1—€nne3y

•1
€
9€t ‘5
WEALTI-I, POWItR AND INFLUFNCE

\Oj .‘c. ç : Sc.ic -t’

pcbologicall) it meant as it mere turiiing ihe last page in the most successftl
Cvoo) 13 imperi bistoty ever k.nou’n.
Fernand Braudel on the UK’s first application For mcmbership
Wealth, Power and Influence of thc Etiropean Economic Communiry.
5

i poljticians can be at their most revealing at moments when setback arouses a

‘Even though the material strengils ofthe United Kingdom would decline retively
should stil! !mve other assets which ie’ould enable us to play a signifrcant part in worU
levd of irritation that propels them close to the nm of rage. Macmillan was
especiallY so when dealing not with a Thorneycroft witbin his own ranks on
a Gaitskell on thc hustings hut with his opposite numbers abroad when thcir
acdons or behaviour reflcctcd what he sensed all too direcdy was an ebbing
ofBrirain’s power. In the summer of 1958, the Macmillan government’s altern
ative to a taniff-protectcd Common Marker a free trude area (Plan G) in
—

affairs. Ihe best periods of our history bad by no means been tl,ose, such as the , Europe looked doomcd, as indeed it was, by the first six months of the
—

teeuth £eutur ivisen tve bad a preponderance of wealth or powei; and for the futu, EEC’s life aud the intransigence of Clianles de Gaulle. In a minute of 24 June,
we must be ready to considerhou’ we could continue to exercise influence in the u’orlj which he intended to be read only by his Chancellor, Amory, aud his Foreign
other than through material ,neans alone.’ Secretary, Lloyd, MacmiHan let fly against the wrctched Europcans, dc Gaulle
Tlarold Macmillan in 1960, contemplating Brirain’s place in the world by 1970.1 and Adenauen especially. He bcgan in somewhat grand, yct self-pitying
inode:
not asba,ned of “baving itso goud’ The templations ofcomfort aud affluencc’ ase
I chink sonletimes our difficulties with our friends abroad result frorn our natural good
not an argument in favour ofpoverty. Our purpose should be to keep it good and
nanners aud reticence. We are apt not to press our ponts too strongly in the carly
make it hetter. The people who object most violently to the new a/fluence bemg shared
stages of a negotiation, aud then when a crisis anses and we have to rake a dcfnite
liv the inass of mor/aug people are those who are doing exceptionally well out aftise
position we ane accuscd of perfidy. I feel we ought to make it quite clear to our Euro
new capitalisin through tt expense accounts, expensive meals aud otber perks on the
pean fricnds that if Littie Europe is formed without the parallel development of a Frce
company’s account. The expansionist is tbe optimist because be believes in the future.
.

Trade Area we shall have to reeonsider the whole of our political and economic attitude
I/se defiationist is the pessitnist because be fears the future.’
towards Europe.
6
Harolcl Macmillan to James Margach, early 96
i
os.

At this point Macmillan lit the blue touchpaper:

‘I think the miscakulation that I and a lot of other people niade was that we nevei
fdresaw the collapse of British manufacturing industry. f’ve read one or two thin
saying Ihat if be studied the statistics more care(idly mc would have come to a different
conclusion ...I’,n not sure that an’body foresaw iL’
Lord Shcrfield, Amhassador to Washington, 1952—6; Permanent Secretary
to the Treasury 2956—9, reflecnng in a99O.
‘We live in a political age. All round us we see foreign cosnpetition making itsdf :
unpleasant. P. G. Wodehouse, The Clicking of Cuthhert, 922.’
I doubt if we could reinain in NATO. We should certainly pur on highly protcctive
cariffs aud quotas to eounteracr what Littie Europe was doing to us. In orher words, wc
should not allow ourselves to be destroyed littie by littie. We would take our troops out
ni Europe. We would withdraw from NATO. We would adopt a policy of isolationsm.
We would surround ourselves with rockets and we would say to the Germans, the French
aud all the nest of them: ‘Look aften younselves with your own forccs. Look after your.
rjves when the Russians overrun your countries.’
7
This was flappability of a high order. Macmillan knew rhat Britain could no
longen sec itseif as the powcr broker in western Europe.

