Suez Crisis Peacekeepers to police the Egyptian–Israeli border, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned, Canadian Minister of External Affairs Lester Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the USSR may have been emboldened to invade Hungary. The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, after ten years of work financed by the French and Egyptian governments. The canal was operated by the Universal Company of the Suez Maritime Canal, an Egyptian-chartered company; the area surrounding the canal remained sovereign Egyptian territory and the only land-bridge between Africa and Asia. The canal instantly became strategically important, as it provided the shortest ocean link between
The Prime Minister Was a Spy officials". "The Prime Minister Was a Spy" made the following claims: Tom Frame, Holt's biographer, describes Titcombe and Grey's account as a "complete fabrication". He notes that there is "no corroborative evidence" for most of their claims, as none of the documents referred to in the book were produced. Furthermore, Holt was stridently anti-Communist, the large sums of money he supposedly received were never reflected in his lifestyle, he was highly unlikely to have deserted his wife and children, and the water off of Cheviot Beach was much too shallow for a submarine to submerge. Zara Holt observed that her