The U.S. Intervention in Guatemala: The Documentary Record

U.S. Department of State . Foreign Relations of the United States , 1952 – 1954 : Guatemala . Washington, DC : U.S. Government Printing Office , 2003 . 461 pp. $ (hardcover).     

John F. Kennedy and Latin America: The "Thorough, Accurate, and Reliable Record" (Almost)

U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. 10, Cuba, 1961-1962
U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. 12, American Republics, 1961-1963     

Richard Nixon and the Failed War Against the Trading World

Books reviewed:
Foreign Relations of the United States , 1969 – 1976, vol. 3: Foreign Economic Policy , 1969 – 1972; International Monetary Policy , 1969 – 1972.     

From the American Archives

US Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 2, Vietnam January–June 1965; vol. 3, Vietnam, June–December 1965     

Seeing the Wood for the Trees: The British Foreign Office and the Anglo-American Trade Agreement of 1938

The Anglo-American Trade Agreement of 1938 was signed againsta backdrop of escalating unease in Europe and a faltering policyof appeasement of the dictators. It is widely accepted thatthe Agreement was concluded more for its political than forits commercial value. Yet the negotiations were no simple affair,dragging on for over nine months and coming near to breakdownon several occasions. The complex negotiations are well documented,but the role of the British Foreign Office in determining policytowards the Agreement is less well known. What emerges is apicture of internecine struggle between the Foreign Office andthe Board of Trade over the direction of the negotiations. Asthe talks became bogged down in technical detail, the ForeignOffice made repeated representations to put the political valueof the deal before commercial considerations and adopt a moreconciliatory stance towards the Americans. The pleas of theForeign Office were made all the more difficult thanks to Americaninflexibility and Washington's determination to bargain hard.The talks were eventually resolved in the wake of the Munichagreement when both sides realised the time was right for ashow of Anglo-American solidarity, and not because of the exertionsof the Foreign Office. Yet this examination of Foreign Officeactivity during negotiation of the Agreement is illustrativenot only of how the Agreement was closed, but also of the suffocatingpower of British appeasement policy and the very determinedbelief of the Foreign Office in the centrality of achievingcloser relations with the United States in this dark preludeto war. ^* The author would like to thank the British Academy for awardinga Small Research Grant to complete this article.     

FEATURE REVIEW

Feature reviews in this article
Michael L. Krenn. U.S. Policy toward Economic Nationalism in Latin America, 1917–1929 . Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1990.
Gerald K. Haines. The Americanization of Brazil: A Study of U.S. Cold War Diplomacy in the Third World, 1945–1954 . Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1989.
Ruth Leacock. Requiem for Revolution: The United States and Brazil, 1961–1969 . Kent: Kent State University Press, 1990.
Michael J. Cohen. Truman and Israel . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Warren I. Cohen and Akira Iriye, eds. The Great Powers in East Asia, 1953–1960 . New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
Rosemary Foot. A Substitute for Victory: The Politics of Peacemaking at the Korean Armistice Talks . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson, eds. Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations . Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.     

The Permeability of the Middle East: The Predicament of Regional and Global Forces: a Review Easy

Book reviewed in this article: Persistent Permeability? regionalism, localism, and globalization in the Middle East: by Bassel F. Salloukh and Rex Brynen, eds. A History of the Modern Middle East: by William L. Cleveland Middle East at the Crossroads: the Changing Political Dynamics and the Foreign Policy Challenges: by Manochehr Dorraj, ed. Conflict and Peace in the Middle East: National Perceptions and United States‐Jordan Relations: by Hatem Shareef Abu‐Lebdeh Nation‐Building: A Middle East Recovery Program: by Jerry M. Rosenberg     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? By John L. Esposito. The Origins of Arab Nationalism. By Rashid Khalidi, L. Anderson, M. Muslih, and R. S. Simon, eds. Both Right and Left Handed: Arab Women Talk About Their Lives. By Bouthaina Shaaban. Saudi-Yemeni Relations: Domestic Structures and Foreign Influence. By F. Gregory Gause III. Live Theatre and Dramatic Literature in Medieval Arabic World. By Shmuel Moreh. The United States and the Middle East: a Search for New Perspectives. Edited by Hooshang Amirahmadi.     

A Quiet Revolution in Diplomacy: Quebec–UK Relations Since 1960

ABSTRACT

Quebec’s modern international outlook and its current paradiplomacy can be dated largely from the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Since then, the provincial government in Quebec City and the federal government in Ottawa have had to tread a fine line in accommodating each other’s constitutional rights in the field of international relations—a line that has occasionally been breached, especially in the years following the Quiet Revolution and in critical periods such as those prior to the 1980 and 1995 referenda. Foreign governments have also had to engage in careful diplomacy in order to avoid upsetting either Ottawa or Quebec City—and this has been especially true in the case of the countries historically most involved with Canada and Quebec—France, the United States, and Britain. But whereas there has been some academic writing on Quebec’s relationships with France and the United States, very little attention has been devoted to Quebec–UK relations since the Quiet Revolution. This article seeks to fill that gap and argues that the Quebec–UK relationship since the 1960s can itself best be characterized as a “quiet revolution” in diplomacy that has largely avoided the controversies that have sometimes dogged Quebec’s relations with France and the United States.     

