Anthony Eden

School

Eden was educated at two independent schools. The first was Sandroyd School in Cobham from 1907 to 1910, where he excelled in languages.^[20] He then started at Eton College in January 1911.^[21] There, he won a Divinity prize and excelled at cricket, rugby and rowing, winning House colours in the last.^[22]

Eden learned French and German on continental holidays, and as a child is said to have spoken French better than English.^[23] Although Eden was able to converse with Hitler in German in February 1934, and with the Chinese premier Chou En-lai in French at Geneva in 1954, he preferred, out of a sense of professionalism, to have interpreters to translate at formal meetings.^[24][25]

Although Eden later claimed to have had no interest in politics until the early 1920s, his teenage letters and diaries show him to have been obsessed with the subject. He was a strong, partisan Conservative, rejoicing in the defeat of Charles Masterman at a by-election in May 1913, and once astonishing his mother on a train journey by telling her the MP and the size of his majority for each constituency through which they passed.^[26] By 1914 he was a member of the Eton Society ("Pop").^[27]

First World War

During the Great War, Eden's elder brother, Lieutenant John Eden, was killed in action on 17 October 1914, at the age of 26, while serving with the 12th (Prince of Wales's Royal) Lancers. He is buried in Larch Wood (Railway Cutting) Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery in Belgium.^[28] His uncle Robin was later shot down and captured whilst serving with the Royal Flying Corps.^[29]

Volunteering for service the British Army, as did many others of his generation, Eden served with the 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC), a Kitchener's Army unit, initially recruited mainly from County Durham country labourers, who were increasingly replaced by Londoners after losses at the Somme in mid-1916.^[29] He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant on 2 November 1915 (antedated to 29 September 1915).^[30][31] His battalion transferred to the Western Front on 4 May 1916 as part of the 41st Division.^[29] On 31 May 1916, Eden's younger brother, Midshipman William Nicholas Eden, was killed in action, aged 16, on board HMS Indefatigable during the Battle of Jutland. He is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.^[32] His brother-in-law, Lord Brooke, was wounded during the war.^[29]

One summer night in 1916, near Ploegsteert, Eden had to lead a small raid into an enemy trench to kill or capture enemy soldiers, so as to identify the enemy units opposite. He and his men were pinned down in no man's land under enemy fire, his sergeant seriously wounded in the leg. Eden sent one man back to British lines to fetch another man and a stretcher, then he and three others carried the wounded sergeant back with, as he later put it in his memoirs, a "chilly feeling down our spines", unsure whether the Germans had not seen them in the dark or were chivalrously declining to fire. He omitted to mention that he had been awarded the Military Cross (MC) for the incident, something of which he had made little mention in his political career.^[33] On 18 September 1916, after the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme), he wrote to his mother "I have seen things lately that I am not likely to forget".^[29] On 3 October, he was appointed an adjutant, with the rank of temporary lieutenant for the duration of that appointment.^[34] At the age of 19, he was the youngest adjutant on the Western Front.^[29]

Eden's MC was gazetted in the 1917 Birthday Honours list.^[35][36] His battalion fought at Messines Ridge in June 1917.^[29] On 1 July 1917, Eden was confirmed as a temporary lieutenant,^[37] relinquishing his appointment as adjutant three days later.^[38] His battalion fought in the first few days of Third Battle of Ypres (31 July – 4 August).^[29] Between 20 and 23 September 1917 his battalion spent a few days on coastal defence on the Franco-Belgian border.^[29]

On 19 November, he was transferred to the General Staff as a General Staff Officer Grade 3 (GSO3), with the temporary rank of captain.^[39] He served at Second Army HQ, missing out on service in Italy, as the 41st Division was in Italy, after the disastrous Italian defeat at the Battle of Caporetto, between mid-November 1917 and 8 March 1918, returning to the Western Front, the main theatre of war, as a major German offensive was clearly imminent, only for Eden's former battalion to be disbanded to help alleviate the British Army's acute manpower shortage.^[29] Although David Lloyd George, then the British Prime Minister, was one of the few politicians of whom Eden reported front-line soldiers speaking highly, he wrote to his sister (23 December 1917) in disgust at his "wait and see twaddle" in declining to extend conscription to Ireland.^[40]

