The Nationalization

On July 19, 1956, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles informed Egypt that America was withdrawing its offer to fund the Aswan High Dam — the centerpiece of Nasser's modernization program. The reason: Egypt had purchased Czech (i.e., Soviet) weapons and was flirting with neutralism.

Nasser's response was one of the most audacious acts of post-war statecraft. One week later, on July 26, he gave a speech in Alexandria marking the fourth anniversary of King Farouk's overthrow. He spoke for two and a half hours, at one point working the word 'de Lesseps' — the French builder of the canal — into the text. This was the codeword: simultaneously across the length of the canal, Egyptian agents seized company offices, locks, and control rooms.

Egypt was nationalizing the Suez Canal Company. Canal revenues — roughly £35 million per year — would fund the dam. The canal, Nasser said, had been built by Egyptian hands and Egyptian blood, and Egypt was taking it back. The crowd erupted.

In London, Anthony Eden received the news at a dinner party. He had been looking for an excuse to act against Nasser for months, convinced the Egyptian president was a new Mussolini who would dominate the Middle East if not stopped. He reportedly told his dinner guests: 'I want Nasser destroyed, not talked to.'

The British and French began planning military intervention immediately. They needed Israel. At Sèvres, in a secret protocol that would be denied for decades, the three powers agreed: Israel would attack Egypt, providing the Anglo-French with the pretext to intervene as 'peacekeepers' to separate the belligerents — and seize the canal.