Video: 1957 Eisenhower & Macmillan in Bermuda
In January 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower invited British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to a Big Two summit meeting in Bermuda, hoping to reestablish the relationship that was shaken by the Suez Crisis of 1956.
The two leaders met in Bermuda from March 20-24 to publicly renew their friendship — they had served together in North Africa during World War II — and to discuss privately policy differences over the Middle East. “The urgent need for repair was evident all along to both the US and Britain; as soon as Harold Macmillan succeeded broken Anthony Eden as Prime Minister, a Big Two meeting was inevitable,” reported Time magazine at the time of the Bermuda summit.
“Ike himself suggested Bermuda as the place, feeling that it might help soothe the British hurt feelings to hold the conference in British territory. From the start, the tone of the meeting was cordial. Macmillan was waiting at dockside with outstretched hand as the President, arriving in Hamilton Harbour aboard the missile cruiser USS ‘Canberra’, stepped ashore from a US Navy launch. ‘Harold, how are you?’ Ike said warmly.
“That evening, the Big Two’s big four—President, Prime Minister, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd—gathered for a roast-beef dinner in the private dining room of Macmillan’s hotel suite. Despite white dinner jackets, it was a friendly and informal meeting”.
At the Bermuda meeting, President Eisenhower urged the British Prime Minister to set aside British anger toward Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser for nationalising the Suez Canal and recognise that restoring close relations with Cairo, while working to isolate Nasser internationally, would be more likely than outright hostility to serve Anglo-American interests in the Middle East. Eisenhower and Dulles also urged the British to consider Saudi Arabia’s King Saud as a potential regional rival to Nasser.
President Macmillan and Prime Minister Eisenhower also reached an accord on security issues in Bermuda, agreeing that 60 American Thor missiles would be based in Great Britain, within range of the Soviet Union and under joint Anglo-American control.
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I very often browse BERNEWS and was pleased to find in your History column on a video the Guard of honour for the Summmit talks with US President Eisenhour-Macmillan my Regiment the Duke of Cornwalls Light Infantry in Bermuda 1957 I did many guards of honours while stationed in Bermuda 1954-55 and in your video I noticed in the middle rank Sgt Carling, brought back many pleasant memories to me of my time there stationed at Prospect Barracks Devonshire Parish.
today I was informed ( 1-20-2013) that someone who lives here was in Eisenhowers inaugural parade in washington will i was choosen to be one of the honor guards during the time he was in Bermuda didn’t think about it until reading this acticle in the news paper about this other person