A Treaty too Far? Britain, France, and Concorde, 1961-1964

The 1964 Labour government inherited a substantial balance-of-paymentsdeficit. In an effort to deal with the attendant economic crisis,the government sought to cancel a number of costly, high-prestigeprojects, including the Franco-British supersonic airliner Concorde.When the possible ramifications of this were considered, however,it was discovered that the agreement covering the aircraft wasnot commercial but carried the full force of an internationaltreaty. The clear implication of this was that a withdrawingparty could be subject to heavy financial penalties. Cancellation,therefore, it was argued, was likely to cost even more thancontinuing with the project would. The question remains as tohow such a remarkable situation had come about. This articleanalyses the negotiations between Britain and France concerningConcorde, particularly in the early 1960s, which eventuallyled to the signing of the treaty in 1962. It examines the political,technological, and economic imperatives which underpinned thenegotiations and the relationships between the two governmentsand their respective aviation industries. It also considersthe motives of both the British and French governments in theprocess, and concludes that in each case that the technologicaland political motives overrode economic considerations.     

The awkward years: defining and managing famines, 1944–1947

Abstract

Famines in the years immediately after World War II occurred during a period of global flux, as international famine response evolved from its ambitious, early twentieth century goals toward more modest, technocratic objectives during the second half of the century. For economists, social scientists and politicians immersed in the world of emergency food aid, these were uncertain, awkward years for famine relief. Herbert Hoover’s idealistic large-scale projects of famine relief that had dominated the first three decades of the century had been proven to be expensive and of limited efficacy, but Cold War loyalties had not yet taken over as the primary logic behind large-scale humanitarian assistance projects. Ultimately, when faced with famine conditions between 1944 and 1947, states and experts balanced a call to action against pragmatism that recognized famines were also politically expedient events that could weaken rural resistance to governance and simplify wartime and postwar administration. Ultimately, both science and humanitarian concerns learned to orient themselves toward economic expediency in these awkward years.