In March 1918, during the German Spring Offensive, he was stationed near La Fère on the Oise—opposite Adolf Hitler, as he learned at a conference in 1935.^[29][41] At one point, when brigade HQ was bombed by German aircraft, his companion told him "There now, you have had your first taste of the next war."^[42] On 26 May 1918 he was appointed brigade major of the 198th Infantry Brigade, part of the 66th Division.^[29][40] At the age of twenty, Eden was the youngest brigade major in the British Army.^[41]

He considered standing for Parliament at the end of the war, but the general election was called too early for this to be possible.^[41] After the Armistice with Germany, he spent the winter of 1918–19 in the Ardennes with his brigade; on 28 March 1919, he transferred to be brigade major of the 99th Infantry Brigade.^[29] Eden contemplated applying for a commission in the Regular Army, but they were very hard to come by, with the army contracting so rapidly. He initially shrugged off his mother's suggestion of studying at Oxford. He also rejected the thought of becoming a barrister; his preferred career alternatives at this stage were standing for Parliament for Bishop Auckland, the Civil Service in East Africa, or the Foreign Office.^[43] He was demobilised on 13 June 1919.^[29] He retained the rank of captain.^[44][45]

Oxford

The Uffizi Society Oxford, ca. 1920. First row standing: later Sir Henry Studholme (5th from left). Seated: Lord Balniel, later 28th Earl of Crawford (2nd from left); Ralph Dutton, later 8th Baron Sherborne (3rd from left); Anthony Eden, later Earl of Avon (4th from left); Lord David Cecil (5th from left).

Eden had dabbled in the study of Turkish with a family friend.^[46] After the war, he studied Oriental Languages (Persian and Arabic) at Christ Church, Oxford, starting in October 1919.^[47] Persian was his main, and Arabic his secondary, language. He studied under Richard Paset Dewhurst and David Samuel Margoliouth.^[46]

At Oxford, Eden took no part in student politics, and his main leisure interest at the time was art.^[47] Eden was in the Oxford University Dramatic Society and President of the Asiatic Society. Along with Lord David Cecil and R. E. Gathorne-Hardy he founded the Uffizi Society, of which he later became President. Possibly under the influence of his father he gave a paper on Cézanne, whose work was then not yet widely appreciated.^[46] Eden was already collecting paintings.^[47]

In July 1920, whilst still an undergraduate, Eden was recalled to military service as a lieutenant in the 6th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry.^[48] In the spring of 1921, once again as a temporary captain, he commanded local defence forces at Spennymoor as serious industrial unrest seemed possible.^[49][50] He again relinquished his commission on 8 July.^[51] He graduated from Oxford in June 1922 with a Double First.^[47] He continued to serve as an officer in the Territorial Army until May 1923.^[52]

1922–1924

Captain Eden, as he was still known, was selected to contest Spennymoor, as a Conservative. At first he had hoped to win (with some Liberal support as the Conservatives were still supporting Lloyd George's coalition government) but by the time of the November 1922 general election it was clear that the surge in the Labour vote made this unlikely.^[53] His main sponsor was the Marquess of Londonderry, a local coalowner. The seat went from Liberal to Labour.^[54]

Eden's father had died on 20 February 1915.^[55] As a younger son, he had inherited capital of £7,675 and in 1922 he had a private income of £706 after tax (approximately £375,000 and £35,000 at 2014 prices).^[49][56]

Eden read the writings of Lord Curzon and was hoping to emulate him by entering politics with a view to specialising in foreign affairs.^[57] Eden married Beatrice Beckett in the autumn of 1923, and after a two-day honeymoon in Essex, he was selected to fight Warwick and Leamington for a by-election in November 1923. His Labour opponent, Daisy Greville Countess of Warwick, was by coincidence his sister Elfrida's mother-in-law and also mother to his wife's step-mother, Marjorie Blanche Eve Beckett née Greville.^[58] On 16 November 1923, during the by-election campaign, Parliament was dissolved for the December 1923 general election.^[59] He was elected to Parliament at the age of twenty-six.^[60]

