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should consist of six Sunnis and six Shi’ites. 100 This was not well received by some

Sunnis on the grounds that the Baharna were never previously awarded with ‘much

representation’, and this impasse resulted in the Government’s indefinite

postponement of elections to the Committee. 101

On the regional scene, Britain was in the process of negotiating its troops’

evacuation from the Suez Canal Zone. The idea of the withdrawal appealed to Eden

who aimed to convince Prime Minister Winston Churchill that by withdrawing

British forces from Egypt it would attract the Egyptians to enter into an anti-

Communist Middle Eastern defence alliance, which was known in its infant stage as

the Middle East Defence Organisation (MEDO), propagated significantly following

the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. 102 However the British COS believed that

‘it was unlikely that General Neguib would be prepared to commit Egypt to

participation in MEDO until he had reached a firm agreement with us about

evacuation’. 103 Egyptians resisted entry into any alliances before and during

Naguib’s presidency. 104 As a result it was in Britain’s interest to evacuate from the

100 ‘W.R. Hay, Summary of Events in the Persian Gulf during the month of September 1952’, in Political Diaries of
the Persian Gulf, vol. 19 1951-1954, ed. R.L. Jarman (London: 1990), 1-7 (3-4).
101 ‘W.R. Hay, Summary of Events in the Persian Gulf during the month of October 1952’, in Political Diaries of the
Persian Gulf, vol. 19 1951-1954, ed. R.L. Jarman (London: 1990), 1-6 (3).
102 BDEEP, Series B, Part III, vol. 4, ‘Egypt and the Defence of the Middle East’ 1953-1956. Doc. 454: PREM
11/484, 1 December 1953. ‘The Canal Zone’: minute by Mr Eden to Mr Churchill on the advantages of an
agreement with Egypt without making further concessions, 1 December 1953; E. Monroe, Elizabeth, Britain’s
Moment in the Middle East 1914-1956 (London: 1963), 174; R. Takehy, The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine:
The US, Britain and Nasser’s Egypt, 1951-57 (New York: 2000), 6, hereafter Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine;
and Devereux, Formulation of British Defence Policy, 46.
103 BDEEP, Series B, Part II, vol. 4, ‘Egypt and the Defence of the Middle East’ 1949-1953. Doc. 335: DEFE 4/57,
COS 153(52) 2, ‘Middle East defence organisation’: COS Committee minutes on American suggestions for joint
proposals on a base settlement, 7 November 1952; TNA, CAB 129/59, C (53)65, Egypt: The Alternatives,
Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 16 February 1953; and TNA, CAB 129/58, C. (53) 17
Revise, Egypt: Defence Negotiations, 14 January 1953.
104 Prior to the Egyptian coup d’état pamphlets distributed by the Free Officers rejected the idea of participating
in Western-oriented pacts as Khalid Mohieddin, an early prominent member of the military movement, recalled
in his memoir of pamphlets that stated: ‘Down with colonialism. Down with alliances with the colonialists.
Down with defence alliances. Down with military Pacts’. See K. Mohieddin, Wa Al-A’an Atak’lam [Now I Speak]
(Cairo: 1992), 91-92, hereafter Now I Speak.

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