Historical Dictionary of Anglo-American Relations
Historical Dictionary of Anglo-American Relations
Historical Dictionary of Anglo-American Relations
DIPLOMACY
Jon Woronoff, Series Editor
Sylvia Ellis
Estover Road
Plymouth PL6 7PY
United Kingdom
vii
Editor’s Foreword
The “special relationship” existing between the United States and the
United Kingdom (Great Britain) is exceptional in more ways than one.
It is singular in the very positive sense that these two countries have
managed to remain on sufficiently good terms for well over two cen-
turies. Despite one having thrown off the colonial domination of the
other and both having engaged in a nasty little war not so long after,
they have maintained a relationship that has ranged from satisfactory to
excellent. Certainly, the cooperation and support during two world wars
and the Cold War was exceptional. Even now that Britain is drawn to-
ward European partners, there is no doubt that it has stood by the United
States more than could be expected . . . and sometimes even more than
might have been deserved. The other side of this special relationship is
that, despite the daunting switch from a twosome in which Britain was
by far the stronger partner to a twosome in which it was an increasingly
junior partner, the two countries know they can still count on one an-
other. Moreover, this relationship remains fairly solid, buttressed not
only on a common language and culture (although increasingly less so
for the latter aspect) but also by their close cooperation on politics, de-
fense, economics, trade, and many other fields.
The trajectory of this long relationship, including the many swings
and roundabouts, is carefully and quite fairly described in this Histori-
cal Dictionary of Anglo–American Relations. The connections between
the two countries are first charted over the years in an extensive
chronology and presented more fully in the introduction. The dictionary
section looks closely at the many details, with numerous entries on the
more significant events and crises (from minor irritations to major wars)
and the varied and sometimes quite impressive cast of characters,
Americans and Britons and sometimes both. Other entries deal with the
institutional framework and abiding issues. This passage through time
ix
x • EDITOR’S FOREWORD
Jon Woronoff
Series Editor
Acknowledgments
xi
Acronyms and Abbreviations
xiii
xiv • ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
xv
xvi • CHRONOLOGY
ers of the three Allied powers (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) takes
place in Iraq. This became known as the Tehran Conference.
1944 6 June: D-Day landings, Allied troops land on the beaches of
Normandy. July: Bretton Woods Agreement. 21 August–7 October:
Dunbarton Oaks Conference discusses proposed United Nations. 12–16
September: Second Quebec Conference.
1945 4–11 February: Yalta Conference, the second wartime meeting
between Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt. 12 April: Harry S. Truman
becomes president of the United States following the death in office of
President Roosevelt. 25 April–26 June: San Francisco Conference as-
sembled to determine the final structure and form of the United Nations.
8 May: Victory in Europe day (VE-Day). 11 May: President Harry S.
Truman cancels Lend-Lease to Britain. 16 July: The United States det-
onates the first nuclear device at Alamogordo, New Mexico. 17 July–2
August: Potsdam Conference. 6 August: First nuclear bomb detonated
over Hiroshima. 9 August: Nuclear bomb detonated over Nagasaki. 14
August: Japan surrenders. 15 August: Victory in Japan day (VJ-Day).
12 September: Hong Kong returned to British rule. 24 October:
United Nations officially comes into existence having been ratified by
the major powers and a majority of signatories. 6 December: An-
glo–American loan agreement to replace Lend-Lease.
1946 5 March: Winston Churchill delivers his “iron curtain” speech
at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. This is the first public use
of the term “special relationship.” 1 August: The United States passes
the McMahon Act, making it illegal for the United States to share nu-
clear research with other nations (repealed in 1958).
1947 UKUSA Agreement to share intelligence, signed in secret. 12
March: Truman Doctrine. 5 June: U.S. Secretary of State George C.
Marshall outlines the European Recovery Program (known as the Mar-
shall Plan) in a speech at Harvard University.
1948 American Committee on a United Europe (ACUE) established.
1 January: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) signed. 17
March: Brussels Treaty signed. 14 May: Israel becomes an indepen-
dent state. 24 June: Russians blockade all land routes into Berlin. 26
xxii • CHRONOLOGY
1963 5 August: Great Britain, United States, and Soviet Union sign a
Limited Nonproliferation Treaty in Moscow that outlaws nuclear test-
ing in the atmosphere, outer space, and under water. 16 September:
Malaysian Federation established. 22 November: President John F.
Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Vice President Lyndon Baines
Johnson becomes president.
1964 7 February: The Beatles start their first U.S. tour. 4 March:
United Nations resolution introduces peacekeeping troops to Cyprus. 1
June: The Rolling Stones start their first U.S. tour. 16 October: Harold
Wilson elected prime minister of Great Britain. December: Prime Min-
ister Wilson proposes an Atlantic Nuclear Force.
1965 23 March: Labour government condemns American use of gas
in Vietnam. 28 April: United States’ troops invade Dominican Repub-
lic. 11 November: Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian
Smith, Rhodesia’s prime minister.
1966 28 June: Great Britain dissociates from American bombing of
Hanoi and Haiphong.
1967 5 June: Start of the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, also called the Six-
Day War.
1968 16 January: Great Britain announces its intention to withdraw
all its military forces from the Far East (except Hong Kong) by 31
March 1971, referred to as East of Suez. 1 July: Nuclear Nonprolifera-
tion Act signed.
1969 20 January: Richard Nixon becomes president of the United
States.
1970 19 June: Edward Heath becomes prime minister of Great
Britain.
1971 15 August: Bretton Woods system ends.
1973 1 January: United Kingdom joins the European Economic
Community (EEC). 23 April: Henry Kissinger, at the behest of Presi-
dent Nixon, declares that 1973 would be the “Year of Europe,” signal-
ing a change of direction in U.S. foreign policy. 6 October: Start of the
1973 Arab–Israeli War, also referred to as the October War or Yom Kip-
pur War.
CHRONOLOGY • xxv
ber: George W. Bush visits Great Britain for first state visit by a U.S.
president.
2004 29 March: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slo-
vakia, and Slovenia join NATO.
2005 16 February: Kyoto Treaty comes into effect (U.S. Congress
refused to ratify the treaty).
2006 15 March: U.S. Congress appoints Iraq Study Group. 27 July:
During the crisis in Lebanon, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beck-
ett makes an official protest against the American use of Prestwick Air-
port for transportation of bombs to Israel. October: British government
calls for the closure of U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. 6 De-
cember: Iraq Study Group final report released. 30 December: Saddam
Hussein executed. 31 December: Great Britain makes final repayment
on American loan to finance World War II debts.
2007 17 May: Final Bush–Blair press conference sees both leaders
expressing admiration for the other. 27 June: Tony Blair steps down as
British prime minister to be succeeded by Gordon Brown. 29–30 July:
Gordon Brown meets President Bush at Camp David.
2008 20 March: Republican presidential candidate Senator John Mc-
Cain meets Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London. 17 April: Gor-
don Brown meets President Bush and presidential hopefuls Hillary
Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain during visit to Washington,
D.C. 26 July: Democrat presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama
meets Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London. 4 November: Barack
Obama elected first African American president of the United States.
Introduction
The bilateral relationship between Great Britain and the United States
has always been important but complex. When Britain established its
first permanent settlement in America at Jamestown in April 1607, it be-
gan 176 years of direct rule over the American colonies, during which
time it exported its people, language, legal traditions, and a sense of
shared history, thus ensuring a continuing rapport and affiliation with
the American people that still endures into the 21st century. After Amer-
ican rebels rejected British rule and established the United States of
America in the late 18th century, Anglo–American relations began to
play a significant role in international history as the former mother
country and the offspring nation became trading competitors, rival
hegemonic powers, and, in the 20th century, military and political part-
ners.
The following represents a brief overview of the major developments
in Anglo–American relations from the American Revolution to the pres-
ent day. Tracing that history, it is apparent that London and Washington
have viewed one another differently at different times, depending
largely on the power ratio between the two but also because the two na-
tions’ separate histories meant that often their worldviews, as well as
national interests, diverged. The contours of the relationship have there-
fore changed over time, experiencing significant oscillations along the
way, from periods of acrimony and war to times of shared values, mu-
tual interdependence, and political unity. However, in more than two
centuries of Anglo–American relations, two main themes emerge.
Firstly, for much of the time, Anglo–American relations have been char-
acterized by a remarkable degree of unity, friendship, and cooperation.
The enduring kinship, common history, and cultural links between the
peoples of the two nations fostered a sense of familiarity at the govern-
mental and public levels. Moreover, a sense of shared values—particularly
1
2 • INTRODUCTION
did the British Crown turn its attention to the American colonies. Suc-
cess against the French resulted in Britain’s dominance in the Americas
and the doubling of its empire worldwide, but it had been a costly af-
fair, with the British national debt doubling during the course of the war.
Consequently, the British needed to help offset the costs by increasing
revenue from the American colonies through the imposition of taxation.
The road to the American Revolution was thus traveled as King George
III’s governments introduced a series of unpalatable acts on the colonies
aimed at ensuring they paid their way.
The theme of disunity became particularly apparent during this pe-
riod. Misunderstandings between Britain and America became com-
mon. While it is now clear that the king and his ministers did not nec-
essarily want to move the colonies away from self-government, and
were often enforcing existing legislation rather than introducing new
laws, the perception in America was somewhat different as fears of au-
tocratic rule and cries of “no taxation without representation” became
prevalent. The origins of the War of Independence therefore lay in the
questioning of political authority in the American colonies: Were Amer-
icans British subjects with equal rights or were they imperial subjects?
By 1775, 13 British colonies were controlled by rebel colonists, war
with the Loyalists began, and in 1776 the United States of America de-
clared its independence from Britain. America’s victory at Yorktown in
1781 and the subsequent settlement outlined in the Treaty of Versailles
of 1783 meant that, as the United States emerged out of the chaos of
war, the history of Anglo–American relations, as a relationship between
two separate powers, began. Initially, the new nation was focused on es-
tablishing its own form of government; on 17 September 1787 the U.S.
Constitution was adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadel-
phia, and on 30 April 1789 George Washington became the first elected
U.S. president. Britain and America still had some outstanding territo-
rial, maritime, and financial issues to deal with, however, and when
Britain became embroiled in the French Revolutionary Wars
(1793–1802) these became more pressing. Despite French support for
the American colonists during their own war with the British, Washing-
ton remained neutral during the conflict, recognizing it was in no posi-
tion to fight against Britain again, not wanting to disturb its transatlantic
commercial ties, and still dealing with establishing the United States as
a new nation. In November 1794, by signing the Treaty of Amity, Com-
INTRODUCTION • 5
merce, and Navigation, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, the gov-
ernment of William Pitt the Younger, and especially the British nego-
tiator, Lord Grenville, agreed to withdraw its remaining troops from
forts in America’s Northwest Territory and, in essence, recognized the
United States as a sovereign state. Anglo–American relations then ex-
perienced a 10-year period of relative harmony.
The 19th century saw the United States continue to develop as a nation
free from external British control, while Britain had to adjust to dealing
with a new and increasingly powerful nation across the Atlantic. Not
surprisingly, given the years of conflict with Britain, many Americans
still held largely negative views of their former rulers, associating the
British with aristocracy and tyranny, although even Thomas Jefferson
had acknowledged the “ties of our common kindred” in the Declaration
of Independence. Due to U.S. military and economic weakness and
Britain’s ability to quickly reestablish control of the seas, the first
American presidents recognized the need to establish reasonable rela-
tions with Britain and therefore conducted a cautious foreign policy. Al-
though the United States did not sway from George Washington’s ad-
vice to avoid permanent alliances, it had little choice but to engage with
Britain. American farmers relied on British markets for their produce,
particularly cotton and tobacco, and the new nation depended on im-
ported British manufactured goods. Consequently, the United States’
key priority was freedom of trade.
The Napoleonic Wars between Britain and France (1803–1815)
threatened this freedom as both sides tried to prevent the other from
trading with America. Fearing for its very existence, Britain was pre-
pared to sacrifice the recent improvement in relations with the United
States in its efforts to defeat Napoleon. Displaying arrogance, inepti-
tude, and highhandedness, the British continually violated U.S. neutral-
ity and sovereignty rights by impressing American seaman into the
British navy and by issuing Orders in Council that led to the seizure
American ships. When British sailors attacked and boarded an Ameri-
can ship, the USS Chesapeake, on 22 June 1807, President Jefferson fi-
nally responded firmly to this provocation by persuading Congress to
6 • INTRODUCTION
pass the Embargo Act of December 1807 that prohibited trade with
Britain. By 1812, as British interference with American shipping contin-
ued, a younger generation of congressmen began to press for war with
Britain to defend U.S. national honor. The resulting War of 1812, known
to many in America as the “Second War of Independence,” encouraged
anti-British sentiment in the nation. Two of America’s most potent na-
tionalist symbols emerged from the war. Although the Executive Man-
sion in Washington, D.C., had been named the White House in 1811, a
myth developed that it got that name after British troops set fire to it
(then occupied by President James Madison) and it was painted white af-
terwards to cover the scorch marks from the fire. And it was during the
1812–1814 conflict that the United States also got its national anthem—
“The Star-Spangled Banner”—composed by Francis Scott Key after the
British invaded Washington, D.C., in August 1814. Still, the war was a
huge risk for the new nation, especially as it attempted an invasion of
Canada (British North America). The war did not have the same signifi-
cance for the British as it did for the Americans; they were more con-
cerned with the military war against Napoleon. Consequently, the Cana-
dians fought to defend their territory against American attack but were
only supported by British troops when the war in Europe came to an end.
The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in December
1814 with neither side achieving anything of note. The issue of impress-
ments was no longer relevant as Napoleon had been defeated; the British
now had a surplus of sailors and the United States agreed to return all
Canadian land back to the British. By signing the treaty, Britain and
America agreed to return to the status quo ante bellum.
Despite feeling that Britain was still the country most likely to do the
United States harm, Washington understood that a balance had to be
sought between American assertions of independence and the need to
maintain important trading links with Britain. Canada remained the sub-
ject of several disputes between Washington and London, including the
Caroline affair (1837–1842) and the bloodless border clashes of the
Aroostock War of 1838, but by the middle of the century, an
Anglo–American accommodation was beginning to be achieved as ter-
ritorial issues were resolved. The Northeast boundary dispute was set-
tled by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 when U.S. Secretary of
State Daniel Webster worked with British Foreign Secretary Lord Ash-
burton to establish the border between the United States and Canada,
and in 1850 the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty attempted to deal with An-
INTRODUCTION • 7
In the aftermath of the Civil War, as the United States dealt with Re-
construction in the South and the growth of big business in the North,
relations with Britain began to improve gradually. The two peoples had
begun to appreciate each other’s cultures much more. In the first
decades of the United States’ existence, the British had been intrigued
to see how the new nation, experimenting in new forms of democracy,
would develop; although Britain recognized that the United States
shared a commitment to liberal values such as individual liberty and pri-
vate property rights, there was a feeling that its democracy went too far.
Prevailing perceptions of the United States and its national character
were often gained from curious British travelers to the United States, in-
cluding British businessmen and women and novelists such as Charles
Dickens and Frances Trollope. Until the late 19th century, British opin-
ions on American identity were often negative, noting a range of fail-
ings from individual idiosyncrasies, such as a perceived lack of table
manners, to a wider-held abhorrence of slavery and its racial legacy, a
dislike of displays of excessive materialism, and contrasts between
American innocence compared to British experience in worldly affairs.
