Word: mollet
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First & Fastest. The evidence of premeditation runs back nearly two months. France moved first, and fastest. Angry and frustrated by their troubles in Algeria, the French wanted to get Nasser. Within days of Nasser's seizure of the Suez Canal Co., Premier Guy Mollet sent his Defense Minister to London to concert a joint military plan for reoccupying the canal...
...Decision. On Oct. 16 Sir Anthony Eden and Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd flew to Paris to meet with Mollet and Foreign Minister Christian Pineau. Barring all advisers from the room, the four conferred in deepest secrecy for five hours...
...France's urging?to back Israel in the Middle East. As the French knew, Israel was already on the edge of launching a preventive war. The evidence indicates that it was at the Oct. 16 Paris meeting ?twelve days before Israel's invasion of Egypt?that Eden and Mollet agreed to reoccupy the Suez Canal Zone jointly on the pretext of protecting it from Israel's planned attack. Whether or not Israel was so informed is not clear (they intended to attack anyway), but from then on, Israel apparently kept France (and through France, Britain) abreast of its moves...
Answering criticism of his inaction at a Cabinet meeting about this time, Premier Mollet blurted: "You must have confidence in me. Something is going to happen before the end of the year. I cannot say any more: there is a diplomatic secret to be kept." Also, from that moment forward, U.S. diplomats lost all contact with their London and Paris diplomatic sources on Middle East matters. U.S. queries were turned aside, requests for information evaded, interviews deferred...
...Paris, the Assembly had to wait until 10 o'clock for Premier Mollet to get back from London and make a parallel announcement of the ultimatum. After the Assembly's vote of confidence, Defense Minister Maurice Bourges-Maunoury stopped off at his office for ten minutes to clean up some papers, and then went home to bed. Apparently, everything had been all arranged, long before...