Abstract
Sir Roger Makins’ embassy has tended to be overshadowed by that of his predecessor in Washington from 1948 to 1952, Sir Oliver Franks. Various accounts of Franks’ embassy have shown that he played a not inconsiderable role in keeping Britain and the United States together in these critical years, which saw Marshall Aid and the formation of NATO, and how he conciliated in times of strain and crisis, particularly during the Korean War. These accounts have emphasised how his sterling qualities and his extraordinary personal relationship with the US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson (which was embodied in their regular, off-the-record talks) gave him an unusual amount of influence for an ambassador in Washington. By contrast, these accounts have stated or implied that Makins had only a formal relationship with Acheson’s successor, John Foster Dulles, and therefore not the same degree of influence as Franks.1
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Notes
Peter Boyle, ‘“The Special Relationship” with Washington’, in J.W. Young (ed.), The Foreign Policy of Churchill’s Peacetime Administration, 1951–1955 (Leicester University Press, 1988), p. 32;
Alex Danchev, Oliver Franks — Founding Father (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 109–35.
Henry Brandon, Special Relationship (London, Macmillan, 1988), p. 93.
D. Cameron Watt, Succeeding John Bull (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 127.
Saul Kelly, ‘Sir Roger Makins and Anglo-American Atomic Relations, 1945–55.’ Paper delivered to the Ninth Annual Conference of the British International History Group, University of Ulster at Coleraine, 11–13 September 1997.
Sherfield Papers, MS Memoirs, Washington Embassy, pp. 4–5; see also Jill Edwards, ‘Roger Makins: “Mr Atom”’, in John Zametica (ed.), British Officials and British Foreign Policy, 1945–50 (Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 8; Kelly interview with Sherfield, May 1994.
John Charmley, Churchill’s Grand Alliance, the Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940–57 (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1995), p. 241;
C.J. Bartlett, ‘The Special Relationship’, A Political History of Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (London, Longmans, 1992), pp. 59–60.
John Young, Winston Churchill’s Last Campaign: Britain and the Cold War, 1951–1955 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 111.
Sherfield Papers, MS Memoirs, Washington Embassy, pp. 92–5; CAB 129/66, C(53)58, 15 February 1954; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Vol. IX, Pt 1 (Washington, USGPO, 1986), pp. 1683–4; W.S. Lucas, Divided We Stand (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), pp. 32–4.
Sherfield Papers, MS Memoirs, Washington Embassy, pp. 99–104; PREM 11/645, Makins to FO, tel. 524, 27 March 1954, tel. 548, 30 March 1954, tels 579–580, 3 April 1954, tel. 588, 4 April 1954, tels 595 and 596, 5 April 1954, tels 679 and 680, 10 April 1954; Geoffrey Warner, ‘Britain and the Crisis over Dien Bien Phu, April 1954: the Failure of United Action’, in Lawrence S. Kaplan, Denise Artaud and Mark R. Rubin, Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954–1955 (Wilmington, SR Books, 1984), pp. 55–77.
Michael Dockrill, ‘Britain and the First Chinese Offshore Islands Crisis, 1945–55’, in Michael Dockrill and John W. Young (eds), British Foreign Policy 1945–56 (London, Macmillan, 1989), p. 190.
John Bayliss, Anglo-American Defence Relations, 1939–1984 (New York, St. Martins Press, 1984), p. 71.
R. Lamb, The Failure of the Eden Government (London, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1987), pp. 166, 169,180; Lucas, Divided We Stand, pp. 40–57.
Sherfield Papers, MS Memoirs, Suez Crisis, pp. 11–16; Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951–6 (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), pp. 320–3;.
FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XIII. The Near East, Jordan-Yemen (Washington, DC, USGPO, 1988), pp. 285–6, 303–4, 317–24.
Keith Kyle, Suez (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991), pp. 128–9;
Sir Anthony Eden, Full Circle (London, Cassell, 1960), p. 422;
Selwyn Lloyd, Suez (London, Jonathan Cape, 1978), p. 71.
D. Cameron Watt, ‘Demythologizing the Eisenhower Era’, in W.R. Louis and H. Bull, The Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 76.
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© 2001 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Kelly, S. (2001). A Very Considerable and Largely Unsung Success: Sir Roger Makins’ Washington Embassy, 1953–56. In: Twentieth-Century Anglo-American Relations. Contemporary History in Context Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985311_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985311_7
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