Such views began to be challenged as social and cultural links between
the two peoples grew in the second half of the 19th century as more
Britons migrated to the United States; transatlantic connections in the
business world and between reform and religious movements, such as
the antislavery groups, women’s rights campaigners, and the Quakers,
led to exchanges of ideas, finance, and people. By the late 19th century,
cultural ties among the Anglo–American elites were also strengthened
by the “marriage market” that saw British aristocrats marrying Ameri-
can heiresses, such as Nancy Astor and Jennie Churchill, in what was
characterized in the popular press as “money-for-title” arrangements.
In the last decades of the 19th century, the United States had begun
to grow in confidence as continental America was settled and its eco-
nomic power increased markedly with mass immigration, urbanization,
and industrialization. At the same time, Anglophobic opinion declined
in strength in the late 19th century, partly due to the thinking of opinion
shapers such as Josiah Strong, the Protestant minister who argued in
Our Country (1885) that the “Anglo–Saxon” race had a responsibility
to “uplift and civilize” the world, thus providing an intellectual frame-
work for an improvement in Anglo–American diplomatic relations.
America’s overseas expansionism in the late 19th century and early
INTRODUCTION • 9
ANGLO–AMERICAN RELATIONS
FROM WORLD WAR I TO WORLD WAR II
rivals: Germany in Europe and the United States in the Western hemi-
sphere, both with growing navies, expanding empires, and economic
strength. At this stage, Washington was not yet desirous of an interven-
tionist presence in the world; Britain, which was comfortable with U.S.
liberalism, proved correct in thinking that Germany, led by Prussian
aristocrats with militaristic intent, was a more immediate threat.
With the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, Britain was fighting
to maintain its great power status; although it had allies in Europe
through the Triple Entente, as the war of attrition in the trenches of
northern France and Belgium dragged on into 1915, the Liberal prime
minister, Herbert Asquith, began to press the administration of
Woodrow Wilson to become involved militarily. President Wilson had
made it clear from the beginning of the war that this was a European
conflict and had declared that the United States must remain “neutral in
fact as well as name.” Several factors impeded strict neutrality on
America’s part. With 8 million German Americans and 4.5 million Irish
Americans, the United States had a significant proportion of its 105 mil-
lion population who did not care for a British victory. However, pro-
British sentiment was even stronger, not least on Wall Street and among
significant political figures, including former president Theodore Roo-
sevelt and Wilson’s close adviser, Colonel Edward House. By 1915
American neutrality also favored the Allies because, although the
United States continued to trade with all belligerent nations, Britain
benefited the most from this due to its dominance on the high seas.
Britain was also tied to the United States financially as the country be-
gan to receive American loans in October 1915 from the House of Mor-
gan to fund the war. It was the German use of U-boat submarine war-
fare and Britain’s blockade of Germany that finally dragged the United
States into World War I as merchant vessels faced attack or seizure and
American commercial interests were badly affected. Prompted by the
public knowledge of the Zimmerman telegram, at Wilson’s request, the
U.S. Congress declared war on the German empire on 6 April 1917,
joining the Allied nations as an “associate power” rather than signing a
treaty of alliance. Washington was willing to cooperate with London but
wanted to retain the right to sign a peace treaty on its own terms. This
decision reflected Wilson’s internationalist principles and his under-
standing that the United States had differing war aims. Whereas Britain
was concerned with its own security and that of its empire, the United
INTRODUCTION • 11
States focused on the concept of making the world “safe for democ-
racy” and reforming international politics.
As far as the British were concerned, particularly Prime Minister
David Lloyd-George, American forces were slow to mobilize for war.
General John Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary
Force (AEF) and its 1st Division did not arrive in France until June
1917 and by December only 175,000 troops had arrived. Pershing and
Wilson were adamant that American forces should be an independent
fighting force that was well trained and not rushed into battle. Conse-
quently, very few U.S. troops fought in the land war until July 1918, al-
though they did go on to play a major role in the St. Mihiel offensive
launched on 12 September and the Meuse–Argonne offensive that be-
gan later that month. Despite the United States’ “associate” status, there
was a significant degree of Anglo–American military cooperation dur-
ing the war. Washington accepted the grand strategy of the allies that fo-
cused on the Western Front, and as it became clear that American troops
were essential to the land campaign, the American and Royal navies co-
operated in transporting approximately two million servicemen safely
to the Continent. Washington retained some independence, however. It
insisted on guarding against intensified U-boat activity off the coast of
America in the early months of U.S. involvement, and later Wilson
pushed for a more aggressive naval offensive in European waters. The
influx of U.S. materiel and 1.2 million American servicemen tipped the
balance in the Allies’ favor and Germany agreed to an armistice on 11
November 1918.
The switch in Anglo–American fortunes was cemented by the end of
World War I. Not only did Britain suffer large numbers of war casual-
ties—almost 900,000 dead—the financial cost of the war had also been
great, with costs estimated at $35 billion. Britain also lost its position as
the world’s leading overseas investor, instead ending the war facing
enormous interest payments on wartime loans. Despite America’s late
entry to the war, it also suffered almost 120,000 war dead but its finan-
cial burden was lower, $22 billion. More importantly, America moved
from being a debtor nation before the war to being a net creditor nation
after it. In the 1920s and 1930s, as both nations struggled to come to
terms with their new positions in the world order, diplomatic relations
between the two deteriorated markedly. In particular, these years
saw growing naval and financial rivalry as Britain and the United States
12 • INTRODUCTION
battled for world supremacy. Although the British Empire still retained
the largest navy at the end of World War I, it was soon being challenged
by the United States as both nations embarked on massive shipbuilding
programs. The administration of Warren G. Harding organized the
Washington Naval Conference that began in November 1921 and aimed
to halt the naval race between Japan, the United States, and Great
Britain. The Liberal government of David Lloyd-George was forced to
accept naval parity with the United States in the Five-Power Treaty that
was signed in 1922 in an acknowledgment that the United States’ supe-
rior economic strength would ultimately allow it to win any arms race.
The American negotiator at the Washington conference, Secretary of
State Charles Evans Hughes, was willing to accept a degree of U.S.
naval disarmament as long as it stemmed the power of Japan in the Pa-
cific and because he was well aware of the isolationist sentiment within
Congress and among the American public.
Most importantly in the 1920s, Anglo–American tensions grew over
the repayment of war debts to America. By the end of the war, Britain
owed $4.3 billion to American financial institutions that expected to be
paid back as soon as possible. London, in turn, was owed war repara-
tions from the Germans under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles
(1919), but Germany, despite the Dawes Plan of 1924, was not in a po-
sition to pay them. This financial impasse led to much anger and re-
sentment on both sides of the Atlantic, with the United States suspect-
ing Britain of perfidy and the British feeling the United States should
have more patience considering the “blood” cost it had incurred in
fighting World War I. In the end, Britain repaid $2.2 billion to the
United States and reneged on the remaining debt, leaving many Amer-
icans with a lesson learned, especially when, in the 1930s, the country
entered its worst depression. Britain’s lapse into protectionism, ending
its commitment to free trade and introducing imperial preference, led to
still further bitterness in Washington. To add to Anglo–American woes,
the 1930s saw the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and Asia and neither
country proved up for the fight. Having refused to enter Woodrow Wil-
son’s League of Nations, America took a noninterventionist stance;
Britain chose appeasement. The administration of Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt believed Britain was still motivated primarily by a desire to
strengthen its empire and was disturbed by British appeasement policy,
not least when it led to British acceptance of Italy’s gains in East Africa
INTRODUCTION • 13
By the end of World War II, Britain’s status as a “great power” had been
reduced greatly by a lengthy and costly war. The human costs had been
great, with over 250,000 casualties; many of Britain’s cities had faced
physical destruction from continuous aerial bombing; and the financial
costs had been severe, with Britain losing a quarter of its prewar value.
16 • INTRODUCTION
The war also saw the process of decolonization increase rapidly, and by
1947 Britain had left the Indian subcontinent and by 1948 had ceded its
mandate in Palestine. In contrast to a war-ravished and weakened
Britain, America was now a confident economic and military super-
power, and the dominant power in the Anglo–American relationship. It
was imperative for Britain’s future influence on the world stage to be
able to maintain a close working relationship with the United States.
In Britain and America, the desire to continue the Atlantic alliance in
the postwar era had an economic imperative. Prior to the war’s end,
London and Washington had worked together to try to prevent a return
to the protectionism of the 1920s and 1930s and ensure a more stable
world economic order by establishing an international exchange rate
system pegged to the value of gold in the Bretton Woods Agreement of
1944. But with the war’s end, the administration of Harry S. Truman
acted swiftly to end its program of Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union and
Great Britain, leaving London to contemplate its sterling balance prob-
lem and Britain’s reconstruction without sufficient funds to do so. From
September to December 1945, Britain’s key economist, John Maynard
Keynes, negotiated in Washington over an Anglo–American loan. By
agreeing to a low-interest loan of $3.75 billion, U.S. Secretary of the
Treasury Fred Vinson recognized it would help secure British involve-
ment in the Bretton Woods system (including the International Mone-
tary Fund [IMF] and the World Bank) that had become operational in
1946. The United States proved crucial to British economic recovery by
providing the Anglo–American loan and by providing Marshall aid in
1948. In later years, America also provided support for the pound ster-
ling on several occasions, particularly before it was devalued by Prime
Minister Harold Wilson in 1967 and during the IMF crisis of 1976. Eco-
nomic cooperation was also noticeable in 1948 when the United States
and Great Britain were both founding members of the General Agree-
ment on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), later the World Trade Organization
(WTO), which was set up to promote free trade and reduce protection-
ist measures amongst its membership.
The most pressing factor urging the continuance of a strong
Anglo–American relationship was the emergence of the Cold War. De-
spite the United States’ nuclear superiority, very quickly it became ap-
parent that Washington was faced with an ideological and strategic bat-
tle with its former ally, the communist Soviet Union. Former prime
INTRODUCTION • 17
with the passage of the McMahon Act. By the time the act had been re-
pealed in 1958, Britain had developed its own atomic and hydrogen
bombs. Anglo–American nuclear cooperation resumed with the passage
of the U.S.–U.K. Mutual Defense Agreement, under which the two par-
ties worked together to aid each other’s nuclear planning and develop-
ment processes, and embarked on joint nuclear testing. In effect,
Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent was increasingly dependent on
American assistance as they came to rely on sharing of technology, mis-
siles, information, and materiel. During a meeting with Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan in Bermuda in 1957, President Eisenhower agreed to
station American Thor missiles in Britain as Britain struggled to deliver
its own Blue Streak missiles. This dependence on U.S. missiles meant
Britain had to negotiate to gain U.S. Polaris and Trident missiles in the
1960s and 1970s. Although nuclear cooperation became another con-
crete dimension of the “special relationship,” Britain’s close alliance
with the United States was partly justified by the feeling that it could
provide a moderating influence on Washington in an era of nuclear pro-
liferation—indeed, it might be able to restrain the U.S. colossus—and
thus debates continued over the degree of British involvement in nu-
clear decision making and military planning. As concerns about nuclear
proliferation grew in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis of Octo-
ber 1962, a global treaty on nuclear arms limitation was negotiated in
1963. During the negotiations between President John F. Kennedy, Pre-
mier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister
Macmillan, there was some degree of Anglo–American discord. Al-
though Washington and London were keen to see an East–West agree-
ment on the issue, Macmillan had a stronger preference than Kennedy
for a comprehensive test ban treaty (banning testing underground in ad-
dition to the ban on atmospheric and above-ground testing that was
agreed) and played an important role in ensuring the final Limited Nu-
clear Test Ban Treaty was agreed to by all parties. Britain and America
also worked together during the negotiations with the Soviet Union on
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968, which recognized existing
nuclear powers but prevented nonnuclear powers from acquiring the
weapons. Despite an Anglo–American commitment to nuclear disarma-
ment, successive postwar British governments felt that the
Anglo–American nuclear deterrence safeguarded British national inter-
ests, namely its physical security.
INTRODUCTION • 19
ble Europe, with one of its key allies at its center, but also because as
Dean Acheson had famously remarked in 1962, Britain had lost an em-
pire and not yet found a role.
Brown was not convinced that in recent years Britain had had sufficient
influence or payback for its loyalty to the United States, during a visit
to 10 Downing Street in May 2008, Obama spoke of the need to “re-
calibrate” the “special relationship” with Britain, arguing that London
and Washington should be “full partners.” In addition, the new presi-
dent will face a challenging international environment. Rather than be-
ing obsessed by the “war on terror,” the new president faces global eco-
nomic problems as well as two rapidly emerging powers, not quite
superpowers yet, but certainly dangerous rivals if not suitably ad-
dressed, namely a resurgent Russia and the People’s Republic of China,
who Britain and America would like to see operating within the estab-
lished international system. As other powers challenge America’s global
dominance, Washington may have to exercise leadership at a time when
liberal democracy is increasingly questioned as the only way forward
for emergent nations.
Thus, Anglo–American relations must be inserted in the broader con-
text. While American power has continued rising over recent decades,
Britain’s power base has kept on shrinking. London could endorse poli-
cies adopted in Washington, but it could not do much more and it could
certainly not impose its own even within the European Union, whose
foreign policy machinery it was increasingly absorbed into. So, as an
ally, Britain was of shrinking significance. However, it could still play
an important role as a friend, even as “best buddy.” The most serious
drawback to much of recent American policy has been that it was con-
cocted in Washington, often without too much concern as to what oth-
ers thought of it, and on occasion the American president even looked
like the bully. Calling its opponents enemies, let alone part of an axis of
evil, did not help matters. Yet, as Afghanistan and Iraq showed, even the
United States could not always go it alone even against rather second-
and even third-rate opponents, while the “war on terror” depended
much more on cooperation than power. Thus, Britain could again, as it
had under Blair, provide coaching on how to get along with other coun-
tries and present policies that seem less one-sided and aggressive. More
simply, it could pass along the knowledge that except for rather special
cases, international relations is not about good versus bad (let alone
evil) but seeking mutually agreeable solutions to concrete problems and
only resorting to force, threats, or bullying when all else fails. It is ap-
parent that in fighting the war on terrorism, Britain would like to take
INTRODUCTION • 27
The Dictionary
– A –
29
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30 • ACHESON, DEAN
ADAMS, GERRY • 31
32 • AFGHANISTAN
ALBRIGHT, MADELEINE • 33
becoming the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. gov-
ernment at that time. Albright had earlier served as U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations, 1993–1997. During her time as secretary of
state in the second administration of William Clinton, Anglo–Amer-
ican relations improved noticeably. Although Albright spent time in
Britain during World War II, she did not appear to have any special
affection for the country but did appear to share the ethical world-
view of the British foreign secretary, Robin Cook. Their mutual ab-
horrence of ethnic apartheid was a factor in the more proactive pol-
icy of the United States and Great Britain toward Bosnia and
Kosovo. On 30 June 1997 Albright also announced that she would,
along with Cook, boycott the Chinese ceremony to mark the transfer
of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty.
glia, and the first American Air Strategic Command on British soil
was established at RAF Lakenheath. The agreement was formalized
later in 1949. Although Bevin was pleased with this decision—as it
ensured an American commitment to the defense of Europe—this act
was extremely controversial, not least because the British govern-
ment did not report the matter to Parliament. U.S. Air Force bases
were established at Mildenhall, Greenham Common, Upper Hey-
ford, Brize Norton, and Fairford in 1950, and the B-29 bombers were
then fitted to carry nuclear weapons. As Britain became a base for a
U.S. nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, it placed itself in the front-
line of any future nuclear war. One of the major points of controversy
was the issue of a British government veto on the use of American
nuclear weapons from British bases.
In addition to air force bases, the United States also maintains
communications and intelligence bases in the United Kingdom, in-
cluding NSA Menwith Hill. The American presence has been the fo-
cus of protests by groups such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disar-
mament (CND), and the secrecy surrounding the bases is currently
challenged by the Campaign for the Accountability of American
Bases. See also ATOMIC BOMB; COLD WAR.