The first Labour Government, under Ramsay MacDonald, took office in January 1924. Eden's maiden speech (19 February 1924) was a controversial attack on Labour's defence policy and was heckled, and thereafter he was careful to speak only after deep preparation.^[60] He later reprinted the speech in a collection called Foreign Affairs (1939) to give an impression that he had been a consistent advocate of air strength. Eden admired H. H. Asquith, then in his final year in the Commons, for his lucidity and brevity. On 1 April 1924 he spoke urging Anglo-Turkish friendship and ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne, which had been signed in July 1923.^[61]

1924–1929

The Conservatives returned to power at the 1924 General Election. In January 1925 Eden, disappointed not to have been offered a position, went on a tour of the Middle East, meeting Emir Feisal of Iraq. Feisal reminded him of the "Czar of Russia & (I) suspect that his fate may be similar" (a similar fate did indeed befall the Iraqi Royal Family in 1958). He inspected the oil refinery at Abadan, which he likened to "a Swansea on a small scale".^[62]

He was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Godfrey Locker-Lampson, Under-Secretary at the Home Office (17 February 1925) (serving under Home Secretary William Joynson Hicks).^[63] In July 1925 he went on a second trip to Canada, Australia and India.^[62] He wrote articles for The Yorkshire Post (controlled by his father-in-law Sir Gervase Beckett) under the pseudonym "Backbencher".^[61] In September 1925 he represented the Yorkshire Post at the Imperial Conference at Melbourne.^[64]

Eden continued to be PPS to Locker-Lampson when the latter was appointed Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office in December 1925.^[63] He distinguished himself with a speech on the Middle East (21 December 1925),^[65] calling for the readjustment of Iraqi frontiers in favour of Turkey, but also for a continued British mandate rather than "scuttle". Eden ended his speech by calling for Anglo-Turkish friendship. On 23 March 1926 he spoke urging the League of Nations to admit Germany, which would happen the following year.^[66] In July 1926 he became PPS to the Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain.^[67]

Besides supplementing his parliamentary income (around £300 a year at that time) by writing and journalism, in 1926 he published a book about his travels, Places in the Sun, highly critical of the detrimental effect of socialism on Australia, and to which Stanley Baldwin wrote a foreword.^[68]

In November 1928, with Austen Chamberlain away on a voyage to recover his health, Eden had to speak for the government in a debate on a recent Anglo-French naval agreement, replying to Ramsay MacDonald (then Leader of the Opposition).^[69] According to Austen Chamberlain, he would have been promoted to his first ministerial job, Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, if the Conservatives had won the 1929 election.^[70]

1929–1931

The 1929 General Election was the only time Eden received less than 50% of the vote at Warwick.^[71] After the Conservative defeat he joined a progressive group of younger politicians consisting of Oliver Stanley, William Ormsby-Gore and the future Speaker W.S. "Shakes" Morrison. Another member was Noel Skelton, who before his death coined the phrase "property-owning democracy", which Eden was later to popularise as a Conservative party aspiration. Eden advocated co-partnership in industry between managers and workers, whom he wanted to be given shares.^[70]

In opposition between 1929 and 1931 Eden worked as a City broker for Harry Lucas (a firm eventually absorbed into S. G. Warburg & Co.).^[68]

In opposition (1945–1951)

After the Labour Party won the 1945 election, Eden went into opposition as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party. Many felt that Churchill should have retired and allowed Eden to become party leader, but Churchill refused to consider this. As early as the spring of 1946, Eden openly asked Churchill to retire in his favour.^[94] He was in any case depressed during this period by the break-up of his first marriage and the death of his eldest son. Churchill was in many ways only "part-time Leader of the Opposition",^[4] given his many journeys abroad and his literary work, and left the day-to-day work largely to Eden. Eden was largely regarded as lacking sense of party politics and contact with the common man.^[95] In these opposition years, however, he developed some knowledge about domestic affairs and created the idea of a "property-owning-democracy", which Margaret Thatcher's government attempted to achieve decades later. His domestic agenda is overall considered centre-left.^[4]

Return to government, 1951–1955

In 1951 the Conservatives returned to office and Eden became Foreign Secretary for a third time, though not "Deputy Prime Minister" (Churchill gave him this title in the first list of ministers submitted to the King, but the King forbade it on the grounds that this "office" is unknown to the Constitution). Churchill was largely a figurehead in this government, and Eden had effective control of British foreign policy for the second time, as the Empire declined and the Cold War grew more intense.

