Dawn Over Suez

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 23 MAR 1992

Freiberger describes how President Dwight Eisenhower forced the withdrawal of British and French invasion forces from Suez in 1956 and used the crisis to pressure Prime Minister Anthony Eden from office, to be replaced by the pro-American Harold Macmillan. The reasons for the president's well-publicized anger are brought clearly into focus: the invasion thwarted the U.S.'s plans to eliminate Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser, ruined CIA operations in Syria, and may have cost Eisenhower votes in his '56 reelection campaign. In this thoroughly researched and penetrating study, based on documents recently released by the British Public Records Office, Freiberger argues that the apparently anti-colonial U.S. policy was actually a scheme to replace the British in the region and block Soviet expansion. But Washington's attempts to isolate Nasser only inflated his prestige in the Arab world, while the Eisenhower Doctrine--the commitment to provide military and economic aid to Middle East countries threatened by communism--was interpreted as an American version of colonialism. Freiberger teaches history at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire.