What went down in 1956?

What went down in 1956? Image Source:  Google News On the very day this article was hinting at the West 'reluctantly' arming Israel: July 4 – The first Lockheed U-2 spy plane flight over the Soviet Union. [Wikipedia] Image Source:  projectswordtoys.blogspot.com July 30, some weeks ahead of 'The Ten Commandments' (October 5th) première, pious USA claims 'god' and godliness as their own: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a Congress resolution, authorizing "In God we trust" as the national motto. Judging by the American stockpile of nuclear weapons, the motto should be:  "In Nukes We Trust."  While trusting in this nukes 'god', the Americans were nonetheless spying on 'the Reds' and innocently batting their eyes, feigning disinterest in the supply of weapons to Israel or promoting an arms race in the Middle East.  Source - Wikipedia Yet the 1955 figure for nuclear weapons stockpiles shows that the Americans were already running a crazy nukes arms race of their own  . . .  so what do you suppose might have been the real the likelihood of the Yanks and their Western allies shying away from a Middle Eastern arms race, particularly when they considered their ruling elite's interests were threatened, as in 1956? The Herald-Journal article above, just doesn't ring true when you consider the events of the day. C'mon, the West would have been arming Israel without any qualms (and whoever else may have served the interests of Western elites in the region), yet the West is portrayed as 'reluctant', while the scare of 'Red weapons' in Egypt (and the spectre of the 'official enemy') is raised as the focal point, taking the glare off the real agenda:  preservation of Western imperialist interests. The following is a cool list of 1956 events pulled (selectively) from the Wikipedia entry: January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. Between 1899 & 1956 Egyptian-British rule, but in practice British rule. January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming are killed for trespassing by the Waodani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them. January 16 – Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser vows to reconquer Palestine. February 11 – British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean resurface in the Soviet Union after being missing for 5 years. CAMBRIDGE FIVE February 24 – Doris Day records her most famous song: Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) February 25 – Nikita Khrushchev attacks the veneration of Joseph Stalin as a "cult of personality". May 8 – The constitutional union between Indonesia and the Netherlands is dissolved. June 5 – Elvis Presley performs "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements. June 23 – Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes the 2nd president of Egypt. July 4 – The first Lockheed U-2 spy plane flight over the Soviet Union. July 10 – The British House of Lords defeats the abolition of the death penalty. July 26 – Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation. September 13 – The hard disk drive is invented by an IBM team led by Reynold B. Johnson. September 16 – Television broadcasting commences in Australia. September 25 – The submarine transatlantic telephone cable opens. October 5 – Cecil B. DeMille's epic film The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston as Moses, is released in the United States. It will be in the top ten of the worldwide list of highest-grossing films of all time adjusted for inflation. October 17 - The world's first commercial nuclear power plant is opened at Calder Hall in England. October 22 – Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom, France, and Israel secretly meet in and make plans to invade Egypt. October 23 – Hungarian Revolution breaks out against the pro-Soviet government, originating as a student demonstration in Budapest. Hungary attempts to leave the Warsaw Pact. October 26 – Red Army troops invade Hungary. October 29 – Suez Crisis: Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula and pushes Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal. October 31 – Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal. November 4 – 1956 Hungarian Revolution: More Soviet troops invade Hungary to crush a revolt that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country. November 7 – Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly [UNGA] adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France, and Israel to withdraw their troops from Arab lands immediately. November 13 – The United States Supreme Court declares illegal the state and municipal laws requiring segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, thus ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott. November 14 – Fighting ends in Hungary. November 18 – At the reception of the Polish embassy in Moscow Nikita Khrushchev uttered his famous phrase "We will bury you". November 22 – The 1956 Summer Olympics begin in Melbourne, Australia. Dun Dun Dun! Here's the BIG ONE.  About 3 weeks after the Herald-Journal article is published, we have this, surely anticipated, bombshell: July 26 – Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation. [Wikipedia] Call me cynical, but I don't reckon this invasion of Egypt was a last minute surprise put upon an unprepared West. ....................................................................... Some lead-up to the Suez Crisis: Nasser's neutralist policies during the Cold War led to tense relations with Western powers, which withdrew funding for the planned Aswan Dam. Nasser's retaliatory move to nationalize the Suez Canal Company in 1956 was acclaimed within Egypt and the Arab world. Consequently the United Kingdom and France occupied the Suez Canal zone, while Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamal_Abdel_Nasser Initially, both the US and the USSR were interested in the development of the dam, but this occurred in the midst of the Cold War, as well as growing intra-Arab rivalries. In 1955 Nasser was trying to portray himself as the leader of Arab nationalism, in opposition to the traditional monarchies, especially Hashemite Iraq following its signing of the 1955 Baghdad Pact. At that time the US feared that communism would spread to the Middle East and saw Nasser as a natural leader of an anti-communist Arab league. The US and Britain offered to help finance construction of the high dam, with a loan of US$270 million, in return for Nasser's leadership in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. While opposed both to communism and imperialism, Nasser presented himself as a tactical neutralist, and sought to work with both the US and the USSR for Egyptian and Arab benefit.  After a particularly criticized raid by Israel against Egyptian forces in Gaza in 1955, Nasser realized that he could not legitimately portray himself as the leader of pan-Arab nationalism if he could not defend his country militarily against Israel. In addition to his development plans, he looked to quickly modernize his military, and turned first to the US. *ISRAEL -  Operation Black Arrow* US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and US President Dwight Eisenhower told Nasser that the US would supply him with weapons only if they were used for defensive purposes and accompanied by US military personnel for supervision and training. Nasser did not accept these conditions and then looked to the Soviet Union for support.  Although Dulles believed that Nasser was only bluffing and that the USSR would not aid Nasser, he was wrong—the USSR promised Nasser a quantity of arms in exchange for a deferred payment of Egyptian grain and cotton.  On 27 September 1955, Nasser announced an arms deal, with Czechoslovakia acting as a middleman for the Soviet support.  Instead of retaliating against Nasser for turning to the Soviets, Dulles sought to improve relations with him. This explains the later offer of December 1955, in which the US and UK pledged $56 and $14 million respectively towards the construction of the dam.   Though the Czech arms deal actually increased US willingness to invest in Aswan, the British cited the deal as a reason for withdrawing their funding. What angered Dulles much more was Nasser's recognition of communist China, which was in direct conflict with Dulles's policy of containment. There are several other reasons why the US decided to withdraw the offer of funding. Dulles believed that the Soviet Union would not fulfill its commitment to help the Egyptians. He was also irritated by Nasser's neutrality and attempts to play both sides of the Cold War. At the time, other western allies in the Middle East, including Turkey and Iraq, were irritated that Egypt, a persistently neutral country, was being offered so much aid. In June 1956 the Soviets offered Nasser $1.12 billion at 2% interest for the construction of the dam. On 19 July the US State Department announced that American financial assistance for the High Dam was "not feasible in present circumstances." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_Dam So ... this is just a bit of interesting background to the 1956 Herald-Journal article.