Posted on 11/01/2006 4:21:32 AM PST by NapkinUser
November 1956, 50 years ago, was a month the drama of which many of us can yet recall. It was a defining moment of the Cold War.
This was the month Eisenhower was re-elected in a landslide and in which he laid down, in simultaneous crises, the new ground rules of the Cold War, both to our NATO allies and Soviet adversaries.
On Oct. 29, in a strategic thrust of which Ike had not been informed, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on Egypt, seizing the Sinai. Israel then called on Britain and France to come in and separate the armies and occupy the Canal that Egypt's Gamal Abdel-Nasser had nationalized.
British and French troops moved on Suez. Nasser railed against Western aggression, and Nikita Khrushchev rattled his rockets and threatened to rain them down on London. "I know Ike. He will lie doggo," Harold Macmillan had assured British Prime Minister Anthony Eden.
Like many Brits, Macmillan had misread his man.
An angry Ike ordered the French and British out of Suez, threatened to sink the pound if the Brits did not depart and told David Ben-Gurion to get his troops off the Sinai or face U.S. sanctions.
Ben-Gurion went, Eden's government fell, and, so legend goes, his successor Macmillan telegraphed Ike: "Over to You!" Macmillan meant that Britain's responsibility and role in securing the Middle East would now have to be assumed by the United States. For, without Suez, the Brits could no longer secure it.
At the time, many felt Ike should have let the Brits take down Nasser. But Eisenhower was not only enraged at not being informed of the operation, he had come to believe British imperialism was finished, that Arab nationalism was here to stay, that the Suez Canal was now irretrievable and that we had to deal with the new Arab world rather than attempt futilely to reconstruct the old.
Just days before the Suez crisis, however, Hungarian students in Budapest had risen up against the regime. When some were shot by Hungarian security police, a people's revolution erupted that overthrew the Soviet puppet, disbanded the security police and took Hungary out of the Warsaw Pact. For days, the Kremlin seemed paralyzed.
But with the world suddenly distracted by Suez, Khrushchev ordered hundreds of tanks and thousands of troops into Hungary. In a bloodbath that lasted for a week after Nov. 3, the Hungarian Revolution was drowned, 200,000 fled to Austria and Moscow imposed yet another communist Quisling on Budapest.
America did nothing. Ike sent Vice President Nixon to meet the fleeing Hungarians, some of whom cursed us for abandoning them. The Bridge at Andau, through which 70,000 Hungarians fled to freedom, was dynamited by the Soviets. The border was sealed.
If Americans were ambivalent about the Israeli-British-French invasion of Egypt, they identified with the Hungarians. For days after the uprising, the Hungarians were the toast of the West, freedom fighters who had stood up to Soviet tanks and liberated their country from communist tyranny. Seeing film of the Hungarian youth fighting the Russian tanks with rocks and Molotov cocktails, many Americans felt a deep sense of shame that we had not come to their aid.
The Eisenhower Republicans who had taken power in 1952 had spoken boldly of a "rollback" of the Soviet Empire. Nixon had said of Adlai Stevenson, "Adlai has a Ph.D. from Dean Acheson's College of Cowardly Communist Containment."
But when the test had come in Budapest, America had stood by, watching impotently the massacre of thousands of freedom fighters and the deportation unto death of thousands more.
It was a defining moment for America. What Ike -- who had held up U.S. armies to let Zhukov's Red Army take Berlin, because he did not want American troops dying taking German cities that the U.S. government had ceded to Stalinist occupation -- was saying was this:
We admire Hungarian heroism, but we cannot risk war with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union to save a nation FDR ceded to Stalin at Yalta, a nation whose independence is not vital to the United States.
Ike's decision seemed to violate the command of the heart that we should send an army to save the Hungarians. Yet it was a decision rooted in the national interest, as Ike understood it. He would not risk our security for any other country that was not vital to our security.
To those of us then of the same age as the Hungarian students, the heroism of Budapest in 1956 was unforgettable. And what we felt as the Russian tanks crushed them was shame. They had risked their lives in the fight against communist tyranny, but we were not willing to do the same.
But was Ike wrong about Suez and Hungary? Was Ike wrong to invite the "Butcher of Budapest" to the United States, three years later? Or was he doing what was best for the country to the freedom and security of which he had sworn a lifetime oath?
Interesting.
I always enjoy criticism without any alternatives given.
Also, do not forget which Party controlled Congress in 1956.
What a strange, obsessively dishonest man Buchanan is.
Israel launched a "pre-emptive" strike on Egypt? You mean, the one that came after Nasser seized the Suez Canal, an international waterway, meanwhile promising to exterminate the Jews in Israel?
For the record, yes, Pat, I think the welfare of the nation would have been better served if Ike had shown more testosterone as President—both at Suez and in Eastern Europe.
Poor Pat has done much good in the world, mostly 10 or more years ago, but what you might call his "lies of omission" are an unmistakable phenomenon. It partakes of evil.
Is this the same Pat Buchanan who was against our fighting to protect American interests in the Middle East in 1990 and 2004?
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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But was Ike wrong about Suez and Hungary?
Don't know what he thought about Hungary, but he's reported to have regretted the Suez decision, since the Arabs double crossed him. Nixon came to the same conclusion in his memoirs, and I can't help but wonder if Arab duplicity in 1956 impacted his decision to support Israel during the Yom Kippur war. And for those who chime in with we always supported Israel, no, we didn't, prior to the early 70s support was minimal.
And what about China in 1949? Or Korea in 1951?
In theory, with our military might and manufacturing capabilities, we could have taken on the Soviets after WWII and done something about China during the Korean war.
We let Communism happen because our politicians starting with Henry Wallace allowed it.
Didn't realize the Six Day War in '67 was also known as the Third Arab-Israeli War.
Had heard of the Hungarian uprising and the tanks, but didn't know about America's (lack of) involvement.
I don't remember Mr. Buchanan's exact stand on Iraq, but, as an isolationist, imagine he's alluding to Iraq when he says Ike would not "risk our security for any other country that was not vital to our security"?
I had never heard of the term "salami tactics" in reference to the methods used by the Commies to wrest control from the post-war democratically elected Hungarian government.
Salami tactics could be used to describe what liberals (DemonRATs, ACLU, etc.) have done to this country, as they've gradually sliced away at our morals, ethics, and overall values.
I wonder how Ike would have reacted to something like homo marriage, Gerry Studds getting reelected 6 times after buggering a male page, or blow jobs in the Oral Office (not to mention the very coining of the term "oral office")?
How about the recent revelations of Fat Teddy's collusion with the Commies?
Would Ike have been outraged at their Godless attacks on the Ten Commandments, crucifixes, or manger scenes in public places and their "re-branding" of Christmas Season to the "Holiday Season"?
Also Nasser blockaded the Israeli port of Eilat, which was an act of war - which Israel had declared would be treated as an act of war as far back as 1957. Egypt started the six-day war.
First of all, America is not the world's policeman
Second, Hungary was a MAJOR embarrassment to communism in general.
It made communism a very bad word in this country and effectively shut down communism in this country. I believe that it was a minor factor that lead to the collapse of Soviet communism.
With American involvement, it would not have been such an embarassment.
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