Negotiating National Identity: A Reexamination of U.S.-Philippines Relations

Nick Cullather. Illusions of Influence: The Political Economy of United States-Philippines Relations, 1942–1960 .     

The History and Historiography of American Diplomacy: Principles, Traditions and Values

The Council on Foreign Relations in New York is known throughout the world both as a leading centre for the study of international affairs and as having an influential voice in current debates on the future global role of the United States. Since the First World War the Council has promoted these goals through organizing working groups, sponsoring specialized monographs, and publishing a number of journals and yearbooks. The Council has now sponsored the publication of a multivolume encyclopaedic dictionary of American foreign relations. Michael Dunne's review of these four volumes concentrates on the broad themes which run through the many hundreds of essays, and asks whether the study of the American diplomatic past can help us to understand the special features of the course and conduct of US foreign relations.     

The United States and the Cyprus crisis of 1974

Based upon two recently published volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States series of declassified diplomatic documents for the period of the Nixon and Ford presidencies, this article focuses upon the crisis which erupted in Cyprus in the summer of 1974 at the time of the transition between the two administrations. A Greek-sponsored coup on the island led to a Turkish invasion and the threat of war between two of America's NATO allies and culminated in the collapse of the Greek military junta and the de facto partition of Cyprus. Emphasis is placed upon the role of Henry Kissinger and his advisers in their efforts to defuse the crisis, efforts which were only partially successful. The conspiracy theories which surround the episode are found wanting and the limitations of the Anglo–American 'special relationship' highlighted.     

Destroy? ‘Migrate’? Conceal? British Strategies for the Disposal of Sensitive Records of Colonial Administrations at Independence

Publicity given in 2011 to the existence of a Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘migrated archive’, now known also as the ‘Hanslope disclosure’, following a High Court demand for release of records relative to a case brought by former Mau Mau detainees, led me to explore files already in the public domain which might throw light on British policy towards the ‘disposal’ of locally created records of colonial administrations at independence. This article examines Colonial Office and Commonwealth Relations Office files concerned primarily with Kenya, Tanganyika, Nigeria and the Central African Federation, but which reveal much about policy and practice not only in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in Southeast Asia. Reasons for refusals to pass material to successor independent governments, and the underlying security concerns, are spelled out in the records; some indication of the volume of records destroyed or sent to London is given; methods of destruction and transmission are discussed; deliberate misinformation given to local politicians and officials is admitted; and tensions between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Public Record Office, and between political expediency and archival practice, are revealed. The article continues with a discussion of ultimately inconclusive deliberations led by UNESCO in the 1970s and 1980s which sought the return of, or access to, ‘migrated’ records ‘in the search of historical truth and continuity’.     

To Swear or Not to Swear?: Britain,Southeast Asia and the Attempt to Reform the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1964–1971

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to explore the British government’s perception of the role of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a method of strengthening cohesion amongst the Commonwealth community, and in particular delves into the constitutional and diplomatic challenges that the British government faced in its attempt to utilise the Judicial Committee in order to maintain close ties with its former Southeast Asian colonies in the 1960s. Suggestions were made by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Privy Council Office from the mid-1960s that newly-independent republics such as Singapore and Malaysia should be allowed to send its citizens to London as members of the Judicial Committee in order to dilute the prejudice against the Committee as a remnant of colonial rule. However, the proposals were rejected by the Lord Chancellor’s Office on the grounds that Asian judges were of insufficient calibre to sit as members of the Judicial Committee, and that citizens of republics were unable to swear an oath of loyalty to the British monarch as was required for all Privy Counsellors. The Privy Council Office were of the opinion that a new system could be introduced whereby the Judicial Committee member would not have to be a fully-fledged Privy Counsellor and therefore would not have to swear the oath, while the Commonwealth Secretariat put forward its argument that Asian judges were good enough to ensure standards of the Judicial Committee would not be lowered. However, the Lord Chancellor’s Office argued that such non-Privy Counsellors would only be ‘second-class’ constituents of the Judicial Committee whose rulings would be unacceptable to countries such as Australia and instead proposed the creation of a Commonwealth Court of Appeal which the Foreign Office deemed unrealistic. In the end, no judges from the Asian republics were allowed sit on the Judicial Committee, resulting in Malaysia and Singapore abolishing their appeals to the Judicial Committee in 1984 and 1994 respectively.     

Has Anything Changed? The United States and Its Relations with Latin America

Joseph Smith. Unequal Giants: Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Brazil, 1889–1930 . Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.     

Academics Amuck

Book reviewed:
Tomoko Akami. Internationalizing the Pacific: The United States, Japan, and the Institute of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919–1945.     

Africa and the United States

Peter J. Schraeder. United States Foreign Policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis, and Change . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.     

Who Benefited? Forty-five Years of U.S.–China Relations

Rosemary Foot. The Practice of Power: U.S.Relations with China since 1949
Robert S. Ross. Negotiating Cooperation: The United States and China, 1969–1989     

华沙会谈与中美对第二次台湾海峡危机的处理

华沙会谈对中美双方处理第二次台湾海峡危机产生了不同的政策影响和作用。会谈虽然有利于中美决策者了解对方的意图,但会谈使双方的分歧更加尖锐;中国通过华沙会谈调整和改变了对台湾和沿海岛屿的政策,而美国则更加明确了沿海岛屿的政策。