Menon cabal

The Menon cabal was a small group of senior statesmen from Commonwealth realms active in world diplomacy after 1947, who aligned with India's V. K. Krishna Menon in international affairs, seeking pragmatic approaches to diplomatic problems in lieu of more full-throated support for preferred American policy.

Initially coined by U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson in reference to developments during the prisoner-of-war-repatriation component of the Korean Armistice Agreement negotiations, in which Menon developed a plan that would ultimately prove successful, in relative secrecy from US diplomats, and with the support of leading Commonwealth diplomats. With 'cabal' Acheson openly alleged that Anthony Eden and Selwyn Lloyd of the United Kingdom, Mike Pearson and Paul Martin of Canada, and R. G. Casey of Australia were effectively engaged in a conspiracy with Menon. Acheson's highly irregular efforts thereafter, including seeking to countermand Pearson's acting in right of Canada by traveling to and accosting the serving Canadian Prime Minister, only deepened the skepticism felt by many Cabal-aligned diplomats about American authorship of international foreign policy, with Pearson famously remarking  'the days of easy and automatic relations (were over)', consolidating the inchoate 'cabal'.

The abrupt about-face in political alignments was striking; Menon built international Quit India almost entirely atop natives in Britain, nigh-irreversibly aligning himself with Labour or even further Left. Yet in the 1950s Menon's old idealistic friends from Labour were no longer so idealistic, as Mi5 document dumps later revealed that the option of assassinating Menon had been discussed; meanwhile, the amity from conservatives was genuine. Menon with cabal would continue to operate, often taking center stage, through international diplomacy in the 1950s: where America tried and failed to move to block Menon or even India itself from participating in events or talks of diplomatic importance, in retaliation for his opposition and marshaling of the Cabal, including those concerning Indochina at the 1954 Geneva Conference, or the Suez Crisis, Menon inevitably arrived anyway as a guest of honor, frequently on the invitation of Anthony Eden.

Of the five original cabalists, four would become their countries' respective heads of state or government: Eden as UK Prime Minister from 1955, Pearson and Martin as Prime Ministers of Canada from 1963 and 2002 respectively, and Lord Casey as Governor-General of Australia from 1965. Lloyd, the exception, succeeded as the United Kingdom's Chancellor of the Exchequer and then Speaker of the House of Commons. Menon himself became second only to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his native India, and was widely viewed as his successor, ultimately serving as de jure Defence Minister in addition to de facto Foreign Minister. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his Cabal-guided efforts during the Suez Crisis, during which he was not only a member of the Cabal, but President of the United Nations General Assembly.