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the NUC was ‘foolish in trying to attack the Bahrain Government and British Foreign

Policy at the same time’. 628

On assessing Britain’s Middle East policy, and using Bahrain as an example,

Sir Norman Brook, the Cabinet Secretary, shared his views with the Prime Minister

in a letter of 14 April. Brook started his letter with a quote from one of Eden’s own

Cabinet papers from 1953 in which the Prime Minister when Foreign Secretary

proclaimed: ‘In the second half of the 20 century we cannot hope to maintain our
th

position in the Middle East by the methods of the last century’. On nationalist

movements the paper urged ‘to harness these movements rather than to struggle

against them’. Brook later provided Eden with his thoughts as he declared that

‘These are the principles which should, I believe, guide our policy in the Middle

East’. He further warned that since nationalist power was rising in the Middle East,

supporting their governments would be regarded by such movements as a form of

occupation. Although it was essential to sustain law and order, Brook believed that

Britain might be setting itself up ‘against forces of nationalism which may be the

Government of tomorrow’. Brook also feared that, given Britain’s current stance, his

country might end up ‘backing the wrong horse’.

The Cabinet Secretary saw Bahrain ‘to be a case in point’ and understood the

nationalist movement there to be ‘not at present anti-British’. However if Britain

continued with its policies in Bahrain he thought that it might force the Movement

to seek support from elsewhere, from Egypt, for example. Brook certainly did not

wish to see ‘another Glubb incident in Bahrain’ and so he advocated a push towards

628 TNA, FO 1016/551, W.J. Adams from Political Agency in Dubai to Residency, 17 June 1957.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 201