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developments, inter alia, to Britain’s withdrawal from Palestine and the Suez Canal

Zone. Amery’s letter continued:

We are now very close to the final disaster. The challenge to our
influence in Jordan and on the Persian Gulf, if left unchecked, must
lead to the breakup of the Baghdad Pact. Our oil supplies, without
which we cannot live, would then be in immediate danger; our
communications with other Commonwealth countries would be
threatened; and all Africa would be opened to Communist advance.

Amery blamed the British Government, saying that it had failed to offer the

leadership necessary to tackle unrest and disruption in the region. But he said that

all was not lost, if a mission to save British influence in the Middle East could be

mounted. 531

The Lord Lloyd, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (1951-57) had

been received with similar anger when he visited Aden in May. Yemeni protestors

had surrounded The Lord Lloyd’s car as he arrived in Yemen for a ten-day visit.

Demonstrators were reported to have chanted ‘Down with Imperialism’. His car

was also attacked by kicks and sticks from protestors as The Glasgow Herald

revealed. 532 The Daily Express added to the report that approximately a thousand

Yemenis had surrounded the procession. They had hired buses to get the

demonstrators to the scene. 533 The organisation of the demonstration was probably

inspired by Bahrain.

Burrows tried to understand the reasons that led to such an unexpected

welcome from Bahrainis to the Foreign Secretary. He acknowledged that Belgrave’s

531 J. Amery, ‘British Influence in Middle East: to the Editor of The Times’, The Times, 5 March 1956, 9.
532 ‘Lord Lloyd’s Car Surrounded: Aden Demonstration’, The Glasgow Herald, 12 May 1956, 7.
533 C. Lawson, ‘Frenzied Arabs Mob Minister: Charter buses bring no-fare rioters to the airport’, Daily
Express, 12 May 1956, 2.

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