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On 13 December four Jordanian Ministers of Palestinian origin resigned and

chaos reigned on the streets of Jordan. 447 King Hussein believed in his memoir that

the protesters were financed by ‘Egyptian money’ as they ‘stormed buildings from

one end of Jordan to another’. 448 Nasser had previously made it clear to Byroade,

the US Ambassador to Egypt, who informed in return Trevelyan that he would not

obstruct Britain’s Northern Tier defence arrangements manifested in the Baghdad

Pact if no other Arab State and/or the US joined. 449 Nasser, following the Suez

Crisis, recalled that Britain’s Ambassador to Egypt had promised him not to have

other Arab States join the Baghdad Pact. He expressed his surprise concerning

Templer’s mission to Jordan as a result and Egypt’s ‘reaction was very hard’, the

Egyptian leader declared. 450

Heikal noted that the Templer mission set the stage for an intensive

propaganda war in the Middle East by the Egyptians who attacked British interests

and the Baghdad Pact itself. 451 During this crisis Bahrain received its share of

attacks as Egyptian radio falsely claimed that Bahrain allowed Israeli goods entry

into the islands, breaking boycott regulations imposed by the Arab League. 452 The

Administration quickly issued a public notice by the Ruler on 11 December banning

the import of Israeli goods and dealings from Bahrain as a counter step. 453

447 P. Snow, Hussein (London: 1972), 77-78.
448 H. Talal, Uneasy Lies the Head: the Autobiography of His Majesty King Hussein I of the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan (London: 1962), 92, hereafter Uneasy Lies the Head.
449 TNA, PREM 11/859, Trevelyan to FO, 3 November 1955.
450 P. Calvocoressi, ‘Egyptian Outlook’, in Suez Ten Years After, edited by A. Moncrieff (London: 1967),
31-58 (33-34).
451 Heikal, Nasser: The Cairo Documents, 81.
452 ‘Bernard Burrows, Residency’s Report for the Month of January 1956’, in Political Diaries of the
Persian Gulf, vol. 20 1955-1958, ed. R.L. Jarman (London: 1990), 1-8 (3).
453 TNA, FO 1016/442, Translation of Bahrain Ruler’s Notice, No: 83/1375, 11 December 1955.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 144