Managing the Americans: Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and the Pursuit of ‘Power-by-Proxy’ in the 1950s

Abstract

The idea of using American power ‘for purposes which we regard as good’ had been a feature of British foreign policy during the Labour governments of 1945–51. In the 1950s, however, Anthony Eden elevated ‘power-by-proxy’ to the status of strategy as he sought a means to maintain Britain's world role in the face of serious economic enervation. In the event, Eden's innate mistrust of the United States rendered him an imperfect front-man for the strategy – as Suez confirmed. However, the strategy was subsequently embraced by Eden's successor as Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who from 1957 placed Anglo-American relations at the centre of his government's foreign policy. Yet like Eden before him, the more pro-American Macmillan ultimately doubted whether ‘power-by-proxy’ could be accomplished by reliance on the United States. Hence, at the close of the 1950s, the strategy underwent an evolution to include a new British relationship with Europe as a complement to the original, though increasingly unreliable, American proxy.

Acknowledgments

All references to Cabinet (CAB), Prime Minister's Office (PREM) or Foreign Office (FO) documents relate to materials held at the National Archives, London (formerly the Public Record Office) unless otherwise stated.

Notes

 1. N. Ashton, Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War: the Irony of Interdependence (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p.6.

 2. CAB 129/53, C(52)202, 18 Jun. 1952.

 3. CAB 134/1315, PR(56)3, 1 Jun. 1956.

 4. CAB 130/139, GEN.624/10, 9 Jun. 1958.

 5. D. Reynolds, Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the 20^th Century (Harlow: Longman, 1991), pp.177–8.

 6. D. Reynolds, Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the 20^th Century (Harlow: Longman, 1991), pp.177–8.

 7. P. Hennessy, Never Again: Britain, 1945–1951 (London: Vintage, 1993), p.415.

 8. The cost of retaining Britain's worldwide interests in 1951–52 was put at £140.6 million in foreign currencies spent on forces overseas and £100.9 million in foreign currencies for purchases either for British defence production or for the British armed forces. The total – £241.5 million – accounted for almost two-thirds of the 1951–52 balance of payments deficit. C. Barnett, The Verdict of Peace: Britain Between Her Yesterday and the Future (London: Pan, 2002), p.83.

 9. J. Baylis and A. Macmillan, ‘The British Global Strategy Paper of 1952’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 16/2 (1993), p.204.

10. CAB 129/53, C(52)202, 18 Jun. 1952. Among the few historians who give consideration to Eden's paper are A. Adamthwaite, ‘The Foreign Office and Policy-making’, in J. W. Young, (ed.), The Foreign Policy of Churchill's Peacetime Administration, 1951–1955 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1988), pp.8–11, and Barnett, Verdict of Peace, pp.79–92. Both argue that Eden's approach was not radical enough and that he should have jettisoned certain major commitments.

11. See K. Ruane, ‘Containing America: Aspects of British Foreign Policy and the Cold War in South-East Asia, 1951–54’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 7/1 (1996), pp.143–62; G. C. Herring, ‘Franco-American Conflict in Indochina, 1950–1954’, in L. S. Kaplan, D. Artaud and M. R. Rubin, (eds), Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954–1955 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1990), pp.33–4.

12. CAB 127/27, CC(54) 26^th meeting, 7 Apr. 1954.

13. See Ruane, ‘Containing America’, p.143.

14. SEATO comprised Britain, the United States, France, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan and Thailand.

15. FO 371/111874/283G, Washington tel. 1645, 29 Jul. 1954.

16. FO 800/842/82, Makins letter to Eden, 21 Jun. 1954. The ‘zoo’ description comes from J. Cable, The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986), p.139.

17. FO 371/111852/5, MacDonald letter and enclosure, 7 Aug. 1954.

18. See PREM 11/646, messages to Eden from Nehru and Mohammed Ali, 21 Jul. 1954.

19. FO 371/111883/504, Cable minute, 20 Aug. 1954.

20. Sir Robert Scott Papers, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, ACC.8181/18, Box 2, transcript of Scott-Seldon interview, 1980, p.20.

21. Lord Avon Papers, University of Birmingham, AP20/45/49, 22 May 1954.

22. K. O. Morgan, The People's Peace: British History, 1945–1989 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p.119; Barnett, Verdict of Peace, p.105.

23. See R. Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986), pp.389–90.

24. On German rearmament see K. Ruane, The Rise and Fall of the European Defence Community: Anglo-American Relations and the Crisis of European Defence, 1950–55 (London: Macmillan, 2000).

25. See in general D. R. Devereux, ‘Britain and the Failure of Collective Defence in the Middle East, 1948–53’, in A. Deighton, (ed.), Britain and the First Cold War (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990), pp.237–51.

26. Foreign Relations of the United States 1952–54 [hereafter FRUS], Vol. IX (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1986), pp 395–6, 406–7; W. Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand: Britain, the US and the Suez crisis (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), pp.26–7, 30.

27. CAB 129/68, C(54)81, 31 May 1954.

28. See CAB 129/74, C(55)70, 14 Mar. 1955.

29. FRUS 1955–1957, Vol. XII (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1993), p.141.

30. P. Catterall (ed.), The Macmillan Diaries, 1950–1957 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2003) p.449, entry for 14 Jul. 1955. Macmillan was appointed Foreign Secretary when Eden succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister in April 1955.

31. FRUS 1955–1957, Vol. XII, pp.38–9, 43, 47–8, 82, 89. In general see N. Ashton, ‘The Hijacking of a Pact; the Formation of the Baghdad Pact and Anglo-American Tensions in the Middle East, 1955–58’, Review of International Studies, 19/2 (1993), pp.123–37.

