Harold Macmillan and the Deadline Crisis Over Berlin 1958-9

This article examines postwar British foreign policy by analysingthe decision-making process in Whitehall during the ‘deadlinecrisis’, the months between Khrushchev's ultimatum inNovember 1958 and Macmillan's famous voyage of discovery inFebruary 1959. The role played by the then British governmentduring this critical period of the Cold War was widely ignoreduntil the opening of the British archives for the late 1950sand early 1960s, under the thirty-year rule. Since then, scholarshave paid more attention to it. Diplomatic history is affectedgreatly by lack of access to public records; by utilizing previouslywithheld government documents, this paper results in a considerablereassessment of Britain's policy during the early cirisis months.Contrary to conventional wisdom, it argues that Macmillan'scontinuous attempts to shape alliance policy from behind thecurtain put alliance consensus at risk, provoked a deep breachof confidence and so diminshed his scope for effective actionseverely. His visit to Moscow did, in fact, achieve very little,if anything at all.     

Why 'Indicative Planning' Failed: British Industry and the Formation of the National Economic Development Council (1960-64)

The NEDC (Neddy) was established in 1962 through a joint initiativeof leading industrialists and the Conservative Government. Itsbroad aim was to improve economic co-ordination between companiesand policy-makers, and thus enable Britain to steer a courseaway from ‘stop-go’ and towards stable growth. Thisarticle examines the sources of the Neddy's swift demise intoirrelevance by 1964. Aspirations for the NEDC were multipleand conflicting. Leading industrialists considered it a vehiclefor increasing their influence over the course of economic policy.The government, however, was jealous of its policy-making autonomy,and interested in the NEDC primarily as a signal to currencyspeculators of their commitment to tackling the various supply-sideproblems of the UK economy. The article stresses two sets of‘institutional’ factors which doomed the NEDC'stransformative potential even as it was being set up. First,business was suspicious of co-operation with (and, more particularlyrevealing sensitive firm level information to) a body that wasso close to central government. Employers were justifiably worriedthat the NEDC would be used by future governments as the basisfor more dirigiste rather than merely indicative planning. Second,companies wedded to the economic organizational principle of‘collective laissez-faire’ resisted peak-level effortsto induce co-ordination. Thus, paradoxically, the very co-ordinationproblems in British business that prompted the NEDC's creationwere the primary reasons for its failure.     

Anglo-Japanese Collaboration about Africa in Early 1960s: The Search for ‘Complementarity’ in the Middle of Decolonisation

By examining British and Japanese archival sources, this article brings alive the discourse on Japan–Africa relations in the early 1960s and evokes, on the one hand, the dilemmas surrounding Japan's attempts to expand its economic interests in a decolonising Africa and, on the other hand, the efforts of Britain to hold on to its interests in the region. In essence, the research shows how Japan kick-started its economic relations with the African countries in the post-war era and the initiative to ‘enrol’ the services of Britain in the process. This article also shows how keen Whitehall, on the whole, was about collaborating with Japan about Africa in search of complementary interests, perhaps along the same lines as in Southeast Asia in the 1950s. Eventually, Whitehall became exasperated about the initiative, not least because it felt that it had made all the running and the Japanese had contributed nothing.     

'Euroscepticism', Political Agendas and Spatial Planning: British National and Regional Planning Policy in Uncertain Times

Over the last 10 years, European Union interest in planning has increased significantly. Although land use planning remains a function of each member state, the legal obligations imposed by the EU in the fields of environmental law, structural funds, the Common Agricultural Policy, and Trans-European Transport Networks, have all impacted upon the context of the operation of the British planning process. Many of the EU initiatives have had to be transposed into domestic legislation, while others form an important-if oft-times uncertain-framework for British policy-makers. This paper examines the relationship between the European Union's policies and initiatives as they have potentially impacted upon the British planning system and the contents of Britain's national and regional planning policy guidance to local planning authorities in the assessment period 1988-1997. But the Conservative governments adopted a 'Eurosceptic' approach to their relations with Europe and, as demonstrated within this paper, also towards spatial planning issues that caused uncertainty in practice. The research indicates that although the EU has impacted upon British planning, particularly at the local level of government, this has not been reflected at the national and regional levels in planning policy documentation, mainly because of the 'Eurosceptic' attitude of the government. Policy-makers at both the national and regional levels in England, Scotland and Wales are now recognizing the need, however, to keep apace with changes occurring simultaneously with regard to enhanced European integration, and the approach of the Blair government since 1997 has re-focused the relationship between the EU and UK over spatial planning.     

