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World’. 279 The Foreign Secretary’s thoughts on Nasser’s stance towards the Pact

were also shared by Lloyd, who believed that Nasser ‘was extremely jealous of Nuri

and afraid that Iraq would challenge Egypt for leadership of the Arab states’. 280

Eden’s next stop, after Cairo, was the islands of Bahrain.

Al-Bakir claimed in his memoir that, following the success of the strike of

December 1954, the British were determined to communicate with the HEC. 281

However Al-Bakir, as the Residency’s monthly report of March 1955 confirmed, had

personally requested the opportunity to meet any British personalities stopping in

or visiting Bahrain. Indeed the Residency saw him to be keener to approach the

British than vice versa. He asked the Political Agent for an opportunity to meet Dr

Bennett, the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Fuel and Power and

Sir John Sterndale-Bennett, the Deputy Commissioner General for South East Asia,

who both visited Bahrain in 1955. Unfortunately for Al-Bakir the meetings were not

possible since the guests had already left when he made the request. The HEC’s

Secretary later requested to personally meet Eden during his stop in Bahrain on 21

February en route to the SEATO meeting in Bangkok. Gault informed Al-Bakir that

such a meeting was not possible as Eden was only staying to meet the Ruler of

Bahrain for approximately one hour. He, however, agreed to forward any letters

presented to Eden by the HEC. 282 In another pro forma from the Political Agency

that consisted of the minutes between Al-Bakir and Gault, the latter documented the

279 BDEEP, Series B, Part III, vol. 4, ‘Egypt and the Defence of the Middle East’ 1953-1956. Doc. 578:
FO 371/115492, [Anglo-Egyptian meeting]: inward telegram no 269 from Mr Eden (Cairo) to Mr
Churchill giving an account of a meeting with Colonel Nasser and Egyptian leaders, 21 February
1955; and Eden, Full Circle, 221.
280 S. Lloyd, Suez 1956: A Personal Account (London: 1978), 26, hereafter Suez 1956.
281 Al-Bakir, From Bahrain to Exile, 81.
282 ‘Bernard Burrows, Residency’s Monthly Report for March 1955’, 1-4 (3).

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