The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945-1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War

By Alison Phipps

Egypt figured prominently in United States policy in the Middle East after World War II because of its strategic, political, and economic importance. Peter Hahn explores the triangular relationship between the United States, Great Britain, and Egypt in order to analyze the justifications and implications of American policy in the region and within the context of a broader Cold War strategy.

This work is the first comprehensive scholarly account of relations between those countries during this period. Hahn shows how the United States sought to establish stability in Egypt and the Middle East to preserve Western interests, deny the resources of the region to the Soviet Union, and prevent the outbreak of war. He demonstrates that American officials' desire to recognize Egyptian nationalistic aspirations was constrained by their strategic imperatives in the Middle East and by the demands of the Anglo-American alliance.

Using many recently declassified American and British political and military documents, Hahn offers a comprehensive view of the intricacies of alliance diplomacy and multilateral relations. He sketches the United States' growing involvement in Egyptian affairs and its accumulation of commitments to Middle East security and stability and shows that these events paralleled the decline of British influence in the region.

Hahn identifies the individuals and agencies that formulated American policy toward Egypt and discusses the influence of domestic and international issues on the direction of policy. He also explains and analyzes the tactics devised by American officials to advance their interests in Egypt, judging their soundness and success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781469617213

Alison Phipps

Alison Phipps holds the UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts at the University of Glasgow, where she is also professor of languages and intercultural studies and co-convener of Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNET).

Book preview

The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945–1956

The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945–1956

Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War

Peter L. Hahn

The University of North Carolina Press

Chapel Hill and London

© 1991 The University of North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

cloth: 95 94 93 92 91 5 4 3 2 1

paper: 08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1

Design by April Leidig-Higgins

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hahn, Peter L.

The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945– 1956 : strategy and diplomacy in the early Cold War / by Peter L. Hahn.

      p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 0-80784942-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 0-8078-5609-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. United States—Foreign relations—Egypt. 2. Egypt—Foreign relations—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations—Great Britain. 4. Great Britain—Foreign relations—United States. 5. Cold War. 6. United States—Foreign relations—-1945-1953. 7. United States—Foreign relations—1953-1961. I. Title.

E183.8.E35H26 1991

327.73—dc20 90-47616

CIP

Portions of chapters 6 and 7 appeared earlier in somewhat different form in Peter L. Hahn, Containment and Egyptian Nationalism: The Unsuccessful Effort to Establish the Middle East Command, 1950-53, Diplomatic History 11 (Winter 1987): 23-40, and are reproduced here by permission of Scholarly Resources.

THIS BOOK WAS DIGITALLY MANUFACTURED.

For Cathy

Contents

Acknowledgments

Acronyms

1 Introduction

2 Backdrop to American Policy Making: Anglo-Egyptian Relations, 1798–1945

3 Commercial Rivalry, Egyptian Nationalism, and Strategic Interests: The United States and Anglo-Egyptian Disputes, 1937–1946

4 The Canal Zone Base, the United Nations, and the Cold War, January 1947-April 1948

5 American Policy and Strategy in the Egyptian-Israeli War, May 1948-December 1949

6 The British Base, the Korean War, and Egyptian Nationalism: The First American Commitments to Middle East Stability, 1950–1951

7 American Policy toward Egypt in an Era of Violence and Revolution, October 1951–January 1953

8 Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Anglo-Egyptian Base Settlement, January 1953–July 1954

9 Containment, Peacemaking, and Egyptian Neutralism: American Policy toward Egypt, 1954–1956

10 American Policy during the Suez Crisis, July-December 1956

11 Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

The financial burden of researching and writing this book has been significantly shared by several magnanimous institutions. An award from the Vanderbilt University Graduate Faculty Council enabled me to conduct research at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library and at several archives in the United Kingdom. A grant from the Harry S. Truman Library Institute made possible research at that repository. Generous fellowships from the Office of United States Air Force History and from the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute enabled me to finish researching and writing this work in residence in metropolitan Washington, D.C. I remain grateful to these organizations.

Archivists at several institutions provided valuable advice during the research phase of this project. At the National Archives in Washington, Wilbert B. Mahoney gave support as I sifted through military records; Sally M. Marks facilitated my examination of State Department files; and Steven D. Tilley assisted my search in National Security Council papers. At the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, David Langbart guided me to appropriate documents. Dwight Strandberg of the Eisenhower Library and C. Warren Ohrvall of the Truman Library provided exemplary service. At the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library of Princeton University, Nancy Bressler and fean Holliday offered assistance.

I am greatly indebted to several professional colleagues who have assisted me in publishing this manuscript. At the University of North Carolina Press, Executive Editor Lewis Bateman and Assistant Managing Editor Ron Maner greatly facilitated the publication of this book, and editor Trudie Calvert polished its prose. Wendy Eidenmuller of the Penn State Erie Division of Humanities retyped the entire manuscript with grace and good cheer. Samuel T. McSeveney, Aaron David Miller, and David S. Painter provided me with wise counsel after reading the entire manuscript, and Robert H. Ferrell, Burton I. Kaufman, Fred M. Levanthal, William Roger Louis, and William O. Walker III shared valuable insights on parts of it. My thanks to these scholars. Above all, my mentor and friend Melvyn P. Leffler deserves my sincere gratitude. A disciplined scholar, incisive critic, and keen analyst, Leffler provided immeasurable guidance and insight during the years I labored under his direction. If my work possesses any quality, much of it can be attributed to his influence. Of course, factual errors and misguided interpretations remain my responsibility.