Eden's biographer Richard Lamb said that Eden bullied Churchill into going back on commitments to European unity made in opposition. The truth appears to be more complex. Britain was still a world power, or at least trying to be, in 1945–55, with the concept of sovereignty not as discredited as on the continent. The United States encouraged moves towards European federalism as it wanted to withdraw US troops and get the Germans rearmed under supervision. Eden was less Atlanticist than Churchill and had little time for European federalism. He wanted firm alliances with France and other Western European powers to contain Germany.^[96] Half of British trade at that time was with the sterling area, and only a quarter with Western Europe. Despite later talk of "lost opportunities", even Macmillan, who had been an active member of the "European Movement" after the war, acknowledged in February 1952 that Britain's relationship with the United States and the Commonwealth would prevent her from joining a federal Europe at that time.^[97] Eden was also irritated by Churchill's hankering for a summit meeting with the USSR, during the period in 1953 after Stalin's death and whilst Eden was seriously ill from a botched bile duct operation.^[97]

Despite the ending of the British Raj in India, British interest in the Middle East remained strong: Britain had treaty relations with Jordan and Iraq and was the protecting power for Kuwait and the Trucial States, the colonial power in Aden, and the occupying power in the Suez Canal. Many right-wing Conservative MPs, organised in the so-called Suez Group, sought to retain this imperial role, though economic pressures made maintenance of it increasingly difficult. Britain did seek to maintain its huge military base in the Suez Canal zone and, in the face of Egyptian resentment, further develop its alliance with Iraq, and the hope was that the Americans would assist Britain, possibly through finance. While the Americans did co-operate with the British in overthrowing the Mosaddegh government in Iran, after it had nationalised British oil interests, the Americans developed their own relations in the region, taking a positive view of the Egyptian Free Officers and developing friendly relations with Saudi Arabia. Britain was eventually forced to withdraw from the canal zone and the Baghdad Pact security treaty was not supported by the United States, leaving Eden vulnerable to the charge of having failed to maintain British prestige.^[98]

Eden had grave misgivings about American foreign policy under Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower was concerned, as early as March 1953, at the escalating costs of defence and the increase of state power which this would bring.^[99] Eden was irked by Dulles's policy of "brinkmanship", or display of muscle, in relations with the Communist world. The success of the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina ranks as the outstanding achievement of his third term in the Foreign Office, although he was critical of the United States decision not to sign the accord. During the summer and fall of 1954, the Anglo-Egyptian agreement to withdraw all British forces from Egypt was also negotiated and ratified.

There were concerns that if the EDC was not ratified as they wanted, the Republican administration in the United States might withdraw into defending only the Western Hemisphere (although recent documentary evidence confirms that the US intended to withdraw troops from Europe anyway if the EDC was ratified).^[99] After the French Assembly rejected the EDC in September 1954, Eden tried to come up with a viable alternative. Between 11 and 17 September he visited every major West European capital, to negotiate West Germany becoming a sovereign state and entering the Brussels pact prior to entering NATO. Paul-Henri Spaak said he "saved the Atlantic alliance".^[100]

In 1954 he was appointed to the Order of the Garter^[101] and became Sir Anthony Eden.