574 575

L
 IIAV1NG iT SO GOOD WEALTH, POWISR ANt) INFLUENCE

There was, however, always availahlc for British policy-makers the consola.
tion of thc UK now being a thermonuclear-tipped power. Or was there? Just
over a ycar after Macrnillan’s very private outburst against de Gaulle and
Adenauer, it was Eisenhower’s turn.
Macmillan feared the day when thc two superpowers would seize sumnlitry
for themselves alone. In Jiily 1959—Just days before a visit to the UK by the
cenrre, who first alerted the small clandestinc group which was to spend the day
at Chequers on 7 June 1959. Sir Patrick Dean, Chairman of the Joint Intel
ligence Committee, who was to oversee the endre production, receivcd a
letter, on a ‘top secret and personal’ basis, from rhe Cahinet Secrerary at the
nd of May outlining the purpose of the gatbering and explaining that, Tbis
study would be undertaken by officials the Prime Minister does not wish to
—

5 Macmillan sensed this danger acutely, as be confided to his

US President —

be troubled with it at this stage and it is contemplated rhat its results should
—

diarv: be available, in the form of a report or reporrs, for consideration by Ministers

My own position hre will be grcatly wcakcned. Evcryonc wiIl assume that the z Great
at the end of the year, preferably in the late autumn.’° Thougb they were to
Powers Russia and thc USA are going to fix up a deal over our heads and beh
—
— d
r
1 dine with tbe PM, it would not, said Brook, ‘be neccssary to bring a dinner
our backs. M wholc policy pursued for many years and especially during my Premier.
—
3 (Brook was a stickler for ‘correct’ atrire, frowning on tweeds in the
jacket’.’
office, for example.’
)
4
ship a close alliance and co-operarion with Amcrica will be undermined. People will
—

ask Wh should thc UK try to tay in the hig garne?’

Maemillan summed up the June session in his diary:
Why should she be a nuclear power? You rold us that this would ve vou power
and authority in ihe world. But you arid mc Isici have becn made fools of. This shows
I All day conference at Chequers on
paper —
Fitture British [‘olje-i”. The idea was to draw up a
for thc use of the next Government. The first part would try ro assess ‘The Set
ihat Gaitskell and Crossman and Co arc righr. UK had better give up ihe struggie and ting’ what is likcly to happen in the world during the ncxt To ycars. The second part
—

accept, ss graceluliv as possible, the posinon of a second-rate power.’

9 svould deal with ‘UK’s resources’ the gross national product; the calls for expenditurc
—

Graceful acccprance of deeline from the top table to outer nng was some on Penaions, Education. Dcfencr etc. wh are more nr less incscapable. The rhird part
svould be about ‘The Objectives’ what Foreign, Commonwealrh and Colonial and
thing neirher Macmiflan the gownsman nor Macmillan tbe swordsma&° could
—

Eeonomic policies wc ought to follow. Today’s meeting was to agrec the skcleron thc
hear to contemplate. (Maernillan the penman appeared to have gone tempo —

,encral outline of the work and to cast thc parts. It is hopcd to do the job in 3 or 4
rarily AWOL.) It was ro find ways of averbng tbis fate that he bad, in grea
—

months. We had Sir Norman Brook, Sir R. Maidns (Treasury), Sir F. I loyer-Millar and
sl-crecy, summoncd his senior officials, diplornats and military (but not a single
Sir Pat Dean (FO), Sir R. Powell (Defeuce), Sir W. Diclcson (Chief of Defcnce Staff) and
ministerial collcague to Chequcrs thatJune Sunday in 1959. When be flnally
tht Chiefs of Staff or thcir deputics. The meetings began at 11.30 and continued
ler his full Cabinet into the secret at rhc end of February 1960 he told them,
—

nu about 7. I gave ihem all luncheon and dinner.’

