Eisenhower 1956: The President's Year of Crisis: Suez and the Brink of War

Making a well-documented case that the Suez crisis and the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary destabilized the cold war's balance of power, Eisenhower scholar Nichols (A Matter of Justice) presents a day-by-day and hour-by-hour depiction of these events. He draws on newly declassified documents to describe with rare accuracy and immediacy how Eisenhower, recovering from a heart attack and major surgery, acted with intelligence and foresight to defuse the threats. Nichols also provides the policy background to underscore the crisis's magnitude. His linear narrative keeps the reader on track despite the many cross currents: Egypt's flirtation with the Soviet Union, the British and French governments' "program of deception," and an Israel unwilling to agree to a cease-fire. As France and Britain's actions escalated the crisis, Eisenhower threatened potentially draconian sanctions, such as withholding financial aid and oil from the Europeans, in order to secure a cease-fire. Nichols rightly emphasizes the end result of the crisis, the Eisenhower doctrine, which placed the U.S. in the role of guarantor of Middle East stability, a policy that has remained in place for more than half a century. 8 pages of b&w photos; map. (Mar.)