Anglo-American Relations in the 1950s

1. Anglo-American Relations in the 1950s Korea, Iran. Churchill/Eisenhower, Egypt, Eden and Suez, Macmillan/Eisenhower, Iraq Eisenhower Doctrine, Bombs and rockets

2. US / UK in the 1950s The Korean war Began 25 June 1950 with North Korean invasion of South Korea. Aggression brought before the UN: called on members to provide assistance to South Korea in resisting aggression. US provided most, but other countries, especially UK, were also involved.

3. US / UK in the 1950s Why did Britain agree to become involved? Belief in UN and fear of consequences of giving in to dictators. The shadow of Munich. The war went badly for the UN forces to begin with: they were pushed back into a small pocket outside Pusan.

4. US / UK in the 1950s The US commander-in-chief took the daring step of sending troops to effect a landing at Inchon. It was a gamble which paid off and added to MacArthur's prestige. This exposed the North Korean's extended supply line and MacArthur was able to resume control of the South. He then decided to press on and attack the North, and almost reached the Chinese border.

5. US / UK in the 1950s The Chinese then sent large numbers of troops placing the UN forces in a desperate position. MacArthur apparently sought permission to use nuclear weapons against North Korea and if necessary mainland China. In the meantime despite the pressure the UN line held. Truman announced at a press conference that he would not rule out the use of any weapon, and this shook public opinion in Europe.

6. US / UK in the 1950s Was Truman on the verge of approving the use of nuclear weapons in Korea? The House of Commons was at least worried and Attlee agreed to go to Washington. In fact Truman almost immediately made it clear that his intention was not to use the A-bomb, so this was not a real issue in the talks between Attlee and Truman.

7. US / UK in the 1950s However Attlee did secure a commitment on the part of Truman to keep the UK PM informed of use of nuclear weapons. Indeed the two men had had private discussions at the end of which Truman had apparently said he would not use the bomb without the agreement of the UK. Aides said this was unconstitutional. British agreed to redraft.

8. US / UK in the 1950s

9. US / UK in the 1950s

10. US / UK in the 1950s

11. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Korean_war_1950-1953.gifhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Korean_war_1950-1953.gif US / UK in the 1950s

12. Iran In 1951 the Iranian Prime Minister Mosaddeq announced he was nationalising the oil refinery at Abadan: the world's largest, at a time when Britain was desperately short of reserves. Attlee declined to send in the troops. The US felt that any price was worth paying to keep the USSR out of Northern Iran The British were not ready to abandon their asset. http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/052051iran-britain.html

13. Iran The British wanted to get rid of Mossadeq, because they felt it was his hostility towards Britain which lay behind the nationalisation. The Americans wanted to keep him, as they felt he would be able to keep out the communists in Iran. As Evelyn Shuckburgh said, "For the US the Cold War is paramount, whereas for the UK our economic strength is at the moment fundamental".

14. Iran FRUS

15. Iran FRUS

16. Iran

17. Iran When the Americans finally lost patience they engineered, apparently with the help of MI6, a coup, toppling Mossadeq and putting the Shah in control. The Americans also got a 40% share in access to Iranian oil. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,858076,00.html

18. Iran The story of the CIA coup is told in graphic detail in the CIA report published on line by the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

19. Egypt Under the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty Britain had rights to keep a military base along the Suez canal until 1956. In the late 1940s and early 1950s there was friction over the Sudan: Britain thought it had a right to self-determination, Egypt thought it should be under their control. In 1952 a coup d'état under Colonel Neguib deposed King Farouk.

20. Egypt The Egyptian government wanted Britain to withdraw its base from the canal zone. Churchill was robust; Eden wanted a negotiated solution. Churchill found Eden's restraint repulsive. He "had not known", he said, "that Munich was situated on the Nile". Churchill tried to get American acquiesence at least for Britain's position of standing up to Neguib (Young, 142). Some in the US sympathised with Egypt: a victim of British colonialism.

21. Egypt In 1954 the balance of power in Egypt was changing in favour of Nasser. Britain was in increasingly dire financial straits and Churchill began genuinely to see Egypt as ripe for savings. Meanwhile some feared the US was trying to take over: from the French in Indochina and from the British in the Middle east. The British understood that the explosion of an "H" bomb in 1953 changed things dramatically.

22. Egypt The H bomb made it more likely Britain could resist a Soviet attack on Iraq and so it made sense to reinforce its air bases there. However it became unwise to concentrate so many men and stores in Egypt and Churchill was persuaded to agree to a phased withdrawal from the Suez canal zone. The agreement was signed in October 1954. There followed a brief improvement in Anglo)-Egyptian relations.

23. Egypt However Nasser seemed progressively keener to vent anti-British views. Churchill did not want to sell weapons to a country which referred to Britain as the enemy: Nasser responded by looking to the East for his arms deals. Meanwhile the British Ambassador in Washington Sir Roger Makins felt there was "a very understandable suspicion that the Americans are out to take our place in the Middle East" Young 152

24. Egypt Egypt was worried by the "Baghdad pact", a defence treaty involving Turkey and Iraq (Feb 1955), Britain (April), Pakistan (July) and Iran (September). Britain was keen to join the pact because its treaty with Iraq came to an end in 1957 and it wanted to keep military bases there. However it raised Egyptian hackles. The Egyptians saw Iraqi PM Nuri el-Said as an "Anglo-American stooge".

26. Suez 1956 Aswan dam roject. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles withdrew US funding for the project because Egypt was buying weapons from Czechoslovakia and seemed to be playing one power against another to get better terms. Nasser responded by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company. Eden wanted to act vigourously to free the canal. In the end a plan was hatched involving British, French and Israeli collusion.

