405. Letter From President Eisenhower to Captain E.E. Hazlett1
[Here follow the President’s comments on unrelated subjects.]
Since July 25th [26th] of 1956, when Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez, I cannot remember a day that has not brought its major or minor crisis. Some of these have been handled in secret; that is, no explanation or recitation of fact is possible for the simple reason that to bring some of them out in the open would cause as much trouble as the wrong answer. For example, had we published an account of the long, patient and hard work we did with the British and French, as well as the Israeli, in order to prevent the attack on Egypt and in making plain what would be our attitude in the event that such an attack was undertaken, there would have been the greatest political trouble in Britain, and probably in France. So we just had to let people think that we acted on the spur of the moment and astonished our friends by taking the action we did. Actually, they knew exactly what we’d do.
[Here follow the President’s comments on unrelated subjects.]
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Name Series, Hazlett, Swede. Personal.↩