| This paper will rather seek to uncover and emphasize Cold War imperatives that served as significant guiding factors in shaping the Canadian response to the Suez Crisis. The success of Canadian diplomacy in the 1956 Suez Crisis was in the ability of Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson and his Canadian colleagues to protect Western interests in the context of the Cold War. Suez threatened Anglo-American unity, and the future of the North Atlantic alliance. It also presented the Soviets an opportunity to gain influence in the Middle East. The United Nations Emergency Force ensured that Britain and France had a means to extricate themselves from the Crisis. Canada wished to further protect Western credibility in the eyes of the non-white Commonwealth and Afro-Asian bloc. It was, therefore, important to focus international attention on Soviet aggression in Hungary, and not Anglo-French intervention in Egypt. |
