Editing Suez Crisis (section)

====Soviet sabre-rattling====
Although the [[Soviet Union]]'s position in the crisis was as helpless as was the United States' regarding Hungary's uprising, Premier [[Nikolai Bulganin]] threatened to intervene on the Egyptian side, and to launch rocket attacks on Britain, France and Israel.<ref name="AlterasIkeIsr"/><ref name="Shlaim181">{{Cite book |last=Shlaim |first=Avi |title=The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World |date=2001 |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=978-0-3933-2112-8 |location=New York |page=181 |author-link=Avi Shlaim}}</ref> Bulganin accused Ben-Gurion of supporting European colonialism, and Mollet of hypocrisy for leading a socialist government while pursuing a right-wing foreign policy.

The Soviet threat to send troops to Egypt to fight the Allies led Eisenhower to fear that this might be the beginning of World War III.<ref name="Neff, Donald p. 403">{{Harvnb|Neff|1981|p=403}}</ref> One of Eisenhower's aides Emmet Hughes recalled that the reaction at the White House to the Bulganin letters was "sombre" as there was fear that this was the beginning to the countdown to World War III, a war that if it occurred would kill hundreds of millions of people.<ref>{{Harvnb|Turner|2006|p=368}}</ref> In private, Eisenhower told Undersecretary of State [[Herbert Hoover Jr.]] of his fears that: {{Blockquote|The Soviet Union might be ready to undertake any wild adventure. They are as scared and furious as Hitler was in his last days. There's nothing more dangerous than a dictatorship in that frame of mind.<ref name="Neff, Donald p. 403"/>}}

If the Soviet Union did go to war with NATO allies Britain and France, then the United States would be unable to remain neutral, because the United States' obligations under NATO would come into effect, requiring them to go to war with the Soviet Union in defence of Britain and France. Likewise, if the Soviet Union attacked Israel, though there was no formal American commitment to defend Israel, the Eisenhower administration would come under heavy domestic pressure to intervene. From Eisenhower's viewpoint, it was better to end the war against Egypt rather than run the risk of this escalating into the Third World War, in case Khrushchev was serious about going to war in defence of Egypt as he insisted in public that he was.{{Sfn|Kyle|2003|p=458}}

Eisenhower's reaction to these threats from the Soviet Union was: "If those fellows start something, we may have to hit 'em — and, if necessary, with everything in the bucket."{{Cn|date=February 2023}} Eisenhower immediately ordered [[Lockheed U-2]] flights over Syria and Israel to search for any Soviet air forces on Syrian bases, so the British and French could destroy them. He told Hoover and CIA director [[Allen Dulles]], "If the Soviets attack the French and British directly, we would be in a war and we would be justified in taking military action even if Congress were not in session."{{Sfn|Kyle|2003|p=458}} The Americans excluded Israel from the guarantee against Soviet attack, however, alarming the Israeli government.{{R|AlterasIkeIsr}} The U-2 showed that Soviet aircraft were not in Syria despite the threats.<ref name="cia1992">{{Cite book |last1=Pedlow |first1=Gregory W. |url=http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434 |title=The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954–1974 |last2=Welzenbach |first2=Donald E. |date=1992 |publisher=History Staff, Central Intelligence Agency |isbn=978-0-7881-8326-3 |location=Washington, D.C. |pages=113–120}}</ref>

Khrushchev often claimed to possess a vast arsenal of nuclear-tipped [[Intercontinental ballistic missile|ICBMs]], and while disclaiming any intention of starting a war, maintained that he would be more than happy to turn a conventional war into a nuclear one if war did come.<ref>{{Harvnb|Gaddis|1998|pp=237–240}}</ref> U-2 flights over the Soviet Union, which were intended to discover if the country really did have the nuclear arsenal that it claimed to have, only started in July 1956, and it was not until February 1959 that it firmly established that Khrushchev had [[Missile gap|vastly exaggerated his nuclear strength]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Gaddis|1998|pp=245–246}}</ref>

The supposedly huge Soviet arsenal of ICBMs, with which Khrushchev would wipe out the cities of Britain, France, Israel, and if necessary the United States consisted only of four ''[[R-7 Semyorka|Semyorka]]'' missiles stationed at a swamp south of [[Arkhangelsk]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Gaddis|1998|p=240}}</ref> From the viewpoint of Eisenhower, in 1956 he had no way of knowing for certain whether Khrushchev's nuclear braggadocio was for real or not.{{Sfn|Gaddis|1998|pp=239–240}}

Earlier in 1956, Dulles had warned Eisenhower that Khrushchev was "the most dangerous person to lead the Soviet Union since the [[October Revolution]]" as Khrushchev was "not a coldly calculating person, but rather one who reacted emotionally. He was obviously intoxicated much of the time and could be expected to commit irrational acts."{{Sfn|Gaddis|1998|pp=239–240}} Khrushchev later admitted in his memoirs that he was not seriously "thinking of going to war" in November 1956 as he claimed at the time as he lacked the necessary ICBMs to make good his threats.<ref>{{Harvnb|Gaddis|1998|p=239}}</ref>