If Britain had to withdraw its forces now, without winning some kind of new international agreement to control the canal, “the loss of prestige and humiliation would be so great that the Government must fall.” Macmillan, who was prone to rhetorical flights, told IMF president Eugene Black the next day that they “were probably witnessing the end of western civilization, and that in another 50 years yellow and black men would take over.” Such were the apocalyptic sentiments of the British leaders.
such drama queens the world had in the '50s
