ABSTRACT
It was not just the British who were to lament the interchanging of ordinary and special treatment: Richard Nixon experienced similar sentiments to those of Macmillan because of Edward Heath in the early 1970s. These variations in the relationship were partly symptomatic of broader role changes that Britain and the USA underwent at this time. These changes included their respective roles in the Cold War and in the international economy; British entry into the EEC; and changing patterns of immigration into the USA, which further emphasised the drawing of US attention to the Far East because of the Vietnam War and the growth of the Japanese economy. In their turn these developments impacted on the special relationship, which faltered and lost direction for much of the 1970s. The faltering seemed all the more dramatic after the promise of the early 1960s.1
