Word: suez
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...disadvantages to the huge ships. In a thick fog, the skipper on the bridge may wonder where his bow is and what it is doing. Few harbors can handle the ships, although this matters little for tankers, since they can stand offshore while loading and unloading by pipeline. The Suez Canal is too small for the supertankers, and the shallow North Sea is not safe for ships drawing more than 56 feet, which is to say those larger than 200,000 tons. Insurance companies are fretful about "concentration of risk...
...thirteen years in opposition the Labour Party had condemned the Conservative Government's policies of intervention and over-extension, focusing on the Suez crisis in 1956. Labour members criticized American meddling in South Vietnam and were generally committed to a financial reform policy of "Britain First." Once in power, however, Prime Minister Wilson adopted a more traditional approach to defense problems. He resolved to support the Unted State's position in Vietnam, and continued the fight to keep British bases in Aden and Singapore...
...however, assumed the Gaullist posture of withdrawal. When France relinquished her colonies, she effectively abandoned all overseas military commitments. Moreover De Gaulle has now decided to withdraw France's troops from the NATO alliance. Britain, on the other hand, will seek to maintain her traditional presence east of Suez, though limiting the scope of her military potential...
...even in this eastern area, Britain will undertake no major military efforts without guaranteed assistance. In other words, no more Suez fiascos. Britain will not intervene in the affairs of an independent country without a formal invitation, and will not promise military aid unless granted facilities from that country which would make the aid effective. Britain, therefore, is forced into dependence on the only other allied power active in the East--the United States. Although Britain does not share America's vital interest in Vietnam, she will try to keep military influence in the other Far Eastern troublespots...
March 31. Ironically, the most telling attack on the new policy came not from the Conservatives but from a Laborite, Christopher Mayhew, who resigned in protest as Navy Minister. The $5.6 billion budget, warned Mayhew, was "too small if we stay east of Suez and too big if we do not." Though he had quit specifically over the carrier question, he told the House that his far greater fear was that Britain simply could no longer support its worldwide defense responsibilities unless it depended so heavily on U.S. assistance that the British would become "auxiliaries rather than allies...