Abstract
For some eighteen months after the summer of 1945 the shape of the postwar world was far from clear. Assumptions that continued cooperation between the three major victors was both necessary and possible were widely held in the west and died hard — it is still not possible to say whether or for how long they were held in the Soviet Union. During 1946 assumptions of hostility between west and east gradually took over, but it was not until 1947 that the world appeared to become locked into the cold war.1
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Notes
The literature on all aspects of postwar American foreign and security policy is much larger than that for any earlier period. Many of the works published in the 1950s and 60s are now of greater interest for the light they cast on the politics and perceptions of those decades than for the history of the 1940s. Useful later works on the American origins of the cold war include: John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941–1947 (New York, 1972);
Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace. The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (Boston, 1977);
John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace. Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (New York, 1987), pp. 20–47.
Michael J. Lacey (ed.), The Truman Presidency (Cambridge, 1989) contains essays on a variety of aspects of policy.
Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power. National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War (Stanford, 1992) is an exhaustive study for the whole period down to 1952, and contains a full bibliography.
Works on the British origins of the cold war include Victor Rothwell, Britain and the Cold War 1941–1947 (London, 1982);
Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary (Oxford, 1983);
John Kent, British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War 1944–49 (Leicester, 1992).
For left-wing intellectuals see for example articles by Richard Grossman and Aylmer Valance, Political Quarterly, Jan. 1946. For reactions to Churchill’s speech see for example The Times, 6 Mar.; Economist, 9 Mar.
John Fischer, Harper’s Magazine, Aug. 1945.
For deferring to American insistence see W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–1946 (New York, 1975), p. 531.
PHP(45) 29(0) (Final), 29 Jun. 1945, PRO, CAB 81/46; WP(45) 256, 13 Apr., CAB 66/65; CP(45)55, CAB 66/67. For the whole subject see Julian Lewis, Changing Direction. British Military Planning for Postwar Strategic Defence 1942–1947 (London, 1988).
See minutes, 8–12 Mar. 1946, U 2749/106/70, PRO, FO 371/ 57173; memorandum by Bevin, 13 Mar., British Documents on the End of Empire, henceforth cited as BDEE, ser. A, II, The Labour Government and the End of Empire 1945–1951, ed. Ronald Hyam (London, 1992), pt. 3, no. 277; DO(46), 22nd meeting, CAB 131/1; memorandum, ‘The strategic aspect of British foreign policy’, 15 Oct., COS(46) 239(O), CAB 80/102, part printed in Lewis, Changing Direction, appendix 6.
See G.M. Alexander, The Prelude to the Truman Doctrine. British Policy in Greece 1944–47 (Oxford, 1982).
See Leffler, Preponderance of Power. A useful shorter account is John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment. A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York, 1982).
George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950 (Boston, 1967), pp. 583— 98; FRUS, 1946, VI, pp. 696–709.
‘X’, ‘The sources of Soviet conduct’, Foreign Affairs, Jul. 1947, pp. 576–82. On Kennan see Walter L. Hixson, George F. Kennan, Cold War Iconoclast (New York, 1989);
David Allan Mayers, George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy (New York, 1989).
Clifford-Elsey report, 24 Sep. 1946, printed in Arthur Krock, Memoirs. Sixty Years in the Firing Line (New York, 1968), pp. 422–82;
conclusions in Thomas H. Etzold and John L. Gaddis (eds), Containment. Documents on American Policy and Strategy 1945–1950 (New York, 1978), pp. 64–71.
Earlier defence planning is discussed by Michael Sherry, Preparing for the Next War. American Plans for Postwar Defense 1941–45 (New Haven, 1977).
Walter Lippmann, The Cold War (New York, 1947): the collected articles were an explicit critique of Kennan.
A contrasting example is James Burnham, The Struggle for the World (New York, 1947).
See Bruce R. Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East. Great Power Conflict and Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey and Greece (Princeton, 1980).
