Abstract
In Autumn 1962, Lord Home’s advocacy of the case for adopting a ‘modern edition of British foreign policy’ reflected the ongoing questioning of British policies and methods in the wake of the Suez debacle, the retreat from empire, the debate about British entry to the Common Market, economic setbacks, and the growing gap between power and commitments.1 For Rohan Butler, Home’s period as Foreign Secretary (1960–63) brought a new sense of mission to British foreign policy, most notably as articulated in a speech he delivered in Autumn 1962:
I believe that we hide our head in the sand if we do not recognise that when we deliberately shed an empire we shed with it a lot of wealth, influence and power. I believe that the knowledge of this, which has been felt throughout the nation, has accounted very largely for the unsureness of the nation and the discontent which I have observed in recent years, because although people recognised the facts, they did not see how to redress the balance.2
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Notes
In turn, the 1979 Iranian revolution is often interpreted as an anti-American event ushering in a difficult period of US-Iran relations: Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2003), p. x; Mark J. Gasiorowski, ‘Why did Mosaddeq fall?’, in M.J. Gasiorowski and M. Byrne (eds), Mohammad Mosaddeq, p. 261.
The Times, 5 Dec. 1963; T.A.B. Corley, A History of the Burmah Oil Company, vol. 2: 1924–66 (London: Heinemann, 1988), pp. 255–70. In 1954 Attlee praised the example of Burma: Attlee, As it Happened, p. 176.
Ibid., paras 6–9, 65, STRN2/10; Michael F. Hopkins, Oliver Franks and the Truman Administration: Anglo-American Relations, 1948–1952 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), p. 199. Like Attlee, Dalton proved highly critical of Morrison’s performance as Foreign Secretary, as evidenced by his ‘pseudo-Pam’ [Lord Palmerston] descriptor. Dalton complained that Morrison’s ‘ignorance’ was ‘shocking’: ‘He had no background and knew no history’: Dalton’s diary, 16 Sept. 1951, Pt 1/42, fols 7–8.
Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), p. 599.
Lord Strang, Britain in World Affairs: A Survey of Fluctuations in British Power and Influence, Henry VIII to Elizabeth II (London: Faber & Faber and Andre Deutsch, 1961), pp. 38, 108–110, 304; Strang, 28 Jan. 1963, STRN2/11.
Ibid., 1 Mar. 1963, FO370/2694/LS18/3. See Lord Caccia, The Roots of British Foreign Policy, 1929–1960 (Enstone: The Ditchley Foundation, 1965), pp. 7, 14–15.
George Vaughan, Panama, to Caccia, 14 Feb. 1963, FO371/173334/WP30/3d. Subsequently, lingering anti-British sentiment qualified initial impressions of success: Nigel Ashton, ‘Britain and the Kuwaiti crisis, 1961’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 9 (1998), 163–81;
Wm. Roger Louis, ‘The British withdrawal from the Gulf, 1967–71’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 31 (2003), 91;
Simon Smith, Britain’s Revival and Fall in the Gulf Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the Trucial States, 1950–1971 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), pp. 119–28.
Saki Dockrill, Britain’s Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice between Europe and the World? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 24–42;
Peter Mangold, Success and Failure in British Foreign Policy: Evaluating the Record, 1900–2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), pp. 13, 121–4; Peden, Treasury and Public Policy, pp. 445–8. Pointing to its ‘folly’ and ‘persistent stupidity’, Acheson, the US Secretary of State (1949–53), proved highly critical of British policy over Abadan: Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 501, 506.
Caccia, 29 May 1963, FO371/173334/WP30/1; Woodfield, 13 May 1964, PREM11/4808. See David Thomson, ‘Gaullism’s point of reappraisal’, The Times, 22 Aug. 1963.
Gore-Booth, 13 July 1965, FO370/2807/LS13/4; Gore-Booth, Oct. 1966, quoted, Cairncross, The Wilson Years, p. 165; Cairncross, Robert Hall Diaries, 1954–61, p. 84; Paul Gore-Booth, With Great Truth and Respect (London: Constable, 1974), pp. 230–1.
This claim should be viewed alongside reports that relevant material, including the British copy of the Treaty of Sèvres, was shredded: Avi Shlaim, ‘The Protocol of Sèvres, 1956: Anatomy of a war plot’, International Affairs, 73 (1997), 509–30.
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© 2006 Peter J. Beck
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Beck, P.J. (2006). Using Butler’s Abadan History to Reappraise British Foreign Policy. In: Using History, Making British Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230501287_11
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