5
In June of last vear I held an informal meeting at Chcquers to discuss the possihihty of
Givcn Deaji’s central casting as chairman of the group assigned to do the
making a long-rangc study of our oversea [sjel pohcy during thc ncxt decade. My idc l
work, his minister, Lloyd, bad to be told whar was up. This Macmillan did in
was that wc should try to forecast what the state of the world would be mn 1970 and
what role thc United Kingdom would be able to play in I thought that. if they had
ir. .
16 Jr feil to Dean to put rbe frighrencrs on everyone
i minute rhree days later.

çlse, warning them on 2.3 June that: ‘It is important that the fact tbat tbis
this picture hefore them, Ministcrs would be better able to formulate policies for
intervening ycars which would allow US to play a significant part in world affairs.
’
1 rcise is in should not beeome widcly known. Ir would be upser
progress

Thc Future Policy Study, or FPS, outstrips in its dctail and reach any eom
parable review of the UK’s place and prospects in the world I have ever
encountered. It inakes a fascinating control against which to judgc what a_
I ting
Deparrments
for Whirehall generally if thev
in
the that a
got

radieal review of policy was in train withour their knowlcdge, and ir could of
course be positively damaging if such an impression got abour in publie and
rcaehed the ears e.g. of the US 7
imprcssion

Governmenr.” Need-to-know was tbe key.

ally happcned in the 196os, ss I shall be doingin the successorvolume tod \Vhen in doubt, Dean sbould be consulred.
15
one. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the ‘questions’ paper diseussed ar Chequcrs (to
Predictably it was Sir Norinan Brook, the arch flxer at the Whitehall ep

