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Similar impressions? Anglo-American relations and South Asia, autumn 1971

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Abstract

Despite divergences of policy over South Asia in autumn 1971, Heath and Nixon’s communications focused upon areas of agreement. An unwillingness to confront disagreements over policy subsequently fostered misunderstandings between the two allies as both lent tacit support to opposite sides of a hot war in South Asia just weeks later. Nonetheless, Heath’s desire to improve the tone of Anglo-American relations in the autumn of 1971 provides a further challenge to the commonly held assertion that his desire to enter the EC led him to shun an amiable relations with the US.

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Notes

  1. This ‘established view’ refers broadly to works written prior to the opening of the archives and includes but is not limited to Ritchie Ovendale, Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1998)

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  12. Dickie’s Special No More is the most prominent example of a lack of detail being afforded to the 1970s. Chapter 8, being of comparable size to other chapters covers the years 1963–1979, whereas most other chapters in the book cover three to five years, with the next largest being seven years. Similarly, the volume produced by David Dimbleby and David Reynolds glosses over the period.

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  15. As well as Scott and Spelling, these texts include Catherine Hynes, The Year That Never Was: Heath, the Nixon Administration and the Year of Europe (Dublin: University College, Dublin Press, 2009)

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  48. Briefs for Home’s meeting with Rogers 20/7/71 UK National Archives (hereafter UKNA) Foreign and Commonwealth Office Files (hereafter FCO) 82/61.

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  50. Ibid; Scott, Allies Apart, 66.

  51. Scott, Allies Apart, 67.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Ibid., 66.

  54. Ibid., 67.

  55. Minute by Geoffrey Rippon 20/7/71 UKNA FCO 82/61.

  56. Telegram from FCO to UK Dep. High Commission, Dacca 16/8/71 UKNA FCO 37/820.

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  58. Record of Meeting between Home and US Undersecretary of State John Irwin 20/7/71 UKNA FCO 82/61.

  59. Letter from Heath to Yahya Khan 7/4/71 UKNA FCO 37/882.

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  61. Telegram from FCO to UK High Commission in New Delhi 8/6/71 UKNA FCO 37/829; Moon to Barrington 6/7/71 UKNA FCO 37/829.

  62. Telegram from FCO to UK High Commission in Islamabad 26/7/71 UKNA FCO 37/929.

  63. Record of Meeting between Home and Irwin 20/7/71 UKNA FCO 82/61. Memorandum from Irwin to Nixon 9/6/71 FRUS 1969–76 Vol XI South Asia Crisis Doc 68. Irwin explained to Nixon that the US were working with the Pakistan government to help them come up with an aid programme ‘that we [the US] and other donors could support’. The US was also exerting pressure on the IMF and IBRD to work out measures that would allow for the transfer of aid to Pakistan.

  64. Telegram from British Embassy, New Delhi to FCO 16/8/71 UKNA FCO 37/820. Smith, ‘Coming Down on the Winning Side’, 456.

  65. New Delhi to FCO 16/8/71 UKNA FCO 37/820.

  66. Kissinger, White House Years, 866.

  67. Memorandum of Conversation between Kissinger and Indian Ambassador L.K. Jha 9/8/71 FRUS VOL XI South Asia Doc 117.

  68. FCO paper entitled ‘Relations with the United States’ drafted for Alec Douglas-Home in preparation for a meeting with the Prime Minister 9/11/71 UKNA FCO 82/64.

  69. Ibid.

  70. Edward Heath, Old World, New Horizons: Britain, the Common Market, and the Atlantic Alliance (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 8–9.

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  71. Telegram from Home to Cromer 11/11/71 UKNA FCO 82/65.

  72. Ibid.

  73. Telegram from UK Embassy, Washington DC to FCO, Report of Cromer’s meeting with Kissinger 12/11/71 UKNA FCO 82/65.

  74. Ibid.

  75. Draft Steering brief prepared for Bermuda summit 24/11/71 UKNA FCO 82/66.

  76. Ibid.

  77. Letter from Home to Heath 4/10/71 UKNA Files of the Prime Minister (hereafter PREM) 15/568.

  78. Record of Meeting between Heath and Gandhi 31/10/71 UKNA PREM 15/568.

  79. Ibid.

  80. Ibid.

  81. Kissinger, White House Years, 848.

  82. Ibid.

  83. Ibid., 849.

  84. Telegram from US Embassy Islamabad to State Department 2/11/71 USNA RG 59 Box 2363 POL IND-PAK.

  85. Memorandum for the President’s file, Record of Meeting between Nixon and Gandhi 4/11/ 71 FRUS Vol XI South Asia Doc. 179.

  86. Kissinger, White House Years, 880–1.

  87. Bass, Blood Telegram, 244.

  88. Memorandum for the President’s file 4/11/71 FRUS Vol XI South Asia Doc. 179.

  89. Memorandum for the President’s file, Record of Meeting between Nixon and Gandhi 4/11/71 FRUS Vol XI South Asia Doc. 179. Bass Blood Telegram, 255.

  90. Record of Conversation between Nixon, Kissinger and Haldeman 5/11/71 FRUS 1969–76 Vol E7 Doc. 150.

  91. Ibid.

  92. Ibid.

  93. Letter from Heath to Nixon 5/11/71 UKNA PREM 15/569.

  94. Letter from Nixon to Heath 24/11/71 UKNA PREM 15/715.

  95. Record of Telephone conversation between Heath and Nixon UKNA PREM 15/570 15/11/ 71.

  96. Minutes of National Security Council Meeting 6/12/71 FRUS Vol XI Doc 237.

  97. Letter from Heath to Nixon 5/12/71 UKNA PREM 15/570.

  98. Telegram from UK Embassy, Washington to FCO 12/12/71 UKNA PREM 15/570.

  99. Ibid.

  100. Letter from Heath to Nixon 12/12/71 UKNA PREM 15/570.

  101. Record of Plenary meeting between UK and US Delegations, Bermuda 21/12/71 UKNA PREM 15/1268; Plenary meeting between US and UK delegations, Bermuda 21/12/71 NPL National Security Council Files Box 950.

  102. Smith, ‘Coming Down on the Winning Side’, 460.

  103. Scott, Allies Apart, 89.

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  1. School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Dave Riley

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Correspondence to Dave Riley.

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In April 2017, Dave Riley successfully defended his thesis UK-US Relations and the South Asian Crisis, 1971 at Cardiff University. He is currently a Student Education Service Officer within the Faculty of Environment at the University of Leeds.

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Riley, D. Similar impressions? Anglo-American relations and South Asia, autumn 1971. J Transatl Stud 16, 165–180 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1080/14794012.2018.1450932

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