Leaving the Suez

After 72 years the British were resigned to quitting the troubled Suez Canal Zone; the Egyptians would be happy to see them go. Last week, for the first time since talks collapsed nine months ago, shirtsleeved negotiators sat down together, cooled by a single fan, in a rented Cairo villa. At last they seemed to be getting somewhere.

The base ties down, in expensive, debilitating idleness, 80,000 of Britain's best troops, some of whom might be used better in Malaya and elsewhere. The 5,000-sq. mi. area, crammed with men and materiel, is a sitting duck for a thermonuclear attack; the Queen's Middle East forces would be deployed in Libya, Cyprus and Jordan.

Give & Take. This time the British offered to evacuate the zone completely, leaving only 1,000 caretaker technicians who would be civilians, clad in mufti. The Egyptian military junta presided over by Colonel Abdel Nasser gave way a little too: formerly they would only allow the British to reoccupy the base in case of danger to any Arab state; now an attack on NATO partner Turkey would be sufficient grounds. The other outstanding differences could be settled if the atmosphere stayed friendly: the British ask two years to evacuate the zone and Egypt is offering less than 18 months. The British want to include Iran in the "danger zone"; Egypt demurs. The British ask that the new arrangement last for 20 years; Egypt insists on seven years.

Conciliation in Cairo last week brought discord in London. Tory backbenchers were up in arms. Led by the mustachioed military figure of Captain Charles Waterhouse, 41 Tories delivered an ultimatum: they would split the Tory Party over a Suez settlement.

Prestige & Folly. Revolts are rare events on the Tory side. Next day Sir Winston Churchill walked into a packed Commons committee room to face the objectors. The rebels had always regarded Anthony Eden as their enemy and the old imperialist Prime Minister as their secret friend. Had he not thundered that he would not preside at the liquidation of the Empire? Churchill sat back while his War Secretary, Antony Head, explained on a map why the H-bomb's destructive radius would make the base untenable in a major war. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rab Butler then got up to say that he was not prepared to continue spending -L-50 million yearly to maintain the canal base as an imperial monument.

Then it was the old man's turn. "You cannot maintain prestige with folly,'' said Churchill warmly, and the rebels knew their hope was gone. Nonetheless, the rebels stood their ground. Next day one of them, onetime Guards Major Edward Legge-Bourke, formally quit the Tory Party and said he would sit as an Independent. "From Palestine, from Burma, from India, from Persia, from the Sudan and now from Egypt the ignominious retreat has gone on," the major cried. "Where next are we to be pushed from?" Despite all the bluster from the rear, the Tories should be able to get a majority for a Suez agreement. They can count on heavy support from the Socialists, who first proposed evacuation eight years ago and were chided by Churchill for their "great shame and folly."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.