40 • ANGLO–BOER WAR
ANGLOPHOBE • 41
42 • ANGLO–SAXONISM
ANZUS • 43
44 • APPEASEMENT
ARAB–ISRAELI WAR • 45
46 • ARCADIA CONFERENCE
ATLANTIC CHARTER • 47
clashed as the British attempted to build a road in the area. The mili-
tias of Maine and New Brunswick were called out and the U.S. Con-
gress authorized the mobilization of 50,000 troops and appropriated
$10 million to the conflict. Despite this, no shots were fired as Gen-
eral Winfield Scott was sent by the United States to persuade the New
Brunswick representatives that full-scale war could break out. Both
sides participated in a commission, whose findings provided the ba-
sis of the 1842 Webster–Ashburton Treaty that resolved the affair.
This dispute is often referred to as the Northern boundary dispute or
the Pork and Beans War.
48 • ATLANTIC CONFERENCE
ATOMIC BOMB • 49
50 • ATTLEE, CLEMENT R.
advantage in this for the Americans, and for many months the British
received little information from the Manhattan scientists.
The situation changed during a meeting between Churchill and
Roosevelt in 1943 when the two leaders signed the Quebec Agree-
ment. The nuclear partnership was resumed on an equal basis and it
was agreed that it should continue after the end of World War II.
Britain had to confirm that it did not intend to use the research to de-
velop nuclear energy for commercial purposes and, due to British fi-
nancial constraints and the war in Europe, the United States agreed to
develop the bomb, eventually spending over $2 billion to do so. Af-
ter Quebec, British scientists were based at the American research
laboratories at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The first nuclear device
was detonated at Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert on 16 July
1945 and the first uranium bomb, codenamed “Little Boy,” was
dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, killing at least 90,000
Japanese civilians. A second bomb was dropped three days later on
Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered on 14 August 1945. Britain was
consulted over the decision to drop the bomb but only after the deci-
sion was taken. With the end of the war, the United States ended nu-
clear cooperation with the British, formalized by Congress through
the passage of the McMahon Act in August 1946. This decision was
perceived as a betrayal by the British government, leading them to
develop their own atomic bomb, successfully tested at Monte Bello
on 3 October 1952.
ATTLEE, CLEMENT R. • 51
his government’s foreign policy. He was quickly faced with harsh re-
alities when the United States ended Lend-Lease abruptly after the end
of the war in Europe and he was forced to send Lord Keynes to Wash-
ington to negotiate a loan to enable Britain to survive and reconstruct.
Despite the closeness of the wartime alliance, Attlee also found that
President Harry S. Truman and the U.S. Congress no longer wanted
to share nuclear secrets with the British. He visited Washington in No-
vember 1945, meeting with Truman and Secretary of State James F.
Byrnes. To ensure Britain’s security and prestige on the world stage,
the Labour prime minister approved the research and development of
Britain’s own atomic bomb.
It was clear by early 1947 that the relationship between Britain and
the United States was increasingly being tested. In that year, there
were noticeable tensions between Attlee and Truman when the pres-
ident encouraged more Jewish immigration to Palestine. Attlee also
had little choice but to inform Truman that Britain could no longer af-
ford to fund the anticommunist battle in Greece and Turkey, forcing
the president to outline the Truman Doctrine and ask Congress to
appropriate funds for the United States to take over. The Marshall
Plan aid that began to arrive in Britain in 1948 helped heal a breach
that had developed between Britain and America in the early postwar
years, although Attlee was suspicious that the Truman administration
was pushing an integrationist agenda in Europe. He was, however,
enthusiastic about cooperating with the United States on the forma-
tion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Ko-
rean War saw another occasion to work with the United States, and
Attlee was keen to do so. When Truman appeared to suggest that the
United States might use nuclear weapons in Korea, Attlee was urged
by members of Parliament to fly to Washington to discuss the matter
with the president. At this meeting Attlee gained reassurance that the
United States was not considering using atomic weapons in Korea
and would consult with Britain before doing so. Attlee’s concern was
linked to a key difference between himself and Truman over policy
toward communist China. Unlike President Truman, Attlee took an
accommodationist approach toward the People’s Republic of China
and was willing to admit the new government to the United Nations.
See also ANGLO–AMERICAN LOAN AGREEMENT; McMA-
HON ACT.
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52 • BAGHDAD PACT
– B –
BEATLES, THE • 53
spoke with the British ambassador to the United States, Sir David
Manning. It issued a final report on 6 December 2006 arguing that
U.S. policy in Iraq was not working and recommending the United
States should not increase its military commitment there but instead
increase its diplomatic efforts in the region.
54 • BEATLES, THE
56 • BERLIN BLOCKADE
BERLIN CRISIS • 57
58 • BERMUDA CONFERENCE
BEVIN, ERNEST • 59
BLAIR, TONY • 61
62 • BLIX, HANS
David Kelly, a government scientist who was the source for the BBC
journalists who claimed Blair had knowingly exaggerated the threat
from Iraq in its published intelligence dossier of September 2002. Al-
though the Hutton Inquiry was established to investigate the death of
Dr. Kelly and reported in January 2004 that the British government
had not altered intelligence reports for its own purposes, criticism of
the Blair government’s actions in relation to Iraq continued and there
were calls for his resignation. Instead, Blair announced a government
inquiry into the intelligence on Iraq and in July 2004 the Butler Re-
port published its findings that included a criticism of “unsubstanti-
ated” intelligence claims in the September 2002 dossier. Blair and
Bush retained their public admiration for one another until the prime
minister resigned office on 27 June 2007. See also IRELAND.
BLIX, HANS (1928– ). Former Swedish minister for foreign affairs and
later head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Hans Blix
served as executive chairman of the United Nations’ Monitoring, Ver-
ification, and Inspection Commission between January 2000 and June
2003. In this role, he came into conflict with the George W. Bush ad-
ministration and the British Labour government, led by Tony Blair,
over the disarmament of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
In the months before U.S. and allied forces invaded Iraq in March
2003, Blix and his team of inspectors visited Iraq and carried out over
400 unannounced inspections at 300 sites. He reported on 13 Febru-
ary 2003 that no stockpiles or evidence of WMDs had been found but
argued that Iraq should provide unconditional cooperation in the dis-
armament process. In February 2003, prior to the invasion of Iraq,
Blix argued that Bush and Blair had exaggerated the threat posed by
Iraqi weapons in order to help justify their actions, and urged that the
inspectors be given more time to continue their search for weapons of
mass destruction. After leaving his post as chief weapons inspector,
Blix continued to criticize Bush and Blair for a lack of “critical think-
ing” on Iraq, claiming they had failed to question the sources of intel-
ligence. Blix also claimed that his offices had been bugged by Amer-
ican intelligence agencies. See also IRAQ WAR.
BLUE STREAK. In the 1950s, Britain lagged behind the Cold War
superpowers in nuclear missile development and launch delivery sys-
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BOSNIA • 63
64 • BOSTON MASSACRE
BREMER, L. PAUL • 65
killed as a result of the incident and they are considered the first ca-
sualties for the cause that resulted in the American Revolution. The
incident appears to have been sparked partly because of the heavy
presence of Royal troops who had been stationed in the city since
1768 after rioting followed the seizure of the American ship Liberty
for trade violations. The soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre
were put on trial and defended by John Adams, who feared lower-
class violence was not the best way to fight British policies. Two of
the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and seven were found
not guilty. The massacre was depicted in an engraving by Paul Re-
vere, and although not entirely accurate in its depiction of the event,
this fueled resentment against the British that ultimately resulted in
the War of Independence.
BOSTON TEA PARTY (1773). The Boston Tea Party was a signifi-
cant incident in the breakdown in relations between the American
colonies and the British Crown as American rebels began to question
British rule. Despite the repeal of the Townshend Duties in 1770,
American colonists continued to boycott many British goods, includ-
ing tea; in 1773 the British Parliament passed the Tea Act in an effort
to aid the failing East India Company, which faced bankruptcy partly
due to its poor sales of tea in the colonies. The act, passed on 10 May
1773, allowed the giant trading company to export tea directly to the
American colonies and not pay import taxes, while the colonists re-
mained liable for them, thus undercutting the American tea mer-
chants who were smuggling to avoid such duties and reigniting the
debate about “no taxation without representation.” On 16 December
1773, a group of American patriots, including members of the Sons
of Liberty, disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians, boarded three
ships in Boston Harbor, and destroyed chests of tea by throwing them
into the sea. The incident cost the East India Company approximately
£10,000 and led the British Parliament to pass the Intolerable Acts
(also known as the Coercive Acts) in 1774, interpreted by the Amer-
ican colonists as threatening their political freedoms still further. See
also WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
BROWN BROTHERS • 67
68 • BROWN, GORDON
Ronald Reagan between 1981 and 1989 and was elected 41st presi-
dent of the United States in November 1998, serving in the White
House for one term between 1989 and 1993. During his period as
president, relations with the British were conducted within Bush’s
plans for a “new world order” after the end of the Cold War. Bush
took steps to distance himself from the cozy relationship that had ex-
isted between his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, and the British prime
minister, Margaret Thatcher. London feared that the “special rela-
tionship” was being challenged by Washington’s increasingly close
relationship with the newly united Germany as part of its attempt to
establish strong relations with the European community. The inva-
sion of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990 revitalized Anglo–American
relations when Thatcher immediately pledged to help the United
States and joined the United Nations’ coalition force to liberate the
country. Thatcher’s successor, John Major, became prime minister
shortly before Operation Desert Storm began and the successful
Anglo–American military cooperation during the Gulf War helped
to establish a strong personal relationship between Bush and Major.
The Bush administration had a disagreement with the Major govern-
ment at the end of the Gulf War over its decision to declare the end
of the military mission after just four days of ground troop activity,
when the British would have preferred the campaign to continue on
to Baghdad.
Aside from events in the Persian Gulf, the Bush administration
concentrated much of its attention on dealing with the collapsing So-
viet Union and the envisaged “peace dividend.” It encouraged
Britain and France to accept the integration of a united Germany into
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Commu-
nity, and encouraged European leaders to take greater responsibility
for their own regional affairs. George Bush worked with Major over
Anglo–American policy regarding the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Meeting at Camp David on 20 December 1992, the two leaders is-
sued a statement agreeing to work together to ensure a peaceful set-
tlement of the former Yugoslavia and to prevent the spread of fight-
ing to Kosovo and Macedonia. By this stage, Britain had already
committed 2,000 troops to the former Yugoslavia to help in the hu-
manitarian effort and, despite the unified statement, Bush believed
that the Balkans was an area that the Europeans should deal with. See
also BOSNIA.
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BUSH, GEORGE W. • 71
72 • CALLAGHAN, JAMES
– C –
CARNEGIE, ANDREW • 73
CANADA. From the 18th century to the late 19th century, Canada
proved an area of contention between Britain and the United States.
Canada was known as British North America when it was a British
colony and on numerous occasions was the focus of disharmony be-
tween Great Britain and the United States, particularly over bound-
ary disputes and raids launched by anti-British rebels. Canada was
granted dominion status in 1867, allowing the country to rule itself
within the British Empire and later British Commonwealth. See also
AROOSTOCK WAR; BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT; CARO-
LINE AFFAIR; FENIAN BROTHERHOOD.
74 • CAROLINE AFFAIR
CASABLANCA CONFERENCE • 75
CASH AND CARRY (1939). At the onset of World War II, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt forced through Congress an amendment to
the 1935 and 1937 Neutrality Acts—which forbade the sale of arms,
ammunition, and weapons to belligerent nations—that allowed na-
tions to buy war goods on a “cash-and-carry” basis. This allowed
Great Britain and France to collect goods in their own ships once they
were paid for. Temporarily this aided the Allied war cause, although
very quickly Britain ordered more goods than it could pay for, lead-
ing Roosevelt to pursue further revisions to the Neutrality Acts. See
also LEND-LEASE.
CHEQUERS • 77
much of his working life in the United States. Chaplin had a difficult,
poverty-stricken childhood but found solace in performing on stage
in music halls. Chaplin began working in America in 1910 and
starred in his first comedy film, Making a Living, in 1914. His career
as a comedic actor in silent movies flourished and he became known
for his character “The Tramp.” He went on to make numerous suc-
cessful films, including The Kid (1921), Gold Rush (1925), Modern
Times (1935), and the Great Dictator (1940), and scripted, directed,
and produced many of them. During the McCarthy era of the late
1940s and early 1950s, Chaplin came under the scrutiny of the Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation because his films were considered pro-
communist. His personal lifestyle was also questioned by conserva-
tive forces in the United States, notably his short-lived marriages and
many affairs with Hollywood actresses and very young women. Al-
though he had been a U.S. resident for 40 years, when Chaplin vis-
ited England in 1952, his reentry visa was revoked. He did not return
to America until 1972 when he was awarded an Honorary Oscar.
Chaplin was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire in
1975, having been considered for it in 1956 but not receiving it be-
cause the Conservative government, led by Anthony Eden, feared it
might disturb Anglo–American relations.
78 • CHESAPEAKE AFFAIR
CHINA. By the end of the 19th century, both Great Britain and Amer-
ica agreed on an Open Door policy toward China. On 6 February
1922 the two nations signed a treaty in Washington, along with Bel-
gium, China, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and Portugal, to
safeguard its main principles of stabilizing conditions in the Far East,
encouraging trading and commercial relations on an equal basis for
all nations, and to safeguard the rights of China. Despite this treaty,
London and Washington stood back and watched as Japan attempted
to strengthen its sphere of interest in China by invading Manchuria in
1932. Although U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson had wanted
to withhold diplomatic recognition of Japan’s conquests—the Stim-
son Doctrine—Britain’s foreign secretary, Sir John Simon, had re-
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CHINA • 79
80 • CHRISTOPHER, WARREN
served as First Lord of the Admiralty and helped ready the British
naval fleet for war. After a period out of high office, during which he
was a critic of appeasement, Churchill returned to the same position
at the beginning of World War II. As prime minister of the British
wartime coalition government (1940–1945), Churchill established a
close working relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt,
which he wrote about in his memoirs of the war. During the war and
afterward, Churchill spoke and wrote about the Anglo–American re-
lationship with an emphasis on the cultural ties between the two na-
tions, reflecting his view that an alliance of the English-speaking
peoples was a natural force for good in the world. With the publica-
tion of the actual correspondence between the two leaders, however,
it became clear that although the personal relationship was a good
one, there were still areas of disagreements, including over British
policy toward Greece in 1944 and over civil aviation.
Despite U.S. neutrality in the early stages of the war, Churchill was
able to persuade Roosevelt to provide Britain and its allies with food,
munitions, and other vital supplies through Cash and Carry in 1939
and Lend-Lease in 1941. While providing great inspiration to the
British in their fight against Nazi Germany, Churchill continued to
try to encourage the United States to enter the war. Meeting for the
first time at Placentia Bay in August 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill
signed the Atlantic Charter, declaring their common principles for
a peaceful world. They went on to meet on another eight occasions.