Of the numerous friends and relatives who have supported and encouraged the writing of this book, a few deserve special thanks. David and Agatha Pratt of Springfield, Virginia, and Alistair and Margaret Hanton of London, England, provided me spacious accommodations while I conducted research at the National Archives and the Public Record Office and eased the burden of residing and working away from home. My parents, Alvin C. Hahn and Mary Jane Hahn, and my brothers and sisters, Ken, Phil, Kathy, Pat, Karen, and David, have cheered me on to the completion of this book. I owe the greatest debt to my immediate family, Cathy Anna (Myers) Hahn, and our children Anna Jane and Benjamin William. Anna Jane and Ben have provided an unending series of joyful and refreshing breaks from the rigors of research, writing, and revising. Through her love, encouragement, and patience, Cathy has significantly contributed to this book. I dedicate it to her, with appreciation and fondness.

Peter L. Hahn

Erie, Pennsylvania

July 4, 1990

Acronyms

AIOC Anglo-Iranian Oil Corporation CIA Central intelligence Agency CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff COS Chiefs of Staff DCI Director of Central Intelligence EGA Economic Cooperation Administration IAC Intelligence Advisory Committee ICJ International Court of fustice IMF International Monetary Fund JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff JIS Joint Intelligence Staff JLPG Joint Logistics Planning Group JSPC Joint Strategic Plans Committee JSPG Joint Strategic Planning Group JWPC Joint War Plans Committee MAC Mixed Armistice Commission MEC Middle East Command MEDO Middle East Defense Organization MESC Middle East Supply Centre NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NE Division of Near Eastern Affairs (1944–1949); Office of Near Eastern Affairs (thereafter) NEA Division of Near Eastern Affairs (to 1944); Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (1944–1949); Bureau of Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (thereafter) NIE National Intelligence Estimate NSC National Security Council OCB Operations Coordinating Board OPD Operations Division, U.S. Army P&O Plans & Operations Division, U.S. Army PCC Palestine Conciliation Commission PPS Policy Planning Staff RCC Revolutionary Command Council SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander, Europe SACME Supreme Allied Commander, Middle East SCUA Suez Canal Users Association SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty Organization SFRC Senate Foreign Relations Committee SIS Secret Intelligence Service SNIE Special National Intelligence Estimate SWNCC State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee TCA Technical Cooperation Administration UNEF United Nations Emergency Force UNSCOP United Nations Special Committee on Palestine VHB Very Heavy Bomber

The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945–1956

1: Introduction

This book explores and analyzes American policy toward Egypt between 1945 and 1956. It examines the strategic, political, and economic interests and imperatives that guided American officials who shaped policy toward Egypt and identifies the specific objectives they defined, the dilemmas produced by conflicts between these objectives, and how those dilemmas were resolved. The circumstances, motivations, and interests that determined American policy toward a significant Middle East country in the immediate postwar period are the focus of the analysis.

American policy toward Egypt was formulated in the context of a broad effort to establish stability in the Middle East, which United States officials defined as the region being at peace, governed by leaders friendly to the West, open to American economic opportunities, and free from Soviet influence. Stability seemed the best way to preserve American interests in the region and around the world and to avoid another world war. It would secure the resources and facilities of the region for the use of the Western powers in containing Soviet influence in peace and defeating Soviet power in war. Maintenance of stability was the sine qua non of American postwar policy in the Middle East.

Immediately following World War II, conditions in the Middle East seemed unfavorable to the attainment of stability. Indigenous nationalistic aspirations for independence clashed with the desires of the traditionally imperialist powers, Great Britain and France, to maintain their colonial empires in the region. Corrupt and undemocratic local governments generated political unrest that portended revolution. The question of sovereignty in Palestine spawned tension and perpetual violence within the region. Economic underdevelopment and restrictive commercial systems produced poverty and social discontent that seemed to render the area vulnerable to the influence of communism or other extremist doctrines. Apparent Soviet political expansionism raised the specter of communist influence penetrating the region and denying its facilities and resources to the Western powers. These destabilizing factors were interdependent and mutually reinforcing, and they posed immense impediments to the American quest for stability in the Middle East.

Egypt figured prominently in the American effort to establish stability in the Middle East. Western strategists believed that in the event of war against the Soviet Union, Egypt’s location and facilities would render it extremely valuable. Straddling the intersection of three continents, Egypt protected interhemispheric lines of communication and transportation. Egyptian military bases could be supplied from two oceans. Of all Western air bases that could be defended against Soviet ground forces, those in Egypt were closest to Soviet oil-producing and industrial targets. Furthermore, Britain maintained an enormous military base in the Suez Canal Zone. Spanning nearly five thousand square miles, the base boasted ten airfields, thirty-eight camps, railroads, ordnance depots, repair shops, and a host of other valuable facilities. During World War II, the base supported forty-one Allied divisions in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, and in 1945 nearly eighty-four thousand British troops remained stationed there. American strategists stressed that this base must remain in Western hands in case war erupted against the Soviet Union.