The Nature of Decision-making in the Post-war New Towns Policy: The Case of Basildon, c. 1945-70

The nature of post-war economic and urban planning has beencontroversial. This article examines the problem through a ‘grass-roots’study of the establishment and the early social history of Basildon,a representative example of post-war new towns. What views didthe various sections of the central state, local governmentand residents hold towards the new towns policy? The articleconsiders the relation between the new town Development Corporationand governmental departments, local government and tenants.This case study indicates that the plural and complex natureof decision-making based on informal and voluntary negotiationsmade the new towns policy inconsistent, and suggests that residents'voices were excluded from the process of decision-making. ^* suge{at}ier.hit-u.ac.jp     

Dispossession 1990s style: Aborigines,islanders and the policy making process of the Goss labor government

Aboriginal and Islander people in Queensland remain unempowered in the policy making process of government. This is achieved by downgrading and under‐resourcing the relevant portfolio, by co‐locating it with welfare, by giving other departments statutory rights in decision making on indigenous issues which are not reciprocal, by relocating key indigenous policy areas into otherwise antagonistic departments, by ghettoising the issues in Cabinet and by failing to elucidate clear policy guidelines on indigenous issues. The Goss government has also ensured that indigenous people remain unempowered outside of government by failing to legislate for regional land councils, Aboriginal majority on national parks boards of management and an Aboriginal‐controlled statutory acquisitions fund and by retaining excessive discretionary power in the administration of the 1991 Land Acts.     

Skyjackers,jackals and soldiers: British planning for international terrorist incidents during the 1970s

Following the Munich Olympics massacre of September 1972, the British government conducted a series of contingency plans to ensure that Whitehall, police constabularies and the armed forces were prepared for similar crises affecting the UK and its citizens. This article examines the evolution of British counterterrorist planning during the 1970s, which still shapes Whitehall's crisis management procedures for responding to international terrorism, and also procedures for calling for military support in response to hijackings, hostage‐taking and similar incidents both domestically and overseas. It demonstrates that while there are differences in the character of the terrorist threat 40 years ago and today, there are also parallels between the practical and political challenges of counterterrorism in the era of the Baader–Meinhof group and Carlos the Jackal, and the struggle against al‐Qaeda and its affiliates today.     

The Decline of the Empire and the Economic 'Decline' of Britain

In the 1950s and 1960s, decolonization coincided with the ‘goldenage’ of British capitalism, with record rises in popularliving standards. Economic historians have understandably usedthis coincidence to suggest that by this period the BritishEmpire was no longer offering substantial economic benefitsto the mass of the metropolitan population. Yet there were linksbetween economic performance and the decline of the Empire.First, despite the good performance, profoundly pessimistic‘declinist’ accounts of British society and theeconomy abounded in the early 1960s, and these had a major impacton policy formation. A key underpinning for such accounts wasthe ‘culture of decline’ intimately linked withthe loss of imperial status. Secondly, while it has become acommonplace of discussion of post-war Britain to assume thatreversing ‘decline’ and modernizing the economyrequired a re-orientation of policy away from the Empire andCommonwealth towards Europe, such a reorientation was not aconstant feature of modernization strategies. Indeed, a centralfeature of the initial period of Wilsonian ‘modernization’after 1964 was its attempt to use closer links with the Commonwealthto achieve this objective.     

The political anatomy of community health policy in Australia, 1972–1982

This article seeks to account for the survival of the 1973–1975 Labor government's new Community Health policy during the conservative coalition government (1975–1983) (which had managed to completely abolish Labor's national Medibank health insurance program). Through extensive interviews with 74 people who were directly involved in the policy process at national, state and local levels, as well as from other sources of information, inquiry is made into the issues and circumstances that were taken into account in the decisions that affected the course of policy from 1972–82. The important political and economic forces included party politics, federal‐state relations, the national economy, the direction of other fiscal and health policies, private and governmental interest groups, administrative nets, and the mass media. The not surprising conclusion is that changes in Community Health policy did not depend on its effectiveness but rather on the balance of political, economic and organizational power of interested groups at particular points in time. Policy‐relevant issues facing the 1983 Labor government are pointed out.     