Churchill’s enthusiasm for transatlantic air travel facilitated his regu-
lar meetings with the American president and in effect began modern
summit diplomacy. Toward the end of the war Churchill was aware
that Roosevelt (and his successor Harry S. Truman) was moving
closer to Joseph Stalin in the Big Three summits (Tehran, Yalta,
Potsdam). In his attempts to persuade President Truman and the
American public to be alert to the dangers of Soviet communism, he
delivered one of his most famous speeches on 5 March 1946 at West-
minster College in Fulton, Missouri. With Truman on the same plat-
form, Churchill warned that “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in
the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” In
order to deal with this threat, Churchill called for an alliance of the
English-speaking peoples, speaking of “a special relationship be-
tween the British Commonwealth and the United States.” As a keen
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82 • CLAYTON–BULWER TREATY
canal through Central America to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
to reduce shipping costs. Although neither country wanted to under-
take such a massive building project at the time, the treaty commit-
ted Great Britain and the United States to joint construction and con-
trol of any canal built in the future. This treaty was negotiated by the
U.S. secretary of state, John M. Clayton, and the British representa-
tive, Sir Henry Bulwer, and also included a provision that neither
country would colonize Central America. The treaty proved to be
very unpopular in the United States, despite Senate ratification, and
by the turn of the century the United States wanted the treaty termi-
nated. After the Spanish–American War and with the acquisition of
other overseas territories, the U.S. government recognized the mili-
tary advantages that a canal would bring to its navy. U.S. President
William McKinley sent Secretary of State John Hay to London to dis-
cuss a revised agreement, and in 1901 the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty
was signed, providing Washington with the legal authority to build a
canal by itself and the British with an agreement that its ships be
charged the same tolls as American ships.
entertaining the crowds with his cowboy and Wild West show. When
British interest in the Wild West declined, Cody turned his talents to
aviation. He patented several kites, built gliders, and became a pio-
neer of manned flight. In 1907, Cody began working with the British
army at Aldershot, who helped him to fund the development of his
airplane, British Army Aeroplane No. 1. On 16 October 1908, Cody
flew this plane on what was deemed the first officially recorded pow-
ered flight in the British Isles. Cody continued to the push the bound-
aries of manned flight until his death in a plane crash in 1913.
COLD WAR, THE. Between 1945 and 1991, the United States and the
Soviet Union were locked in an ideological and strategic battle that
was named the Cold War by one of President Harry S. Truman’s ad-
visers, Bernard Baruch. Tensions between Washington and Moscow
had their origins in the Russian Revolution of 1917 but implacable
hostility between the archcommunist and archcapitalist nations began
in earnest at the end of World War II when the United States and the
Soviet Union emerged as superpowers. After working together to de-
feat Germany and Japan, the United States and the Soviet Union be-
came antagonistic toward each other as they became increasingly
suspicious of the other’s motives: the United States disliked commu-
nism and feared Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe and the
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COOKE, ALISTAIR • 87
88 • COWARD, NOEL
CUBA • 89
CUBA. When Cuba became allied with the Soviet Union after the
1959 revolution that saw Fidel Castro come to power, the British
and American governments took differing positions on how to pro-
ceed. The John F. Kennedy administration, under pressure from
factions in Congress that demanded firm action in response to hav-
ing a communist power 90 miles off the coast of Florida, introduced
a total economic embargo against Cuba in February 1962. Despite
pressure from Washington, the British government refused to en-
gage in economic sanctions against the Cuban government, feeling
they would have little effect. This belief was based partly on
Britain’s own attempt to use sanctions to gain concessions in the
Middle East, which had failed against the Iranian nationalist leader,
Mohammad Mossadeq, and Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser.
Britain also relied heavily on overseas trade and British shipown-
ers were strongly opposed to the idea of trade sanctions. On 16 Oc-
tober 1959, the United States urged Britain not to go through with
their plan to sell jet fighters to Cuba. Although Britain agreed not to
supply arms to Cuba, British shipping continued to trade with the
Castro government and the issue remained a contentious one. When
Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home visited Washington in Febru-
ary 1964, he led the press to believe that he had acted firmly in re-
sponse to American criticism about British trade with Cuba, partic-
ularly the sale of Leyland buses. President Lyndon Johnson was
livid at the imputation that he had allowed an allied leader of di-
minishing international significance to speak to him in such a man-
ner, and apparently, Johnson never spoke to Douglas-Home again.
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CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS (1962). The crisis over Soviet missiles sta-
tioned on Cuban soil, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear
war in October 1962, revealed the strengths and weaknesses of the
so-called special relationship. It is now recognized that Prime Min-
ister Harold Macmillan was kept informed of the crisis by President
John F. Kennedy, to the extent that some scholars have described
Macmillan and British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore as de facto
members of the executive committee of senior military, diplomatic,
and political advisors established by the president to handle events in
Cuba. There is little doubt that the British had advance warning of
the missile crisis, although the timing is in dispute. It is likely that the
British were initially told of the photographic evidence of the pres-
ence of the missiles on Cuba via Major-General Sir Kenneth Strong
of British Intelligence on 16 October. Strong, who happened to be in
Washington that day, was told the news by Ray Cline, the Central In-
telligence Agency deputy director of intelligence, who earlier that
day had briefed President Kennedy on the matter. Macmillan was
told of the impending crisis the next day, four days before the news
broke. At first, the prime minister felt that a decisive military re-
sponse was preferable, but once invasion had been ruled out, shifted
his position to warning of possible adverse opinion in Europe to a cri-
sis based on the proximity of enemy nuclear weapons (Europeans had
been living with this threat for many years) and favoring a diplomatic
settlement, suggesting the Americans trade their Thor missiles sta-
tioned in Britain for the Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Although Kennedy does not appear to have given this proposal any
serious consideration, he did stay in communication by letter, tele-
phone, cable, and through diplomatic exchanges with Macmillan and
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CYPRUS • 91
CYPRUS. A British colony since 1878, Cyprus was granted its inde-
pendence on 16 August 1960 after several years of armed struggle,
although Great Britain would not allow its incorporation within
Greece. In December 1963, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots be-
gan fighting over disagreements surrounding the Cypriot constitu-
tion; when it appeared that Turkish Cypriots were suffering the
greater number of casualties, the United States feared Turkey would
invade. Moreover, Washington was convinced that the Cypriot
leader, Archbishop Makarios, had the potential to be the “Castro of
the Mediterranean.” Britain and the United States wanted to prevent
two important North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies
from fighting one another. Instead, in 1964 President Lyndon John-
son sent his undersecretary of state, George Ball, on a mission to try
to persuade all parties of the merits of partition and the introduction
of a neutral NATO peacekeeping force. Makarios refused this sug-
gestion and the issue was referred to the United Nations Security
Council, which issued a resolution on 4 March 1964 that introduced
a UN peacekeeping force that is still in place today.
In October 1973, Prime Minister Edward Heath refused to allow
U.S. planes to use a British base on Cyprus for airlifting supplies to
Israel during the Arab–Israeli War. The following year, Cyprus
reemerged as a major issue in Anglo–American relations. In July
1974, inspired by the military regime in Athens, the Greek Cypriot
military overthrew the Makarios government and declared the
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92 • D-DAY LANDINGS
– D –
DESTROYERS-FOR-BASES DEAL • 93
94 • DICKENS, CHARLES
– E –
State Dean Rusk, had made extensive efforts to try to persuade the
British against such a plan. President Johnson even made a last-
minute personal appeal direct to Wilson, claiming the decision was
tantamount to a British withdrawal from world affairs.
EISENHOWER, DWIGHT D. • 99
Duke Ellington made his first visit to Europe, spending six weeks in
Great Britain. In addition to receiving critical acclaim, Ellington also
played at a private event for royal guests, where Edward, Prince of
Wales (later Edward VIII) played drums with him. Ellington re-
mained a popular jazz musician in Britain. See also JAZZ.
EMBARGO ACT (1807). The Embargo Act was passed by the U.S.
Congress in an attempt to ensure American neutrality during the
Napoleonic wars. The United States had profited as its vessels up-
held their freedom to trade with the French and the British in goods
that were not war materials. After many years of American ships be-
ing seized and boarded by both belligerents, President Thomas Jef-
ferson responded by trying to highlight how important it was to both
France and Britain not to restrict neutral trade. The Embargo Act con-
fined American ships to port, except those engaging in coastal trade,
and banned British ships from entering American waters. The act
backfired on Jefferson, as the economic sanctions hit the United
States harder than Great Britain. See also CHESAPEAKE AFFAIR.
27 May 1952 by six countries about to enter the forerunner to the Eu-
ropean Economic Community, the European Coal and Steel
Community—France, Italy, West Germany, the Netherlands, Bel-
gium, and Luxembourg. Great Britain declared its support for the
EDC but did not sign the treaty due to its overseas commitments. De-
spite being proposed by the French, the vexing question of German
rearmament led the French Assembly to veto ratification of the treaty
in August 1954.
encouragement from the United States to join the EEC not only be-
cause of their desire to see a strong, integrated Europe as a bulwark
against Soviet communism but also because by the 1960s the United
States was hoping that Great Britain could help modify the EEC’s in-
creasingly protectionist policies, especially the Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP). Moreover, Washington believed that an EEC with
Britain as a member would be much more outward looking.
The first British application for full membership of the EEC came
under the government of Harold Macmillan on 31 July 1961, and
the second under the government of Harold Wilson on 10 May 1967.
Both these applications were vetoed by the French under President
Charles de Gaulle, who feared Britain would act as a “Trojan horse”
for the Commonwealth nations and the United States. The United
Kingdom finally became a member of the EEC on 1 January 1973 af-
ter Prime Minister Edward Heath negotiated British entry.
After joining the EEC, known officially as the European Commu-
nity after July 1967, British governments struggled to reconcile their
foreign policy objective of closer European ties and a continuing
strong political relationship with the United States. This became an
increasing problem as the European Community began to move to-
ward increased political as well as economic cooperation. In 1987,
the Treaty of Rome was revised in the Single European Act and co-
operation between the United States and the European Community
became formalized in 1990 in the Transatlantic Declaration and
was built on in 1995 with the signing of the New Transatlantic
Agenda, when common action was agreed on a variety of economic,
environmental, and security issues. The European Union was created
after the Treaty of Maastricht was signed on 7 February 1992 and
came into force in November 1993. The EU soon established a sin-
gle market for European goods, services, and people, and in 1999 a
European currency—the euro—came into circulation within 11
member states. The EU also began to increase its foreign policy role
under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Increas-
ingly, Britain has worked with the EU to address foreign and defense
policy problems, notably in humanitarian aid and in joint action on
peacemaking and peacekeeping initiatives in the Balkans, Africa, and
in relation to the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008. The
U.S.–EU economic relationship remains the most important trading
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– F –
FALKLANDS WAR (1982). Between April and June 1982, Britain en-
gaged in an undeclared war with Argentina in order to regain control
of the Falklands Islands (the Malvinas) and liberate the 1,800 British
settlers after General Leopoldo Galtieri ordered the invasion of the is-
lands on 2 April. The Falklands Islands in the southern Atlantic
Ocean had been under British rule since 1833 but Argentina had long
protested British occupation of the islands and laid claim to the terri-
tory on the grounds of proximity, pointing out the United Kingdom
was 8,000 miles away. For Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
Britain had no choice but to resort to a military conflict as it was a
question of external invasion and the self-determination of the is-
landers. At the time there was speculation that Britain did not want to
lose the Falklands as there might be oil deposits in the seas of the
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Elizabeth II and Prince Philip arrived in the country aboard the royal
yacht Britannia to embark on a state visit. The president hosted a
state dinner at the White House for the queen and Prince Philip on 7
July 1976 and, as a great admirer of the Anglo–American cultural re-
lationship, paid tribute to the role played by British custom, fortitude,
law, and government in the history and culture of the United States.
See also IMF CRISIS.
FOUR FREEDOMS. Prior to U.S. entry into World War II, in his
State of the Union address on 6 January 1941, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt outlined what he believed were the four freedoms that all
humans should enjoy as a basis for world peace and security. The
four freedoms—freedom of speech and expression, freedom to wor-
ship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear—reflected Roo-
sevelt’s internationalist perspective on U.S. foreign policy.
However, the speech shocked the American people and Truman was
forced to dissociate from it in public. The adverse public reaction to
the speech appeared to indicate that the United States was not yet
ready for a close alliance with Great Britain but did contribute to the
beginning of the Cold War.
– G –
116 • GREECE
118 • GRENADA
has been housed in a large modern building (133,300 sq. ft) that oc-
cupies the west side of the square. In 1968, Grosvenor Square was the
focus of British anti–Vietnam War protests. The square is also the
site of several statues and memorials commemorating key figures in
the history of Anglo–American relations, including President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the
September 11 memorial garden. Since 9/11 and the Iraq War, up-
graded security measures led to the installation of security barriers
around the U.S. Embassy building, which has since acquired the
nickname “Little Iraq.”
needed for military action. Thatcher felt that Kuwait could respond
militarily (with its allies) under the right to self-defense enshrined in
Article 51 of the UN Charter.
The United Nations immediately condemned the invasion and on
29 November passed Resolution 678 giving Iraq a deadline of 15
January 1991 for withdrawal. Great Britain became part of the 33-na-
tion coalition force assembled by the United States, eventually send-
ing the largest European military contingent of 43,000 troops to fight
in the conflict (and members of the Special Air Service [SAS] to en-
gage in crucial reconnaissance operations), which began in earnest on
17 January with a massive strategic bombing campaign (codenamed
Operation Desert Storm) that focused on targets in Baghdad and in-
volved British Royal Air Force aircraft. The British government, now
led by Prime Minister John Major, secured approval to take military
action against Iraq during a House of Commons debate on 15 Janu-
ary, on a vote of 534 to 57. Political support for military action
against Iraq had been less convincing in the United States. The air
campaign was followed by a ground assault beginning on 24 Febru-
ary and lasting four days. By 28 February, Kuwait had been retaken
and President Bush ended the war.
As the United States sent over 500,000 troops to the region, it was
clear that the war was being directed by the Americans, but Anglo–
American military cooperation was aided by the close working rela-
tionship between U.S. Commander General Norman Schwarzkopf
and British Commander General Sir Peter de la Billière. It was clear,
however, that military operating practice often differed, with the most
notable difference being the wearing of Arab headdress by some
British soldiers. Tensions between the U.S. and British military did
develop over a friendly fire incident in which nine British soldiers
from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were killed and 12 seriously in-
jured when an American A10 Tankbuster aircraft targeted them be-
lieving they were Iraqi troops.
The decision to call a cease-fire to the war just four days into the
ground war, and after the liberation of Kuwait, was made by the
United States without consultation with its allies and raised some de-
bate over whether the coalition forces should have pressed on to
Baghdad to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein. Without a UN
mandate to do so, and recognizing that the wartime coalition, involving
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– H –
HALEY, BILL (1825–1981). Bill Haley and the Comets introduced the
British public to American rock ’n’ roll. In December 1954, Haley’s
version of “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” became the first rock ’n’ roll sin-
gle to enter the British music charts. Although it reached number four
in the British charts, it was the re-release of “Rock Around the Clock”
in October 1955, after its use in the film Blackboard Jungle, which
made Haley synonymous with rock ’n’ roll when it reached number
one, bringing it to mass attention. In 1956, Haley’s film Rock Around
the Clock arrived in Britain and he had several more chart hits in
Britain, including “See You Later Alligator” and “Rip It Up.” In 1957,
Haley was the first rock ’n’ roll star to tour in Britain. Despite being
mobbed by adoring crowds on his arrival in Britain, he was quickly
overshadowed by the younger and better-looking Elvis Presley.
action in the Middle East to secure access to oil supplies and might ask
to use the Diego Garcia base in the process. Heath was furious when
the United States declared a full-scale nuclear alert on October 25—
in response to Soviet naval activity in the eastern Mediterranean—
without informing him, only learning about it on the news. The British
prime minister did not feel the alert was necessary. During the crisis,
Henry Kissinger prevented President Richard Nixon from speaking
to Heath because the president appeared too drunk to talk.
