Collaboration and Discord 1950–1956

Abstract

The pattern of progress towards greater intimacy in Anglo-American defence relations, apart from atomic energy, continued in the early 1950s. As the period developed, however, a cyclical relapse occurred as important political-military differences began to emerge. These differences culminated in 1956 with the serious rupture at Suez which shook the alliance between the two countries to its very foundations. During the period leading up to Suez atomic energy once again was to remain the big exception to the general pattern of events. Ironically, despite the continuing difficulties over nuclear matters in the early part of the period, as friction began to appear in other areas of the relationship, important agreements were reached in atomic cooperation which helped to lay the foundations for a genuine renewal of the wartime partnership later in the decade.