Table Of ContentSTUDIES IN DIPLOMACY AND
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
France, Britain and the
United States in the
Twentieth Century:
Volume 2, 1940 –1961
A Reappraisal
Andrew J. Williams
Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations
Series Editors
Donna Lee
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester, UK
Paul Sharp
College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota
Duluth, USA
Marcus Holmes
College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, USA
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14471
Andrew J. Williams
France, Britain
and the United States
in the Twentieth
Century: Volume 2,
1940–1961
A Reappraisal
Andrew J. Williams
School of International Relations
University of St Andrews
St Andrews, UK
Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations
ISBN 978-1-137-41443-4 ISBN 978-1-137-41444-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41444-1
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For
Jean and Paulette, who inspired my love of France
and for my grandson Oliver, who I hope will read this one day
A
cknowledgements
As with all the people and institutions who helped me in the writing of
the first volume of this study, I have incurred some debts and made lots
of friends. On the institutional and personal level, I again start my thanks
with David Woolner, Resident Historian of the Roosevelt Institute at
the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park,
New York. David really launched me into this project with his enthusi-
asm and also with his financial and practical help, by encouraging me to
apply for the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Historical Fellowship. Securing
that made my several trips to Hyde Park possible. The Fellowship also
helped greatly in my stays in New York City, where I consulted papers
in the Butler Library of Columbia University, and where I was given
very sound advice and assistance. The Presidential Libraries are in the
greatest of American traditions of openness and hospitality. After Hyde
Park, the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston also awarded me an Arthur
M. Schlesinger, Jr. Research Fellowship, and were a delight to work with.
The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri
and that of Dwight D. Eisenhower in Abilene, Kansas were equally wel-
coming. Without them, this book would have been much more difficult
to research and write.
In Washington, the Library of Congress and the National Archives
helped smooth my path on a great number of occasions. Library staff
at the University of Princeton (the Seeley G. Mudd Library) were
extremely helpful with their advice on both my visits there. In France,
I have always been given a generous welcome by the guardians of the
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Archives Diplomatiques of the French Foreign Ministry, both in its
old site on the Quai d’Orsay and in its new home north of Paris at La
Courneuve. Thanks must also go to the Archives Nationales at Pierrefitte
and particularly to the Office Universitaire de Recherche Socialiste
(OURS), both in Paris. In Britain, I would like to again thank the staff
of the National Archives at Kew, the British Library and the library of the
London School of Economics and Political Science, and also those of the
Bodleian Library in Oxford and in Churchill College and King’s College,
Cambridge.
On a purely personal level, in New York I would like to renew my
thanks to Neil and Judy Garrecht Williams whom I count among my
oldest and closest friends. In Paris, Antoinette and John Groom always
allow me to stay with them. Their generosity of spirit is legendary.
Other American friends who have particularly inspired me for this vol-
ume, and who let me present chapters at their respective universities,
are: David Clinton and his colleagues at Baylor University in Texas,
David Mayers at Boston University, and Stephanie and Tom Seitz at the
University of Wyoming. In France, I have many friends but the ones
who have been most helpful for this volume are Bertrand Badie and
Marie-Claude Smouts (as well as Blandine and Henri) in Paris and Jean-
Louis Thiébault and Charles Tenenbaum in Lille. I would like to make
a particular mention of my bookseller friend Patrice Bouquiniste, whose
knowledge of French political and literary writing is the most encyclo-
paedic I have ever encountered.
Colin and Jill Baxter helped me relax in the Ardèche when the going
got too tough, as did Richard and Gislaine Bower in Aix-en-Provence.
Richard, another friend from way back, has managed to restrain my
worst British impulses and it is down to him that I have become a true
European, if not a totally firm admirer of the European Union. Christian
and Carolyn Leffler have also nearly persuaded me. All those other
friends and colleagues at St Andrews and elsewhere that I thanked in
Volume I are also thanked in Volume II.
My wife Jane and children Rebecca and Nick are the reason I can do
any writing at all. They are my best friends and most ardent critics.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Humiliation, Collaboration, Resistance, Liberation:
France, 1940–1944 27
3 The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ New World Order and the French
Riposte, 1940–1946 77
4 Europe: Reconstruction and Integration, 1945–1952 123
5 Unreliable Allies: Empire, 1952–1958 183
6 Conclusion: De Gaulle and the Anglo-Saxons,
1958–1961 239
Bibliography 281
Index 309
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
This is the second volume of a series which examines the relationship
between France, Britain and the United States in the twentieth cen-
tury. The last two of these powers are widely referred to in France as
the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ powers. The first volume started in 1900 and ended
with the outbreak of the Second World War. That volume was aimed at
showing how both the practice and the theory of international relations
evolved in a period that included the First World War, the Great Depres-
sion and the first serious attempt to create a power and rule-based New
World Order after 1919. These major global developments led to unex-
pected and disastrous conflicts and wars. This was partly as a result of an
often-fraught relationship between French, British and American diplo-
mats, politicians and thinkers about the ‘international’. The first volume
also aimed to show that although Anglo-American relations have tended
to dominate the analysis of the building of the post-Second World War
order,1 the French input into the story of that relationship and its results
is vitally important. This volume aims to bring the story up to 1961, the
first year of the presidency of John F. Kennedy.
The reasons for this foreshortening are numerous. To begin with, the
calamitousdefeatofFranceinJune1940,theperiodoftheSecondWorld
War,thedesignofanew‘NewWorldOrder’throughaprolongedperiod
ofpost-warplanning,andtheattemptedimplementationofthatplanning,
is a complex story. That is all the substance of the first two chapters. In
© The Author(s) 2020 1
A. J. Williams, France, Britain and the United States
in the Twentieth Century: Volume 2, 1940–1961,
Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41444-1_1