which Maenullan referred in his diary) was appended to tbe formal minure

d
57
577
 HAVING ST 50 GOOD
of the meeting,’
9 ciassified top secret and distribured to a very narrow cirele
Had it leaked (which it did not though Don Cook of the New York Herald
—
Tribune, a seasoned journalist with excellent London contaets, got hold of
the outline story by ‘osmosis ratber than a “leak”’ in July 196020) it wouJ
have been quitc a scoop. Its dcgree of candour abour the UK’s position ji
that prc-election period would have made a stark contrast to the govcrnment’s
smug theme of ‘Peace and Prosperity’, especially its sections on The Ohjec.
rives’ and ‘The Means’.
21
Strategically important questioris were posed, such as ‘What is the future
ofAnglo-American interdependence? What differing degrees of emphasis may
we have to set on maintaining our relations with the USA, with Europe, and
with the 22Commonwealth?’ Some questions reprised the 1957 in-house
debate on how best to sustain influence in the UK’s colonies and former
domains. l’hc nuclear question bad a central place:
What would be the effeets of discontinuance of nudear tests, and the aehievement of
nuclear sufflcicncy? IF (a) the Soviet Union and (b) the Western Powers acquire so great
o nudcar capacity that each side is afraid to attaek the other, by what means do we
mainrain this balanee of rensions?
Even pulling out of thc whole business was contemplated:
In those circumstanccs should we still need to make an iiidepend rot contriburion to the
Westcrn dcterrcnt? If so, what form should it take, e.g. should it be on the lines ofBLUE
STREAK CBraish-made, liquid-fuellcd, ground-launched missile rhen under develop
ment], [3LUE STEEL istand-off nsissile to be launehed from the V-bombersj or
POl.ARIS Fthc most advaneed submarinc-launchcd system under dcvelopment in the
USA)? Alternatively, should vie oecd a greater degree of interdependence in this hcIl
—with the USA, or with tke Commonwealth or with Europe? WilI thcrc be a specifically
Europcan contribution ro rhe deterrent, and what ‘.‘ill be our relation to It?
The shadow of Suci was present, too: ‘What commitments, short of global
i in the last decade by the repeated sterling erises: if the UK could maintain a
war, should wc plan to meet, either on our own or in association with allies,
and wbat Forccs do wc need for tbcse purposcs?’
23
But the speerre thar really haunted the Prirne Minister, the officials and the
military men at Chequers thatjunc Sunday was the country’s ability to pay for
continuing to cut a dash in the world. It was ‘Thc Means’ section which, bad
it leaked before ur during the 1959 election carnpaign, would have causcd
the greatest fuss:
578
VEALTH, POWÉR AND INFLUENCE
13. I Iow much of our ecoriomic rcsourees can we rcasonablv t’xpeet to be ahie to
afford to devotc, over this period [i 960—701, to: —
(i) defencc?
lii) assistancc to ihe undcr-devclopcd countries?
(ut) ‘prestige’ civil projccts (tor examplc, aroinie cncrgy, a supcrsonie airlincr [what
beeairic Concordcj, space rescarch, Cunarders [what bccame tlsc QEJIj)?
Can we rcasonably be cxpccted to be able to: —
(i) maintain the prescnt allocation of money for thesc purposcs?
In) maintain the present proportion of gross national produet?
(iii) incrcase the proportion of gross national produci?
54. Within thesc totals, ean we expcet to be able to mainrain or incrcase thc levd
of
overseas military ond political expenditure?
15. What ehangcs within
(i) thc United Kingdom ceonomy, Cii) the sterhng
area, ur (iii)
the world eeonomywould invalidate the answers to quescions
13 and 14?’
Ihe early papers prepared by the Treasury, with the help of the Foreign
and Commonwealth Relations Offiecs and the Joint lntelligence Bureau, in
answer to the mindstretehing possibiliries suggested that ‘having it so good’
would not exaetly be tRe leitmotif of the replies to the Chequers questions.
For example a submission to Dean’s Working Group dated 20 July 1959
noted that, for demographie reasons, the UK would ‘slip back’ as an economic
Foree eomparcd to the USA and Western Europe: ‘Wbethcr the declining
relative position of the UK eould be redressed by is breakthrough in produe
nvity cannot be predieted and there is no ground for expceting sueh a
—
development.’ Here the eurreney, as so often, put in a depressing appearanec:
‘UK influencc and eapaeity for independent aetion has been greatly wcakencd
strong external flnaneial position that would niueh improve its relativc
position within the West. ‘n
The Treasury draftsmen were 100 discrcet either to merition the word ‘Suez’
in eonnection with this paragraph or to venture an opinion on the likclihood
of the UK achieving that holy grail of a ‘strong externa] financial position’ at
any point between 1960 and 1970. Money and the eapaeiry of the UK econ