HONG KONG. In the postwar period, the status and future of Great
Britain’s colony in Hong Kong played a part in U.S. strategic inter-
ests in the Far East. As a result, Hong Kong became an issue in An-
glo–American relations. Hong Kong was an important colony to the
British economically and was symbolic of their world role. During
World War II, the surrender of Hong Kong to Japanese forces in De-
cember 1941 meant the recapture of the colony became crucial to the
maintenance of Britain’s empire. This was achieved by August 1945
after the United States defeated Japan in Asia. With the coming of the
Cold War, and especially after the communist victory in China in
1949, Hong Kong took on a new importance to Washington and Lon-
don. Britain now faced defending Hong Kong from a strong Chinese
government and, unlike the United States, adopted a moderate stance
in dealing with Mao Zedong’s China in order to prevent retaliation
that might threaten their control of the lucrative colony. The Labour
government of Clement Attlee therefore argued that it agreed with
the containment policy by preventing Chinese aggression toward
Hong Kong through its conciliatory approach to Beijing. Washington
understood that the colony was important to the British and therefore
important to Anglo–American relations, and by the early 1950s, with
the closure of its embassies in China, the United States had begun to
base its intelligence gathering operations in Hong Kong. Continuing
numbers of Vietnamese refugees entering Hong Kong in the 1980s
and early 1990s led to some Anglo–American tension over their fate.
Britain’s 90-year lease on Hong Kong expired on 30 June 1997.
– I –
IMF CRISIS (1976). In March 1976, the British pound began to slide
against the U.S. dollar and by June the British government appealed
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134 • IRAN
IRAQ • 135
their concerns about Mossadeq, and the president and his secretary of
state, John Foster Dulles, were persuaded of the need for a non-
communist leadership in Iran. Not wanting to use military force
overtly, the U.S. and British intelligence forces cooperated in identi-
fying Iranian opposition forces and planned to overthrow Mossadeq.
In its first major “covert operation,” Operation Ajax, the Central In-
telligence Agency (CIA) , led by Kim Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt’s
grandson and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s cousin) and working with
MI6, helped Iranian military forces to overthrow Mossadeq in August
1953. In the aftermath, although Britain’s control of oil in Iran had
ended, the government secured the Anglo–Iranian Oil Company a 40
percent share of the country’s oil and the U.S. companies gained an-
other 40 percent. As a result, the United States now had a major in-
terest in Middle Eastern affairs and in the fate of their new ally, the
shah of Iran.
IRAQ. Britain’s interest in Iraq has longer historical roots than those of
the United States, which developed in the period after World War II.
A part of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, Iraq
(Mesopotamia) was taken from the Ottoman Turks during World
War I by invading Britons. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919,
Iraq was made a British mandate under Article 22 of the League of
Nations Covenant. Arab nationalist unrest meant that British rule
was relatively brief and Iraq entered the League of Nations as an in-
dependent nation in 1932. The Anglo–Iraqi Treaty of 1930 tied Iraq
to Britain in a 25-year military alliance, and the oil fields in Iraq
meant that Britain retained interest in the country’s future. Oil strikes
in Kirkuk in October 1927 meant that Iraq began to export crude oil
by 1934 and constructed pipelines to the Mediterranean coast. In-
deed, until 1961, Britain dominated the Iraq Petroleum Company, but
by 1971 it had been nationalized by the Iraqi government. U.S. inter-
est in Iraq increased after World War II when it became reliant on
Middle Eastern oil supplies, was keen to prevent Soviet domination
of the region, and became increasingly alarmed by Arab nationalism.
Although the leading foreign oil power in the Middle East by the
mid-1950s, initially the United States refused to join Britain, Iran,
and Iraq in the Baghdad Pact formed in 1955. With the issue of the
Eisenhower Doctrine in January 1957, the United States indicated
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during the Gulf War of 1991, the United States only managed to se-
cure a large-scale military commitment from Great Britain. Although
the Bush administration had assembled a “coalition of the willing”
that involved over 30 nations, only Poland and Australia were will-
ing to send combat forces to join the Anglo–American invasion force.
The invasion of Iraq—Operation Iraqi Freedom—led by General
Tommy Franks, began in the early hours of 20 March 2003 (shortly
after the 48-hour deadline had passed) when U.S. aircraft bombed
Baghdad, leading to an invasion from the south by coalition forces,
including British marines who invaded the Faw peninsula. Washing-
ton committed 250,000 troops to the war in Iraq and took charge of
occupying central and northern Iraq, including Baghdad, while
Britain sent 46,000, taking responsibility for securing Basra in the
South. By 9 April 2003, U.S.-led coalition forces had taken control of
Baghdad and by 1 May 2003 President Bush felt confident enough to
announce that major operations had ended in Iraq. Paul Bremer was
appointed U.S. envoy to Iraq and worked with British envoy Jeremy
Greenstock in establishing a transitional government in Iraq. In the
aftermath of the occupation of Iraq, a multinational force was ap-
proved on 16 October 2003 by the United Nations Security Council
to support the reconstruction. Saddam Hussein was captured in Iraq
in December 2003, was brought to trial, found guilty of crimes
against humanity, and executed on 30 December 2006. Blair did not
believe in the death penalty but kept quiet on the issue. Chancellor of
the Exchequer Gordon Brown spoke out against the filmed scene of
the execution and abuse directed at Saddam.
On 6 December 2006, the Iraq Study Group reported a bleak pic-
ture of the situation in Iraq. As a result of increasing attacks against
U.S. and Iraqi government forces, including suicide bombings and
vehicle attacks, and because of growing domestic criticism of U.S.
involvement in Iraq, in February 2007 the Bush administration
adopted a new military strategy in Iraq, known as “the surge,” which
involved the introduction of an extra 30,000 troops in and around
Baghdad to step up security. On 21 February 2007, the British gov-
ernment announced that it would cut its troop numbers in Iraq but
would remain in Iraq into 2008. After five years of war, 134 British
soldiers had been killed in action in Iraq (173 deaths in total), and the
United States had suffered 4,000 dead.
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IRELAND • 139
From the beginning of its plans for invasion, the Bush administra-
tion and Blair government faced significant opposition to actions in
Iraq. Not all the British cabinet agreed with Blair’s assessment of the
threat posed by Iraq or the need for immediate military action. For-
eign Secretary Robin Cook and Secretary of State for International
Development Claire Short resigned shortly after the beginning of
military action in Iraq, acknowledging their disagreement with the
Labour government’s decision to go to war without a second UN res-
olution. Protests against the invasion of Iraq took place throughout
the world, including mass marches and student walkouts throughout
Britain in early 2003.
In July 2004, the Butler Report criticized the Blair government for
leading the public to believe that the intelligence on Iraq’s WMDs
was much “firmer and fuller” than was actually the case. The same
month, the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that the United
States and its allies went to war in Iraq on the basis of “flawed” in-
telligence from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other
agencies. See also BAKER–HAMILTON COMMISSION.
IRELAND. Since the mid-19th century, Ireland has been a recurrent is-
sue in Anglo–American relations. Ireland was part of the British Em-
pire until it was granted its independence under the Anglo–Irish
Treaty of 1921. Irish immigration to the United States had begun in
the late 18th century but increased markedly from 1846 as the potato
famine took hold in Ireland, resulting in mass starvation and disease.
In less than a decade, over two million emigrated from Ireland to the
United States, most settling in the largest cities. Irish Americans
formed the Fenian Brotherhood in 1858 to fight for an end to
British rule in Ireland. Anglo–American tension during the Ameri-
can Civil War was exacerbated by Fenian activity as they sought to
press their case by engaging in border raids into British North Amer-
ica (Canada). Although Britain felt the Americans were unhelpful in
dealing with the Fenians, tension over this issue decreased after the
Treaty of Washington of 1871.
The increasing numbers of Irish Americans in the United States by
the late 19th century meant that they were able to become an effec-
tive pressure group and a political force within the Democratic Party,
Catholic Church, and labor unions. The same period also saw a
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140 • IRELAND
JAMESTOWN • 141
– J –
– K –
Kennedy’s relations with Great Britain were part of his “grand de-
sign” for the United States and Europe, outlined in his “Declaration
of Interdependence” speech on 4 July 1962. He expressed his desire
for “a true partnership” for Europe and the United States, although
Britain was disappointed to find that in reality Kennedy intended the
United States to control the Western alliance. While the British felt
interdependence should mean a pooling of efforts and resources, the
Kennedy administration was interested in “burden sharing” and U.S.
leadership. The limits of interdependence were exposed when the
United States cancelled the Skybolt missile, and Anglo–American
relations were strained when Kennedy met with Macmillan at Nassau
in December 1962. During the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962,
Kennedy rang Macmillan regularly to keep him informed of devel-
opments and gain reassurance from the experienced British politi-
cian. Kennedy received encouragement from the British over the sub-
sequent Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that was signed in the aftermath of
the missile crisis in August 1963.
When Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on 22 Novem-
ber 1963, the British public mourned his loss and at his funeral
Britain was represented by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prime Minister
Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and leader of the Opposition, Harold Wil-
son. In May 1965, a British memorial to JFK was dedicated at Run-
nymede, Surrey (the site of the Magna Carta), with Jacqueline
Kennedy in attendance. The memorial, a stone tablet with JFK’s fa-
mous inaugural speech inscribed on it, was placed on a one-acre site
donated to the United States of America by the British people. See
also HARLECH, LORD; NASSAU AGREEMENT.
150 • KOSOVO
President Harry S. Truman admitted that the United States had con-
sidered the use of nuclear weapons in Korea and acknowledged the
choice of targets would be a military matter and thus a decision for
General MacArthur. The British government was so alarmed by these
comments that Prime Minister Clement Attlee flew to Washington
immediately. As Great Britain had recently permitted the stationing
of B-29 bombers at U.S. Air Force bases in Britain, Truman’s re-
marks had again raised the issue of consultation on the use of the
bomb. Although Truman managed to allay Attlee’s fears over an im-
minent use of the bomb, the remarks had resulted in increasing anti-
Americanism in Britain, and Attlee was only able to get the White
House to promise to keep its allies informed over any potential use of
the bomb.
In reaching the Yalu River, MacArthur prompted Chinese inter-
vention in the war and by January 1951 the North Koreans had re-
taken Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. Although UN forces
managed to retake some ground, by 8 July 1951 peace talks had be-
gun. A cease-fire agreement was signed on 27 July 1953 by repre-
sentatives of the UN, China, and North Korea. Although relatively
small in numbers, in comparison to American forces, the British 29th
Infantry Brigade faced Chinese attack at the Battle of Imjin River,
22–25 April 1951, suffering many casualties. The United States suf-
fered 36,934 deaths in Korea, while the British death toll was 1,109.
See also FRANKS, SIR OLIVER.
KOSOVO (1998). In 1998, Prime Minister Tony Blair put great pres-
sure on President Bill Clinton to use U.S. military force to help end
Serbian aggression against Kosovo. World attention had been drawn
to the “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians in the Kosovo region of Serbia
(former Yugoslavia) by Serbian government and paramilitary forces.
In addition to the thousands murdered, hundred of thousands of
refugees fled the province. Blair took a hard line against the Serbian
president, Slobodan Milosevic. Taking the moral high ground, Blair
spoke of Milosevic’s barbaric acts in Kosovo and appealed to other
Western nations to join a crusade to save the Muslim victims of ag-
gression. President Clinton was willing to allow U.S. forces to con-
tribute to a North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign
against Serbia but only reluctantly. Sensitive to American public
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152 • LAOS
– L –
LAOS. By 1961, Laos was a “hot spot” in the Cold War and viewed in
Washington as the key to maintaining a noncommunist Indochina
(Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam). A crisis arose in the former French
colony after the civil war between the U.S.-backed royal Lao gov-
ernment and communist insurgents, the Pathet Lao, supported by
North Vietnamese communists, threatened to end with the commu-
nists taking control of Laos. Prior to a meeting between Russian
leader Andrei Gromyko and President John F. Kennedy at the White
House, the British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, flew to Key
West, Florida, to discuss a British cease-fire proposal. Macmillan
suggested, and Kennedy agreed, to press Gromyko for a three-nation
control commission in Laos and a 14-nation international conference,
leading to a coalition government that would include members of the
Pathet Lao. The Kennedy administration also had a military contin-
gency plan in place should a cease-fire not be possible. Macmillan
was willing to consider a British troop commitment to a U.S.-organ-
ized military intervention in Laos aimed at defeating the communist
Pathet Lao. Kennedy rejected the military plan, instead favoring a ne-
gotiated settlement, and during his meeting with Gromyko on 27
March 1961 gained an agreement for a three-part government that in-
clude pro-communist, pro-American, and neutral groups. A cease-fire
was agreed to on 3 May 1961. This policy of neutrality was agreed to
in 1962 at a Geneva Conference that issued a Declaration on the Neu-
trality of Laos.
LEND-LEASE • 153
village of Concord and to arrest two major patriot leaders, John Han-
cock and Samuel Adams, in the village of Lexington. The patriot
forces in the colony had sufficient intelligence sources to hear of the
departure, by boat, of the British troops, and three messengers—Paul
Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott—rode on horseback to
alert villages. At dawn on 19 April 1775 British forces led by Major
John Pitcairn faced approximately 70 Lexington Minutemen on the
village green; when they refused to disperse, shots were fired leaving
eight Minutemen dead. Having failed to find Hancock and Adams,
the British forces moved on to the village of Concord, where further
fighting broke out. See also CONCORD, BATTLE OF.
158 • LUSITANIA
– M –
Major found the new administration of William Clinton was also re-
luctant to get involved. However, President Clinton became increas-
ingly more activist with regard to Bosnia and played a key role in the
Dayton Peace Accords of 1995. The Clinton administration’s rela-
tionship with Major’s Conservative government was nevertheless
strained after it appeared that the latter had supported Clinton’s Re-
publican opponents during the presidential election campaign, in-
cluding providing details of Clinton’s time at Oxford University as a
Rhodes scholar. Major was annoyed by Clinton’s decision to grant a
visa to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to visit the United States in
1994 and his subsequent invitation to the White House for St.
Patrick’s Day in March 1995. John Major lost the 1997 general elec-
tion to Labour candidate Tony Blair.
162 • MALAYSIA
sistance. Instead, the United States tried to mediate between the par-
ties involved, hoping a diplomatic solution could be found before In-
donesia turned to communism. Britain’s defense of Western interests
in Malaysia—Singapore was a key base in the effort to contain Chi-
nese communism—meant that the governments of Harold Macmil-
lan, Alec Douglas-Home, and Harold Wilson could emphasize their
own efforts in the Cold War battle and thus avoid a commitment to
the Vietnam War. However, the British lack of military restraint in
Malaysia meant that it would appear hypocritical to Washington’s
ears to receive criticism of their own actions in Vietnam. American
and South Vietnamese soldiers were trained in guerrilla tactics at the
British-sponsored Jungle Warfare Training School in Jahore,
Malaysia. See also MALAYAN EMERGENCY.
between the two militaries, General Marshall clashed with his British
counterparts over the timing of a cross-channel invasion. Marshall is
best known, however, for being the architect of the European Recov-
ery Program. See also MARSHALL PLAN.
MORGAN, J. P. • 167
– N –
NOTT, SIR JOHN (1932– ). John Nott was British secretary of de-
fense during the Falklands crisis of 1982. Unlike the offer of resig-
nation from the British foreign secretary, Lord Peter Carrington,
Nott’s offer after the Argentine invasion was not accepted by Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher. Nott consequently played a high-pro-
file role in the ensuing undeclared war to recapture the islands, al-
though later admitting he had had to look up the Falkland Islands on
a globe when intelligence reports suggested a possible Argentine in-
vasion. Nott’s position during the war was much closer to that of
Margaret Thatcher than the new foreign secretary, Francis Pym, who
favored negotiation rather than armed conflict.
