Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War: The Irony of Interdependence

303 Pages·2002·0.887 MB·English

by  Nigel Ashton

Kennedy, Macmillan and
the Cold War
The Irony of Interdependence
Nigel J. Ashton
Contemporary History in Context Series
General Editor: Peter Catterall, Lecturer, Department of History, Queen Mary and
Westfield College, University of London
What do they know of the contemporary, who only the contemporary know? How,
without some historical context, can you tell whether what you are observing is gen-
uinely novel, and how can you understand how it has developed? It was, not least,
to guard against the unconscious and ahistorical Whiggery of much contemporary
comment that this series was conceived. The series takes important events or histori-
cal debates from the post-war years and, by bringing new archival evidence and his-
torical insights to bear, seeks to re-examine and reinterpret these matters. Most of
the books will have a significant international dimension, dealing with diplomatic,
economic or cultural relations across borders. In the process the object will be to
challenge orthodoxies and to cast new light upon major aspects of post-war history.
Titles include:
Nigel Ashton
KENNEDY, MACMILLAN AND THE COLD WAR
The Irony of Interdependence
Oliver Bange
THE EEC CRISIS OF 1963
Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and Adenauer in Conflict
Christopher Brady
UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS CAMBODIA, 1977–92
Roger Broad
LABOUR’S EUROPEAN DILEMMAS
From Bevin to Blair
Peter Catterall and Sean McDougall (editors)
THE NORTHERN IRELAND QUESTION IN BRITISH POLITICS
Peter Catterall, Colin Seymour-Ure and Adrian Smith (editors)
NORTHCLIFFE’S LEGACY
Aspects of the British Popular Press, 1896–1996
James Ellison
THREATENING EUROPE
Britain and the Creation of the European Community, 1955–58
Helen Fawcett and Rodney Lowe (editors)
WELFARE POLICY IN BRITAIN
The Road from 1945
Jonathan Hollowell (editor)
TWENTIETH CENTURY ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS
Simon James and Virginia Preston (editors)
BRITISH POLITICS SINCE 1945
The Dynamics of Historical Change
Harriet Jones and Michael Kandiah (editors)
THE MYTH OF CONSENSUS
New Views on British History, 1945–64
Wolfram Kaiser
USING EUROPE, ABUSING THE EUROPEANS
Britain and European Integration, 1945–63
Keith Kyle
THE POLITICS OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF KENYA
Adam Lent
BRITISH SOCIAL MOVEMENTS SINCE 1945
Sex, Colour, Peace and Power
Spencer Mawby
CONTAINING GERMANY
Britain and the Arming of the Federal Republic
Jeffrey Pickering
BRITAIN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM EAST OF SUEZ
The Politics of Retrenchment
Peter Rose
HOW THE TROUBLES CAME TO NORTHERN IRELAND
L. V. Scott
MACMILLAN, KENNEDY AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
Political, Military and Intelligence Aspects
Paul Sharp
THATCHER’S DIPLOMACY
The Revival of British Foreign Policy
Andrew J. Whitfield
HONGKONG,EMPIREANDTHEANGLO-AMERICANALLIANCEATWAR,
1941–45
Contemporary History in Context
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Kennedy, Macmillan and the
Cold War
The Irony of Interdependence
Nigel J. Ashton
Lecturer in International History
London School of Economics
© Nigel Ashton 2002
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First published 2002 by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ashton, Nigel John.
Kennedy, Macmillan, and the Cold War: the irony of interdependence/Nigel
J. Ashton.
p. cm. – (Contemporary history in context series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-333-71605-1
1. United States – Foreign relations – Great Britain. 2. Great Britain – Foreign
relations – United States. 3. United States – Foreign relations – 1961–1963.
4. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917–1963. 5. Macmillan, Harold,
1894–1986. Cold War. I. Title. II. Contemporary history in context series
(Palgrave (Firm))
E183.8.G7 A74 2002
327.73041′09′046–dc21
2002022011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne
For Danielle and Isabelle
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Contents
General Editor’s Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 The Laotian Crisis 28
3 The Berlin Crisis 48
4 The Castro Question and the Cuban Missile Crisis 64
5 The Middle East 90
6 The Congo Crisis 109
7 The EEC Application 127
8 Interdependence and the British Nuclear Deterrent 152
9 The Search for a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 193
10 Conclusion 220
Notes 227
Select Bibliography 275
Index 284
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General Editor’s Preface
In a dispatch of July 1961 David Bruce, Kennedy’s ambassador to Britain,
acknowledged the economic difficulties his hosts were labouring under. He
also reflected upon the distance that frequently separated British policy
positions from those of the US. This could, in the Kennedy/Macmillan
period, manifest itself in a range of different ways. East/West trade was one,
with one State Department official complaining about British plans to trade
ships for Soviet oil in 1963 that, if this deal went ahead, ‘UK will have
achieved [an] almost perfect score of opposition to US in NATO on all
East/West trade issues’.1The issue Bruce instanced, meanwhile, was policy
towards Germany. Here a British cross-party preference for reducing
tensions and armaments in central Europe clashed with an American deter-
mination to wage the Cold War with vigour, as Kennedy had, after all,
been elected in 1960 to do, in Europe and elsewhere.
It might seem odd then, in light of British economic problems and
Anglo-American policy differences, to focus on the years 1961–63 as a par-
ticular point in the transatlantic relationship. Indeed, as Nigel Ashton
shows here, a whole series of tensions in that relationship built to a peak in
the winter of 1962–63. Paradoxically, however, this demonstrates how
important that relationship was. There may have been a great disparity of
power between the two countries. Nevertheless, their interests touched at
numerous points around the globe. This, if nothing else, gave significance
to the relationship. A glance at the agenda for one of Macmillan’s meetings
with Kennedy will show the vast range of geopolitical, economic and secur-
ity issues on which Anglo-American interests, if not policies, overlapped.
The lack of agreement on particular policies could reflect a range of
factors. Tempting though it might have been, not least for American
policymakers, to see an ideology of liberal anti-colonialism as playing a
major part in these tensions, such rhetorical positions seem usually to have
been overridden by other factors, not least, as Ashton demonstrates, in the
case of British Guiana. The different frameworks within which the British
and Americans viewed the geopolitics of the Cold War seem to have been
much more important. This was partly geographical, vide the American
anxiety about British Guiana becoming a Cuba on the mainland, or the
way in which Macmillan focused on a possible threat to Berlin during the
1. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston: NSF171, folder 3, Finletter to Rusk,
12 February 1963.
ix