Abstract
The purpose of this introductory essay is not to discuss the place of Argentina in Anglo-American relations. Rather it is to outline the broad parameters within which those relations were conducted. In what follows there will be little about Argentina at all. Nevertheless, though it may be ungracious, it is worthwhile to remark at the outset that the title given to the conference from which this volume emerges — ‘Argentina between the Great Powers 1939–1946’ — and still more the title originally proposed for this paper — ‘US-UK rivalry’ — both reflect an important misconception. By 1939 Argentina could not be ‘between the Great Powers’, for Britain had already abdicated that role in that region. There could be no US-UK rivalry, for Britain lacked the power to rival the USA. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, when the two Anglo-Saxon powers were much more equal, Argentina would have found it hard to play one against the other, had there then been the disposition to do so; there was not even the possibility of doing so by 1939, and still less during and after the war.
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Notes and References
Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War (six vols, London, 1948–1954); Washington Despatches 1941–1945, ed. H.G. Nicholas (Chicago: 1981).
Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (London: second impression with amendments, 1972), p. 417, n. 1. Note that the pagination of this impression differs from that of the first.
See Sir David Kelly, The Ruling Few, or the Human Background to Diplomacy (London: 1952), ch. XIV. Kelly, H.M. Ambassador in Argentina during part of the war, a mission he describes as ‘negative and thankless’ (p. 314), is a severe critic of American policy, but stops well short of arguing that it did Britain much harm.
David Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 1937–41. A Study in Competitive Cooperation (London: 1981).
Edward M. Bennett, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Search for Security. American-Soviet Relations, 1933–1939 (Wilmington, Del.: 1985).
Reynolds, op. cit.; C.A. MacDonald, The United States, Britain and Appeasement, 1936–1939 (London: 1981), especially pp. 73, 127–9. MacDonald puts an even more precise American charge: ‘By 1939 American policymakers had come to believe that Chamberlain was the agent of selfish City interests, which were not above handing over Europe to Hitler in return for a guaranteed share of its trade’ (p. ix).
Norman A. Graebner, ‘Roosevelt, Chamberlain, and the Coming of War’ in America as a World Power (Wilmington, Del.: 1984) p. 58. The whole essay, pp. 31–63, is a masterly survey.
For an interesting interpretation of British policy before the First World War, see Keith M. Wilson, The Policy of the Entente (Cambridge: 1985). Mutatis mutandis, some of Wilson’s arguments bear consideration for the period before the Second World War.
Graebner, loc. cit.; Iriye, Akira, Power and Culture. The Japanese-American War, 1941–1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: 1981) ch. 1.
Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, ed. Warren F. Kimball (three vols., Princeton, N.J.: 1984).
Radio broadcast, 9 February 1941.
Theodore A. Wilson, The First Summit. Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay 1941 (London: 1970), ch. IX, especially pp. 203–7.
A.E. Campbell, ‘Franklin Roosevelt and Unconditional Surrender’ in Diplomacy and Intelligence during the Second World War. Essays in honour of F.H. Hinsley, ed. Richard Langhorne (Cambridge: 1985) pp. 219–241.
D. Cameron Watt, Succeeding John Bull. America in Britain’s Place 1900–1975 (Cambridge: 1984) p. 93. For a helpful discussion of the decision see Herbert Feis, Churchill Roosevelt Stalin. The War They Waged and the Peace They Sought (Princeton, N.J.: 1957) ch. 5.
Tony Sharp, The Wartime Alliance and the Zonal Division of Germany (Oxford: 1975); Campbell, loc. cit.
Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind. The United States, Britain and the War against Japan, 1941–1945 (London: 1978) especially pp. 704ff.
The Congressman was Emmanuel Celler of New York.
See Note 14.
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© 1989 Guido di Tella and D. Cameron Watt
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Campbell, A. (1989). Anglo-American Relations, 1939–1946: A British View. In: di Tella, G., Watt, D.C. (eds) Argentina between the Great Powers, 1939–46. St Antony’s/Macmillan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10977-7_1
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