We are conditioned to view Cold War nuclear crises through the lens of the gold standard, the dramatic Caribbean Crisis where the fate of the world hung by a thread in October 1962. But what happened when the United States and its President were confronted with an ambiguous Soviet threat coupled with ambiguous nuclear force signalling half a decade before the familiar Strangelovian trappings of the DEFCON system, the hot line, and airborne alert were in place?
The narrative of the 1956 crises is familiar to all of us. Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser flirts with both the United States and Soviet Union in what amounts to a grand souk negotiation for development and military aid, then nationalizes the Suez Canal prompting Great Britain, France, and Israel to collude in an invasion to topple the regime and restore control over that vital waterway. At the same time, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, faced with the possibility of a collapsing Warsaw Pact after his anti-Stalinist ‘secret speech’ triggers dissent in the Soviet empire, cracks down on Hungary on the eve of the Anglo-French/Israeli operation in October 1956.
(This article appears in the Summer, 2026 issue of the Journal of the AFHF. Read more.)