THE TABLET November 24th, 1956. VOL. 208. No. 6079

Published as a Newspaper

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840 NOVEMBER 24th, 1956

NINEPENCE

M. Khrushchev’s Credulity: The Failure of the Marx-Leninist Alythus

Middle Eastern. Reports: I : Calm in Iran. By J. E. Alexander

I I : Vigilance in Turkey. By Derek Patm ore

Refugees from Hungary : T heir Reception in Austria. By Stella Musulin

American Catholics and the Intellectual Life: i i : By Mgr. John Tracy Ellis

The Humane Under-Sheriff: For the Feast of B. Cuthbert Mayne. By P. A. Boyan

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

TRANSFERRED INITIATIVE

TN Washington and New York these are fateful days,

following M. Hammarskjoeld’s visit to Cairo, when the position in the Middle East can be lost or won. The British and French Governments are not in the principal roles; indeed, it is their case that they have brought the truth out into the light of day, and have secured the cease-fire and separated the combatants, but they do not and cannot claim to have done more than that. When the Colonial Secretary declared on Saturday that Russia’s plans had been “ nipped in the bud,” this seemed to us unfortunately premature, for all will depend on the firmness with which a common front against “ volunteers ” or other penetration is maintained. Fortunately, President Eisenhower has made it plain, in a mildly phrased but highly important statement, that the United States would be opposed to the sending of volunteers from anywhere; and the Arab countries have seen the red light, and caught a glimpse of what might happen as the great Powers fought over their countries, as the European Powers fought over much of Egypt in the war; and the nations of the United Nations all feel the same distaste.

Britain and France, faced with pressure to withdraw, may quibble over what makes a United Nations force “ effective.” It is not the numbers but what such a force represents, and what Powers are in the last resort behind it. A small force will do in so far as Israel is not going to act against the wishes of the United Nations; but what Egypt will do is much less certain.

In the last brief hostilities, it is now established the Israelis had a good deal of modern French equipment, both for the ground and in the air, and that the French should have supported the Israelis against a power so hostile to them both as President Nasser’s Egypt was a natural and reasonable retaliation. The Israeli military appreciation is that the Egyptians were in the event positively handicapped by the extent of their modern armaments; they were attached to their mechanical equipment instead of it being attached to them; they could not handle it, and it was not being handled for them, and now a great deal of it has been lost. The British Government are no nearer to explaining why the essential business of making the world realise that behind Nasser was Russia, about to exploit to the full the device of volunteers, was approached so circuitously and in a way so full of disadvantages to this country. The Israelis were doing well in the field against two-thirds of the Egyptian forces; they are confident that in another two or three days they would have reached and destroyed the Egyptian airfields, located near the Canal, which Britain in fact intervened to bomb. Either there would have been such a marked Israeli victory as would have discredited Nasser for good, or the Russians would have begun to emerge, and that would have been the time for a threat of our intervention, with the newly-elected American President approving, if not at first taking part. Now Mr. Selwyn Lloyd is having a very difficult time trying to re-establish the Anglo-American front, and there is an obvious danger that that part of the British public which approved of the way its Government handled the crisis will want to blame the Americans, as well as the Opposition at home, for a discomforting anti-climax.

With their own electorate the British Government—whose leader is suffering from an overstrain that is all too understandable, and from which his critics no less than his supporters will wish him a speedy recovery—have managed to recover a great deal of the ground they seemed to have lost. This has been done by a vigorous and reiterated presentation of their military action as something that had to be decided exceedingly quickly when a sudden emergency blew up. No one else was in a position to act to stop the fighting between Egypt and Israel, so Britain and France acted, stopped the fighting, and handed over a much less dangerous position to the United Nations.

This version is a palimpsest, something written on top of another writing underneath. It is not at all the same as the original purpose in the Government’s mind. What that purpose was has been repeatedly avowed, when Ministers like Mr. Harold Macmillan have said that what determined them to support a resolute action was the memories of the ’thirties. As Mr. Macmillan said, “ I had seen it all before.” When Ministers saw Colonel Nasser arming and boasting