OMEGA Memorandum

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The 'OMEGA' memorandum[1] of March 21, 1956, was a secret United States informal policy memorandum drafted by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The document realigned Middle Eastern policy towards marginalization of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in light of his Soviet leanings and failure to provide the leadership that Dulles and Eisenhower had desired towards settling the Arab-Israeli conflict. The document's planned tactics were restriction of Eisenhower's 1954 Food for Peace program and other economic aid, delay and eventual cancellation of Aswan Dam funding, and the beginnings of a search for new leaders in the Arab world to use for peace promotion. However, the memo explicity leaves policy room for Nasser's rehabilitation as a U.S. regional ally; it aimed at Nasser's marginalization but not his 'destruction' - a marked difference to the correspondent British regional policy review of the same month, a difference that was displayed openly during the Suez Crisis of the same year.