The Committee on American Opinion on the British Empire, 1942–1944

Abstract

Relations between Britain and the United States, both before and during the Second World War, were nothing like as cordial as was generally portrayed in the post-conflict accounts.¹ On both shores of the Atlantic there were many senior officials, both political and military, who had little time for one another and the sense that some form of ‘Special Relationship’ existed is a somewhat fanciful interpretation of the actual situation.² Even Field Marshal Bill Slim, perhaps Britain’s greatest wartime commander, and widely respected for his objective and reasoned outlook and sage common-sense words, apparently found it a challenge. About his country’s key ally he was driven to write that he found Americans ‘so difficult to understand, so unreasonable; they approach quite straightforward problems from such extraordinary angles’ and were prone to ‘introduce consideration of their own national politics and hangovers from their past history, none of which have the faintest bearing on the matter of immediate issue.’³ Swayed by ‘petty jealousies, narrow nationalistic outlook [and] selfish manoeuvrings’, it was all too apparent that having to work in Burma alongside such virulent Anglophobes as American Joe Stilwell had proven to be a trying experience.⁴ And there were many others who had similar wartime experiences and held much worse opinions.