Informally special? The Churchill–Truman talks of January 1952 and the state of Anglo-American relations

Abstract

When Churchill became Prime Minister and Anthony Eden Foreign Secretary in 1951 they had to try to adjust Britain's world role to match her capabilities, while confronting a wide range of problems. Britain faced a balance-of-payments crisis and troublesome questions from the USA about both dollar aid and trade with Communists. In the Middle East the nationalization of the massive Anglo-Iranian Oil Company operations by the Iranian leader Mossadeq was another difficult issue: Britain emphasized the need to coerce the Iranians in order to safeguard her economic interests, whereas the Americans saw Cold War dangers in pressurizing Iran. They feared British policy would destabilize Iran and create opportunities for a Communist takeover. In Egypt also, nationalist forces caused a division between the two allies, with the USA evincing more caution for fear of being tainted with colonialism and thereby alienating Third World countries from the Western camp. In Europe, Britain dragged her feet on integration and the creation of a European Army, which made more difficult the agreed aim of rearming Germany. In NATO the British resented the appointment of an American as the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT); and they worried about America's strategic plans and general stance towards the Soviets, and about the atom bomb regarding both its possible use and the breakdown of wartime Anglo-US cooperation. There were American doubts about the integrity of Britain's security after the Klaus Fuchs spy case and her failure to make reforms suggested by the Americans, and there were relatively minor disagreements on such issues as the choice of a standard rifle for NATO and the location of NATO headquarters. The most immediate trouble-spot for Anglo-US relations, however, was the Far East where there were differences about the Korean War, the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Nationalist Chinese on Formosa, and the Japanese Peace Treaty.