Suez (1956)

The alliance with the US proved not universal, however, when in July 1956 Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt, unexpectedly nationalised the Suez Canal, following the withdrawal of Anglo-American funding for the Aswan Dam. Eden believed the nationalisation was in violation of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement that Nasser had signed with the British and French governments on 19 October 1954. This view was shared by Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell and Liberal leader Jo Grimond.^[103] In 1956 the Suez Canal was of vital importance since over two-thirds of the oil supplies of Western Europe (60 million tons annually) passed through it, with 15,000 ships a year, one-third of them British; three-quarters of all Canal shipping belonged to NATO countries. Britain's total oil reserve at the time of the nationalisation was enough for only six weeks.^[104] The Soviet Union was certain to veto any sanctions against Nasser at the United Nations. Britain and a conference of other nations met in London following the nationalisation in an attempt to resolve the crisis through diplomatic means. However, the Eighteen Nations Proposals, including an offer of Egyptian representation on the board of the Suez Canal Company and a share of profits, were rejected by Nasser.^[105] Eden feared that Nasser intended to form an Arab Alliance that would threaten to cut off oil supplies to Europe and, in conjunction with France, decided he should be removed from power.^[106]

Eden, drawing on his experience in the 1930s, saw Nasser as another Mussolini, considering the two men aggressive nationalist socialists determined to invade other countries. Others believed that Nasser was acting from legitimate patriotic concerns and the nationalisation was determined by the Foreign Office to be deliberately provocative but not illegal. The Attorney General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, was not asked for his opinion officially but made his view that the government's contemplated armed strike against Egypt would be unlawful known through the Lord Chancellor.^[107]

Anthony Nutting recalled that Eden told him, "What's all this nonsense about isolating Nasser or 'neutralising' him as you call it? I want him destroyed, can't you understand? I want him murdered, and if you and the Foreign Office don't agree, then you'd better come to the cabinet and explain why." When Nutting pointed out that they had no alternative government to replace Nasser, Eden apparently replied, "I don't give a damn if there's anarchy and chaos in Egypt."^[108] At a private meeting at Downing Street on 16 October 1956 Eden showed several ministers a plan, submitted two days earlier by the French. Israel would invade Egypt, Britain and France would give an ultimatum telling both sides to stop and, when one refused, send in forces to enforce the ultimatum, separate the two sides – and occupy the Canal and get rid of Nasser. When Nutting suggested the Americans should be consulted Eden replied, "I will not bring the Americans into this ... Dulles has done enough damage as it is. This has nothing to do with the Americans. We and the French must decide what to do and we alone."^[109] Eden openly admitted his view of the crisis was shaped by his experiences in the two world wars, writing, "We are all marked to some extent by the stamp of our generation, mine is that of the assassination in Sarajevo and all that flowed from it. It is impossible to read the record now and not feel that we had a responsibility for always being a lap behind ... Always a lap behind, a fatal lap."^[110]

There was no question of an immediate military response to the crisis – Cyprus had no deep-water harbours, which meant that Malta, several days' sailing from Egypt, would have to be the main concentration point for an invasion fleet if the Libyan government would not permit a land invasion from its territory.^[104] Eden initially considered using British forces in the Kingdom of Libya to regain the Canal, but then decided this risked inflaming Arab opinion.^[111] Unlike the French prime minister Guy Mollet, who saw regaining the Canal as the primary objective, Eden believed the real need was to remove Nasser from office. He hoped that if the Egyptian army was swiftly and humiliatingly defeated by the Anglo-French forces the Egyptian people would rise up against Nasser. Eden told Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery that the overall aim of the mission was simply, "To knock Nasser off his perch."^[112] In the absence of a popular uprising Eden and Mollet would say that Egyptian forces were incapable of defending their country and therefore Anglo-French forces would have to return to guard the Suez Canal.

