Eden, (Robert) Anthony (1897–1977)

British Conservative politician, foreign secretary 1935–38, 1940–45, and 1951–55; prime minister 1955–57, when he resigned after the failure of the Anglo-French military intervention in the Suez Crisis.

Upset by his prime minister's rejection of a peace plan secretly proposed by US president Franklin D Roosevelt in January 1938, Eden resigned as foreign secretary in February 1938 in protest against Chamberlain's decision to open conversations with the fascist dictator Mussolini. He was foreign secretary again in the wartime coalition, formed in December 1940, and in the Conservative government, elected in 1951. With the Soviets, he negotiated an interim peace in Vietnam in 1954. In April 1955 he succeeded Churchill as prime minister. When Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, precipitating the Suez Crisis, he authorized the use of force, and a joint Anglo-French force was sent to Egypt. The force was compelled to withdraw after pressure from the USA and the USSR, and this and ill-health led to Eden's resignation in January 1957. He continued to maintain that his action had been justified.

He published his memoirs as Full Circle (1960), Facing the Dictators (1962), and The Reckoning (1965).