Suez Canal

The Suez Canal is an approximately 193-kilometer artificial waterway in northeastern Egypt connecting the Mediterranean Sea at Port Said to the Red Sea at Port Tewfiq (Suez). It was constructed under Khedive Ismail by the Suez Canal Company (a French-Egyptian joint venture) and opened November 17, 1869. The Canal eliminates the need for shipping to circumnavigate Africa, reducing the voyage from Europe to Asia by approximately 7,000 kilometers, making it one of the most strategically significant waterways in the world. The United Kingdom became the largest single shareholder in the Suez Canal Company in 1875 when Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli purchased the Egyptian Khedive's shares for approximately £4 million.¹

British Occupation and the Run-Up to Crisis

Egypt's effective occupation by British forces from 1882 centered on the Canal Zone as its primary strategic asset. British troops remained in the Canal Zone under treaty provisions even after formal Egyptian independence, and the base became the largest British military installation in the world by the early 1950s. Gamal Abdel Nasser's coup of July 1952 and subsequent consolidation of power produced a new Egyptian government that demanded British withdrawal from the Canal Zone. A 1954 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement provided for British withdrawal by June 1956, which was completed on schedule - leaving the Canal under nominal Egyptian sovereignty for the first time.

Nasser's nationalization announcement came on July 26, 1956, in a speech in Alexandria, in retaliation for the U.S. and British withdrawal of funding for the Aswan High Dam following Nasser's arms deal with Czechoslovakia (a Soviet proxy) and his recognition of the People's Republic of China. The nationalization of the Canal Company - seizing an asset valued at hundreds of millions of pounds - precipitated the crisis.²

The 1956 Suez Crisis and Its Intelligence Dimensions

The United Kingdom, France, and Israel covertly coordinated an invasion plan at the Sevres Conference (October 22-24, 1956). Under the plan, Israel would attack across the Sinai toward the Canal; Britain and France would then issue an ultimatum to both sides to withdraw from the Canal Zone, use Israeli non-compliance as a pretext, and invade to "separate the combatants" while retaking the Canal.

Israeli forces attacked on October 29, 1956. British and French forces began bombing Egypt on October 31 and landed paratroopers at Port Said on November 5. The military operation was succeeding when U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, furious at the deception and alarmed at the Soviet threat to intervene, forced a ceasefire through economic pressure - threatening to support an International Monetary Fund sterling crisis that would collapse the pound. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden capitulated and announced a ceasefire on November 6; French and Israeli forces also withdrew.

The CIA station in Cairo had advance knowledge that an operation was being planned but was deliberately kept ignorant of its details by the British MI6 and the French SDECE. CIA Director Allen Dulles learned of the invasion from news reports. The episode produced a serious rupture in Anglo-American intelligence relations and accelerated British acceptance of permanent subordination to American strategic preferences.¹

Post-Crisis Significance

The Suez Crisis marked the definitive end of British and French pretension to independent great-power status. The Canal was closed from the outbreak of fighting until April 1957. It was closed again from the Six-Day War of June 1967 until 1975, when the UN-supervised clearing operation completed. The 1967 war, in which Israel again crossed the Sinai, brought Israeli forces to the eastern bank of the Canal, which became the front line of the War of Attrition (1967-1970) - a sustained artillery and air campaign across the waterway. The 1973 Yom Kippur War began with Egyptian forces crossing the Canal under cover of a coordinated deception operation that surprised both the Israeli intelligence establishment and the CIA.²