Joseph M. Jones, The Fifteen Weeks (New York, 1955) is useful for the domestic aspect. Truman’s message to Congress is printed in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Harry S. Truman, 1947 vol. (Washington, 1963), no. 56.
Wm Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East 1945–51 (Oxford, 1984) is important for the whole area.
For defence policy see David R. Devereux, The Formulation of British Defence Policy towards the Middle East 1948–56 (London, 1990).
Useful books include Michael J. Cohen, Palestine and the Great Powers 1945–1948 (Princeton, 1982);
Martin Jones, Failure in Palestine. British and United States Policy after the Second World War (London, 1985);
Kenneth Roy Bain, The March to Zion. United States Policy and the Founding of Israel (College Station, 1979).
See R.J. Moore, Escape from Empire. The Attlee Government and the Indian Problem (Oxford, 1983). Documents in Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), India. The Transfer of Power.
See for example minute by Sir N. Brook, the Cabinet Secretary, op. cit., pt. 2, no. 121. For the whole subject of colonial development see D.J. Morgan, The Official History of Colonial Development, 5 vols (London, 1980) (III for the East Africa groundnuts scheme); BDEE, II, pt 3. Expectations of colonial independence, see Colonial Policy Committee, 6 Sep. 1957, CPC(57) 30, Revise, PRO, CAB 134/1556.
In general see John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation. The Retreat from Empire in the Postwar World (London, 1988).
For the whole subject see John W. Young, Britain, France and the Unity of Europe (Leicester, 1984);
John W. Young, Britain and European Unity 1945–1992 (London, 1993).
See Alan Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945–51 (London, 1984), chs 1–3;
John Gimbel, The Origins of the Marshall Plan (Stanford, 1976);
Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan. America, Britain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe 1947–1952 (Cambridge and New York, 1987), despite its title, uses little British material.
Memorandum by Bevin, ‘The first aim of British foreign policy’, 4 Jan. 1948, BDEE, II, pt 2, no. 142; also memorandum by Bevin and Cripps, 6 Mar., CP(48) 75, PRO, CAB 129/25.
Foreign Office memorandum, ‘A third world power or western consolidation?’, 23 Mar. 1949, W 3114/3/50, PRO, FO 371/76384; DBPO, ser. 1, II, no. 20; BDEE, II, pt. 3, no. 152.
See Nicholas Henderson, The Birth of NATO (London, 1982);
Richard A. Best, ‘Cooperation with Like-minded Peoples.’ British influence on American security policy 1945–1949 (Westport, CT, 1986).
Memorandum by Kennan, 7 Jul. 1949, PPS 55, Department of State, The State Department Policy Planning Staff Papers (New York, 1983), pp. 82–100. See also Kennan’s memorandum of 24 Feb. 1948, FRUS, 1948, I, pp. 509–29.
Acheson to Perkins, Paris, 19 Oct. 1949; Bevin to Acheson, 25 Oct.; Acheson to Bevin, 28 Oct., FRUS, 1949, IV, pp. 347–9, 469–72. For Acheson see his memoirs, Present at the Creation (New York, 1969); David S. McLellan, Dean Acheson. The State Department Years (New York, 1976).
Labour Party, European Unity (London, 1950). The statement was drafted by Denis Healey. See also for example Spectator, 9 Jun. 1950; New Statesman, 8 Jul.
See Edward Fursdon, The European Defence Community (London, 1980);
Saki Dockrill, British Policy for West German Rearmament 1950–5 (London, 1991).
See Cabinet memoranda and minutes, Jul.–Nov. 1956, BDEE, III, pt 3, nos 387, 389–92. Miriam Camps, Britain and the European Economic Community 1955–1963 (London, 1964) is still a useful account of the negotiations.
Political and Economic Planning, Growth in the British Economy (London, 1960), pp. 30, 32, 150.
For all this see Susan Strange, Sterling and British Policy (London, 1971).