Egypt was also of political significance. Following the war, intensifying Egyptian nationalism threatened to destabilize the entire region. Nationalists demanded complete and unconditional freedom from the historic British domination of their homeland. In the early 1950s, they sought to overthrow their corrupt but basically pro-Western monarchy and to abolish the vestiges of Western imperialism, not only in Egypt but throughout the Middle East. Egyptian political authorities appeared to be the prospective leaders of the entire Arab world. Their loyalty could determine the ideological and political orientation of all Arab states. Furthermore, Egyptian policy toward Israel seemed to determine the positions taken by other Arab states on the issue. Revolutionary Egyptian nationalism, in short, could diminish the value of the British base in the Canal Zone, destabilize other area states, increase the violence between Israel and the Arabs, and spawn neutralism in the Cold War throughout the developing world. American officials hoped to channel Egyptian nationalism toward constructive ends as they defined them.

Egypt also attracted American economic interest. During and immediately following World War II, American officials sought to promote economic growth in Egypt as part of their quest for stabilization. The Suez Canal figured prominently in American plans for exploiting Middle East petroleum resources. The war had made industrialized nations aware of the importance of oil, and by 1945 policy makers realized that the Middle East possessed the world’s greatest oil reserves. Not wishing to deplete Western Hemisphere reserves in peacetime, American officials designated Middle East oil for the reindustrialization of Western Europe. The most efficient route for transporting oil from the Middle East to Western Europe was through the Suez Canal. Thus the economic welfare of Western Europe depended on unrestricted transit of the canal In the postwar period, however, Egypt restricted canal transit rights and ultimately nationalized the Western corporation that operated the waterway. These actions embittered Western European powers and caused them to deal forcefully with Egypt.

Egypt was also important in American thinking because of the perpetual state of confrontation between Egypt and Britain. The primary Anglo-Egyptian dispute centered on the Canal Zone military base. Britain had relied on this base through two world wars and was determined to retain access to the Canal Zone facilities for strategic reasons. Egyptian nationalists, however, embittered by the occupation of their homeland by foreign troops, launched a campaign of negotiation, diplomacy, and violence to expel the British. American officials were confronted with a choice between endorsing British base rights in Egypt or approving the aspirations of Egyptian nationalists. A dispute involving sovereignty over Sudan also generated tension in Anglo-Egyptian relations. Sudan had been governed jointly by London and Cairo through a condominium agreement dating from 1899 and had become a virtual British protectorate by 1945. Britain planned to advance it toward independence and self-government both to deny its resources to Egypt and to demonstrate the beneficence of British colonialism. Citing historical and cultural ties with Sudan, Egyptian nationalists demanded political union between Cairo and Khartoum. The Sudan issue became significant because it continually impeded settlement of the Anglo-Egyptian dispute over the military base. Other conflicts involving Suez Canal transit rights and British supply of weapons to Egypt further embittered Anglo-Egyptian relations. American officials were frequently caught in the middle of such disputes.

This book analyzes several key themes of American policy toward Egypt. First, it explores the nature of the relationship between the United States and Egypt and the American response to Egyptian and Arab nationalism. Were American-Egyptian relations basically friendly or strained? Did American officials interact effectively with Egyptian leaders, or was their relationship tense? How well did American officials understand the aspirations of Egyptian nationalists? How effectively did they mobilize Egyptian nationalism to serve American interests in Egypt and the Middle East? To what extent did they subject Egyptian national aspirations to Western strategic imperatives? How did they respond to Egyptian neutralism in the Cold War?

Second, this study analyzes the relationship between the United States and Britain in their formulation of policy toward Egypt. How significant was the Anglo-American partnership in determining American policy toward Egypt, a country dominated by British political and commercial influence and strategic facilities? To what degree did American officials pursue an independent policy toward Egypt? To what extent were the United States and Britain rivals for influence or prestige in Egypt and the Middle East? Were American officials ever willing to break with the British over any matter pertaining to Egypt? Why did the United States censure the action of its closest ally during the Suez War of 1956? Was the Anglo-American relationship basically competitive or cooperative?

Third, this analysis underscores the United States’s growing involvement in Egyptian affairs and its accumulation of commitments to Middle East security and stability. At the end of World War II, Britain was the dominant power in the Middle East; American interests were limited to commercial and cultural enterprises. By 1956, British power had nearly vanished from the region, and the United States had gained significant influence. Why did this reversal occur? Was the rise in American influence a cause or an effect of the British decline? Did American officials accept new commitments to Middle East security haltingly or eagerly? How did American involvement in the Middle East influence the evolution of the Cold War?

Fourth, this analysis identifies the individual officials and agencies that formulated policy toward Egypt. Who was primarily responsible for deciding and implementing policy toward Egypt? What role did officials in the Division of Near Eastern Affairs play? How much influence did other State Department officials, Defense Department strategists, and other members of the executive branch have? Were groups such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council significantly involved? How important were American ambassadors in Cairo? When did the secretaries of state and the presidents become involved in policy making toward Egypt? Did Congress exercise any influence? What was the correlation, if any, between the accumulation of American responsibilities for Middle East security and stability and the offices and persons responsible for American policy making toward Egypt?