32. FO 371/121282/48, Eden tel. 1349 to Washington, 31 Mar. 1955.

33. FRUS 1955–1957, Vol. XII, pp.54, 84–5, 165; also FRUS 1955–1957, Vol. XV (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1989), pp.506–7.

34. FRUS 1955–1957, Vol. XII, p.132.

35. See A. Eden, Full Circle (London: Cassell, 1960), pp.335–6.

36. CAB 128/29, CM(55) 34^th meeting, 4 Oct. 1955.

37. FRUS 1955–1957, Vol. XII, p.202.

38. Cited in D. Dutton, Anthony Eden: A Life and Reputation (London: Arnold, 1997), p.174.

39. Dutton, Eden, p.143.

40. Avon Papers, AP20/17/118A, 16 May 1954.

41. S. Greenwood, Britain and the Cold War 1945–91 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), p.135; also Dutton, Eden, p.358; Cable, Geneva Conference, p.143.

42. Lord Normanbrook Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS.Eng.lett.c273, fol.66, Eden letter to Brook, 16 Jan. 1957.

43. Avon Papers, AP23/14/34A, Eden letter to Harold Caccia, 9 Sep. 1966.

44. The term ‘Suezide’ is taken from David Reynolds in ‘Eden the Diplomatist: Suezide of a Statesman?’, History, 74 (1989), pp.64–84.

45. N. Ashton, ‘“A Rear Guard Action”: Harold Macmillan and the Making of British Foreign Policy, 1957–63’ in T.G. Otte, (ed.), The Makers of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt to Thatcher (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p.242 and pp.238–260.

46. P. Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945 (London: Penguin, 2001), p.258.

47. CAB 134/1315, PR(56)3, 1 Jun. 1956 and CAB 130/139, GEN.624/10, 9 Jun. 1958.

48. CAB 134/1315, PR(56)1, 4 Jun. 1956.

49. CAB 134/1315, PR(56)3, 1 Jun. 1956.

50. A. S. Milward, The UK and the European Community, Volume I: The Rise and Fall of a National Strategy 1945–1963 (London: Frank Cass, 2002). Chapter 1 establishes his argument.

51. CAB 134/1315, PR(56)1^st meeting, 6 Jun. 1956.

52. CAB 21/4717, Hoyer Millar to Brook, 9 Oct. 1957; Brook to Macmillan, 25 Nov. 1957.

53. CAB 130/139, GEN.624/1^st meeting, 6 Dec. 1957.

54. CAB 130/139, GEN.624/10, 9 Jun. 1958.

55. CAB 130/153, GEN.659/1^st meeting, 7 Jul. 1958.

56. PREM 11/2189, Caccia to Selwyn Lloyd, 1 Jan. 1957, and FRUS 1955–1957, Vol. XXVII (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1992), pp.693–4.

57. M. Dockrill, ‘Restoring the “Special Relationship”: The Bermuda and Washington Conferences, 1957’, in D. Richardson and G. Stone (eds), Decisions and Diplomacy: Essays in Twentieth-Century International History (London: Routledge, 1995), pp.205–23.

58. Macmillan Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Macmillan dep.d.30*, diary, 24 Oct. 1957.

59. H. Macmillan, Riding the Storm 1956–1959 (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp.756–9.

60. FO 371/132330/3G, SC(58)8, 27 Jan. 1958. Also M. Jones, ‘Anglo-American Relations after Suez: the Rise and Decline of the Working Group Experiment and the French Challenge to NATO, 1957–59’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 14/1 (2003), pp.49–79.

61. CAB 128/31, CC(57) 76^th meeting, 28 October 1957; CAB 129/90, C(57)271, 15 Nov. 1957.

62. FO 371/132330/27, Steel to Hoyer Millar, 4 Jul. 1958.

63. CAB 129/92, C(58)77, 10 Apr. 1958.

64. CAB 130/137, GEN.617/4, 10 March 1959; CAB 130/137, GEN.617/4^th meeting, 12 Mar. 1959. Also in general, Jones, ‘Anglo-American Relations after Suez’.

65. See N. Ashton, Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser: Anglo-American Relations and Arab Nationalism, 1955–59 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996).

66. S. Dockrill, ‘Retreat from the Continent? Britain's Motives for Troop Reductions in West Germany, 1955–1958’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 20/3 (1997), pp.45–70.

67. J. Ellison, Threatening Europe: Britain and the Creation of the European Community, 1955–1958 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp.39–40, 220.

68. Milward, National Strategy, p.309.

69. PREM 11/2985, SC(59)40, 27 Oct. 1959.

70. W. Kaiser, Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration, 1945–63 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), chapter 5, especially pp.130–5.

71. Ashton, Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War, p.132.

72. A. Horne, Macmillan, 1957–1986 (London: Macmillan, 1989), p.231.

73. See for example Ashton, ‘“Rearguard Action”’, pp.249–50.

74. PREM 11/3325, Macmillan memorandum, 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961. It is probable that this was intended to read: ‘treated now as just another country, not as an ally in a special and unique category’.

75. Normanbrook Papers, MS.Eng.lett.c.273, fol.66, Eden letter to Brook, 16 Jan. 1957.

76. Arthur Mann Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS.Eng.c.3278, fols 113–15, Eden letter to Mann, 5 May 1958.

77. Mann Papers, MS.Eng.c.3278, fol. 108, Eden letter to Mann, 31 Dec. 1957.

78. Mann Papers, MS.Eng.c.3278, fol. 123, Eden letter to Mann, 15 Dec. 1958.

79. Horne, Macmillan 1957–1986, p.284.