Johnson and the British Withdrawal from the Gulf: June 1967–January 1969

Abstract

Walking down the halls of the cavernous Iraqi ministry of foreign affairs, Enoch S. Duncan must have known that his conversation with Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi would not go well. It was one in the morning on June 7, 1967. Just hours earlier, Israeli forces had launched a preemptive attack on Egypt, Syria, and Jordan—a war that lasted just six days and left the Arab world in chaos. The war was incredibly costly for the frontline Arab states, with each military being decimated on the field and surrendering territory to the attacking Israeli forces. As the US Chargé d’Affairs in Baghdad at the time, Duncan had been left in charge of the US Embassy while Ambassador Robert Strong was away on leave. The timing could not have been worse. When Duncan met Pachachi, an amiable fellow who spoke fluent English, he was informed that Iraq had broken relations with the United States for its “alleged air and other aid to Israel” and that he and the embassy staff had a “reasonable period” of five days to wind up affairs, collect their belongings, and leave the country, presumably to Iran—America’s closest regional ally.¹ A convoy of US diplomatic personnel left Iraq on June 10 and no American officials would reside in Baghdad again until September 1972.²