Fifth, this study places American policy toward Egypt in the context of events and developments in the Middle East, in the United States, and in other areas of the world. How did the political situation in Cairo impede Western objectives regarding Egypt? What impact did the creation of Israel have on Middle East stability, on the growth of Egyptian and Arab nationalism, and on American prestige among the Arab powers? What effect did the confrontation between Iranian nationalists and a British-owned oil company have on Egyptian nationalism? How did Egypt’s rivalry with Iraq for leadership of the Arab world limit its willingness to cooperate with American plans to secure the Middle East?

The formulation of American policy was also influenced by domestic issues. Did budgetary limits prevent American officials from implementing policy that might have better promoted American interests in Egypt? Did pro-Israeli groups and individuals impede American implementation of policy that might have improved relations with Egypt or curbed the growth of Egyptian nationalism and neutralism? Or, conversely, did they force American officials to implement policy that embittered Egyptian nationalists? To what extent did congressmen prohibit policies that might have damaged the interests of their constituents? How influential was domestic anticommunism in determining the views of policy makers and congressmen toward Egyptian neutralism?

Furthermore, events around the world influenced American policy making. How did events of the Cold War affect American policy toward Egypt? Did the tension produced by the Czech coup, the Berlin blockade, and the Korean war have a discernible effect on American policy in the Middle East? What strategic importance did the United States assign to Egypt and the Middle East in the Cold War, and how significant were strategic interests in determining American policy? How did the United States respond to the Soviet and Communist Chinese efforts to gain influence in the Middle East in the 1950s? What effect did developments in Britain have on American policy? How important was the British economic depression of the 1940s in determining American policy toward the Middle East? To what extent did domestic politics in London impede American policy toward Egypt?

Finally, this study explains and analyzes the tactics devised by American officials to advance their interests in Egypt. How successful were these tactics? Were they reasonably conceived, taking into account all factors that existed at the moment? Or did they reflect policy makers’ delusions, misperceptions, and false optimism? Did the tactics adopted ever prevent the attainment of the objective or create new conditions that undermined American interests?

Because the Anglo-Egyptian relationship proved so important in American postwar policy making toward Egypt, the second chapter of this study surveys the development of that relationship from the late eighteenth century to 1945. Chapter 3 analyzes the origins of American interest in Egypt in the late 1930s, the development of relations with Egypt and Britain during the war and in late 1945, and the evolution of American policy toward the Anglo-Egyptian base dispute in 1946. Chapter 4 examines the formulation of American policy regarding the Anglo-Egyptian confrontation at the United Nations in the summer of 1947, the convergence of American and British strategic thinking toward the Middle East in late 1947 and early 1948, and the development of conflict in American-Egyptian bilateral relations. Chapter 5 introduces the Palestine question and explores how American officials reacted to the Arab-Israeli war of 1948–49. Chapter 6 analyzes the American effort in 1950 and 1951 to stabilize and secure the Middle East by arranging a tripartite declaration against an intraregional arms race and by establishing a Middle East Command (MEC) based in Egypt. Chapter 7 explores American efforts between October 1951 and January 1953 to settle the Anglo-Egyptian dispute, extend economic and military aid to Egypt, and establish a variation of MEC in the Middle East. Chapter 8 discusses changes in American policy made by the new Republican administration and analyzes its contribution to the settlement of the military base issue in July 1954. Chapter 9 discusses the American response to Egyptian neutralism in 1954–56 and the American effort to arrange a permanent peace settlement in the Middle East in 1955–56, and Chapter 10 analyzes American policy during the Suez crisis of 1956. The final chapter summarizes the major findings of this study and offers some conclusions about the issues addressed.

2: Backdrop to American Policy Making: Anglo-Egyptian Relations, 1798–1945

When American diplomatic interest in Egypt originated during the 1930s, Britain already had more than a century of experience there, including nearly sixty years of military occupation. Born of imperial ambition, Britain’s presence in Egypt began during the Napoleonic era and expanded into a position of military, political, and commercial dominance during the following 150 years. By the time American officials arrived on the Egyptian scene, Britain and Egypt were locked in an imperialist-colonial relationship, which became tense during the twentieth century and provided the backdrop to American policy making toward Egypt during and immediately after World War II.

British interest in Egypt dated to the 1790s, when Napoleon Bonaparte tried to conquer the land as an avenue to challenge the British in India. To destroy England completely. Napoleon wrote in 1797, we must seize Egypt. and the next year he led thirty-eight thousand troops on an expedition to conquer and colonize the territory. Sensing the danger to the British Empire, Admiral Horatio Nelson destroyed Napoleon’s fleet at Aboukir in 1798. Within three years Anglo-Ottoman forces routed the remnants of the stranded French army.¹

After defeating the French, British officials were troubled by Egypt’s desire to separate from the Ottoman Empire. Mohammed Aly, an Albanian mercenary who fought against the French, was recognized by the Ottomans as khedive of Egypt in 1805. Until his death in 1849, Aly ruled Egypt independent of Ottoman control, establishing a family dynasty that would govern the land until 1952. In addition, Aly sought to liberate Arabs from Ottoman rule, and by 1840 his armies had extended Egyptian hegemony as far as Khartoum, Mecca, and Damascus. Britain viewed Ottoman power as a bulwark against Russia and reacted to Aly’s actions with alarm. The British tried to unseat the khedive in 1807 and used political and military leverage to force him to retreat to the Nile Valley in 1840–41. Britain also tried to gain a modicum of influence in Egypt by securing trade concessions such as a stagecoach route between Alexandria and Suez (established in 1837) and a railroad between Alexandria and Cairo (1854).²

