The Crisis of April

Abstract

John Foster Dulles, since January 1953 Secretary of State under President Eisenhower, was a man whose temperament and formation set him apart from both Bidault and Eden. The experiences those two shared – active military service, national responsibility in the Second World War, getting themselves elected and re-elected – he lacked. Their weaknesses – Bidault’s dependence under stress on drink or drugs, the irritable intensity of Eden’s vanity – did not afflict Dulles. He was not driven, as they were, by personal ambition. Eden wanted to be Prime Minister and Bidault, who had held that office more than once, believed he could still use it to transform France. Dulles had reached, as he must have known, his personal ceiling and could afford to devote all his efforts to the task he had long desired: the direction of American foreign policy.

‘the paralysis of the British Government was almost as serious as that of the French.’—J. F. DULLES, 6 April 1954¹