Business,empire and the United Australia party

This article presents an analysis of the political economy of the United Australia Party (UAP) mainly while in government There are discussions of decisions and policies relating to tariffs, the exchange rate and trade relations with the United Kingdom. Through four case studies of policy‐making it deals with two interrelated aspects of this political economy. The first aspect focuses on conflicts between key business groupings and how UAP government policies were shaped in part by a need to negotiate compromises between these business groupings in the context of wider economic problems. The second aspect deals with relations between the UAP government and British manufacturers and banks. It shows that Australian politicians and institutions possessed considerable independence and bargaining power.     

Partners for stability? Irish Free State perceptions of the incoming British Labour government 1923–24

This article examines the anxiety and frustration of the Irish Free State government faced with the uncertainty of which party was going to become the next British government in 1923–24. The Free State government had only recently emerged victorious in its own fratricidal civil war and its moral and political legitimacy was still challenged in Ireland itself. The most contentious issue an incoming British government had to deal with on Ireland was the final demarcation of the boundary between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland which, according to Article 12 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, would be determined by a boundary commission. The Free State government remained unconvinced that any incoming British Labour government had the competence, understanding or commitment to resolve this issue and contribute to long-term stability in Ireland, given Labour's perceived lack of knowledge and interest in Irish politics and its commitment to social and economic issues taking precedence. This apprehension was articulated in contemporary Irish government papers and personal correspondence and proved well founded, given the legalistic and cautious approach of the Labour government to establishing the Irish Boundary Commission.     

Selkirk in Singapore

This article explores the strained relationship between HaroldMacmillan's Conservative government and its senior representativein South-East Asia, the former minister George Selkirk. In particularit considers the impact of that relationship on the final yearsof colonial governance in Singapore. Between 1959 and 1963 Singaporeremained a British colonial territory enjoying internal self-government,and the most important British military base in South-East Asia.During these years Britain was the People's Action Party's guarantoragainst subversion. Newly released British documents deal withthe assessment of the communist threat. They reveal that Britaindid not have a single view of that threat. The British HighCommission in Kuala Lumpur and Britons remaining in the employof the Federation of Malaya after it gained independence inAugust 1957 argued that Britain should act as if the threatwas serious, in order to encourage the Malayan government tocreate a Malaysian federation. The United Kingdom Commissionin Singapore believed that Singapore's communists were indigenousleftists with valid claims to political legitimacy. They arguedthat these leftists could be overcome by political means ratherthan by mass detention. The British government in London hadlittle interest in Singapore's internal politics. Iain Macleodand Reginald Maudling were tardy in establishing any firm policyfor the island. Their successor as Colonial Secretary, DuncanSandys, accepted the advice of Selkirk on most issues in Singaporeanpolitics but overrode his reluctance to suppress the leftists.Singapore provides a case-study of the dilemmas of British ColdWar policy during the process of decolonization. ^* The author wishes to thank the Humanities Research Board ofthe British Academy for its generous financial support of theresearch upon which this article is based.     

British Conservative Opinion and the Problem of Germany after the First World War

This work examines British conservative attitudes towards the Weimar Republic through the lens of several specific issues from the armistice up to the Ruhr Crisis of 1923. The author argues that a curious feature of British conservative opinion following the First World War was the consistent hostility British conservatives demonstrated towards the new German democratic state. To be sure, Great Britain had just fought a long and costly war against Germany, and there had been little time for the passions generated by the war to cool. Still, from the early days of the political changes in October and November of 1918, the German government was firmly committed to democratic principles. This was a development that the British nation claimed to favour, but the war left many British conservatives ill disposed to consider that the ‘inner change’ in Germany might be genuine or that a stable German democracy was possible. During its formative years, the Weimar Republic faced enormous challenges that would have tested any nation. Yet, even as political and economic conditions within Germany undermined prospects for democracy to succeed in that country, many British conservatives declined to take these developments seriously. Indeed, the attitudes of British conservatives substantially added to the difficulties the German government faced in dealing with the problems of the post-war world.     

'More carrot than stick', British Economic Warfare and Spain, 1941-1944

During the Second World War, economic factors became a centralaspect of Spain's relations to both Britain and Nazi Germany.In 1940, when the Franco regime was on the brink of joiningthe war on the side of the Axis, Britain tried to use Spain’sdependence on imports from the west to convince Franco to retainhis country's neutrality. Although, at the time, British ‘economicappeasement’ was not a major factor in the failure ofGerman-Spanish negotiations, it contributed to Spain's verygradual detachment from Nazi Germany over subsequent years.Between1941 and 1944, the focus of British policy towards Spain movedfrom keeping the country out of the war to restricting the servicesSpain rendered to the German war economy. Franco's sympathiesfor the Nazi regime and the economic and financial benefitsof continuing trade with Germany made British and US economicwarfare activities however only a partial success.     

