News to the Ambassador

One of the hotly debated details of the Suez crisis is whether Secretary of State Dulles provoked Egypt's Premier Nasser into seizing the Canal by a too-precipitate cancellation of U.S. funds for Egypt's dream project, the Aswan Dam. There is some evidence that Nasser had decided to nationalize the Canal long before Dulles canceled Aswan. Last week came evidence that Dulles' decision was so precipitate that the U.S. Ambassador in Cairo first learned about it from the newspapers.

Testimony to this effect was given to the Senate Foreign Relations-Armed Services Committee by the then ambassador, Henry Byroade, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian and African Affairs before going to Egypt in February 1955, and now Ambassador to South Africa. Other highlights of the dialogue between Byroade and the Senators, as released last week:

Q. Did you feel while you were in Egypt that your views were adequately considered in Washington policymaking?

A. I am sure they were, sir.

Q. Is the Middle East policy made mostly by the Secretary of State?

A. Well, I would say that he makes--he and the President make the decisions.

Q. You were not advised about the [Aswan cancellation] in advance?

A. No, sir. I was very quickly thereafter.

West Pointer Byroade, 43, a promising young Army brigadier general in World War II, said he thought the cancellation a "mistake," but frankly granted that his was a limited view: "An ambassador cannot know all the factors that may influence the final decision." Nonetheless, Byroade opened up a subject that could easily explode in headlines when the Senate gets down to its promised review of U.S. Middle Eastern policy.

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