British hopes of dominating Egypt were momentarily dimmed by the work of a Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who advanced toward reality the aged vision of building a canal between the Mediterranean and Red seas. Such a waterway had been dreamed of since antiquity. Napoleon seriously studied the idea in 1798, and after his death it remained a popular notion in Paris as a means to challenge Britain in the East. The development of steam-powered ships in the early nineteenth century made it possible to transit such a waterway and thereby halve the distance between European and Oriental ports.³

While vice-consul in Alexandria in the 1830s, de Lesseps explored the prospect of constructing a canal between the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Suez, in 1856, he secured from Aly’s successor, Khedive Mohammed Said, a concession to construct a canal and operate it for ninety-nine years through the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime Suez. Said controlled 44 percent of the company’s stock, and de Lesseps and other French investors owned the remainder. Construction began in 1859, and the Suez Canal opened with pomp and pageantry on 17 November 1869. The Suez Canal Company would operate the waterway until 1968.⁴

British officials originally opposed the construction of the canal, but they changed their minds when the project neared completion. The prospect of a waterway under Napoleon’s rule had terrified them at the turn of the century, and after they opened the stagecoach and rail lines, they feared that a canal under French control would threaten their trade dominance in Egypt and encourage Egyptian separatism. in 1855, Prime Minister Lord Palmerston personally refused an invitation by de Lesseps to participate in the canal enterprise, and London encouraged the Ottomans to revoke the canal concession of 1856. In the early 1860s, however, British opposition waned when merchants and naval planners calculated the commercial and strategic potential of the canal. As construction neared completion, shipping companies prepared to change routes to use the canal when it opened. Admiralty officers ordered improvement of dock facilities at Malta. Palmerston’s death in 1865 marked the end of substantial government opposition to the canal, and in 1869, Queen Victoria bestowed royal medallions on de Lesseps. British ships dominated traffic on the canal from the day it opened.⁵

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the British government secured complete financial and military control of the canal. Khedive Mohammed Ismail, who succeeded Said, bankrupted Egypt and in 1875 sold the Egyptian share of canal company stock to the British government under Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. In 1876 Anglo-French commissioners imposed dual control over Egyptian finances. When Ismail and Egyptian army officers under Colonel Ahmed Arabi tried to assert Egyptian independence in 1881, the European powers positioned warships in Alexandria harbor and convinced Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to depose Ismail in favor of the latter’s son Tewfik. This action ignited a rebellion led by Arabi, and Tewfik summoned the British army to protect the canal. The British easily defeated Arabi’s forces at Tel el Kabir on 13 September 1882 and occupied Cairo, establishing a military presence that would last seventy-four years. Under Evelyn Baring, the agent-general in Cairo from 1883 to 1907, Britain consolidated political power in Egypt. In the Entente Cordiale of 1904, France recognized British dominance there.⁶

While Britain became established in Egypt, it gradually assumed control of Sudan. Aly conquered Sudan in the 1830s and the Ottomans recognized it as Egyptian territory in 1869. In the 1870s Khedive Ismail hired British General Charles G. Gordon to serve as governor-general of Sudan. Gordon strengthened Egyptian authority in the country and eradicated the slave trade in the Nile Valley, provoking a Sudanese rebellion in 1881. Mohammed Ahmed, claiming to be the Mahdi, one of Shiite Islam’s messianic figures, led the rebels to victory over Egyptian forces in 1882 and 1883. British officials were preoccupied with the Arabi revolt and ordered Gordon to evacuate Khartoum, but the Mahdi trapped him there, broke through his defenses on 26 January 1885, and slaughtered him and all his men. British and Egyptian authority in Sudan vanished.⁷

Sudanese aggression and imperial rivalry in the 1890s convinced British officials to reconsider the importance of controlling Sudan. After defeating Gordon, Mahdist armies conquered southern Sudan, attacked Ethiopia, and threatened British forces in southern Egypt. Meanwhile, Italy colonized Eritrea and France claimed land on the Nile at Fashoda. In 1895, London ordered General Herbert Kitchener to advance up the Nile. Kitchener and his Anglo-Egyptian army, including a cavalry lieutenant named Winston Churchill, decisively defeated the Mahdist army at Omdurman and forced the French to abandon Fashoda. Simultaneous diplomatic initiatives prevented Germany and the Congo Free State from acquiring territory on the Nile.⁸

To deny Sudan to other imperialists, the British established an Anglo-Egyptian condominium over the country in January 1899. This agreement dictated that London and Cairo share authority in Khartoum, but Britain immediately established its dominance there. British nationals monopolized the position of governor-general and filled the civil service. After Egyptian nationalists assassinated Governor-General Lee Stack in 1924, London banned Egyptian soldiers from the country. Sudan became a British protectorate.⁹

The strategic value of the British position in Egypt became evident in World War I. Shortly after declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on 5 November 1914, Britain imposed a protectorate over Egypt and closed the canal to Ottoman and German ships. The British army used Egypt as a staging area for the Gallipoli campaign and for the offensive that captured Jerusalem. The British withstood German and Ottoman attacks from Cyrenaica and Syria by building a military infrastructure and massing thousands of troops in Egypt. British officials preparing to govern the Arab remnants of the dismembered Ottoman Empire realized that their military presence in Egypt would remain valuable after the war.¹⁰

