Abstract
In 1951 the American approach to foreign aid underwent a major shift. Conditions in Europe and world-wide were markedly different from those of 1949, when the military assistance programme began. European recovery was almost complete, and the strengthening of western defences against communism was an ever-increasing priority for the United States. Early in the year it became clear that the US no longer intended to operate separate programmes of economic and military aid. Instead it planned to create an omnibus foreign aid scheme, the Mutual Security Programme, to coordinate aid currently provided under three aid programmes — the European Recovery Programme, the Mutual Defence Assistance Programme, and the Act for International Development. This incorporation of all existing foreign aid into a single programme signified ‘the subordination of longer-term plans for economic and social progress to the more pressing claims of strengthening the defences of the free world against communist aggression’1 and provided tangible evidence of the shifting priorities of the United States as containment rapidly became the major focus of American foreign policy and European economic recovery became a secondary concern.
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Notes
PRO: FO371/94130, M104/65. Foreign Office minute from E. A. Berthoud reporting on the first of the bilateral talks, 12 December 1951.
PRO: FO371/100187, M282/19. Note from E. G. Compton (Treasury) to the Foreign Office reporting the present position on interim economic aid from the US, 4 January 1952.
PRO: FO371/100174, M1030/22. Annex A of Report No.162. (1074/161/52) from Sir Christopher Steel, successor to Sir Oliver Franks as British Ambassador to Washington, 10 April 1952.
PRO: FO371/100174, M1030/22. Annex A of Report No.162. (1074/161/52) from Sir Christopher Steel, successor to Sir Oliver Franks as British Ambassador to Washington, 10 April 1952.
H. A. Hovey, United States Military Assistance: a Study of Policies and Practices (New York: Praeger, 1965).
PRO: FO371/100172, M1029/16. Brief from the Air Ministry for Sir F. Hoyer-Millar for a meeting to be held on 30 June regarding off-shore purchase of aircraft, 28 June 1952.
PRO: FO371/100172, M1029/30. Letter from Garvey, Foreign Office, to Sir C. Warner, British Embassy, Brussels, 7 July 1952.
For a detailed account of the political and strategic considerations behind the British decision to acquire Corporal see Kaoru Kikuyama, ‘Britain and the Procurement of Short-Range Nuclear Weapons’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 16 (1993) no.4, pp.539–560.
Annex to Communiqué issued at the Bermuda Conference, Keesings Contemporary Archives, XI (1957–8), 30 March - 6 April 1957, p.15457.
Ibid, annexed memorandum, paragraph 6, p.628.
I. Clark and N. Wheeler, The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy, 1945–55, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989).
L. Freedman, ‘British Nuclear Targeting’, in D. Ball and J. Richelson (eds.), Strategic Nuclear Targeting (London: Cornell University Press, 1986).
Ibid, p. 129.
Ibid, p. 111.
Lord Ismay, NATO: the First Five Years, 1949–54 (NATO 1955).
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© 1995 Helen Leigh-Phippard
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Leigh-Phippard, H. (1995). The Mutual Security Programme and the Merging of Foreign Aid. In: Congress and US Military Aid to Britain. Southampton Studies in International Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23919-1_5
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