249. Memorandum for the Record by the Secretary of State1

Following the NATO meeting, Harold Macmillan called on me this afternoon at Ambassador Dillon’s Residence, and we had a long and confidential conversation.2 In the course of the conversation, Macmillan made the following points:

He said he recognized that there had been a certain loss of confidence on the part of the President, myself, and others because of the Suez operation and the deception practiced upon us in that connection. He indicated that he, personally, was very unhappy with the way in which the matter was handled and the timing, but that Eden had taken this entirely to himself and he, Macmillan, had had no real choice except to back Eden. Macmillan did not disguise the fact that he had always favored strong action, but the point was that he did not like the manner and timing, particularly vis-à-vis the United States.

He also said in connection with the Suez operation that his government had underestimated the influence of the United Nations.

He said that the British action was the last gasp of a declining power and that perhaps in two hundred years the United States “would know how we felt”.

Macmillan indicated his hope that some shift of government would make him or Rab Butler Prime Minister, but he said it was not certain that this would happen. He said that after Eden returned, there would be a question as to whether he would resign at once on account [Page 678] of ill health. If not, he would probably hold on for six months, but “he would be a constitutional Prime Minister and would not try to ape the war-time habits of Mr. Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill.”

In discussing the Middle East, Macmillan said we ought to think up some big, imaginative plan for the Middle East whereby we might create some kind of international authority of the Arab States to handle the oil, the Canal, etc. He felt it would probably be sounder to have oil production in some kind of joint Arab-Western authority rather than as a private operation, and that we must get the Arabs to accept the existence of Israel and to make the best of it. He suggested that we might call a conference of everybody involved and lay down the law to them.

ADDENDUM

In the course of our conversation I mentioned the changed relationship with the British Embassy incident to the substitution of Caccia for Makins,3 and particularly the public relations activities now being conducted by the British Embassy through Rankin,4 a former important correspondent of Reuters. Macmillan indicated that the UK had to “defend itself” by getting across its point of view. I said I understood the desire to get across their viewpoint, but I thought the attacks on the present Administration now emanating from the British Embassy through the channel I mentioned were quite another thing and most unfortunate.

  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Memoranda of Conversation. Secret; Personal and Private. Secretary Dulles and Foreign Secretary Macmillan were in Paris to attend the North Atlantic Council meeting on December 11. The source text indicates that Dulles conveyed the contents of the addendum orally to William Macomber, his Special Assistant, who drafted that portion of the memorandum.
  2. In a message to the President, December 12, Dulles gave an account of this conversation and discussed several other developments at the North Atlantic Council meeting. The message was transmitted to the Department of State for delivery in Dulte 14 from Paris, December 12. (Department of State, Central Files, 740.5/12–1256)
  3. Sir Harold Caccia became British Ambassador in November 1956.
  4. Presumably Virgil L. Rankin.