What Eisenhower and Dulles Saw in Nasser

Middle East Policy Council

The Council’s Capitol Hill conference this quarter examined whether there is a U.S. Grand Strategy for the Middle East.  It was generally agreed that there is none—and that it might be inappropriate in any case.  It is instructive to look back at a time when there was an overarching strategy in foreign policy — the Eisenhower presidency.  Ike is said to be admired by the like-minded centrist Republican Chuck Hagel, the Obama nominee for secretary of defense.  This offers an opportunity to look back at the world of the 1950s — the Cold War, the twilight of British colonialism, the inception of the Arab-Israeli dispute and the competition for leadership of the Arab world.  At that time, U.S. Middle East policy was largely based on Europe’s oil supply and the possibility of a Soviet threat to it.

Here is an article from our journal that explains an important chapter in American foreign policy: 

What Eisenhower and Dulles Saw in Nasser

Personalities and Interests in U.S.-Egyptian Relations

Summer 1986, Number 17

Through most of the 1950s, relations between the United States and Egypt were dominated by three individuals: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles and Gamal Abdul Nasser. It was probably inevitable that the two Americans would find Nasser difficult to live with. Though they professed support, in principle, for the anti-colonialist nationalism Nasser represented, Eisenhower and Dulles were constrained by the fact that the United States was a status-quo power, perhaps nowhere more than in the Middle East. Nasser found the status quo obnoxious, tilted, as he thought it was, to the advantage of the West and the disadvantage of Egypt; and he did all he could to right the balance.

Compounding the problem of the different interests of Eisenhower and Dulles, on the one hand, and Nasser, on the other, was a serious clash of personalities. The American president and secretary of state never quite knew what to make of Nasser. At certain times he seemed to them a reasonable, responsible statesman like many others they had encountered in their long careers. At other times, he appeared violent, irresponsible and an unwitting stooge for the Russians. Largely because of their inability to fathom Nasser, Eisenhower and Dulles were unable to shape a consistent policy toward Egypt. As a consequence, U.S.-Egyptian relations during the eight years of the Eisenhower administration oscillated wildly, from relative amicability to spectacular contretemps that led to the decade’s most astonishing fiasco and permanently altered the face of the Middle East.

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