– O –
OPEN DOOR POLICY. In late 1899 and early 1900, the U.S. secre-
tary of state, John Hay, articulated an Open Door policy toward
China in a series of “notes.” Hay first proposed an international pol-
icy that would give all nations equal trading and commercial rights
throughout China, and after the Boxer Rebellion, suggested that
China’s territorial and administrative integrity be maintained. The
concept of an “open door,” although not articulated, had been Great
Britain’s approach to China throughout the 19th century as Britain’s
sphere of influence in the country was challenged by other European
nations and Japan. U.S. interest in China had increased in 1898 after
they acquired the Philippines Islands after the Spanish-American
War and became concerned about their trading interests with China.
All the major powers agreed to respect the principles of the Open
Door policy.
– P –
180 • PALESTINE
While visiting her mother in the United States in 1921, she became a
member of the Second Adventist religious movement. A charismatic
leader and impressive orator, Pankhurst embarked on speaking tours
throughout America and when World War II started, she moved there,
living in Los Angeles until her death in 1958.
monarch and its members have been, and remain, wealthy British and
American bankers, businessman, and leading politicians. Known
mainly as a dining club, the Pilgrim Society hosts large banquets of
invited guests and holds a welcoming dinner for the incumbent
American ambassador to Great Britain.
QUAKERS • 187
– Q –
– R –
in 1979 and Thatcher was happy to play that role in order to boost
Britain’s position on the world stage and ensure the United States
stayed committed to the defense of Europe.
When Reagan first entered the White House, he caused alarm in
Britain and Europe by his hostile rhetoric toward the Soviet Union—
calling it an “evil” in the world—and his suggestion that it might be
possible under the nuclear “flexible response” strategy to confine a
tactical nuclear exchange to Europe. This ratcheting up of world ten-
sion caused deep concern among the British public and even
Thatcher tried to play down the president’s rhetoric. In Britain, anti-
American forces and antinuclear campaigners began to reemerge as
news of the stationing of American cruise missiles was announced
and Reagan’s strident language added to a British sense of American
dominance in the Anglo–American relationship. Thatcher agreed
with Reagan’s hard-line stance toward the Soviets, even if she was
wary of the rhetoric. In March 1983, Reagan put pressure on the So-
viet Union in the arms race by announcing the Strategic Defense Ini-
tiative (SDI), otherwise known as “Star Wars,” and received British
backing for it. Thatcher also agreed to a small British contribution to
a “rapid deployment force” to be used in areas outside of North At-
lantic Treaty Organization coverage suffering unexpected Soviet-
backed attacks.
Despite their many points of agreement, Reagan and Thatcher did
not always see eye-to-eye, with notable exceptions to their harmo-
nious relationship being the Falklands War of 1982 when Reagan
encouraged Thatcher to implement a cease-fire, and the U.S. invasion
of Grenada in 1983, which Thatcher did not support. Reagan was
able to count on British support in 1986 when U.S. planes were al-
lowed to refuel at British air force bases on route to bombing Libya.
Thatcher was surprised to find that, despite her friendship with Rea-
gan, the president was happy to act independently at the Reykjavik
summit with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986.
Despite being frail, Margaret Thatcher traveled to Ronald Rea-
gan’s state funeral in Washington, D.C., in June 2004. Her prere-
corded eulogy at the funeral paid tribute to Reagan as a great presi-
dent and a dear friend and argued that he won the Cold War. See also
AFGHANISTAN, INVASION OF; CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR
DISARMAMENT; GREENHAM COMMON.
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RHODESIA • 191
when their blues version of “It’s All Over Now” reached number
three. Jagger and Richards, as songwriters, achieved their first Amer-
ican chart success with “That Girl Belongs to Yesterday,” although it
was sung by American singer Gene Pitney. They first performed in
the United States on 1 June 1964 and appeared on the Ed Sullivan
Show on 25 October 1964. When they appeared on the show three
years later, they were asked to change the lyrics of “Let’s Spend the
Night Together” to “let’s spend some time together.” They achieved
their first number-one chart position in the United States with “(I
Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” in June 1965 and went on to have suc-
cess with “Paint It Black” (1966), “Ruby Tuesday” (1967), and
“Honky Tonk Woman” (1969). They ended the ’60s by headlining the
Altamont Speedway Free Festival in California on 6 December 1969,
which ended in violence with a member of the crowd being stabbed
to death by a Hell’s Angel. The band became the most popular British
act in the United States after the Beatles disbanded, and toured regu-
larly, breaking records for attendance and gross receipts. They are
now the longest active band in rock ’n’ roll history.
break out in Europe the United States would maintain its neutrality,
but when war broke out in September 1939 he was persuaded to
amend the Neutrality Acts to provide support to the Allies in the
form of Cash and Carry, which allowed Britain to purchase war
goods for cash. Roosevelt’s sentiments were undoubtedly pro-
British but Congress and the people were still isolationist and
wanted to avoid entry into the war. When Winston Churchill be-
came prime minister of Great Britain in May1940, Roosevelt came
under increasing pressure to provide more material help and to enter
the war as soon as possible. The two leaders began a working rela-
tionship that developed into a close friendship based on a unity of
purpose—to defeat totalitarianism—and helped by regular wartime
meetings and intimate correspondence. Soon after Winston
Churchill became the British leader—and with the nations of Europe
falling under the German blitzkrieg—Roosevelt agreed to the de-
stroyers-for-bases deal.
In the 1940 presidential election, Roosevelt had to play a balanc-
ing act between looking prepared for war and insisting he was not
about to intervene in Europe. Under pressure from his Republican
opponent, Wendell Wilkie, Roosevelt was forced to pledge that he
would not send “American boys into any foreign wars” but also pro-
vided more military aid to Britain and the Allies through the intro-
duction of the Lend-Lease bill. In his State of the Union address in
January 1941, Roosevelt outlined the Four Freedoms required for
the world to be secure. This speech, intended to persuade Congress to
pass Lend-Lease, signaled that the United States would become the
“arsenal of democracy.” The bond between Roosevelt and Churchill
increased when the two had their first face-to-face meeting at Argen-
tia Bay, off Newfoundland, when they agreed on the purposes of the
war and issued the Atlantic Charter.
Despite agreeing on common principles, Roosevelt was deter-
mined to only take a united country to war. The surprise attack on
Pearl Harbor by the Japanese proved an act of aggression that pro-
vided the prerequisite of national unity. Roosevelt asked Congress to
declare war, speaking of 7 December 1941 as a “day of infamy.”
Once the United States had entered the war against Germany, Italy,
and Japan, Roosevelt was determined to create a cooperative work-
ing relationship with the British government. Toward the end of the
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RUSSIA • 199
met with firm action. Rusk was considered a “hawk” in foreign pol-
icy terms, believing in taking firm military action to contain commu-
nism. Despite his personal links to Britain, he often took a hard line
in dealing with the British governments. During his time in the State
Department, the United States became embroiled in the Vietnam
War, and Britain’s lack of military involvement in the conflict was a
disappointment to Rusk, who believed the British flag in Vietnam
would have been of great symbolic significance in the propaganda
battle. He told journalist Louis Heren, “All we needed was a regi-
ment. The Black Watch would have done.” He was also dismayed at
the British announcement in January 1968 to withdraw its troops
from East of Suez.
RUSSIA. Great Britain and the United States reacted with similar out-
rage at the news of the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917. Both
countries were alarmed at Vladimir Lenin’s call for the destruction of
the capitalist system and were angered by his pronouncement that
World War I had been caused by rivalries between imperialist and
capitalist nations. Lenin’s decision to withdraw Russia from the war
and make an alternative peace, in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, fueled
Anglo–American alarm. Washington and London broke off diplo-
matic relations with Russia and sent troops to help the Whites (oppo-
nents of the communists who favored a return to monarchical gov-
ernment) defeat the communists. Despite this intervention, the
communists survived the civil war and British and American troops
left Russia in 1920.
Despite America’s nonrecognition of the Soviet government, hu-
manitarian aid was provided to the victims of the 1921–1923 famine
in Russia. In Britain, when the Labour Party formed its first govern-
ment in 1924, it established diplomatic relations with the Soviet
Union. In 1919, the United States experienced extreme anticommu-
nism in the form of the so-called Red Scare, and it took until 16 No-
vember 1933 before President Franklin D. Roosevelt was willing to
recognize the Soviet Union. During the interwar period, Roosevelt,
like the British, hoped to establish peaceful accommodation with the
Soviet Union, not least because of its increasing military power; de-
spite several missions to Moscow, relations failed to improve and
reached their lowest point in August 1939 when the Soviets signed
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200 • RUSSIA
– S –
achieve victory over the British, and in 1778 France agreed to pro-
vide military assistance to the United States in a Treaty of Amity and
Commerce.
204 • SHENANDOAH
SKYBOLT CRISIS (1962). The Skybolt crisis of late 1962 was the
most serious rift in Anglo–American relations since Suez. In March
1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower promised to supply Skybolt
missiles to the British once developed. In the negotiated agreement,
signed in June, the United States agreed to bear the full costs of de-
velopment and the British would pay for just the missiles themselves
when they became available. At that time, the British nuclear deter-
rent was free-falling hydrogen bombs delivered by V-bombers, and
the Royal Air Force was experiencing great difficulties in the devel-
opment of its own medium-range ballistic missile, Blue Streak. Sky-
bolt was an air-to-surface missile under development in the United
States, and British acquisition would have extended the life of the V-
bomber. With the cancellation of Blue Streak, the British placed all
its missile plans in Skybolt. In November 1962, U.S. Secretary of De-
fense Robert McNamara decided to cancel Skybolt as a cost-effec-
tiveness measure. An Anglo–American crisis ensued as the British
claimed the United States had not given them advance warning of the
decision. Moreover, the British felt Washington did not appear to
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of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Congress
cancelled the SDI program in 1993 after billions of dollars had been
spent on its research, although research into similar but differently
named space-based defense projects continued. Reagan and Thatcher
both believed SDI had made the Russians realize that they could not
afford to continue to compete with the United States in the arms race
and thus contributed to the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold
War. See also NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE.
STERLING AREA. By the late 19th century, sterling was the most ac-
ceptable currency in the world, based largely on Great Britain’s dom-
inance in international trade. Countries with trading and cultural ties
to Britain—often members of the British Empire or later the British
Commonwealth—using sterling or pegging their currencies to the
pound sterling were part of the sterling area or sterling zone. These
countries often held a high proportion of their foreign reserves in
sterling. The sterling area and imperial preference were viewed by
the United States as a form of protectionism. In 1941, the United
States demanded that, in return for Lend-Lease, Britain pledge itself
to abandon its imperial preference and sterling area systems.
the canal. The result of this meeting was a plan that allowed Israel
to invade Egypt as an excuse for British and French forces to inter-
vene between two warring nations and thus seize the canal. On 29
October Israeli forces invaded Egypt and took the Sinai Peninsula.
British and French airborne forces landed around Port Said on 5 No-
vember. By acting without the United States, Britain was attempting
to show that it could act independently of Washington in defense of
its own interests.
Coming close to the 1956 U.S. presidential election, President
Eisenhower was furious that two of his major allies had not consulted
with him prior to taking action and jeopardizing his stand as a peace
candidate. In addition, Suez coincided with the Soviet invasion of
Hungary, and Eisenhower thought British and Israeli action in the
Middle East might damage the West’s reputation at a time when com-
munism should have been tarnished. Eisenhower demanded Britain
and France withdraw their forces and, using financial pressures, se-
cured this quickly; on 6 November Britain accepted a cease-fire.
America’s ability to end the British military incursion, and Eden’s
consequent humiliation, meant that Suez proved a watershed for
British power and influence throughout the world.
these two acts was part of the backdrop to the revolt against the
Stamp Act passed in 1765. See also WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
– T –
218 • TRADE
TRENT AFFAIR. In November 1861, the Trent affair was the first ma-
jor diplomatic incident during the American Civil War and almost
resulted in war between the United States and Great Britain. The doc-
trine of the freedom of the seas was brought into question when on 8
November the Union frigate USS San Jacinto, under the command of
Captain Charles Wilkes, stopped and seized the neutral British mail
steamer Trent on the high seas near the Bahamas. Wilkes had heard
that the Trent was carrying two Confederate commissioners, James
Murray Mason and John Slidell, on their way to Britain and France
on diplomatic missions to persuade those countries to support the
South in the war. The arrest and imprisonment of the two Southern-
ers in Boston made Wilkes a hero in the North, but the incident led to
a serious breach in relations between the United States and Britain
and even threatened to break out into war. The incident occurred as
Britain was on the verge of diplomatically recognizing the Confeder-
acy, and the British asked for the surrender of the prisoners and an
immediate apology. Both demands were acceded to after several
weeks of tension.
in an attempt to deal with the issue of arms sales to Israel and the
Arab states in the Middle East. In 1948 and 1949, sections of the U.S.
Congress—notably the Jewish lobby—were alarmed at British sales
of arms to Egypt. Britain was honoring commitments to Egypt made
under the Anglo–Egyptian Treaty of 1936 and in response to the first
Arab–Israeli War, during which Israeli forces shot down five Royal
Air Force planes. In order to avoid an arms race in the Middle East,
the U.S. State Department developed a plan under which Britain,
France, and the United States acknowledged that Israel and the Arab
states required a certain level of arms for self-defense purposes. All
requests for arms would be considered under the principle of the Tri-
partite Declaration as it became known.
– U –
(Japan, Germany, and Italy) and appeared in the United Nations De-
claration, which was signed on 1 January 1942 by 26 nations. The
United States continued to take the lead in establishing the aims,
structure, and organization of the United Nations (UN), although dis-
cussions with its other wartime allies—Britain, China, and the So-
viet Union—ultimately shaped its final form. Major progress was
made at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 and at the Yalta
Conference in February 1945 when it was agreed that the UN would
be dominated by the five major allied powers, which would become
permanent members of the Security Council: China, France, Great
Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
Prime Minister Churchill had serious concerns about President
Roosevelt’s views on colonialism and refused any suggestion that a
special conference be convened to discuss territorial trusteeship and
dependent areas. Roosevelt’s successor, President Harry S. Truman,
did not pursue the issue and the final UN Charter, which was agreed
at the San Francisco Conference on 26 June 1945, did not address
independence from colonial rule. The United Nations officially came
into existence on 24 October 1945, when the charter had been ratified
by the major powers and a majority of the signatories.
