FOREIGN RELATIONS: Diplomats at Work, Jul. 2, 1956

All week the State Department kept a nervous eye on the teleprinters as messages clacked in from U.S. outposts in the tense Middle East. State was braced for the possibility that Russia's Foreign Minister Dmitry Shepilov (see FOREIGN NEWS) would offer to sell Egypt arms, would offer Egypt a $1.3 billion loan—or a blank check—to build the Aswan High Dam, that Egypt's Premier Nasser would find it hard to turn down such easy and astronomical money (roughly half of Egypt's gross national product). State was concerned likewise that neighboring Israel might be fanning up a new "get tough" policy after dismissing...

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