Anthony Eden

Robert Anthony Eden became foreign secretary at 38, a rapid rise that marked him as a diplomatic talent. He resigned in protest at Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Mussolini's Italy, returned to the post through most of the Second World War, and held it again in the early 1950s while serving as Churchill's deputy for nearly fifteen years. He succeeded Churchill as Conservative leader and prime minister in 1955, winning a general election a month later. In 1956 the United States refused to support the Anglo-French military response to the Suez Crisis - a rupture critics saw as the end of British influence in the Middle East, driven by Eden's failure to grasp the depth of American opposition. Two months after halting the Suez operation he resigned, citing ill health and widespread suspicion that he had misled Parliament over collusion with France and Israel. He is generally considered among the least successful British prime ministers of the twentieth century.