Britain’s determination to remain in Egypt collided with rising Egyptian nationalism, which exploded in anti-British violence and rioting in March 1919 after the great powers refused to grant Egypt independence in the Treaty of Versailles. Britain promptly quashed the rebellion but remained troubled by Egyptian noncooperation in administering the country. In 1922, therefore, London unilaterally declared Egyptian independence, reserving the right to defend Egypt from foreign aggressors. Britain divided domestic authority in Egypt between a king, the former Khedive Ahmed Fuad, and a parliament elected under a liberal constitution.¹¹

From 1922 to 1936, British troops remained in Egypt without legal authority because of a political stalemate in Cairo between British authorities, the nationalistic Wafd party, led by Said Zaghlul, and King Fuad. The British wished to legitimize their occupation by signing a treaty with Egypt; the Wafd, which invariably won popular elections, sought to expel the British; and the king aspired to secure absolute power. Each faction, however, was opposed by a coalition of the other two. The British, for example, could not persuade any government in Cairo, either parliamentary or royal, to sign a treaty recognizing its right to occupy the country. Wafdist governments were twice dissuaded from imposing restrictions on the British by the arrival of British warships in Alexandria harbor. Fuad was able to dissolve parliament and rule absolutely from 1930 to 1935, but the British blocked his plans to restore Egyptian hegemony over Sudan.¹²

Events of the middle 1930s broke the stalemate and resulted in a new Anglo-Egyptian treaty. Unnerved by Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, King Fuad restored parliamentary government, and the Wafd, led by Mustapha Nahas after Zaghlul died in 1927, returned to power in early 1936. Fuad died in April, and his sixteen-year-old heir, Farouk, was no match for Nahas in the contest to govern Egypt. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, worried that war might erupt in Europe, pressed the Wafd government to sign a treaty recognizing British military rights in Egypt. Nahas secretly opened talks with the British ambassador to Cairo, Miles Lampson, in March 1936 and led a multiparty delegation to London to sign a treaty on 26 August. The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Preferential Alliance formally recognized Egyptian sovereignty and ended British occupation of Egypt but granted Britain the right to station ten thousand soldiers, four hundred pilots, and an unspecified number of ancillary personnel in the Canal Zone and the Sinai and to use naval and air bases in Alexandria and the Cairo-Suez area, in the event of war against either signatory, moreover, Britain could occupy Egypt and make use of all its facilities and resources. Egypt agreed to accommodate the British forces with roads, barracks, and supplies. Provisions of the 1936 treaty were to remain in effect until 1956, when the League of Nations would arbitrate any disagreement over its renewal.¹³

Both London and Cairo counted gains in the treaty of 1936. Britain secured assurances that the canal would be defended and permission to develop base facilities to fight a war in Europe. Nahas secured recognition of Egyptian sovereignty and several other concessions and portrayed the pact as a means ultimately to expel the British from his homeland. Many Egyptians were wary of the Italian troops in Libya and Ethiopia, moreover, and welcomed the security provided by the presence of British armed forces. The Egyptian parliament ratified the pact by a 202 to 11 margin.¹⁴

Britain invoked the treaty when war flared in Europe in 1939. Fifty-five thousand British troops poured into Egypt to expand base facilities and watch Italian forces in North Africa. Honoring its obligation, Egypt made facilities available to the British army, interned Germans, and seized German property. War came to Egypt and Sudan in the autumn of 1940, when Italian forces invaded from Cyrenaica and Eritrea. British troops repulsed those attacks and in late 1941 repelled an offensive by German General Erwin Rommel that had reached the Halfaya pass. Despite the proximity of fighting, Egypt refused to declare war on Germany. Some Egyptians admired fascist militarism, many expected German victory and thus thought it prudent to remain neutral, and most secretly applauded the challenge to British power in Egypt.¹⁵

Egyptian neutrality embittered British officials and prompted a confrontation between London and Cairo when General Rommel renewed the offensive in 1942 and captured El Alamein, only sixty miles from Alexandria. Fearing that Rommel might occupy Cairo, Farouk appointed Ali Maher, known to be sympathetic to Germany, as prime minister. Miles Lampson, the British ambassador in Cairo, insisted that Farouk appoint Nahas, who pledged to support Britain. Farouk hesitated, and on 4 February Lampson and General R. G. W. H. Stone, British commander in Egypt, surrounded Abdin Palace with tanks. With a contingent of guards, they marched past palace sentries and into Farouk’s private study, where they offered the king a choice between appointing Nahas or abdicating. Farouk appointed Nahas.¹⁶

Lampson’s humiliation of Farouk seemed to pacify Egypt for the remainder of the war. Nahas jailed Axis sympathizers and called parliamentary elections in which the Wafd won 231 of 264 seats. General Bernard Montgomery and the British Eighth Army triumphed over Rommel at El Alamein in November 1942 and soon drove Axis troops out of Egypt. Montgomery’s force and Allied troops under General Dwight D. Eisenhower then squeezed Rommel between them. Axis forces in Africa surrendered on 13 May 1943 and Egypt remained secure for the rest of the war.¹⁷