Eden believed that if Nasser were seen to get away with seizing the Canal then Egypt and other Arab countries might move closer to the Soviet Union. At that time, the Middle East accounted for 80–90 percent of Western Europe's oil supply. If Nasser were seen to get away with it, then other Middle East countries might be encouraged to nationalise their oil. The invasion, he contended at the time, and again in a 1967 interview, was aimed at maintaining the sanctity of international agreements and at preventing future unilateral denunciation of treaties.^[83] Eden was energetic during the crisis in using the media, including the BBC, to incite public opinion to support his views of the need to overthrow Nasser.^[113] In September 1956 a plan was drawn up to reduce the flow of water in the Nile by using dams in an attempt to damage Nasser's position. However, the plan was abandoned because it would take months to implement, and due to fears that it could affect other countries such as Uganda and Kenya.^[114]

On 25 September 1956, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan met informally with President Eisenhower at the White House; he misread Eisenhower's determination to avoid war and told Eden that the Americans would not in any way oppose the attempt to topple Nasser.^[115] Though Eden had known Eisenhower for years and had many direct contacts during the crisis, he also misread the situation. The Americans saw themselves as the champion of decolonization and refused to support any move that could be seen as imperialism or colonialism. Eisenhower felt the crisis had to be handled peacefully; he told Eden that American public opinion would not support a military solution. Eden and other leading British officials incorrectly believed Nasser's support for Palestinian terrorists against Israel, as well as his attempts to destabilise pro-western regimes in Iraq and other Arab states, would deter the US from intervening with the operation. Eisenhower specifically warned that the Americans, and the world, "would be outraged" unless all peaceful routes had been exhausted, and even then "the eventual price might become far too heavy".^[116][117] At the root of the problem was the fact that Eden felt that Britain was still an independent world power. His lack of sympathy for British integration into Europe, manifested in his scepticism about the fledgling European Economic Community (EEC), was another aspect of his belief in Britain's independent role in world affairs.

Israel invaded the Sinai peninsula at the end of October 1956. Britain and France moved in ostensibly to separate the two sides and bring peace, but in fact to regain control of the canal and overthrow Nasser. The United States immediately and strongly opposed the invasion. The United Nations denounced the invasion, the Soviets were bellicose, and only New Zealand, Australia, West Germany and South Africa spoke out for Britain's position.^[118][119]

The Suez Canal was of lesser economic importance to the USA, which acquired 15 percent of its oil through that route. Eisenhower wanted to broker international peace in "fragile" regions. He did not see Nasser as a serious threat to the West, but he was concerned that the Soviets, who were well known to want a permanent warm water base for their Black Sea fleet in the Mediterranean, might side with Egypt. Eisenhower feared a pro-Soviet backlash amongst the Arab nations if, as seemed likely, Egypt suffered an humiliating defeat at the hands of the British, French and Israelis.^[120]

Eden, who faced domestic pressure from his party to take action, as well as stopping the decline of British influence in the Middle East,^[4] had ignored Britain's financial dependence on the US in the wake of the Second World War, and had assumed the US would automatically endorse whatever action taken by its closest ally. At the 'Law not War' rally in Trafalgar Square on 4 November 1956, Eden was ridiculed by Aneurin Bevan: 'Sir Anthony Eden has been pretending that he is now invading Egypt to strengthen the United Nations. Every burglar of course could say the same thing; he could argue that he was entering the house to train the police. So, if Sir Anthony Eden is sincere in what he is saying, and he may be, then he is too stupid to be a prime minister'. Public opinion was mixed; some historians think that the majority of public opinion in the UK was on Eden's side.^[121] Eden was forced to bow to American diplomatic and financial pressure, and protests at home, by calling a ceasefire when Anglo-French forces had captured only 23 miles of the Canal. With the US threatening to withdraw financial support from sterling, the Cabinet divided and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan threatening to resign unless an immediate ceasefire was called, Eden was under immense pressure. He considered defying the calls until the commander on the ground told him it could take up to six days for the Anglo-French troops to secure the entire Canal zone. Therefore, a ceasefire was called at quarter past midnight on 7 November.