omy cast a dark shadow over the entiré Future Policy Study exercise
and 50
did the nuclear question in the form of the eapability, utility and
cost of the
British deterrent. A surprisingly large proportion of the vcry first discussion
579
 IIAVING 1T SO G000
at Chequcrs was taken up by it and the one area of minuted disagreerne
— po\Ver. The argument was couehed in the language of cost—benefit analysis
in the final report was ahout the power and the purposes of the UK’s nuclcar
forcc.
When the ‘qucstions’ paper was discussed at Macrnillan’s ‘sizing and shap.
ing’ Chcquers session, the bomb dominated, starting with the ‘Theory of the
\Vestern I)eterrenr’. Macmjllan and his politico-niilitary advisers were wefl
aware of the differences between 1951 (when the Conservativcs had returned
to power and Churchill discovered how far advanced was Mr Attice’s atotnjc
wcapons programme) and 1959. As thc minutes put it:
lh policy of the dctcrrcnt was first evolvcd whcn thc West bad a clcar nudear superi.
ority, which was regarded as a mcml of deterring Russia from starting a major war. In
thc statu of nuclear parity, which we bad virtuaHy reached atready, both sides wete
cqually deterrcd ftom doing anything whicb might start nuclear war. Was this balance
to our advantage, and if so, could it be maintained? Would it, neverthcless, permit or
evcn encourage a wbolc range of minor hosule actions and encroachrnents?
With uncanny prcscience. thc mccting anticipatcd the Cuban crisis of
autumn 1962. when the Sovjet Union, miscalculanng likely American reac
rions.hcgan to construct njissile sites on the island which. had thev remained,
would have brought thc hulk of the United Status’ citics and military bases
within range of Russian nuclcar wcapons:
The political effect of nuclcar parity might be to cause the Russians to believe that the
American arca of vital interest would be increasingly reduced. But wc should expccr to
see more acove Communist cconomic and political penetration, plaving on the fears
and divisions of the \Vest under cover of nucicar parity. Tbe state of nucicar pantv
would tbus seem to givc a real advantage ro the side which was ready to take risks in
aruas of marginal intercst to the otber side Nuclcar parity migbt make it harder for
tbc West effectivcly to counter Soviet probes and minor encroachments outsidc
26
Furopc.
The Chequers group also anticipated a problem that was to vex the White
hall nuclear wcapons community from the mid- to late 1960s the possibility
—
of n effeetive anti-ballistic missile’ system being developed. (The UK, as we
have seen, was still developingits own ballistic missile, Blue Streak, in 1959;
in thc late i 96os thc first of the Royal Navy’s ballistic-missile earrying Polaris
submarines werc starting their patrols.)
The central question hovering over Chequers that Sunday was whether
Britain should continue the huge effort required to sustain itseif as a nuclcar
580
WEALTFI, I’C)WER ANO INFLUENCE
rarher than that of a(truism and moral economy favoured by the Campaign
for Nuclcar Disarmament. This part of the Chequers discussion opened with
a statement as bold as it was unprovablc: ‘In terms of foreign policy the Brit
ish contribution to the Western deterrent had paid a handsome dividend up
to now, bot we should have to consider wlsether ir would continue to do
Wlsat was thjs ‘handsome dividend’? A place at the top table? Thcre was
every chance of a summit, with Britain present, in the eoming year. Thc res
toration in 1958 of nuclear weapons collaboration wirh the USA? The minures
give no clue.
Bot eould Britain sustain its rclative position as a nuclear playcr? It might
be ‘that by 1970 Sovjet and American nuclear power would be so great as to
dwarf our own nuclear capahility; rhe credibility of our own detcrrent would
then be significantly redueed. On the other hand, baving paid thu entranue
fee to the nuelear elub, we could not easily witFidraw, more parrieulariy when
otbers, e.g. the French, were likely to join jr.’
28 (France tested its first atomic
bomh in 1960 and its thermonuclear wcapon in 1968.)29
That entrance fee’ to restored collaboration with the Americans had caused
Macmillan great worry and exertion and bad involved a degreu of subter
—
fuge. Maemillan regarded ending the application of the McMahon Act to the
USA’s primary Secotid World War nuclear partner, after twclve years of non
cooperation, as ‘the great prize’.
° Nothing was to stand in the way of winning
3
it. ‘Wben Eisenhower reassured Macmjllan and showed
him his draft directjve
authorizing the resumption of tcehnical talks about nuclem- collaboration at
the Wlsite House on 2.4 October 1957, be ‘could hardly helieve [hisl cars’.’
3
There was probably a flurry of covert anxiety concealed by his overt pleasure
— or, two anxieties, to be precise.
