Anthony Eden

Anthony Eden (1897-1977), British statesman, Foreign Secretary during World War II, briefly serving as Prime Minister (1955-1957). He was born on June 12, 1897, in Bishop Auckland, and educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. He served as a captain, brigade major, and a general-staff officer during World War I and was awarded the Military Cross after rescuing a wounded officer during the Battle of the Somme.

His political career began in 1923, when as a Conservative Party candidate for Warwick and Leamington he was elected to the House of Commons; from 1926 to 1929 he was parliamentary secretary to Sir Austen Chamberlain, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Eden became parliamentary under-secretary at the Foreign Office in 1931; three years later, he was appointed Lord Privy Seal and privy counsellor. In 1935 he was appointed minister without portfolio for League of Nations affairs and, in the same year, became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the government of Stanley Baldwin.

Eden resigned his office in 1938 because of his disagreement with the appeasement policy adopted by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with the signing of the Munich Pact. Eden was appointed Secretary of State for War in 1940 and again served as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1940 to 1945 under Prime Minister Winston Churchill. From 1942 to 1945 he was also leader of the House of Commons. After the election victory of the Labour Party in 1945, Eden became a leading member of the opposition in the House; following victory by the Conservatives in 1951 he again became Foreign Secretary in the new Churchill Cabinet. At a time marked by the increasing tensions of the Cold War, Eden established a reputation as the consummate diplomat and negotiator, helping to settle among other issues the Anglo-Iranian Oil dispute.

Upon Churchill's retirement in April 1955, Eden was appointed prime minister. That year he welcomed Nikita Khrushchev to Britain in an attempt to ease international tensions. However, his policy of armed intervention during the Suez Crisis in late 1956, however, caused international controversy and he resigned in January 1957, citing ill-health. Harold Macmillan succeeded him as prime minister.

Eden was knighted in 1954 and created Earl in 1961. He wrote Days for Decision (1949), a collection of his speeches; a trilogy of World War II memoirs, Full Circle (1960), Facing the Dictators (1962), and The Reckoning (1965); and Towards Peace in Indo-China (1966).