Aspirations for greatness: John Foster Dulles, Anthony Eden, and the conduct of Anglo-American diplomacy, 1951-1956

In 1951, as the Cold War intensified, British foreign secretary Anthony Eden and ambassador-at-large John Foster Dulles emerged as significant diplomatic players on the world stage. Each aspired to rise even further--Eden to the premiership, Dulles to head the State Department. For the next five years their frequent diplomatic exchanges exacerbated a highly charged personal rivalry which also personified differences of national character and interests between two allied, but rival, governments.; Their first face-off left an indelible impression. Henceforth, the British foreign secretary never trusted the American who had orchestrated the signing and Senate ratification of the Japanese Peace Treaty; Dulles, for his part, viewed Eden as a politician geared more towards pretension than diplomatic detail.; Named secretary of state in January 1953, Dulles and Eden began a four-year struggle to provide leadership and direction to Western policy. Although neither sought confrontation, the two diplomats never warmed to one another. They avoided an open feud during the first year of the Eisenhower presidency largely because a lengthy illness kept Eden away from the Foreign Office.; Differences arising from the Indochina crisis the following year shattered their fragile interpersonal relationship. The resulting open hostility displayed by each secretary seriously compounded difficulties for their subordinates. Only Dulles's departure from Geneva reduced tensions to a level whereby a modest degree of Anglo-American cooperation was restored.; Whereas the two diplomats usually found themselves at odds over East Asian issues, they embraced a common approach in dealing with European matters. For a time, they also promoted an Anglo-American effort aimed at preserving Western security interests in the Middle East.; Despite occasional manifestations of improved personal relations, neither Dulles nor Eden fully appreciated the talents of the other. Each distrusted the other and remained acutely sensitive to slights, real or imagined. Their failure to establish a mutually beneficial working relationship, coupled with their inability to set aside the vanity and ambition which fueled their professional rivalry, ended in the unnecessary debacle at Suez.