Dwight Eisenhower was worried on Election Day in 1956, but not about winning the presidency for the second time. “I don’t give a darn about the election,” he said that day.
Eisenhower was busy trying to avoid World War III. An invasion of Egypt launched days earlier by Israel, France and Great Britain threatened to spiral into a much wider conflict. The fighting had erupted over control of the Suez Canal, a valuable shipping waterway in Egypt connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
Britain and France had owned the canal, but Egypt had seized and nationalized it that summer to help pay for a dam building project. The Suez crisis would turn violent at the end of October when Israel, France and Britain used military force to resolve the issue. Eisenhower was furious.
see my full commentary in the Bakersfield Californian
Author William Lambers 