Memorandum by Eden, 18 Jun. 1952; memorandum by Chiefs of Staff, 31 Oct., BDEE, III, pt 1, nos 3, 10. For the problem of defence spending and resources see Michael Chalmers, Paying for Defence. Military spending and British decline (London, 1985).
For the whole subject see Margaret Gowing, Independence and Deterrence. Britain and Atomic Energy 1945–1952 (London, 1974);
Andrew J. Pierre, Nuclear Politics (London, 1972);
Timothy J. Botti, The Long Wait. The Forging of the Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance (New York, 1987);
Ian Clark and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy (Oxford, 1989).
For the whole subject see Dorothy Borg and Waldo Heinrichs (eds), Uncertain Years. Chinese-American Relations 1947–1950 (New York, 1980);
William Whitney Stueck, jr., The Road to Confrontation. American Policy towards China and Korea 1947–1950 (Chapel Hill, 1981);
Nancy B. Tucker, Patterns in the Dust. Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy 1949–1950 (New York, 1983).
British documents for the second half of 1950 in DBPO, ser. 2, IV. See Callum Macdonald, Korea. The War before Vietnam (Basingstoke, 1986).
See NSC 114/2, 12 Oct. 1951, FRUS, 1951, I, pp. 182–92, and related drafts and comments; Hans J. Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest. A Critical Examination of American Foreign Policy (New York, 1951), pp. 49–52; Acheson on 4 Aug. 1952; PPS papers and NSC discussion, Jul.–Sep. FRUS, 1952–4, II, pp. 11–156; XVIII, pp. 182–3. The possibility that the Americans might come to prefer a showdown to indefinite prolongation of the cold war was noted by the British Chiefs of Staff: COS(52) 361, 15 Jul., PRO, DEFE 5/40.
Dulles’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, printed in Norman Graebner, Cold War Diplomacy (2nd edn, New York, 1977); Dulles speech to Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 12 Jan. 1953; Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Foreign Affairs, Jan.
On Dulles see Michael Guhin, John Foster Dulles (New York, 1972);
Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles (Boston, 1973);
Frederick W. Marks, Power and Peace. The Diplomacy of John Foster Dulles (Westport, CT, 1993).
See Andrew J. Rotter, The Path to Vietnam. Origins of the American Commitment to South-East Asia (Ithaca, 1987);
James Cable, The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina (London, 1986).
Lovett to Bruce, 16 Aug. 1952, quoted by Leffler, Preponderance of Power, p. 483; Reston to Lippmann, 18 Jan. 1954, Lippmann Papers, Yale University, ser. 3, box 98. See also FRUS, 1952–4, V, pp. 1715–18; J.C. Hurewitz, Middle East Dilemmas (New York, 1953), p. 253.
A large-scale account is Keith Kyle, Suez (London, 1991);
also W. Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand. Britain, the United States and the Suez Crisis (London, 1991).
For analysis and discussion see especially Wm Roger Louis and Roger Owen (eds), Suez 1956. The Crisis and its Consequences (Oxford, 1989);
Selwyn Ilan Troen and Moshe Sheresh (eds), The Suez-Sinai Crisis of 1956. Retrospective and Reappraisal (London, 1990);
Diane B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (Chapel Hill, 1991).
For the Commonwealth see James Eayrs, The Commonwealth and Suez. A Documentary Survey (London, 1964).
An outburst by Dulles at the National Security Council meeting on 1 November is quoted by Wm Roger Louis in Richard H. Immerman (ed.), John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War (Princeton, 1990), p. 153.
Kunz, Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis, p. 159. Between 1948 and 1954 Congress authorized some $6 billion annually in aid under the Mutual Security acts. The proportion devoted to military assistance grew from the early 1950s: William Adams Brown jr and Redvers Opie, American Foreign Assistance (Washington, 1953), p. 535;
John D. Montgomery, The Politics of Foreign Aid (New York, 1962), p. 211.
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© 1996 Anne Orde
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Orde, A. (1996). British Imperial Decline and American Super-Power, 1945–56. In: The Eclipse of Great Britain. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24924-4_7
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