Intellectual Migration and Economic Thought: Central European Émigré Economists and the History of Modern Economics

Summary

This article examines the life and thought of Thomas Balogh and Nicholas Kaldor, two Hungarian-born British economists, to suggest how the personal background and émigré status of these economists changed their view of the British economy and the economic policy recommendations they put forward as high-profile government advisers in the post-1945 period. This article combines research on inter-war intellectual migration and the history of British economics and economic policy making after the Second World War. It shows how the large scale migration of Central European intellectuals to the English-speaking countries affected the academic, intellectual and cultural lives of the host countries; it also suggests how economics, a relatively young social science discipline, has been crucially enriched by the contributions of exiles from old Europe, and how the mainstream paradigm of modern economics, the so-called neoclassical synthesis, was the result of the cross-fertilisation of ideas facilitated by the physical movement of academics and thinkers.     

论英国对印度殖民统治体制的形成及影响

从美国独立到拿破仑战争结束这32年时间内,英国调整了对印度的殖民统治政策。受工业革命以及福音教派运动的影响,英国政府改变了过去那种赤裸裸的殖民掠夺、殖民压迫政策,而在表面上代之以为土著人殖民地建立良好的政府,消除暴政、杜绝腐败、发展教育,这在一定程度上促进了殖民地经济文化的发展,从而“充当了历史的不自觉的工具”。英国对印度殖民新的统治体制的形成,对于英帝国的发展壮大意义重大。     

Defence and Diplomacy: The British Foreign Office and Singapore, 1939-1940

Examinations of the defence of Singapore normally focus on therole the Royal Navy and antipodean cries of betrayal. In suchstudies, great attention is paid to such matters as how longit would take the Royal Navy to relieve Singapore and the degreeto which the British government misled Australia, New Zealand,and Singapore itself with regard to London's determination todefend the fortress. This study concentrates instead on Britishdiplomacy in the Far East, and contends that Britain intendedto defend its position in the region by means of creating theimpression in Tokyo that Japan faced a loose Anglo-Americancoalition opposed to any Japanese expansionist efforts. In asimilar fashion, the British attempted also to utilize Soviet–Japanesehostility to protect their interests in the Far East. By lookingat these matters, a greater understanding of the wider aspectsof British strategic defence policy can be found.     

The Survival, Revival and Decline of British Economic Influence in Malaysia, 1957-70

Independence for Malaya in 1957 (and the enlargement of thefederation to form Malaysia in 1963) did not have an immediatelyadverse effect upon British economic interests there. Indeed,Britain retained, and even revived, its huge commercial, industrial,and financial presence in Commonwealth Southeast Asia well intothe 1960s. From the middle of that decade, however, Britisheconomic influence in Malaysia declined quite rapidly. The mainfocus of this article is to examine three possible causes ofthis downturn: declining competitiveness on the part of Britishmanufactures; UK government policy towards private investmentand public expenditure overseas; and entrepreneurial weaknessesamong the British agency houses in Malaysia.     

The Information Research Department,British Covert Propaganda,and the Sino-Indian War of 1962: Combating Communism and Courting Failure?

Britain's post-war interventions in former colonial territories remain a controversial area of contemporary history. In the case of India, recent releases of official records in the United Kingdom and South Asia have revealed details of British government anti-communist propaganda activity in the subcontinent during the Cold War period. This article focuses attention on covert or unattributable propaganda conducted in India by the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD). It specifically examines the 1960s: a time between the outbreak of the Sino-Indian border war in 1962, and the Indian general election of 1967, when IRD operations peaked. The Indian government welcomed British support in an information war waged against Communist China, but cooperation between London and New Delhi quickly waned. Britain's propaganda initiative in India lacked strategic coherence, and cut across the grain of local resistance to anti-Soviet material. The British Government found itself running two separate propaganda campaigns in the subcontinent: one focused on Communist China, and declared to the Indian government; and a second, secret programme, targeting the Soviets. In this context, Whitehall found it difficult to implement an integrated and effective anti-communist propaganda offensive in India.