Unraveling the special relationship: British responses to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Abstract

This article contributes to the scholarly literature on Anglo-American relations in the 1960s by investigating elite and grassroots British responses to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on 22 November 1963. Most historians working on this topic regard the early years of the decade as a high point in the evolution of the so-called “special relationship” between the two countries – an association epitomized by the broadly productive working relationship between Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. They also tend to assume that ordinary Britons’ stunned reaction to the slaying betokened broad popular support for the youthful president as well as the cold war superpower to which their country shared close elite ties. While there was certainly much admiration for Kennedy among politicians, reporters, entertainers, and ordinary members of the public, many Britons were by no means enamored of either the president or the United States. As this article reveals, elements on the left and right of the political continuum in Britain were openly critical of Kennedy’s foreign and domestic policies. The president’s faltering response to the African American civil rights movement, for example, was widely criticized by members of the UK’s own nascent Afro-Caribbean community as well as progressive whites. When the British government sought to mark Kennedy’s passing by creating a national memorial (in part to demonstrate the strength of the special relationship), the underwhelming popular response to its ambitious fund-raising campaign uncovered a wide seam of grassroots opposition to the late president, his family and the United States. There is, to date, a troubling absence of scholarship on anti-Americanism in postwar Britain. This essay highlights the need for further research in this area.

Keywords:

• Kennedy
• assassination
• Britain, anti-Americanism
• “special relationship”
• commemoration
• memory

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Sussex American Studies Centre for funding the symposium at which an early draft of this article was presented.

Notes

1. Founded in 1937, the Mass Observation Archive provides a unique insight into the lives of ordinary Britons through the use of volunteers who record their thoughts and experiences in diaries or in response to questionnaires (“directives”).

2. H277, Autumn Directive 1984: Attitudes to the USA, Mass Observation Archive, The Keep, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton (hereafter MOA).

3. H643, K1200, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

4. A003, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

5. T1116, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

6. H1005, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

7. R465, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

8. B1220, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

9. B1224, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

10. J931, Autumn Directive, 1984, MOA.

11. M865, Autumn Directive, 1984, MOA.

12. Dickie, “Special” No More, 105–32. See also, for example, Dumbrell, A Special Relationship, 49–74.

13. Sandford, Harold and Jack, 58, 271–73.

14. Renwick, Fighting with Allies, 274.

15. Clarke, JFK’s Last Hundred Days, 349–50; Lyons, America in the British Imagination, 84–85.

16. Manchester Evening News, 22 November 2013.

17. Independent, 18 November 2003.

18. Morgan, Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman, 1041. For more on this fiasco, see Benn, Out of the Wilderness, 78 and Guardian, 30 November 1963.

19. Alistair Cooke, Letter from America, 24 November 1963. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/FDrlS9K0RL95tM7f973qDY/assassination-of-j-f-kennedy-24-november-1963

20. “Tributes to President Kennedy,” Listener, 28 November 1963.

21. “World Reaction to President Kennedy’s Death,” typewritten report, 23 December 1963. FO 371/168408, National Archives, Kew (hereafter NA).

22. HC Deb (1963–64), 685, cols 40–2; Catterall, Macmillan Diaries, 617–18.

23. Rev. Victor D. Hellaby to Councillor P. Gladwin, 27 November 1963. PAR 449/7/4/1, The Keep, Brighton. See also D166, Autumn Directive 1984 (MOA).

24. Ramsey, “In Memory of President Kennedy.”

25. Olivier, Confessions, 265–6.

26. “President Kennedy Memorial Appeal, Note on the Position at 9th June 1964,” PREM 11/5/90, NA.

27. The Joe Meek Orchestra, The Kennedy March (Decca Records, F.11796, 1964); Billboard, 21 December 1963.

28. A recording of this performance is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h56_IbHqTIo (accessed 12 May 2014).

29. Punch, 27 November 1963.

30. Written and recorded versions of the poem appear on Of Poetry and Power: Poems Occasioned by the Presidency and by the Death of John F. Kennedy (Folkways Records, FL 9721, 1965).

31. The Times, 25 November 1963.

32. Auden, Collected Poems, 754.

33. Dumbrell, A Special Relationship, 56–7.

34. Burkett, Constructing Post-Imperial Britain, 43–7; Malchow, Special Relations, 52–7.

35. “The Committee of 100 and the Visit of President Kennedy,” typewritten report, n.d.; P.J. Woodfield, “President Kennedy’s Visit – Pt.2.” 20 June 1963. CAB 21/5559, NA.