Beneath the appearance of calm, however, nationalism surged in wartime Egypt. The 4 February 1942 incident in which Farouk had been made to eat dirt, Egyptian journalist Mohammed Heikal recalled, had an electrifying effect on young officers of the army. particularly a lieutenant named Gamal Abdel Nasser. Another officer, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Naguib, tried to resign his commission in shame. Wafdists lost much of their popularity because they supported the British, and King Farouk avenged his humiliation of February 1942 by dismissing Nahas in late 1944 while Ambassador Lampson was absent from the country. During this period the Muslim Brotherhood, a secret society of Islamic fundamentalists founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, grew rapidly. A Sufi Muslim, al-Banna had declared jihad (holy war) to cleanse Egypt of Western ideas and values and to reintroduce Islamic ideals into Egyptian politics, economics, and society. In the late 1930s, al-Banna intensified his criticism of the British presence in the Nile Valley, and in the early 1940s the British briefly jailed him for fomenting political agitation. In response, al-Banna founded the Secret Apparatus. an extremist wing of the brotherhood anxious to use violence and suffer martyrdom to achieve its goals. By 1945, the brotherhood numbered five hundred thousand. As a demonstration of their strength and determination, members assassinated Prime Minister Ahmed Maher, Nahas’s successor, moments after he announced a declaration of war against the Axis on 24 February 1945.¹⁸

Wartime Egypt also experienced a surge in pan-Arab nationalism. Since the 1880s, Egyptian nationalists had concentrated on liberating their land from British influence, largely ignoring the demands of other Arab nationalists for independence from Ottoman rule. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1918–19, for example, Zaghlul demanded liberation of Egypt but not other Arab lands, in the late 1930s, the emerging controversy over Palestine raised Egyptian popular support for the idea of Arab unity, and during World War II both Nahas and Farouk endorsed the idea to serve their domestic political interests. Moreover, economic unification of the region under Britain’s Middle East Supply Centre (MESC), which directed wartime shipping and trade between Arab lands, underscored the material advantages of Arab unity.¹⁹

Egyptian leaders moved to the forefront of the Arab unification movement during the latter years of the war in response to Iraqi efforts to control the movement. In 1943, when Iraqi leader Nuri Said advocated a confederation of Hashimite countries, Nahas counterproposed the league of sovereign Arab states. Egyptian leaders argued that Egypt’s location at the center of the Arabic-speaking world, its stature as largest, wealthiest, and most populous Arab country, and its role in the struggle against British imperialism entitled them to lead the Arab unification movement. At a conference at Alexandria in September 1944, Nahas negotiated an agreement between Egypt, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Yemen to establish an Arab League. Founded in March 1945, it was designed to provide mutual defense, facilitate economic, social, and cultural interaction, and otherwise promote cooperation among Arab states.²⁰

When the war ended, the relationship between Britain and Egypt was awkward. Although nominally independent, Egypt was under British military occupation and political and economic domination. Dissatisfied by this situation, Egyptian nationalists hoped to purge imperialism from their homeland and elsewhere in the Arab world. As the Axis peril vanished in 1943–45, they determined to drive out the British. The British were unwilling to accommodate such demands because of the strategic value of Egypt, a value destined to increase when the British relinquished India. The ensuing conflict between Egyptian nationalism and British imperialism provided the backdrop to American policy making toward Egypt in the postwar period.

3: Commercial Rivalry, Egyptian Nationalism, and Strategic Interests: The United States and Anglo-Egyptian Disputes, 1937–1946

Between 1937 and 1946, American policy makers pursued conflicting objectives in Egypt. On one hand, as American economic interests in the Middle East surged in the late 1930s, officials in Washington became intolerant of British restrictions against American enterprise. They also sympathized with Egypt’s struggle for national independence. These interests were mutually reinforcing; championing Egyptian self-rule would weaken Britain’s commercial hegemony. On the other hand, American strategists deemed it essential that Britain maintain access to its communications and military facilities in the Suez Canal Zone.

From 1937 to 1946, American policy fluctuated between the conflicting objectives of satisfying Egyptian national aspirations and endorsing the maintenance of British military power in Egypt, in general, American officials remained interested in diminishing British political and commercial strength in Egypt, but strategic interests twice compelled them to endorse the British position. In 1940–42, when Axis military forces threatened to overrun Egypt and the Middle East, and again in 1946, when the Soviet Union emerged as an apparent expansionist power and potential adversary, American officials recognized the strategic value of the British position in the Canal Zone. Strategic interests prompted a shift from promotion of Egyptian national aspirations and American commercial enterprise toward preservation of British military rights in Egypt.

American Policy toward Egypt and Britain to 1945

During World War II, American policy toward the Anglo-Egyptian situation followed three themes. First, Britain’s military and political dominance in Egypt was viewed as a means to preserve Western interests in the region. After the outbreak of war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other top American officials depended on Britain to defend the Suez Canal and defeat Axis forces in northeast Africa. Second, American officials sought to compete with the British for commercial interests in Egypt. The competitive spirit emanated from the State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), directed since 1929 by career diplomat Wallace Murray, known for his determined pursuit of equal economic opportunity in the Middle East. Even Roosevelt advocated the open door by the end of the war. The conflicting tendencies of political-military cooperation and commercial competition coexisted, with cooperation greatest at those moments when the Axis threat to Western interests peaked and competitiveness renewed once the Axis peril receded. Third, American officials wished to improve bilateral relations with Egypt to enhance commercial opportunities and to elicit Egyptian cooperation with Western military initiatives. Friendly relations between Washington and Cairo were undermined, however, by various disputes.

