ABSTRACT
In February 1949, Ernest Bevin had established the Permanent Under-
Secretary’s Committee within the FO to ‘‘consider long-term questions of
foreign policy and to make recommendations’’.1 Throughout 1949, a number
of papers emerged, several of which focused on the centrality of the rela-
tionship with the US. A paper in March confirmed that, ‘‘in the face of
implacable Soviet hostility and in view of our economic dependence on the
United States . . . the immediate problem is to define the nature of our relationship with the United States’’.2 A second paper, ‘‘Anglo-American Relations: Present and Future’’, set out the key assumption underpinning the
relationship, that Britain was, ‘‘the principal partner and ally on whom the
United States of America can rely’’.3 Britain had to continually justify this
assumption, lest the US look for a more reliable pivot in the form of France
or even Germany, or even worse, realise the omnipresent fear of Labour
policy-makers and retreat from the defence of Europe. These scenarios could
be avoided, the paper advised, if Britain, ‘‘can show enough strength of
national will and retain enough initiative to maintain her position as a leading world power, and, as such, influence United States policy’’.4 A fur-
ther paper from April 1950 listed Britain’s overseas objectives as being:
1. To maintain the British position as a world power;
2. To maintain the Commonwealth structure;
3. To maintain a special relationship with the United States;
4. To consolidate the whole ‘Western’ democratic system;
5. To resist Soviet Communism; 6. To ensure that the Middle East and Asia were stable, prosperous and
As one commentator has observed, this prioritisation suggests that concerns
over prestige and status were greater than concerns over security.6 This
should come as no surprise, as former Ambassador to the US Sir Oliver
Franks wrote in the mid-1950s, it was part of the ‘‘habit and furniture’’ of the
British mind to regard the country as a ‘‘Great Power’’.7 Such was the state of official thinking when, on 25th June 1950, the communist North invaded
South Korea, offering the UK its best opportunity to date to demonstrate to
the US its capacity to fulfil its role as ‘‘principal partner and ally’’.