In his 1987 book Spycatcher Peter Wright said that, following the imposed ending to the military operation, Eden reactivated the assassination option for a second time. By this time virtually all MI6 agents in Egypt had been rounded up by Nasser, and a new operation, using renegade Egyptian officers, was drawn up. It failed principally because the cache of weapons which had been hidden on the outskirts of Cairo was found to be defective.^[122]

Suez damaged Eden's reputation for statesmanship, in many eyes, and led to a breakdown in his health. He went on vacation to Jamaica in November 1956, at a time when he was still determined to soldier on as Prime Minister. His health, however, did not improve, and during his absence from London his Chancellor Harold Macmillan and Rab Butler worked to manoeuvre him out of office. On the morning of the ceasefire Eisenhower agreed to meet with Eden to publicly resolve their differences, but this offer was later withdrawn after Secretary of State Dulles advised that it could inflame the Middle Eastern situation further.^[123]

The Observer newspaper accused Eden of lying to Parliament over the Suez Crisis, while MPs from all parties criticised his calling a ceasefire before the Canal was taken. Churchill, while publicly supportive of Eden's actions, privately criticised his successor for not seeing the military operation through to its conclusion. Eden easily survived a vote of confidence in the House of Commons on 8 November.^[123]

Britain–France rejected plan for union

British Government cabinet papers from September 1956, during Eden's term as Prime Minister, have shown that French Prime Minister Guy Mollet approached the British Government suggesting the idea of an economic and political union between France and Great Britain.^[142] This was a similar offer, in reverse, to that made by Churchill (drawing on a plan devised by Leo Amery^[143]) in June 1940.^[144]

The offer by Guy Mollet was referred to by Sir John Colville, Churchill's former private secretary, in his collected diaries, The Fringes of Power (1985), his having gleaned the information in 1957 from Air Chief Marshal Sir William Dickson during an air flight (and, according to Colville, after several whiskies and soda).^[145] Mollet's request for Union with Britain was rejected by Eden, but the additional possibility of France joining the Commonwealth of Nations was considered, although similarly rejected. Colville noted, in respect of Suez, that Eden and his Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd "felt still more beholden to the French on account of this offer".^[145]

Memoirs

In retirement Eden corresponded with Selwyn Lloyd, coordinating the release of information and with which writers they would agree to speak and when. Rumours that Britain had colluded with France and Israel appeared, albeit in garbled form, as early as 1957. By the 1970s they had agreed that Lloyd would only tell his version of the story after Eden's death (in the event, Lloyd would outlive Eden by a year, struggling with terminal illness to complete his own memoirs).^[156]

In retirement Eden was particularly bitter that Eisenhower had initially indicated British and French troops should be allowed to remain around Port Said, only for the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr to press for an immediate withdrawal at the UN, thereby rendering the operation a complete failure. Eden felt the Eisenhower administration's unexpected opposition was hypocritical in light of the 1953 Iranian coup d'état and the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.

Eden published three volumes of political memoirs, in which he denied that there had been any collusion with France and Israel. Like Churchill, Eden relied heavily on the ghost-writing of young researchers, whose drafts he would sometimes toss angrily into the flowerbeds outside his study. One of them was the young David Dilks.^[151]

In his view, American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, whom he particularly disliked, was responsible for the ill fate of the Suez adventure. In an October press conference, barely three weeks before the fighting began, Dulles had coupled the Suez Canal issue with colonialism, and his statement infuriated Eden and much of the UK as well. "The dispute over Nasser's seizure of the canal," wrote Eden, "had, of course, nothing to do with colonialism, but was concerned with international rights." He added that "if the United States had to defend her treaty rights in the Panama Canal, she would not regard such action as colonialism."^[157] His lack of candour further diminished his standing and a principal concern in his later years was trying to rebuild his reputation that was severely damaged by Suez, sometimes taking legal action to protect his viewpoint.^[4]

Eden faulted the United States for forcing him to withdraw, but he took credit for United Nations action in patrolling the Israeli-Egyptian borders. Eden said of the invasion, "Peace at any price has never averted war. We must not repeat the mistakes of the pre-war years, by behaving as though the enemies of peace and order are armed with only good intentions." Recalling the incident in a 1967 interview, he declared, "I am still unrepentant about Suez. People never look at what would have happened if we had done nothing. There is a parallel with the 1930s. If you allow people to break agreements with impunity, the appetite grows to feed on such things. I don't see what other we ought to have done. One cannot dodge. It is hard to act rather than dodge."^[83] In his 1967 interview (which he stipulated would not be used until after his death), Eden acknowledged secret dealings with the French and "intimations" of the Israeli attack. He insisted, however, that "the joint enterprise and the preparations for it were justified in the light of the wrongs it [the Anglo-French invasion] was designed to prevent." "I have no apologies to offer," Eden declared.^[83]

