Suez Crisis Anthony Eden was Prime Minister at the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956. His political career began in 1923 and in 1926 he became Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Foreign Office. He was very involved in the League of Nations, believing in its principles and at the age of 38 he became Foreign Minister. At the time international affairs were seen as aggressive and Anthony Eden was forced to resign by Neville Chamberlain's government due to his appeasement policy. He joined the government during the Second World War and became Secretary of State for War under Churchill. After the war times were very difficult, with the Cold War at its height and problems in the Middle East. Colonel Nasser became dictator of Egypt in 1954 after leading a successful revolution against King Farouk. British troops left Egypt for the first time since 1882, and as soon as they left, Nasser declared that the Suez Canal was the property of the Egyptian government. The Suez Canal was a vital shipping route for oil brought to Britain. Eden mistakenly saw Colonel Nasser as the next Hitler and was determined to take a stand against him. “Nasser has a finger on our windpipe,” he noted. Nasser would be taught a lesson. Nasser was seen as a nationalist determined to free Egypt from foreign influence and make Egypt the leading state of the Arab world. He had tried to buy weapons from the West, but ultimately had to buy them from Czechoslovakia, and the Western powers were worried that Nasser was leading Egypt towards communism. The seizure of the Suez Canal was justified in his mind by the refusal of Britain and the United States to finance his ambitious project to build the Aswan High Dam on the Nile. In Source A, Eden says that Nasser is "not a man who can be trusted", and also "we all know that this is how dictators behave and we all remember the price to pay for surrendering to Hitler". This shows that Eden cannot help