Page 75 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 75 of 237

its offer to help Egypt harness the Nile by constructing a high dam at Aswan (a task which the Russians happily
moved in to perform).

Nasser, driven into a rage, seized the Suez Canal a week later. Israel invaded Egypt on October 29 and Britain and
France joined in with a Halloween Day attack. The United States condemned the invasion, Moscow threatened to
rain missiles on London and Paris, and the assault was called off. All of this happened in the midst of the
Hungarian revolt and the windup of the presidential campaign in the United States.

When the sands had settled in the Middle East, Allen Dulles was in a difficult position; the question, once again,
was whether the CIA had failed to predict an event -- in this case, the Suez invasion. Foster Dulles undercut the
CIA's position by telling a Senate committee: "We had no advance information of any kind." [12]

Seven years later Allen Dulles offered an explanation of this. There were many times, said Allen Dulles, when
intelligence had guessed correctly, but could not advertise the fact. He added:

"This was true of the Suez invasion of 1956. Here intelligence was well alerted as to both the possibility and later
the probability of the actions taken by Israel and then by Britain and France. The public received the impression
that there had been an intelligence failure; statements were issued by U.S. officials to the effect that the country
had not been given advance warning of the action. Our officials, of course, intended to imply only that the British
and French and Israelis had failed to tell us what they were doing. In fact, United States intelligence had kept the
government informed without, as usual, advertising its achievement." [13]

The difficulty with this explanation is that it is not what Foster Dulles told the Senate.

On February 1, 1957, Secretary Dulles was being questioned by Senator Mansfield before a joint meeting of the
Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees. He was asked whether Washington had knowledge of
the Israeli attack on Egypt or of the British and French participation. "We had no advance information of any
kind," he said. "... The British-French participation also came as a complete surprise to us."

It is true that this testimony, if taken alone, could be interpreted to mean simply that there had been no advance
warning to Washington by the invaders. But two weeks earlier, on January 15, testifying before the same Senate
committees, Secretary Dulles was more specific under questioning by Senator Henry M. Jackson, of Washington,
who asked whether "the people within the executive branch of the government" knew of the impending Israeli
attack on Suez.

"No," Dulles replied, "we had no such knowledge."

"At the appropriate time, Mr. Chairman," said Jackson, "I would like to go into that question when we get into
executive session. I will not pursue it any further here now ... the reason I am not pursuing further questioning
along this line is obvious."

What was obvious, of course, was that Jackson was referring to the CIA. (Later questions and answers about
whether the CIA had advance knowledge were so heavily censored in the published transcript of the executive
session as to be meaningless.)

The questioning took place against a background of continuing domestic and international controversy over Suez.
In England, France and the United States, there had been suggestions that the Eisenhower Administration had
known in advance of the invasion plans, and had been hypocritical in its outraged reaction and intervention.
Democrats felt the pre-election crisis had helped defeat Adlai Stevenson and re-elect Eisenhower. Jackson's