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Final Failure. The resignation, even though it was inevitable, caused a momentous shock, not only in Britain but also around the world. For few men had ever seemed more thoroughly equipped by education and experience for leadership than Anthony Eden. Descendant of a centuries-old landed family, educated at Eton and Oxford, decorated for gallantry in World War I. Foreign Secretary at 38, Eden was the handsome glamour boy of the prewar international scene, made himself the hero of millions when he resigned in 1938 to protest Chamberlain's policies of appeasement. He was probably the most skilled diplomatic technician of his time. When, after long years in the shadow of the great Churchill, Eden became Prime Minister in 1955, he led the Tories to an electoral victory which tripled their majority in the House. Polls showed his popularity higher than Churchill's, and all men wished him well.
Less than nine months later, critics were calling him a "ditherer," and the staunchly Tory Daily Mail wailed: "We cannot go on like this''—a chorus so loud that No. 10 Downing Street felt impelled to deny formally that Eden had any intention of resigning.
His final failure came, ironically, in foreign policy, the field he knows best, and in the Middle East, the area which had been his specialty since he majored in Arabic at Oxford. How could this expert so ineptly misjudge at Suez? The answer may be that he was too long imbued with the technique and tradition that belonged to another time. It was a tradition that remembered fondly how Britain drew borders and created kingdoms for idle Hashemite Kings in Iraq and Jordan, or rolled tanks up to Farouk's palace in 1942 to force the King to accept a Premier of British choosing. Princes placed in office in such fashion can be as easily removed, to the public's indifference. But Nasser had not reached power that way, and was not so easily dislodgeable. This was one expert miscalculation; the second was the misjudgment of world opinion. In the deception that preceded the Suez venture and the evasions that followed it, Eden damaged the world's image of Britain. History's kindest verdict may be that he meant well and should have known better. The Evolution. The initiative to resign was Eden's own. The Tory Party was caught unprepared. In theory, the Queen herself designates the new Prime Minister; in practice, the parties give her no choice at all. The Labor Party is unequivocal: it caucuses, elects a new leader, and proposes him to the Queen. The Tories, oldest of all political parties, work more subtly. In Tory eyes, open elections solidify splits; leadership should "evolve." Usually the heir apparent is recognized well in advance, as Eden was in Churchill's time. But until the past few weeks, the Tories expected no immediate need to evolve an Eden successor, and preferred to postpone what did not have to be faced. So it happened that at 6:55 on Wednesday night, as Anthony Eden was speeding to Chequers, the Tories found themselves without an agreed candidate. What happened in the next 19 hours was the unique, mysterious process of internal consultation, without formal votes or speeches, of the Tory Party with itself, which produced a Prime Minister.