Firstly, ‘the entrance fee, which rcquired the British government to dem
onstrate irs own home-grown capacity to produce a megaton hydrogen bomb,
bad still not been mer in full. The first thernsonuelear test in the South Pacjflc
on 15 May 1957 bad produced a yield of 300 Icilotons, just 30 per eent of
ihe megaton standard
32 (though the world was told Britain was now an H
homb target power ). A biggcr hang Ofl 31 May (betwcen 700 md 8oo
33
lolotons) was produced by an enhanced fission weapon, not a fusion (or rher
monuclear) device.
5 The first megaton British thermonuclear bomb (an
improved versjon of thc device detonated on 15 May) was tested successfully
on 8 November i957 off Christmas Island (eodenamcd Grapple X, jr
aehieved
8i
 1TAV1NG iT SO GOOD
1.8 megatons —scventy-fivc times more powerful than tbe British atomie
device detonated off Australia just over five ‘cars earlier) rwo weeks after
Eisenhower bad delighted Macmillan in the White House with his draft pro
posal for restored collaboration.
There was another coilcern in Macmillan’s mmd that day in Washington.
On Thursday 10 October 1957 the graphite core in plutonium pilc no. i ar
Windscale in Cumberland bad caugbt fire.36 I shall never forget Lord Plo.
den, Chairman of tbe Atomic Energy Authority, reliving for mc the decisjon
that bad to be taken thc following day abour extinguishing the fire, raging at
over 400 degrees centigrade.
3 Dousing the pile with water risked triggering
a vast explosion scattering highly toxic and irnmensely persistent contai-nina.
tion tinn would have made the Lake District a hazardous wasteland wefl into
this ccntury.
38 Bur there was no otber option. The hoses worked. The follow.
ing da)’ pile no. r was cold ind an environmental catastropbe bad been
averted’.°
It was, neverthelcss, a serious incident, and not witbout repercussions. i
cari remember watehing cinema newsreels of milk pouring from ehurns into
I, clrains in Cumberland and Wesrmorland for fear that it bad beeomc contam
inated with radioacuve iodine.
° An inquiry was inevitable. Tbe hugely
4 since the British design whieh yielded i.8 mcgatons that day bad bcen aban
cxpericnccd Sir William Pennev was suminoned aud be svorked fast. His com
mittec made sevure eriticisrns of techmcal, organizational and managcriai
failings ar ‘iXiindscalc.°
Thc Pcnney Report reached Macinillan on z8 October 1957, the dav after
hc returned frons his talks with Eisenbower in Washington. He was alarmed.
There was a clamour in Parliarnent, not least from Hugb Gaitskell, for Penney
ro be published in fulle Plowden and the Atomie Energy Authority lobbied
43 However, Macmillan was not persuaded. He wrote in his diary for
similarly.
30 Octobcr 1957:
Edwin Plowden (Atomie Energv Aurhority) callcd in a stare of great emotion about
—
—
the report on thc accident ar Windscalc. He wanrs to offer his resignation. I dissuaded
him ss best I cd. But the problem rcmains ho’ are we to deal with Sir W. Penny’s
—
[sic] reporr It bas. of course, brun prepared wirh scrupulous honesty and even ruthless
riess. Ir is just such a report ss the hoard of a company might expcct to ger. But ro
publish ro thc world (esp. to the Americans) is another thing. The publication of the
report. ss ir stands, might put in jeopardy our ehancc of gerring Congress ro agree to
the I’rcsidenr’s proposal [for tbc restoration of US—UK nuclcar 44
collaborationj.
In the event, the government published a White Paper in November
8z
WEALTH, POWER AND iNFLUENC
jth the Penney Reporr, shorn of ncarly half its paragraphs, among its conclu
sjons and 45
reeommendations.
Renewed transatlantic co-operation bad not, in the event, been jeopardized
by Windscale. Grapple X in November reassured ministers that the Churchill
Cabinet’s decision ofJuly 1954 bad heen implemenred. On 30 June 1958
congress approved changes to the US Atomic Energy Act which permitted
Anglo-American nuelear eo-operation oncc more. 46 Two months later British
d American weaponeers hegan serious discLissions.
47 Desigris wcre shared;
rechniques pooled. Edward Teller, the great hrooding irirelleet behind rhc US
hydrogen bomb, told his British oppositc numbers thar, after twelve years of
separation, it was obvious that the laws of physies operated on both sides of
the Atlantic.
48
Yer a majoriry of thosc at Chequers on 7 Junc would have appreciated rhe
verv real problems that continuccl to affliet the UK’s nucicar weapons pro.
gramme despite the ‘grcat prize’ of restorcd eollaborarion 00W resting on
Macmillan’s manrelpiecc. For example, it would not have been lost on them
thar the huge effort required to get from the Cabinet deeision ofJuly 1954
ro Christmas Island in November i bad been expended largely for naughr,
doned in favour of the berter-engineered American Mark zS weapon once
