| This study delineates the way in which the United States utilized economic diplomacy, that is to say the use of economic means to affect relations amongst states, during the Suez crisis of 1956-1957. Using political and financial archival material from the United States and Great Britain, the dissertation focusses on the way in which questions of economic diplomacy determined the course of events during the crisis. The decision of the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower not to fund the Aswan High Dam triggered the nationalization of the shares of the Suez Canal Company by Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser which began the confrontation. Thereafter the American government employed economic weapons with varying degrees of success against Great Britain, France, Egypt and Israel. Because of its weakened financial position and misguided decisions, the government of Prime Minister Anthony Eden proved most vulnerable to these tactics. Indeed it was American economic pressure which caused the British government to withdraw its troops ignominiously from Egypt. Nasser's government, by contrast, proved the least susceptible to financial warfare; the cases of France and Israel fell into the middle ground. France had borrowed sufficiently prior to the crisis to be able to withstand American pressure. The Israeli situation was different. In that instance economic might was determinative, not per se but as a symbol of the Eisenhower administration's wrath. Israel could forego American funds but, dependent as it was on the good will of a great power for survival, it could not take a stand which would completely alienate the United States. |
