Blind loyalty. Australia and the Suez Crisis 1956

Journal article

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In Journal Issue

Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal, 11, 1 (1990)

Author(s) W D Rubinstein AbstractBook Review: Everyone agrees that the Suez Crisis of 1956 was a turning-point in inter-national affairs, Britain's centuries-old claim to unquestioned great power status being the chief casualty of the debacle. Australia's role in the affair, though peripheral and secondary, was surprisingly important, with Robert Menzies the leader of the important international mission (probably designed in advance to fail) to persuade Nasser to change his Canal nationalization plans. Most of all, this work the first study of Australia's role in the Suez crisis, makes abundantly clear the automatic obeisance, simply incredible to our generation, with which Menzies invariably followed Britain's lead. Menzies' slavish devotion was not universally shared by other leading ministers, most notably Foreign Minister Richard Casey who emerges as the book's hero in so far as there is one, but who were unable to dent Menzies' determined policies, the product of his political authority, then as its peak, and his being on the spot in Britain when the Crisis erupted.
Year1990
Pages242-243