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Harold Wilson, Lyndon Johnson and Anglo-American ‘Summit Diplomacy’, 1964–68

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Notes

  1. David Bruce Oral History interview conducted by Thomas H. Baker, 9 December 197], Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas (LBJL), part I, p. 11 (it should be noted that a prime minister is head of government rather than head of state). Recent biographies of Wilson include Austen Morgan, Harold Wilson, London: Pluto, 1992

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  4. Johnson biographies include Paul K. Conkin, Big Daddy from the Pedernales: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Boston: Twayne, 1986

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  7. Ritchie Ovendale, Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century, London: Mac-millan, 1998, p. 136.

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  8. For more sustained reflections on the Wilson-Johnson relationship see Sylvia A. Ellis, ‘Lyndon Johnson, Harold Wilson and the Vietnam War: a Not So Special Relationship?’, in Jonathan Hollowell (ed.), Twentieth Century Anglo-American Relations, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, pp. 180–204.

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  9. By the 1960s summit conferences had become an established medium of communication between national leaders. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919, attended by Lloyd-George, Clemenceau and Wilson, was the first major summit conference of the twentieth century, and during the Second World War the ‘Big Three’ conclaves between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill confirmed the growing institutionalisation of summitry as a means of managing international affairs. As well as by means of improvements in air travel, the process was further consolidated by Churchill’s calls in the early 1950s for a three power gathering to ease the tensions of the Cold War, and by then bilateral meetings between British and American leaders had become integral to the Anglo-American relationship. As well as material on numerous individual summits the general literature on summit diplomacy includes George Ball, Diplomacy for a Crowded World, Boston, Little, Brown, 1976

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  15. D.C. Watt, ‘Summits and Summitry Reconsidered’, International Relations II, 1963, pp. 493–504.

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  16. For a detailed assessment of the pros and cons of the summit conference, see David H. Dunn, ‘How Useful is Summitry?’, in Dunn (ed.), Diplomacy at the Highest Level, pp. 247–268.

  17. Ball, Diplomacy for a Crowded World, pp. 31, 32.

  18. Brief on the United States for John Freeman, the Ambassador-designate, Washington, 23 July 1968, PREM 13/2158, Public Record Office (PRO), Kew, London.

  19. Accounts of Anglo-American relations include C.J. Bartlett, ‘The Special Relationship’: A Political History of Anglo-American Relations Since 1945, London: Longman, 1992

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  23. Planning Section, Western Organisations and Planning Department, ‘Britain though American Eyes’, 13 February 1962, PREM 11/5192, PRO.

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  25. Harold Wilson Oral History Interview conducted by Richard E. Neustadt, 23 March 1964, John F. Kennedy Library (JFKL), Boston, Massachusetts, p. 28.

  26. ‘The Foreign Policy of a British Labour Government’, 8 October 1964, Great Britain, Records of the Policy Planning Council 1963–1964, Lot 70 D 199, State Department, NARA.

  27. Quoted in Paul Foot, The Politics of Harold Wilson, London: Penguin, 1968, p. 207.

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  28. Ibid.

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  32. Harold Wilson Oral History, JFKL, p. 70.

  33. ‘Lyndon Baines Johnson’, by J.L.N. O’Loughlin, 4 December 1963, FO 371/168409, PRO.

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  47. The position within the Labour Party was especially critical because the first Wilson government entered office with a majority of just four seats in the House of Commons, increased after the general election of March 1966 to 94.

  48. ‘Note for the Record: South Vietnam’, 11 February 1965, PREM 13/692, PRO.

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  56. Wilson, The Labour Government, p. 188.

  57. Dean to Wright, 16 April 1965, PREM 13/684, PRO.

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  64. Embassy to State, 4 July 1966, FRUS 1964–1968 XII, p. 538.

  65. Johnson to Wilson, 14 June 1966, Foreign Relations of the United States 1964–1968 Vol. IV Vietnam, 1966, Washington: USGPO, 1998, pp. 426–427.

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  70. Embassy to State, 4 July 1966, Foreign Relations of the United States 1964–1968 Vol. XII Western Europe, Washington: USGPO, 2001, p. 538.

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  72. For details of the Phase A-Phase B (‘Kosygin week’) initiative see John Dumbrell and Sylvia Ellis, ‘British involvement in Vietnam peace initiatives, 1966–67: Marigolds, Sunflowers, and “Kosygin Week”’, Diplomatic History Vol 27. No. 1, January 2003, pp. 113–149.

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  78. For analyses of British policy East of Suez, see Dockrill, Britain’s Retreat from East of Suez, and Jeffrey Pickering, Britain’s Withdrawal from East of Suez: The Politics of Retrenchment, London: Macmillan, 1998.

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  1. Liverpool Hope University College, UK

    Jonathan Colman

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I would like to thank Dr Michael Hopkins, Mr Michael O’Grady, the two anonymous readers and the editors of this Journal for their help with this article.

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Colman, J. Harold Wilson, Lyndon Johnson and Anglo-American ‘Summit Diplomacy’, 1964–68. J Transatl Stud 1, 131–151 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1080/14794010308656797

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