Before the late 1930s, the United States took little interest in Egypt, implicitly endorsing Britain’s political and military presence there. Egypt is a charming place to be stationed, William J. fardine, the American minister in Cairo, wrote in 1932. As I see it there is not much going on here of tremendous consequence to my Government. ... it appears to me to be quite a sideshow. Even oil corporations, which pioneered American commercial development in the Middle East in the 1920s, neglected Egypt because of its paucity of oil reserves. In the late 1930s, some American officials privately criticized Britain’s dominance in Egypt but did not actively challenge it.¹

During the early years of World War II, when the threat of Axis victory was strongest, the United States explicitly endorsed British military and political dominance of Egypt because of the strategic value of the British military presence there. President Roosevelt admonished British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to defend the Suez Canal and provided Lend-Lease weapons and supplies, including aircraft, to British forces in Egypt. American personnel built Payne Field near Cairo as a base for the Air Transport Command and maintained a British air base at Deversoir. This aid helped the British repel the Axis invasions of Egypt and contributed to the Allied victory in North Africa in 1943.²

The American reaction to the 4 February 1942 incident demonstrated Washington’s support for British political strength in Egypt. After receiving the British ultimatum, King Farouk asked American Minister Alexander C. Kirk to endorse the principle of Egyptian self-government. Kirk promptly refused, impressing on Farouk that all political questions should be subordinated to the objective of defeating the Axis. Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles approved Kirk’s reply and rejected a suggestion from Wallace Murray that the State Department intercede in the confrontation. Welles doubted that our interest in the situation is sufficiently direct to warrant such direct intervention. . . . Egypt is so clearly within the British sphere of influence that the British Government very naturally would resent a demarche of this kind on our part. Churchill informed Roosevelt of the developments in Cairo, and the president apparently offered no criticism. Reeling from the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, top American officials refrained from any step that might disrupt the Anglo-American alliance.³

A friendly disposition toward London was also manifest in early American policy toward the Middle East Supply Centre. Britain established the MESC in 1941 to coordinate trade and delivery of war commodities between Arab states and in 1942 invited the United States to appoint two members to its board. Washington accepted the offer and submitted American trade practices to its purview. Frederick Winant, director of the State Department’s Division of Exports and Defense Aid, concluded that MESC contributed to Anglo-American extreme cordiality.⁴

Despite their support of Britain’s political and military dominance in Egypt, American officials remained commercially competitive with London. Even at the height of Axis peril in 1940 and 1941, Minister Kirk advised that American firms should seek to capture the Egyptian export and import trade from British companies. I can see large benefits from the political, economic, and financial standpoints, Kirk explained, of developing American-Egyptian relations on those bases not only for the purposes of the actual war effort but also as a possible impetus to a larger postwar trade in this entire area. In May 1942, Paul H. Ailing, deputy assistant of NEA, agreed that the United States must continue to assume greater responsibilities in Middle East commerce.⁵

Once the war in Africa ended, American commercial competitiveness intensified. In March 1944, President Roosevelt explained to James Landis, an American delegate on the MESC board, that the United States would pursue the economic open door in the Middle East and thus oppose any barrier preventing it from dealing openly and fairly with these territories in the exchange of goods and resources. Special privileges were inconsistent with the type of world for which this war is being fought. In early 1944, Minister Kirk pressured the Egyptians to revoke an oil tax that seemed to favor British companies and hurt American firms. In 1945, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Dean G. Acheson began to criticize the MESC because it gave Britain advantages in regional trade, limited American economic opportunities in the area, and set an undesirable precedent of trade controls. Britain wished to prolong the MESC to control postwar trade, but the United States abruptly terminated it in November 1945.⁶

American-British rivalry in the Middle East peaked during the last year of the war. In late 1944, government economist William S. Culbertson surveyed the potential for American postwar trade in the Middle East and urged that the United States demand equal commercial opportunities and a greater degree of political influence in the region. In April 1945, State Department officials told the new president, Harry S. Truman, that it has been our policy during the war to maintain security and stability [in the Middle East], in cooperation with Great Britain. Nevertheless, Roosevelt had approved a policy to encourage . . . the . . . countries of the Near and Middle East to obtain their independence. ... It is our intention to revert as quickly as possible, following the conclusion of hostilities, to the historic policy of the ‘Open Door’ and equality of opportunity in the region. British officials sensed the emerging American competitiveness. With their national genius for discovering motes in the eyes of others—particularly of the poor old British lion, Air Chief of Staff John Slessor privately commented in March 1945, the Americans have already complicated our problem in the Middle East.⁷

The coexistence of cooperation and competition in Anglo-American relations regarding Egypt resembled the fortunes of the alliance on other battle fronts. Historians of the wartime Anglo-American relationship have significantly modified the view perpetuated by Winston Churchill that the two powers enjoyed a harmonious special relationship during the war. Such revisionists have demonstrated that although London and Washington cooperated to an unusual degree in defeating Axis forces, they were