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With Jordan's virtual loss, Britain saw her own position in the Arab world crumbling. Britain was bitter and disillusioned at the failure of her efforts to bring Nasser to heel. In the U.N., the Russians had just vetoed the latest effort to force a solution on Egypt. Both British and French were increasingly annoyed at U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. In their view, Dulles had precipitated Nasser's anger by his abrupt decision to end the Aswan dam deal. Furthermore, when Nasser countered by seizing the canal company, Dulles had talked the British and French out of strong measures, and then, as they saw it, reneged on his implied promise to pay for an economic boycott of the canal—leaving Nasser triumphant and unpunished.
Day of Decision. On Oct. 16 Sir Anthony Eden and Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd flew to Paris to meet with Mollet and Foreign Minister Christian Pineau. Barring all advisers from the room, the four conferred in deepest secrecy for five hours.
This presumably was the moment when Britain made the fateful decision—at France's urging—to back Israel in the Middle East. As the French knew, Israel was already on the edge of launching a preventive war. The evidence indicates that it was at the Oct. 16 Paris meeting —twelve days before Israel's invasion of Egypt—that Eden and Mollet agreed to reoccupy the Suez Canal Zone jointly on the pretext of protecting it from Israel's planned attack. Whether or not Israel was so informed is not clear (they intended to attack anyway), but from then on, Israel apparently kept France (and through France, Britain) abreast of its moves.
Answering criticism of his inaction at a Cabinet meeting about this time, Premier Mollet blurted: "You must have confidence in me. Something is going to happen before the end of the year. I cannot say any more: there is a diplomatic secret to be kept." Also, from that moment forward, U.S. diplomats lost all contact with their London and Paris diplomatic sources on Middle East matters. U.S. queries were turned aside, requests for information evaded, interviews deferred.
The Date. State Department officials are sure that the British and French callously deceived or misled them from this date onward. On Oct. 23 Pineau dashed over to London, reportedly to tell Eden that Israel was all ready to launch preventive war on Nasser. Ben-Gurion's moment was well chosen because, it was reasoned, 1) the U.S. would not dare move decisively against Israel on the verge of a presidential election, and 2) the Hungarian rebellion, then at its height, would keep Russia's hands tied.
Eden did not tell the U.S. He did not inform the members of the Common wealth, he did not tell the House of Commons, he did not inform his party colleagues. In fact, in the Foreign Office itself, only Lloyd seems to have been privy to the plan. Selwyn Lloyd chose this moment to indicate to the U.S. that he had fresh hopes of a peaceful Suez settlement.
On Thursday, Oct. 25, when Israel began its swift and quiet mobilization, U.S. military attaches noticed that their French and British colleagues had suddenly stopped talking to them. The French and British also seemed to know far more about Israeli mobilization than the Americans did.