At the time of his retirement, Eden had been short of money, although he was paid a £100,000 advance for his memoirs by The Times, with any profit over this amount to be split between himself and the newspaper. By 1970, they had brought him £185,000 (around £3,000,000 at 2014 prices), leaving him a wealthy man for the first time in his life. Towards the end of his life, he published a personal memoir of his early life, Another World (1976).^[56][158]

Relationships

On 5 November 1923, shortly before his election to Parliament, he married Beatrice Beckett, who was then eighteen.^[159] They had three sons: Simon Gascoigne (1924–1945), Robert, who died fifteen minutes after being born in October 1928, and Nicholas (1930–1985).^[160]

The marriage was not a success, with both parties apparently conducting affairs. By the mid-1930s his diaries seldom mention Beatrice.^[161] The marriage finally broke up under the strain of the loss of their son Simon, who was killed in action with the RAF in Burma in 1945. His plane was reported "missing in action" on 23 June and found on 16 July; Eden did not want the news to be public until after the election result on 26 July, to avoid claims of "making political capital" from it.^[162]

Between 1946 and 1950, whilst separated from his wife, Eden conducted an open affair with Dorothy, Countess Beatty, the wife of David, Earl Beatty. ^[163]

Eden was the great-great-grandnephew of author Emily Eden and in 1947, wrote an introduction to her novel The Semi-Attached Couple (1860).^[164]

In 1950, Eden and Beatrice were finally divorced, and in 1952, he married Churchill's niece Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, a nominal Roman Catholic who was fiercely criticised by Catholic writer Evelyn Waugh for marrying a divorced man. Eden's second marriage was much more successful than his first had been.

Problems with health

Eden had an ulcer, exacerbated by overwork, as early as the 1920s.^[165] His life was changed by a medical mishap: during an operation on 12 April 1953, to remove gallstones, his bile duct was damaged, leaving Eden susceptible to recurrent infections, biliary obstruction, and liver failure. The physician consulted at the time was the royal physician, Sir Horace Evans, 1st Baron Evans. Three surgeons were recommended and Eden chose the one that had previously performed his appendectomy, John Basil Hume, surgeon from St Bartholomew's Hospital.^[166] Eden suffered from cholangitis, an abdominal infection which became so agonising that he was admitted to hospital in 1956 with a temperature reaching 106 °F (41 °C). He required major surgery on three or four occasions to alleviate the problem.^[167]

He was also prescribed Benzedrine, the wonder drug of the 1950s. Regarded then as a harmless stimulant, it belongs to the family of drugs called amphetamines, and at that time they were prescribed and used in a very casual way. Among the side effects of Benzedrine are insomnia, restlessness, and mood swings, all of which Eden suffered during the Suez Crisis; indeed, earlier in his premiership he complained of being kept awake at night by the sound of motor scooters.^[168] Eden's drug use is now commonly agreed to have been a part of the reason for his bad judgment while Prime Minister.^[4] The Thorpe biography, however, denied Eden's abuse of Benzedrine, stating that the allegations were "untrue, as is made clear by Eden's medical records at Birmingham University, not yet [at the time] available for research".^[9]

The resignation document written by Eden for release to the Cabinet on 9 January 1957 admitted his dependence on stimulants but not that they affected his judgement during the Suez crisis in the autumn of 1956. "... I have been obliged to increase the drugs [taken after the "bad abdominal operations"] considerably and also increase the stimulants necessary to counteract the drugs. This has finally had an adverse effect on my precarious inside," he wrote. However, in his book The Suez Affair (1966), historian Hugh Thomas, quoted by David Owen, CH, PC, FRCP, claimed that Eden had revealed to a colleague that he was "practically living on Benzedrine" at the time.^[169]

Primary sources

• Boyle, Peter. Eden-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1955-1957 (2005) 230p.