Abstract
Since the end of the Second World War, Britain’s global status has been a subject of intense debate. When the former US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, famously stated in 1962 that ‘Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role’,1 he was suggesting the country should scale back its expectations of a world position, not rely upon a relationship with the US to project power and, importantly, reconcile itself to being just another major European state. Echoes of such views can be found in the pronouncements of French President Charles de Gaulle when he vetoed UK entry to the European Economic Community, in 1963 and again in 1967. The General believed that Britain was too close to Washington, not sufficiently European in outlook and too interested in maintaining a global presence. Over the decades such views have been repeated by others right down to the present day and, in all likelihood, will continue for some time to come. But, what did the British elite — politicians, policy-makers, civil servants and diplomats — think of this debate? This chapter will examine the question by utilising group oral testimonies, called ‘witness seminars’, of those who were at the heart of the UK policy-making elite as collected by the Institute of Contemporary British History (ICBH). The chapter will focus on three distinct but closely interrelated themes which consistently and identifiably run through the testimonies in these seminars: the internal debates about the UK’s global position; Anglo-American relations; and relations with Europe.
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Notes
See Douglas Brinkley, ‘Dean Acheson and the “Special Relationship”: The West Point Speech of December 1962’, Historical Journal Vol. 33 No. 3 (1990), p. 599.
Herbert Ruben and Irene Ruben, Qualitative Interviewing: the Art of Hearing Data (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1995).
Thomas R. Lindlof and Bryan C. Taylor, Qualitative Communication Research Methods (2nd Edition, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE 2002), p. 182.
Sir Bernard Burrows in Gillian Staerck and Michael Kandiah (eds), The Role of HM Embassy in Washington, 18 June 1997 (London: ICBH, 2002), pp. 19–20.
Sir John Nott, in Andrew Dorman, Michael Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), The Falklands War, 5 June 2002 (London: ICBH, 2005), p. 18.
Sir Richard Powell in Michael Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), The Move to the Sandys White Paper, July 1988 (London: ICBH, 2002), pp. 21–2.
See James Ellison and Kevin Ruane, ‘Managing the Americans: Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and the Pursuit of “Power by Proxy” in the 1950s’, Contemporary British History, 18/3 (2004), pp. 147–67.
See Gary Williams, US-Grenada Relations: Revolution and Intervention in the Backyard (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Lord Heseltine, in Michael Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), The British Response to SDI, 9 July 2003 (London, 2005), p. 31.
Sir Roy Denman, in R. Broad, Michael Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), Britain and Europe, 5 May 1998 (London: ICBH, 2002), p. 47.
J.K. Wright, in Peter Catterall, Michael Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), The Decision to withdraw from East of Suez, held 16 Nov. 1990 (London: ICBH, 2002), p. 29.
Sir John Nott in Michael Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), The Nott Review, 20 June 2001 (London: ICBH, 2002), p. 47.
Sir Christopher Mallaby, in Michael Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds) Anglo-German Relations and German Unification’, 18 October 2000, (London: ICBH, 2003), p. 26.
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© 2013 John W. Young, Effie G. H. Pedaliu and Michael D. Kandiah
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Kandiah, M.D., Staerck, G. (2013). ‘At The Top Table’: British Elites’ Perceptions of the UK’s International Position, 1950–91. In: Young, J.W., Pedaliu, E.G.H., Kandiah, M.D. (eds) Britain in Global Politics Volume 2. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313584_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313584_10
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