In the years since then, Britain and America have had varying de-
grees of commitment to the principles of the UN. In general, although
the United States had consistently been the leading financial contrib-
utor to the UN (although reneging on its payments for many years),
it has often been wary of multilateral action as a solution to interna-
tional problems. Britain, on the other hand, has been more devoted to
working through the UN where possible. The two nations have, how-
ever, often worked together within the UN but not always. One of the
first major issues at the UN followed an Anglo–American Commit-
tee of Inquiry into the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement
in the aftermath of World War II. Washington and London disagreed
on the issue and on 2 April 1947 Britain referred the ethnic and po-
litical differences over Palestine to the UN. Britain and America con-
tinued to take separate positions on Palestine and when the UN Gen-
eral Assembly voted on a resolution recommending the partition of
Palestine into the Jewish state of Israel and Arab Palestine, the United
States voted for it while London abstained, making it clear that it was
unwilling to police a partitioned Palestine and would withdraw its
08_717_02_Dictionary.qxd 2/3/09 9:08 AM Page 226
forces when its mandate ended in May 1948. Two years later, in June
1950, Britain and America worked together closely when the UN
faced its most serious test since its formation, when North Korea in-
vaded South Korea. On the day of the attack, the UN Security Coun-
cil voted unanimously to condemn the invasion and called for an im-
mediate cessation of hostilities. When this did not happen, the
Security Council authorized military action, under its flag, to repel
North Korean forces. While the Korean War proved the UN could
provide a legal pretext for collective armed action, the dominant for-
eign policy issue of the 1960s—the Vietnam War—was much more
contentious in the UN and, as it was largely viewed as a civil war, this
was not the key forum for debate on the issue. Washington did ap-
preciate British diplomacy at the UN during the 1960s, notably dur-
ing the Arab–Israeli War of 1967, when its representative, Lord
Caradon, was able to steer Resolution 242 through the UN on 22 No-
vember 1967 that called for “the withdrawal of Israel’s armed forces
from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” Washington had ear-
lier put forward a draft resolution that Britain did not support, as
Britain felt the Arabs would see it as pro-Israeli and consequently
found a choice of words that proved acceptable to all parties. This
level of cooperation at the UN was not repeated during the Arab–Is-
raeli War of 1973, when Britain refused to back a proposed Ameri-
can resolution calling for a cease-fire and a withdrawal by Arab
forces from territory they had held previously. During the Persian
Gulf crisis of 1990, Britain and America again worked together in the
UN to ensure international action to dispel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
On the day of the invasion, 2 August 1990, the UN Security Council
condemned Iraqi action and demanded an immediate withdrawal
(Resolution 660). On 6 August 1990, Britain and America supported
UN Resolution 661 on implementing trade sanctions against Iraq
and Kuwait. Thatcher and Bush disagreed over the necessity of seek-
ing additional resolutions to enforce Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.
On this occasion, Britain was not convinced that a specific resolution
was required to take action, arguing that Kuwait could organize a
military response to its invasion under the self-defense principle of
Article 51 of the UN Charter. Nevertheless, Britain supported Reso-
lution 678 on 29 November 1990 authorizing member states to take
“all necessary means” to implement Resolution 660. Anglo–Ameri-
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– V –
After many failed attempts to negotiate the boundary and having bro-
ken diplomatic relations with the British in 1887, the Venezuelan
government in Caracas asked Washington to intervene, using an
American lobbyist, William L. Scruggs, to make its case. Scruggs
tapped into American fears that the British had imperial ambitions in
Latin America. In 1895, the administration of Grover Cleveland
agreed to get involved, asking the British to submit the boundary dis-
pute to arbitration. Initially, the British ignored the U.S. request, be-
lieving it was none of their business. This prompted the United States
to invoke the Monroe Doctrine more aggressively in a note from
Secretary of State Richard Olney. Olney asserted American hege-
mony over the Western hemisphere and its right to intervene in the
Venezuelan affair. When the premise of Olney’s note was again re-
buffed by British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, the Cleveland ad-
ministration sent a message to Congress on 17 December 1895 de-
nouncing the British refusal to accept arbitration and making it clear
that the United States would “resist by any means within its power”
Britain’s seizure of Venezuelan territory. The president’s firm stance
was applauded by the American press and public. Within weeks Lord
Salisbury had agreed to international arbitration to settle the bound-
ary dispute, partly because Britain was becoming more concerned
about serious threats to its empire coming from France and Germany
and the emergent crisis with the Boers in Africa. By November 1896,
the crisis was over when an international commission agreed with
most of Britain’s claims. The Venezuelan crisis was a significant
turning point in Anglo–American relations, as Britain was forced to
acknowledge American power in the Western hemisphere. See AN-
GLO–BOER WAR.
Harley, secured access to the Mississippi River and the treaty recom-
mended that the states return confiscated Loyalist property. The
treaty was ratified by the American Continental Congress on 14 Jan-
uary 1784 and by the British Parliament on 9 April 1784.
VIETNAM WAR. From 1954 onward, Great Britain and the United
States were at odds over Vietnam. At the end of World War II,
British troops had helped to retake Indochina for the French and with
American trade and colonial interests in the region, continued to take
an active interest in events there. Prime Minister Winston Churchill
refused President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s proposal to provide joint
Anglo–American military support for the beleaguered French at Dien
Bien Phu in 1954. Seeking allied participation in the war, the admin-
istration of John F. Kennedy approached Great Britain but was only
provided with diplomatic support and a small police advisory mis-
sion, headed by Sir Robert Thompson. As U.S. involvement in-
creased, Britain came under increasing pressure to consider a troop
involvement. During his first summit meeting with President Lyndon
Johnson at the White House in December 1964, Prime Minister
Harold Wilson refused a request to provide a token British troop de-
ployment to Vietnam, on the grounds that Britain was already over-
stretched militarily (having over 50,000 troops in Malaysia) and, as
cochair of the 1954 Geneva Conference, wanted to remain as im-
partial as possible in order to help broker peace. Additionally, as a
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– W –
adopted and was signed four days later. The war became an interna-
tional war in 1778 when France signed the Treaty of Alliance with the
United States and in the following year Spain joined France as an
ally. The involvement of France and Spain, along with the Dutch by
1781, ensured British defeat. British forces surrendered at Yorktown
on 19 October 1781 and the British prime minister, Lord North, re-
signed on 20 March 1782. The War of Independence ended with the
Treaty of Versailles signed on 3 September 1783 when Great Britain
recognized American independence. On 17 September 1787, the U.S.
Constitution was ratified.
and those under paternalistic rule. The poem fit in with the vision of
Anglo–Saxon civilization that was prevalent at the turn of the cen-
tury. See ANGLO–SAXONISM.
Germans and did not take Wilson’s note, or his proposals for a new
world order that included plans for a League of Nations, seriously
and did not respond.
Fortunately for Britain, whose financial situation became even
more perilous, the discovery of the Zimmerman telegram in Janu-
ary 1917 and Germany’s launching of unrestricted submarine warfare
in early February 1917 led Washington to break off diplomatic rela-
tions with the country. At Wilson’s request, the U.S. Congress de-
clared war on the German empire on 6 April 1917, joining the Allied
nations as an “associate power” rather than signing a treaty of al-
liance. This meant that the United States was willing to cooperate
with Britain but would retain the right to sign a peace treaty on its
own terms. This decision reflected Wilson’s internationalist princi-
ples and his understanding that the United States had differing aims
from the Allies, based largely on making the world “safe for democ-
racy” and reforming world politics rather than securing an empire.
As far as the British were concerned, American forces were slow
to mobilize for war. Between April and December 1917, only
175,000 troops had reached Britain. The American “doughboys” as
they became known, stopped briefly in Britain, before traveling to
France. U.S. military involvement in World War I contributed
greatly to the Allied victory, which was reached when Germany
agreed to an armistice on 11 November 1918. The influx of Ameri-
can men and materiél tipped the balance, not least because they
boosted the morale of the Allies. During the fight at sea, Britain and
the United States cooperated closely with a joint command under the
control of a British admiral. There was less cohesion on land as the
commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), General
John J. Pershing, determined he would not split U.S. units to be
sent to the front line. By the time the final German offensive began
in July 1918, there were 1.2 million American troops in France but
few saw action until they launched the St. Mihiel offensive of 12
September and took the lead role in Meuse–Argonne campaign that
started on 26 September.
America’s involvement in World War I marked the growing im-
portance of the United States in world affairs, particularly in relation
to Great Britain. Notably, the United States became a creditor nation
for the first time. Moreover, Wilson had negotiated the armistice with
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Despite the fact that there had been disagreements over strategy
and some distance between Washington and London during the
Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences over the plans for the post-
war world, World War II had witnessed an enormous leap forward in
Anglo–American defense and intelligence cooperation and deeper
cultural and political ties between the two transatlantic powers. The
war had left a legacy of U.S. worldwide commitments and a military
foothold in the United Kingdom. By the end of World War II, it was
clear that the United States had risen to economic and military su-
perpower status, and Great Britain’s position as a junior partner in the
Anglo–American alliance had been confirmed. See also AMERICAN
BASES IN BRITAIN; ARCADIA CONFERENCE; D-DAY LAND-
INGS; WAR BRIDES.
– Y –
borders. The states that the Soviet Union had already annexed, in-
cluding the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, would re-
main under Soviet control, and it was agreed that Poland’s eastern
border would be changed to allow the Soviet Union an additional se-
curity buffer and that Poland would be compensated by additional
territory on its western borders gained from Germany at the end of
the war. The Soviet Union also agreed to free elections in Poland. Al-
though Churchill and Roosevelt were later criticized for conceding
too much territory and influence to the Soviet Union, especially in
Eastern Europe, at the time the two leaders felt they had little choice
but to acknowledge the presence of the Red Army on European soil
and recognized the Soviet Union would be needed to end the war in
the Pacific.
1781, leading the British to seek peace. Britain’s surrender in the war
had been secured by the entry of its old enemies, France and Spain,
on the side of the United States’ revolution. In 1783, the Versailles
Peace Treaty acknowledged America’s independence and estab-
lished its borders south of the Great Lakes and as far west as the Mis-
sissippi.
– Z –
251
President Term in Office Secretaries of State Term in Office
George Washington 1789–1797 Thomas Jefferson 1789–1793
Edmund Randolph 1794–1795
Timothy Pickering 1795–1797
John Adams (F) 1797–1801 Timothy Pickering 1797–1800
John Marshall 1800–1801
Thomas Jefferson (R) 1801–1809 James Madison 1801–1809
James Madison (R) 1809–1817 Robert Smith 1809–1811
James Monroe 1811–1817
James Monroe (R) 1817–1825 John Quincy Adams 1817–1825
John Quincy Adams (Ind) 1825–1829 Henry Clay 1825–1829
Andrew Jackson (D) 1829–1837 Martin Van Buren 1829–1831
Edward Livingston 1831–1833
Louis McLane 1833–1834
John Forsyth 1834–1837
Martin Van Buren (D) 1837–1841 John Forsyth 1837–1841
William H. Harrison (W) Mar–Apr 1840 Daniel Webster Mar–Apr 1840
John Tyler (W) 1841–1845 Daniel Webster 1841–1843
Abel P. Upshur 1843–1844
John C. Calhoun 1844–1845
James K. Polk (D) 1845–1849 James Buchanan 1845–1849
Zachary Taylor (W) 1849–1850 John M. Clayton 1849–1850
Millard Fillmore (W) 1850–1853 John M. Clayton 1849–1850
Daniel Webster 1850–1852
Edward Everett 1852–1853
Franklin Pierce (D) 1853–1857 William L. Marcy 1853–1857
James Buchanan (D) 1857–1861 Lewis Cass 1857–1860
Jeremiah S. Black 1860–1861
Abraham Lincoln (R) 1861–1865 William H. Seward 1861–1865
Andrew Johnson 1865–1869 William H. Seward 1865–1869
Ulysses S. Grant (R) 1869–1877 Elihu B. Washburne March 1869
Hamilton Fish 1869–1877
Rutherford B. Hayes (R) 1877–1881 William M. Evarts 1877–1881
James A. Garfield (R) Mar–Sep 1881 James G. Blame Mar–Sep 1881
Chester Arthur (R) 1881–1885 James G. Blaine Sep–Dec 1881
Frederick T. 1881–1885
Frelinghuysen
Grover Cleveland (D) 1885–1889 Thomas F. Bayard Sr. 1885–1889
Benjamin Harrison (R) 1889–1893 James G. Blaine 1889–1892
John W. Foster 1892–1893
Grover Cleveland (D) 1893–1897 Walter Q. Gresham 1893–1895
Richard Olney 1895–1897
William McKinley (R) 1897–1901 John Sherman 1897–1898
William R. Day Apr–Sep 1898
John Hay 1898–1901
Theodore Roosevelt (R) 1901–1909 John Hay 1901–1905
Elihu Root 1905–1909
Robert Bacon Jan–Mar 1909
William H. Taft (R) 1909–1913 Philander C. Knox 1909–1913
Woodrow Wilson (D) 1913–1921 William Jennings 1913–1915
Bryan
President Term in Office Secretaries of State Term in Office
Robert Lansing 1915–1920
Bainbridge Colby 1920–1921
Warren Harding (R) 1921–1925 Charles Evans 1921–1925
Hughes
Calvin Coolidge (R) 1925–1929 Frank B. Kellogg 1925–1929
Herbert Hoover (R) 1929–1933 Henry L. Stimson 1929–1933
Franklin D. 1933–1945 Cordell Hull 1933–1944
Roosevelt (D)
Edward Stettinius Jr. 1944–1945
Harry S. Truman (D) 1945–1953 James F. Byrnes 1945–1947
George Marshall 1947–1949
Dean Acheson 1949–1953
Dwight D. 1953–1961 John Foster Dulles 1953–1959
Eisenhower (R)
Christian Herter 1959–1961
John F. Kennedy (D) 1961–1963 Dean Rusk 1961–1963
Lyndon B. Johnson (D) 1963–1969 Dean Rusk 1963–1969
Richard Nixon (R) 1969–1974 William P. Roger 1969–1973
Henry Kissinger 1973–1974
Gerald Ford (R) 1974–1977 Henry Kissinger 1974–1977
Jimmy Carter (D) 1977–1981 Cyrus Vance 1977–1980
Edmund Muskie 1980–1981
Ronald Reagan (R) 1981–1989 Alexander Haig 1981–1982
George P. Shultz 1982–1989
George H. W. Bush (R) 1989–1993 James Baker 1989–1992
Lawrence 1992–1993
Eagleburger
William Clinton (D) 1993–2001 Warren Christopher 1993–1997
Madeleine Albright 1997–2001
George W. Bush (R) 2001–2009 Colin Powell 2001–2005
(F) = Federalist; (W)= Whig; (Ind) = Independent; (D) = Democratic; (R) = Republican
Appendix B
List of British Prime
Ministers and Foreign Secretaries
257
Prime Minister Term in Office Foreign Secretary Term in Office
George Grenville (W) 1763–1765
The Marquess of Rockingham (W) 1765–1766
William Pitt the Elder (W) 1766–1768
The Duke of Grafton (W) 1768–1770
Lord North (T) 1770–1782
The Marquess of Rockingham (W) Mar–Jul 1782 Charles James Fox Mar–Jul 1782
The Earl of Shelburne (W) 1782–1783 The Lord Grantham 1782–1783
The Duke of Portland (W) Apr–Dec 1783 Charles James Fox Apr–Dec 1783
William Pitt the Younger (T) 1783–1801 The Earl Temple Dec-Dec 1783
The Duke of Leeds 1783–1791
The Lord Grenville 1791–1801
Henry Addington (T) 1801–1804 The Lord Hawkesbury 1801–1804
William Pitt the Younger (T) 1804–1806 The Lord Harrowby 1804–1805
The Lord Mulgrave 1805–1806
Charles James Fox Feb–Sep 1806
The Lord Grenville (W) 1806–1807 Viscount Howick 1806–1807
The Duke of Portland (T) 1807–1809 George Canning 1807–1809
The Earl Bathurst Oct–Dec 1809
Spencer Percival (T) 1809–1812 The Marquess Wellesley 1809–1812
The Earl of Liverpool (T) 1812–1827 The Viscount Castlereagh 1812–1822
George Canning 1822–1827
George Canning (T) Apr–Aug 1827 The Earl of Dudley Apr–Aug 1827
Viscount Goderich (T) 1827–1828 The Earl of Dudley 1827–1828
The Duke of Wellington (T) 1828–1830 The Earl of Aberdeen 1828–1830
The Earl Grey (W) 1830–1834 The Viscount Palmerston 1830–1834
Viscount Melbourne (W) Jul–Nov 1834 The Viscount Palmerston Jul–Nov 1834
The Duke of Wellington (T) Nov–Dec 1834 The Viscount Palmerston Nov–Dec 1834
Sir Robert Peel (C) 1834–1835 The Duke of Wellington 1834–1835
Viscount Melbourne (W) 1835–1841 The Viscount Palmerston 1836–1841
Sir Robert Peel (C) 1841–1846 The Earl of Aberdeen 1841–1846
Lord John Russell (W) 1846–1852 The Earl Granville 1851–1852
The Earl of Derby (C) Feb–Dec 1852 The Earl of Malmesbury Feb–Dec 1852
The Earl of Aberdeen (W) 1852–1855 Lord John Russell 1852–1853
The Earl of Clarendon 1853–1855
Viscount Palmerston (Lib) 1855–1858 The Earl of Clarendon 1855–1858
The Earl of Derby (C) 1858–1859 The Earl of Malmesbury 1858–1859
Viscount Palmerston (Lib) 1859–1865 The Earl Russell 1859–1865