36. Henri, Collected Poems, 87–8.

37. Scarfe, Drawing Blood, 26.

38. Conservative MP John Page, letter to the editor, The Times, 27 December 1962. For more on the Skybolt crisis see, among others, Dickie, “Special” No More, 121–4; Dobson, Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century, 128–31; and Horne, “The Macmillan Years and Afterwards.”

39. Guardian, 6 May 1963; New Statesman, 30 August, 20 September 1963.

40. Evening Standard, 28 August 1963; New Statesman, 20 August 1963.

41. Daily Sketch, 28 August 1963.

42. New Statesman, 13 September, 30 August 1963.

43. Daily Mail, 19 November 1960, 26 November 1963.

44. Evening Standard, 23 November 1963.

45. See, for example, Tuck, “From Greensboro to Notting Hill” and Webb, “Britain, the American South.”

46. West Indian Gazette & Afro-Asian-Caribbean News, December 1963.

47. Ibid.

48. HC Deb (1963–64), 685, col. 422.

49. “Tributes to President Kennedy,” Listener, 28 November 1963.

50. The Economist, 30 November 1963.

51. Daily Mail, 26 November 1963.

52. The Economist, 30 November 1963.

53. D157, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

54. Philip Woodfield to Anthony J. Phelps, 8 February 1965. T3H/528, NA.

55. Lord Mayor to the editor, The Times, 7 May 1964.

56. London Evening News, 11 May 1964.

57. Sunday Times, 7 June 1964.

58. Sunday Express, 30 August 1964.

59. Brian E. Fensome, “Note for the Record.” 2 October 1964. Folder on “President Kennedy Memorial Appeal, Publicity,” box “1964 Appeal and Early Records and Public Records Office Papers.” Kennedy Memorial Trust Archives (hereafter KMT).

60. Sunday Express, 30 August 1964.

61. Daily Express, 7 December 1964.

62. Fensome to Lord Mayor, 9 December 1964. Folder on “President Kennedy Memorial Appeal, Publicity,” box “1964 Appeal and Early Records and Public Records Office Papers.” KMT.

63. Harold Wilson to Lord Harlech, 6 May 1965 (copy). T3H/528, NA.

64. Fensome, “President Kennedy Memorial Appeal.” Memorandum, 18 January 1965. T199/960, NA.

65. Time and Tide, 8 October 1964.

66. E. Blundell Pye to Henry L. James, 7 August 1964. T227/1733, NA.

67. See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy … 1961 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1962), 1, for a slightly different version of this passage.

68. Surrey Advertiser, 23 May 1964.

69. Daily Mirror, 21 March 1966.

70. Daily Telegraph, 4 March 1966.

71. Lawrence J. Kramer to Robert F. Kennedy, 19 August 1966. Folder on “Complaints,” box “1964 Appeal and Early Records and Public Records Office Papers.” KMT.

72. Guardian, 28 October 1968. A week later a British historian working at Amherst proposed that the damaged stone should be left untouched to bear witness to “the extremist hysteria of our time.” Guardian, 5 November 1968.

73. Daily Telegraph, 7 December 1964.

74. Readers of the Atlanticist Daily Telegraph also contributed to the installation of a bust of President Kennedy which was unveiled on London’s Marylebone Road in 1965.

75. Fensome, “President Kennedy Memorial Appeal.” Memorandum, 18 January 1965. T199/960, NA.

76. Lyons, America in the British Imagination, 63.

77. Swift, The Kennedys amidst the Gathering Storm, 268. For further examples of contemporary criticism of the ambassador, see The Times, 26 November 1940 and Daily Mail, 25 March 1944. See also Rofe, “Joseph P. Kennedy,” 32–34, 41.

78. B736, B955, Autumn Directive 1984, MOA.

79. See, for example, Brandon, Special Relationships, 155; Renwick, Fighting with Allies, 250.

80. Ellis, “Historical Significance.”

81. “Kennedy Mosaic Mural 1968.” http://www.britishpathe.com/video/kennedy-mosaic-mural (accessed 25 June 2015).

82. Sewell, “British Responses to Martin Luther King,” 202.

83. Daily Telegraph, 10 February 1965.

84. Hendershot, Family Spats, 76.

85. Gallup, Gallup International Public Opinion Polls, 719. A further 13% of people surveyed did not know; 5% actually considered it a “good thing” for Britain.

86. “Tributes to President Kennedy,” Listener, 28 November 1963.