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Diplomacy at the Highest Level pp 165–181Cite as

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The Western Summit at Bermuda, December 1953

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Abstract

On 20 May 1953, the American President, Dwight Eisenhower, was interrupted, during a round of golf, by two White House officials with an urgent message. The French Prime Minister, René Mayer, had asked Eisenhower to arrange a three-power conference with the British Premier, Winston Churchill, in the near future. The President was forced to return to Washington to consult his foreign policy advisers. It was soon decided in principle to agree to Mayer’s request and Eisenhower immediately telephoned his old friend Churchill, suggesting a venue for the conference at Presque Isle, Maine. Churchill agreed to the conference proposal, but not the venue: instead of Presque Isle, he successfully pressed for the meeting to be held on the British territory of Bermuda. He made much of this success when obtaining Cabinet approval for his decision the following morning.1 Thus was born the idea of a conference among the Western ‘Big Three’, a meeting which — despite the events of 20 May — became identified with the person of Winston Churchill.2 Bermuda was, arguably, the most powerful gathering of world leaders since Potsdam, and its story reveals much about the difficulties in holding successful summits, even among allies.

Keywords

  • Prime Minister
  • Personal Message
  • Soviet Policy
  • Western Alliance
  • Public Record Office

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Notes and References

  1. R. J. Donovan, Eisenhower: the inside story (London, 1956), pp. 201–2; R. J. Cutler, No Time for Rest (Boston, 1965), p. 316; Public Record Office (PRO), Kew, CAB. 128/26, CC (53) 33rd (21 May).

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  2. Certain accounts treat the conference as being Churchill’s from the outset: H. Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, 1945–55 (London, Macmillan, 1969), p. 512; and Churchill’s own account in House of Commons, debates, fifth series (HCDeb., 5s), vol. 522, cols 577–86.

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  3. On EDC see especially R. Fursdon, The European Defence Community (London, Macmillan, 1980); S. Dockrill, Britain’s Policy for West German Rearmament (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991).

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  4. R. R. James, Winston S. Churchill: his complete speeches, Vol. VIII, 1950–63 (New York and London, Chelsea House, 1974), pp. 7936–44; and see A. Seldon, Churchill’s Indian Summer (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1981) pp. 396–7.

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  5. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953 (Washington, 1960), pp. 69–70.

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  6. Ibid., pp. 179–88; and on the debate leading to the speech see W. W. Rostow, Europe after Stalin (Austin, Texas, 1982).

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  7. PRO, FO 371/125030/9 (7 April).

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  8. Vincent Auriol Papers, Archives Nationales (AN), Paris, 4 AU 116 (circular telegram, 8 April); Georges Bidault Papers, AN, box 45 (notes of 16 and 20 March).

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  9. P. Boyle, The Churchill-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1953–5 (Chapel Hill, NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1990), pp. 31–2.

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  11. Boyle, Correspondence, pp. 36–8, 41–4 and 46–53.

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  12. 515 HCDeb., 5s, cols. 883–98, especially 897; Seldon, Indian Summer, pp. 399–401.

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  13. René Mayer Papers, AN, 363 AP 22, file 6 (‘Conditions dans lesquelles a été preparé … Bermudes’, n.d.).

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  14. Boyle, Correspondence, pp. 61–8 and 73–8.

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  15. Ibid., p. 64.

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  16. Ibid., pp. 56–7; Public Papers, 1953, p. 326.

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  18. US National Archives (USNA), Washington DC, State Department, Record Group 59, decimal files, 396.1 (4 and 7 June).

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  24. Ibid., 42nd (13 July). For full records of the Washington conference see: CAB. 21/3073; Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1952–4 (Washington, 1983), pp. 1607–96.

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  38. Moran, Churchill, 2, 3 and 7 December; PREM. 11/418 (1 December).

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  41. Moran, Churchill, 7 December.

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  43. FRUS, ibid., 1722, 1739–40, 1750–54, 1767–9 and 1786; for background to the speech see S. Ambrose, Eisenhower, the President, 1952–69 (London, Allen and Unwin, 1984), pp. 145–7; for the text see Public Papers, 1953, pp. 813–22; and regarding British doubts see J. Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), pp. 683–5.

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  44. FRUS, ibid., 1739–40, 1767–9, 1786; D. D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change (New York, Doubleday, 1963), p. 249; Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 146–7.

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  45. FRUS, ibid.,1807–9; Sulzberger, Candles, pp. 933–5; I. McDonald, Man of the Times (London, 1976), p. 134.

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  46. Moran, Churchill, 4–8 December; Colville, Fringes of Power, pp. 689–90; G. Elgey, La République des Illusions (Paris, 1968), p. 331.

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  47. Elgey, La République, p. 332.

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  48. Reports on the Press in FO 371/103529/9 and 107447/44 and 45.

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  49. Sulzberger, Candles, pp. 930–33 and 935; PREM. 11/418 (7 December).

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  50. A version of this essay was originally published in the English Historical Review, 101 (1986), pp. 889–912. I am grateful to the British Academy for providing financial support for the research involved.

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Authors
  1. John Young
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Birmingham, UK

    David H. Dunn (Lecturer in International Studies) (Lecturer in International Studies)

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© 1996 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Young, J. (1996). The Western Summit at Bermuda, December 1953. In: Dunn, D.H. (eds) Diplomacy at the Highest Level. Studies in Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24915-2_11

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