The Earl Russell (Lib) 1865–1866 The Earl of Clarendon 1865–1866
The Earl of Derby (C) 1866–1868 The Lord Stanley 1866–1868
Benjamin Disraeli (C) Feb–Dec 1868 The Lord Stanley Feb–Dec 1868
William E. Gladstone (Lib) 1868–1874 The Earl of Clarendon 1868–1870
The Earl Granville 1870–1874
Benjamin Disraeli (C) 1874–1880 The Earl of Derby 1874–1878
The Marquess of Salisbury 1878–1880
William E. Gladstone (Lib) 1880–1885 The Earl Granville 1880–1885
The Marquess of Salisbury (C) 1885–1886 The Marquess of Salisbury 1885–1886
William E. Gladstone (Lib) Feb–Jul 1886 The Earl of Rosebery Feb–Aug 1986
Prime Minister Term in Office Foreign Secretary Term in Office
The Marquess of Salisbury (C) 1886–1992 The Earl of Iddesleigh 1886–1887
The Marquess of Salisbury 1887–1892
William E. Gladstone (Lib) 1892–1894 The Earl of Rosebery 1892–1894
The Earl of Rosebery (Lib) 1894–1895 The Earl of Kimberley 1894–1895
Marquess of Salisbury (C) 1895–1902 The Marquess of Salisbury 1895–1900
The Marquess of Lansdowne 1900–1902
Arthur Balfour (C) 1902–1905 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1902–1905
Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman (Lib) 1905–1908 Sir Edward Grey 1905–1908
Herbert H. Asquith (Lib) 1908–1916 Sir Edward Grey 1908–1916
David Lloyd George (Lib) 1916–1922 Arthur Balfour 1916–1919
The Marquess Curzon 1919–1922
of Kedleston
Andrew Bonar Law (C) 1922–1923 The Marquess Curzon
of Kedleston 1922–1923
Stanley Baldwin (C) 1923–1924 The Marquess Curzon 1923–1924
of Kedleston
Ramsay Macdonald (L) Jan–Nov 1924 Ramsay Macdonald Jan–Nov 1924
Stanley Baldwin (C) 1924–1929 Sir Austen Chamberlain 1924–1929
Ramsay Macdonald 1929–1935
(L/National Government)
Arthur Henderson 1929–1931
The Marquis of Reading Aug–Nov 1931
Sir John Simon 1931–1935
Stanley Baldwin (C) 1935–1937 Anthony Eden 1935–1937
Neville Chamberlain (Conservative/ 1937–1940 Anthony Eden 1937–1938
National Government)
Viscount Halifax 1938–1940
Winston Churchill 1940–1945 Anthony Eden 1940–1945
(Conservative Coalition)
Clement Attlee (L) 1945–1951 Ernest Bevin 1945–1951
Herbert Morrison Mar–Oct 1951
Winston Churchill (C) 1951–1955 Sir Anthony Eden 1951–1955
Harold Macmillan Apr–Dec 1955
Anthony Eden (C) 1955–1957 Selwyn Lloyd 1955–1957
Harold Macmillan (C) 1957–1963 Selwyn Lloyd 1957–1960
The Earl of Home 1960–1963
Alec Douglas-Home (C) 1963–1964 R.A. Butler 1963–1964
Harold Wilson (L) 1964–1970 Patrick Gordon-Walker 1964–1965
Michael Stewart 1965–1966
George Brown 1966–1968
Michael Stewart 1968–1970
Edward Heath (C) 1970–1974 Sir Alec Douglas-Home 1970–1974
Harold Wilson (L) 1974–1976 James Callaghan 1974–1976
James Callaghan (L) 1976–1979 Anthony Crosland 1976–1977
David Owen 1977–1979
Prime Minister Term in office Foreign Secretary Term in office
Margaret Thatcher (C) 1979–1990 Lord Carrington 1979–1982
Francis Pym 1982–1983
Sir Geoffrey Howe 1983–1989
John Major 1989–1989
Douglas Hurd 1989–1990
John Major (C) 1990–1997 Douglas Hurd 1990–1995
Malcolm Rifkind 1995–1997
Tony Blair (L) 1997–2007 Robin Cook 1997–2001
Jack Straw 2001–2006
Margaret Beckett 2006–2007
Gordon Brown (L) 2007– David Miliband 2007–
(W) = Whig; (T) = Tory; (C) = Conservative; (Lib) = Liberal; (L) = Labour
Appendix C
List of U.S. Ambassadors to Great Britain
263
Name Title Dates of Appointment
John Adams Minister Plenipotentiary 1785–1788
Thomas Pinkney Minister Plenipotentiary 1792–1796
Rufus King Minister Plenipotentiary 1796–1803
James Monroe Minister Plenipotentiary 1803–1807
William Pinkney Minister Plenipotentiary 1808–1811
Jonathan Russell Chargé d’Affaires 1811–1812
John Quincy Adams Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1815–1817
Richard Rush Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1817–1825
Rufus King Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1825–1826
Albert Gallatin Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1826–1827
James Barbour Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1828–1829
Louis McLane Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1829–1831
Martin Van Buren Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1831–1832
Aaron Vail Chargé d’Affaires 1832–1836
Andrew Stevenson Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1836–1841
Edward Everett Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1841–1845
Louis McLane Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1845–1846
George Bancroft Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1846–1849
Abbott Lawrence Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1849–1852
James R. Ingersoll Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1852–1853
James Buchanan Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1853–1856
George M. Dallas Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1856–1861
Charles Francis Adams Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1861–1868
Reverdy Johnson Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1868–1869
J. Lothrop Motley Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1869–1870
Robert C. Schenck Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1870–1876
Edwards Pierrepont Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1876–1877
John Welsh Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1877–1879
James Russell Lowell Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1880–1885
Edward J. Phelps Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1885–1889
Robert T. Lincoln Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1889–1893
Thomas F. Bayard Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1893–1897
John Hay Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1897–1898
Joseph Choate Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1899–1905
Whitelaw Reid Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1905–1912
Walter Hines Page Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1913–1918
John W. Davis Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1918–1921
George Harvey Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1921–1923
Frank B. Kellogg Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1923–1925
Alanson B. Houghton Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1925–1929
Charles G. Hawes Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1929–1931
Andrew W. Mellon Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1932–1933
Robert Worth Bingham Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1933–1937
Joseph P. Kennedy Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1938–1940
John G. Winnant Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1941–1945
W. Averell Harriman Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Apr–Oct 1946
Name Title Dates of Appointment
O. Max Gardner Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1946–Died before
taking office
Lewis W. Douglas Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1947–1950
Walter S. Gifford Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1950–1953
Winthrop W. Aldrich Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1953–1957
John Hay Whitney Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1957–1961
David K. E. Bruce Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1961–1969
Walter H. Annenberg Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1969–1974
Elliot L. Richardson Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1975–1976
Anne Legendre Armstrong Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1976–1977
Kingman Brewster Jr Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1977–1981
John J. Louis Jr. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1981–1983
Charles H. Price II Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1983–1989
Henry E. Catto Jr. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1989–1991
Raymond G. H. Seitz Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1991–1994
William J. Crowe Jr. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1994–1997
Philip Lader Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 1997–2001
William S. Farish Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 2001–2004
Robert H. Tuttle Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary 2005–
Appendix D
List of British Ambassadors to the United States
267
Dates of
Name Titles Appointment
George Hammand Minister to the United States of America 1791–1795
Robert Liston Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1796–1800
Anthony Merry Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1803–1806
Hon. David Montague Erskine Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1807–1809
Francis James Jackson Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1809–1811
Augustus John Foster Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1811–1812
Sir Charles Bagot Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1815–1820
Stratford Canning Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1820–1824
Sir Charles Richard Vaughan Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1825–1835
Henry Stephen Fox Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1835–1843
Sir Richard Pakenham Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1843–1847
Sir Henry Bulwer Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1849–1852
Sir John Fiennes Twistleton Crampton Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1852–1856
Francis Napier, 10th Lord Napier Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1857–1858
Richard Bickerton Pernell Lyons, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1858–1865
2nd Baron Lyons of Christchurch
Sir Frederick Bruce Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1865–1867
Sir Edward Thornton Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1867–1881
Sir Lionel Sackville-West Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1881–1888
Sir Julian Pauncefote Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 1889–1893
Sir Julian Pauncefote Ambassador to the United States of America 1893–1902
Sir Michael Henry Herbert Ambassador to the United States of America 1902–1903
Sir Henry Mortimer Durand Ambassador to the United States of America 1903–1906
James Bryce Ambassador to the United States of America 1907–1913
Sir Cecil Spring-Rice Ambassador to the United States of America 1913–1918
Rufus Isaacs, 1st Earl of Reading Ambassador to the United States of America 1918–1919
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon Ambassador to the United States of America 1919–1920
Sir Auckland Geddes Ambassador to the United States of America 1920–1924
Sir Esme Howard Ambassador to the United States of America 1924–1930
Sir Ronald Lindsay Ambassador to the United States of America 1930–1939
Philip Kerr, 1st Marquess of Lothian Ambassador to the United States of America 1939–1940
Edward Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax Ambassador to the United States of America 1940–1946
Archibald Clark-Kerr, 1st Baron Inverchapel Ambassador to the United States of America 1946–1948
Sir Oliver Franks Ambassador to the United States of America 1948–1952
Sir Roger Makins Ambassador to the United States of America 1953–1956
Sir Harold Caccia Ambassador to the United States of America 1956–1961
Sir David Ormsby-Gore, Ambassador to the United States of America 1961–1965
later 5th Baron Harlech
Sir Patrick Dean Ambassador to the United States of America 1965–1969
John Freeman Ambassador to the United States of America 1969–1971
George Baring, 3rd Earl of Cromer Ambassador to the United States of America 1971–1974
Sir Peter Ramsbottom Ambassador to the United States of America 1974–1977
Peter Jay Ambassador to the United States of America 1977–1979
Sir Nicholas Henderson Ambassador to the United States of America 1979–1982
Sir Oliver Wright Ambassador to the United States of America 1982–1986
Sir Antony Acland Ambassador to the United States of America 1986–1991
Dates of
Name Titles Appointment
Sir Robin Renwick Ambassador to the United States of America 1991–1995
Sir John Kerr Ambassador to the United States of America 1996–1997
Sir Christopher Meyer Ambassador to the United States of America 1997–2003
Sir David Manning Ambassador to the United States of America 2003–2007
Sir Nigel Sheinwald Ambassador to the United States of America 2007–
Bibliography
CONTENTS
271
272 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
the American Civil War, first published in 1925. For more emphasis on eco-
nomic relations during this period, see Frank L. Owlsley, King Cotton
Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America. For a
more balanced study of the importance of diplomacy in the Union’s suc-
cess, see Howard Jones, Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Interven-
tion in the Civil War. Stuart Anderson’s Race and Rapprochement: An-
glo–Saxonism and Anglo–American Relations offers the best discussion of
the importance of racial and cultural kinship in the rapprochement between
Britain and America that emerged between 1895 and 1904. For an exami-
nation of Britain’s response to the growing strategic power of the United
States in the late 19th century—particularly its growing navy—see Anne
Orde, Eclipse of Great Britain: The United States and British Imperial De-
cline, 1895–1956.
The fourth section contains a selection of works that cover key events
and issues in 20th-century Anglo–American relations. For works that fall
outside of World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, see Lestyn
Adams’s study based on an examination of official and private papers,
Brothers across the Ocean: British Foreign Policy and the Origins of the
Anglo–American “Special Relationship” 1900–1905, which offers a his-
tory of the early special relationship between Britain and America, outlin-
ing Britain’s period of adjustment as the United States threatened its posi-
tion of global hegemony. The best overview of Anglo–American relations
during World War I is Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of
War, 1914–1918. A useful study of the tense interwar period, see John E.
Moser, Twisting the Lion’s Tail: American Anglophobia between the World
War, alongside B. J. C. McKercher, Anglo–American Relations in the
1920s: The Struggle for Supremacy.
Not surprisingly, the literature on the development of Anglo–American
alliances formed during World War II is voluminous. See Randall B.
Woods, A Changing of the Guard: Anglo–American Relations, 1941–1946.
For an accessible overview of the personal and working relationship that
developed between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister
Winston Churchill, see Warren F. Kimball, Forged in War: Roosevelt,
Churchill, and the Second World War. For a more controversial analysis of
Winston Churchill’s role in the formation of the wartime alliance, see John
Charmley, Churchill’s Grand Alliance: The Anglo–American Special Rela-
tionship 1940–1957.
Section IV also contains a variety of works that address Anglo–Ameri-
can relations during the Cold War, featuring all aspects of the burgeoning
links between Britain and the United States. For a rich analysis of the role
274 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
of the British in the origins of the Cold War, see Terry Anderson, The
United States, Great Britain and the Cold War, 1941–1947. The best vol-
ume on the development of the intelligence relationship during the Cold
War is Richard Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War
Secret Intelligence. For a serious study of Anglo–American military coop-
eration, see John Baylis, Anglo–American Defence Relations, 1939–1980;
and for an overview of the economic relationship during the Cold War, see
Alan Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo–American Economic Special Rela-
tionship, 1940–1984.
Despite being Cold War allies, Britain and America had several dis-
agreements during this period. For a scholarly treatment of the Suez crisis,
see Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand: Britain, the United States and the Suez
Crisis; for an examination of British unease during the Cuban missile cri-
sis, see Len Scott, Macmillan, Kennedy, and the Cuban Missile Crisis; and
for an assessment of the impact of the Vietnam War on Anglo–American re-
lations, see Sylvia Ellis, Britain, America, and the Vietnam War.
The fifth section in the bibliography deals with events and debates that
occupied Anglo–American relations in the aftermath of the Cold War. For
a masterly examination of the “special relationship” during the Clinton-
Blair and Bush-Blair years, see Peter Riddell, Hug Them Close. On the Iraq
War, see the important account by journalist William Shawcross, Allies.
The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) in Kew hold
British official records on Anglo–American relations. Corresponding
American government documents are contained at the Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C., and for presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt on-
wards, the presidential libraries.
Another source of information, primary documents, and latest news on
Anglo–Americans is the growing number of reliable websites. The web-
sites of the U.S. Embassy, London (http://www.usembassy.org.uk/) provide
a history of the building at Grosvenor Square, key speeches by the current
ambassador, and embassy press releases. Likewise, the website of the
British Embassy, Washington (http://www.britain-info.org/) contains simi-
lar information. The Library of Congress hosts a website (http://www
.loc.gov/exhibits/british/) based on a joint project and exhibition it held
with the British Library. The site features overviews of different periods in
British–American relations, images, and primary documents on a range of
topics from the early English settlements in America to British war brides
in World War II. The British Broadcasting Company (BBC;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/ 1913522.stm) provides regular
updates and commentaries on the Anglo–American “special relationship.”
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Russell Mead, Walter. God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of
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