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This book is based mainly on government sources, namely material from the White House, State Department, Foreign Office (FO), Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Prime Minister's Office (PREM) and Cabinet (CAB). Private papers consulted include those of Harold Wilson, Foreign Secretary George Brown and Undersecretary of State George Ball. The book explores a period of the Wilson-Johnson relationship. It considers the seven weeks from Wilson's election until he went to see Lyndon B. Johnson on 7-9 December, a formative period in which Britain cultivated American financial support and which saw pre-summit diplomacy over the NATO Multilateral Force (MLF). The book covers the summit in detail, examining the diplomatic exchanges over the Vietnam War, the British commitment East of Suez and the MLF, as well as the interplay of personality between Wilson and Johnson. By exploring the relationship of the two leaders in the years 1964-1968, it seeks to examine their respective attitudes to the Anglo-American relationship. The book then assesses the significance of an alleged Anglo-American strategic-economic 'deal', Wilson's 'Commonwealth Peace Mission' to Vietnam, and another Wilson visit to Washington. It also considers why the personal relationship between Johnson and Wilson suffered such strain when the Labour government 'dissociated' the UK from the latest American measures in Vietnam. Next, the book addresses the period from August 1966-September 1967, during which Wilson launched an intense but abortive effort to initiate peace negotiations over Vietnam, and London announced plans to withdraw from military bases East of Suez.
This is the first monograph length study that charts the coercive diplomacy of the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford as practiced against their British ally in order to persuade Edward Heath’s government to follow a more amenable course throughout the ‘Year of Europe’ and to convince Harold Wilson’s governments to lessen the severity of proposed defence cuts. Such diplomacy proved effective against Heath but rather less so against Wilson. It is argued that relations between the two sides were often strained, indeed, to the extent that the most ‘special’ elements of the relationship, that of intelligence and nuclear co-operation, were suspended. Yet, the relationship also witnessed considerable co-operation. This book offers new perspectives on US and UK policy towards British membership of the European Economic Community; demonstrates how US détente policies created strain in the ‘special relationship’; reveals the temporary shutdown of US-UK intelligence and nuclear co-operation; provides new insights in US-UK defence co-operation, and revaluates the US-UK relationship throughout the IMF Crisis.
hard to deny the ‘special relationship between photography and humanitarianism’ ( Fehrenbach and Rodogno, 2015 : 4). Advances in technology, such as the portable Kodak introduced by George Eastman in 1888, secured this connection just before and after the turn of the nineteenth century, as images from multiple waves of Indian famine were disseminated (1876–78, 1896–97, 1899–1900) and ‘atrocity photographs’ distributed by The Congo Reform Association (1903–13) generated moral
implications for the Johnson–Wilson relationship, as it saw the devaluation of sterling and the demise of the remaining British commitment East of Suez. As 1968 ended, the White House was more inclined to regard Britain simply as one ally among many, rather than a state with whom there was some kind of ‘special’ relationship. The Anglo-American relationship, 1964–68 There has been the suggestion that the Anglo
2 Old and new British foreign policy after 1945 evolved within a strategic context of progressive imperial and economic decline, Continental moves towards the integration of Europe, and the ‘special relationship’ with the US. One of its central aspects, as the post-war period unfolded, was a desire on the part of British governments to establish closer ties with the US as a means of compensating for Britain’s decline as an independent Great Power. Yet relations with both Europe and the US remained variable during this time, and the problems of decolonisation and
played by the arch-enemy of the US in the conflict, focusing either on the al-Qaeda network, on its leader, Osama bin Laden, or on the phenomena of radical Islamic terrorism more generally.3 Set against this, analyses of Britain’s role in the war on terror, though vastly smaller in number, have been similarly variegated. Generally speaking, the focus has centred on specific aspects of Britain’s participation, New Labour and the new world order such as the nature of the ‘special relationship’ with the US or its involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq,4 or has set out to
preferential treatment in its dealings with the IMF so it could maintain its defence commitments. In essence, when the Labour government of James Callaghan needed the US–UK’s special relationship to deliver material benefits, it came up rather short. The context of the IMF crisis Whilst this chapter is focused predominantly upon the political–diplomatic US–UK relationship, the economic context to the IMF crisis needs to be explained in order to contextualise the wider political issue. Throughout 1974–76, the Wilson government had implemented a series of public expenditure
Arabs. “Both our Arab and Israeli counterparts have been warned about the matter,” added Cem. 4 Still, some in Turkey characterize the relations with Israel as the most significant change in their country’s foreign policy in the past fifty years. Israeli parallels are the special relationships Israel pursued with France in the 1950s, Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, and South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Shimon Peres took a particular pride in the two countries’ rapprochement, defining Turkey as the “locomotive force” of the Muslim world and as
Australia formally began with the establishment of the New South Wales colony in 1788. In 1901, the six Australian colonies joined together to create an independent federal state, though Britain retained a degree of legislative and judicial influence that tapered off over the succeeding decades. Both New Zealand and Australia are still part of Britain’s Commonwealth and both retain the British monarch as their head of state. Britain’s global outlook – including both its “special relationship” to the US and its ties to the Commonwealth – had been cited by political leaders
Nazis as masters of Europe’.31 Anglo-American relations This uncertainty did much to colour Roosevelt’s other famous wartime relationship, that with Churchill. The initial presentation of the AngloAmerican relationship during the Second World War owed much to Churchill’s presentation of his mostly rosy view of the ‘Special Relationship’ in his various writings on the Second World War.32 Another view that can be said not entirely to deny the Churchill thesis, but certainly to qualify it, is that distrust between London and Washington was deeply ingrained and had been