27. Suez Eisenhower, who in late 1956 was campaigning for re-election to the Presidency as a man of peace, did not want direct action. He was furious when he learnt of the Anglo-French ultimatum and subsequent Anglo-French attack on Egypt. Britain's currency reserves were hit by speculation fuelled by uncertainty and petrol shortages.

31. Suez The Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan told Eden Britain would have to stand down and pull out or face economic collapse. This made the French furious ... Eden later resigned and Macmillan was appointed PM. Worked hard to rebuild strong relations with US (Bermuda conference March 1957).

32. Thor in US-UK nuclear cooperation US and UK had already agreed (at Bermuda conference) that Thor rockets should be stationed in Britain under a "dual key" system (first ones operational in UK June 1959). http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/theater/thor.htm Britain was still developing its own rocket system to replace its V-bombers: Blue Streak.

33. Withdrawal from Empire Already in 1957 Britain had granted independence to Ghana (almost exactly 50 years ago today).

34. From Sputnik to Skybolt ... US worried by Sputnik (October 1957). In Oct 1957 Eisenhower agreed to limited nuclear scientific cooperation with UK (which had made great progress in bulding its own thermonuclear weapons and exploded its first H-bomb 15 May 1957). There has been some suggestion that the US had something to gain from access to British research: not an entirely one-way exchange.

35. From Sputnik to Skybolt ... British and American nuclear cooperation was formally agreed to in an "Agreement between the Government of the UK and the Government of the USA for cooperation on the uses of atomic energy for mutual defense purposes", signed at Washington 3 July 1958. Only the UK was granted such close cooperation.

36. Rockets In March 1960 Eisenhower agreed that Britain would be allowed to buy American rockets (or "delivery systems") for nuclear weapons. This was granted in exchange for permission to use a base in Scotland (Holy Loch) to service America's Polaris submarines. The system Macmillan was promised was Skybolt.

37. Rockets Eisenhower offered Macmillan the opportunity to buy Polaris. However Macmillan preferred Skybolt because, as a missile launched from a plane, it provided a way of prolonging the life of Britain's V-bombers as an effective deterrent. Neither the Navy (who thought it would diminish their resources) nor the RAF were keen on Polaris.

38. Withdrawal from Empire On Feb 3 1960 Harold Macmillan went to Cape Town to address the South African Parliament. The message he delivered was unpalatable to the South Africans: abandon apartheid, recognise the strength of nationalist movements throught the continent as "political realities".

39. Withdrawal from Empire Perhaps at least as important was the world audience. Macmillan was making it clear that Britain would not stand in the way of legitimate nationalist movements, for to do so would not only be politically unrealistic and perhaps morally indefensible, but it could also encourage nationalists to seek the support of the eastern bloc. Thus the British handling of withdrawal from empire was explicitly framed in the Cold War.

40. Withdrawal from Empire Macmillan ... radio extract. Also extract from Vorwoerd's reply. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/3/newsid_2714000/2714525.stm

41. Europe In the meantime Macmillan had finally come round to the view that the EEC was a success and that Britain ought to join. Perhaps also Audit of Empire ... In 1961 Britain made its first application to join the EEC.

42. Cuba After the tension over Berlin (with the building of the Berlin wall in 1961) had died down a little, the hot-spot in East-West relations was Cuba.

43. Cuba After the abortive Bay of Pigs fiasco, the US imposed sanctions on Cuba. Unlike other NATO countries, Britain agreed to sanctions covering military equimpent and so on but not other products. The US complained. Britain explained that foreign trade represented 40% of GNP, whereas for the States it was 6%.

44. Cuba Britain was selling buses. Alec Douglas-Home pointedly remarked that he did not think London buses could be used as strategic weapons ... Cuban Missile Crisis. Late 1962 (October) David Ormsby-Gore ambassador in Washington (appointed at Kennedy's request: a personal friend of Bobby K) Macmillan and Kennedy on the phone during the crisis.

45. Cuba Cuba crisis development see http://www.hpol.org/jfk/cuban/ See the George Washington University site on the crisis: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/

46. South-East Asia The United States sought British support for an intervention in Laos. The British refused, saying they thought the political objectives were not clear and that there was a risk that forces would get bogged down in the area. An important "sub-text" of British thinking is that Britain was worried that any growing involvement in US forces in Asia might detract from the priority (for Britain) of defence in Europe.

47. Nassau and Polaris Almost immediately after the Cuban missile crisis another nuclear crisis threatened Macmillan. Two things were happening at the same time: 1) many Americans wished to see an end to other nuclear forces. Britain's independent deterrent not helpful as perhaps encouragement to other countries to acquire nuclear capacity.

48. Nassau and Polaris 2) Skybolt was running into technical difficulties. Under the agreement with Eisenhower the US would bear the development costs for Skybolt and let Britain buy it without contributing to those costs. However it was no longer very significiant for the US (because of Polaris) and was not working well. So they announced they were stopping development.

49. Nassau and Polaris This put Macmillan in difficulty. He had advanced the idea of "inter-dependence" and had presented the American agreement as the key to an independent British nuclear deterrent. In December 1962 Macmillan and Kennedy met in Nassau in the Bahamas. Ultimately obtained from Kennedy the right to buy Polaris, as part of a MLF, but with Britain allowed to use it in case of overriding threat to her security. http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/trachtenberg/documents/nassau.html Polaris launch: http://kittyhawk.public.hq.nasa.gov/essay/Air_Power/Missiles/AP29G6.htm

50. Nassau and Polaris In January 1963 General de Gaulle announced he would veto Britain's application: Britain too close to the US. Nassau was no doubt one of the reasons.