaSSCI* dead.
This may have been a misunderstanding of the situation, but it was certainly not ignoble.—Yours faithfully, Spur fold House, Pea.dul,e, Surrey ANTHONY GIBBS
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