‘U.S. Prefers Closed Canal’

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31543, 4 December 1967, Page 13

‘U.S. Prefers Closed Canal’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, December 3. The British Government has been advised that the Suez Canal was to remain closed indefinitely because America did not want it reopened, the “Daily Express” reported.

This would be at great cost to Britain, Chapman Pincher wrote in a front-page lead story. Pincher wrote that the United States, “the only Government capable of exerting enough pressure on Israel to get the canal opened,” now preferred it to remain closed for two strategic reasons. They were:— Before the Arab-Israeli war, the canal was being used by the Russians to ship arms from the Black Sea port of Odessa to Vietnam. Now that winter was about to block Rus-

sia’s northern ports, Soviet supply ships could reach Vietnam only by the long route around South Africa so long as the canal was shut. Closure of the canal blocked Russia’s route to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, where Britain had just left a power vacuum with the abandonment of Aden.

Permanent blockage of the canal would ruin Soviet plans for extending Communist influences southwards to Arabia, East Africa and other areas “judged ripe for infiltration,” Pincher wrote. The recent rapid increase in the Soviet Mediterranean Fleet had reinforced United States fears that Russia intended to move south quickly. For these reasons, which the British Foreign Office fully appreciated but could not admit publicly, the United States was putting no pressure on Israel to withdraw from the canal.

So long as they had United States’ blessing, Pincher said, the Israelis were determined to stay there for military reasons.

Britain wanted the canal opened because closure was adding £2om a month to the balance of payments deficit But after quitting Aden, the British Foreign Office could not challenge the United States’ arguments against letting the Russians through into the Indian Ocean.