34.B) Ike & the Suez Crisis, an interview with Jim Newton

There are October Surprises, and there are October crisis. Just days before Americans went to the polls to vote for Ike's 1956 reelection, his allies France, England, and Israel launched a surprise October invasion of Egypt to capture the Suez Canal. With Cold War temperatures rising, Ike was faced with a high-stakes dilemma. Would he back his allies, or Egypt, for control of the all-important canal.

Veteran journalist Jim Newton, author of Eisenhower: The White House Years, discusses the crisis that reshaped the political world order.