the British scienrisrs bad fully absorbcd rhc charactcristics of thc US kit after
49 (A British versjon of it
getring aceess to it. — eodenamed ‘Red Snow’ was
—
later used in the UK free-fall H-bomb known as ‘Yellow Sun Mark JJ’.)uO
Plowden, Brook and thc Chicfs of Staff, as well as PoweIl from the Ministry
of Defenee aud Makins from tbe Treasury, would have been aware of thc grow
ing doubrs about rhe viability of rhe liquid-fuellcd Biue Streak as a suceessor
system to the V-bombers (its eosts were rising aud it took far longer to make
ready for flighr than the solid-fuelled missiles heing developed by the Americans
and the Russians, making ir very vulnerable to pre-emprivc strikes
). Keeping
51
Ernie Bevin’s ‘bioody UnionJack on top of jr’ was going to be tough and eosrly,
even with thc help of the Americans’ nucicar wcapons laboratories.
These anxieties were eandidly eneapsulated in a Foreign Offiee paper pre
pared in Oetober—November 1959 as part of rhe Future Policy Study ahcad
of a speeial session of its steering committee on nuelear deterrent policy sehed
uled for early December. Jr suggested that from the latest work on weapons
.
sysrenis underway in Whitehall, it ‘seems likely to emerge that an effective
independent UK deterrent eould probably be aehicved fl 1970 by airborne
1957 ur sca-borne launehed missiles, and rhat a nuclcar foree eomposed of land-
583
 1-IAVING IT SO G000
hased missiles [such ss Blue Streakj could not then be relied upon to detet
a 5
Russian attack’.
52 In fact, within months, in Mareb/April 1960, the British.
made Blue Streak rocket was abandoned on grounds of cost and vulnerabflity
in favour of thc stand-off Skyholt missile the US was developing, which
coujd
be fitted to the RAF’s V-bomhers.
Kccping the Union Jack on it would, the Foreign Office warned, probably
be even harder in the last guarter of thc twentieth century:
Looking beyond 1970, it is perhaps worth noting tbat, because of thc rapidky of lech.
nological advance, it can b no means be certain that a deterrent force which
was
ctfective in1970 wnuld snu be effectivc in 1975 ur 1980. In particular, il scems highly
probable ihat, by 1980, the Russians will have greatly improved their ABM [anti.balljstjc
missile] defcnces. In seems therefore equally probable that, in order to maintaii-i an
effcctive deterrcnt over the ycars, the UK would have to spend incrcasingly vaat suj
prusurnably at thc expensc of our othcr activities in defencc aud even of the Welfarc
State at home.
53
So, could it be a choicc, by the end of thc twentieth century, betwcen Bv
eridge and the bomh?
What to advise Macmiflan and his ministers in the final report? Was this
thc moment to pull out of rhe business? \X/ere thc hard rcaiities of Britajn’s
economic and technical positlons about to make nuclear disarmers of thens
all? Whcn Norman Brook’s mectlng of military chiefs and permanent secre
tarics sat down on the morning of 4 December 1959 to pondet Britain’s
atomic future, the CN D option was dealt wirh swiftly and easily. partly because
the old 1945 dream of international control of the bomb was even less feasible
than when Attlce’s GEN Cabinet Committee bad considcred it: ‘There
was general agreement on thc disadvantages of a policy of unilatera] British
nuclear disarmament and that we should rctain our position as a nuclear
powcr. ir was noted that new processes bad been found for rhe manufacture
of fissile material which would make any system of international control much
more difficult to opcratc.’
4 rent should be in ordet to perpctuate the position of equipoise.
Plainly the crown servants in and out of uniform could not envisage thc
UK playing a significant role in the world without a nuclear weapons capacity
ofsome kind. But how mueh British kit was rcquired to deter the Soviet Union?
And how much was nceded to influence the United States? On these points.
the higgest disagreement of thc future policy exercise arose.
As in 1940, the Royal Air Forcc stood alone. Sir Dermot Boyle, thc Chief
of the Air Staff (the man who thought Eden had ‘gone bananas over Suez),
584
WEALTH, POWER ANn INFLUENCE
as the only participant to make the case for large-scale dererrence. Peter
v
Rarnsbotham, the senior diplomat whose Foreign Office team provided a sub
stantial input into the srudy, recalled that at the 4 Deceinber meeting ‘Boyle
was wrappcd up in the Union Jack’,
15 and his minutc recording the discussion
,nptures Boyle’s Bevin-like insistence that the homb should indeed continue
to have a Union Jack on top of il:
st DERNOT ROlLE said that he felt our influenec in the world would be greater if
-
wc maintaincd an independent nuclcar detc’rrent, eapablc throogh thc next len ycars
of infiteting unaeceptable damage on Russia, than if we mercly provided is eontnibu
tion to the Wcstcrn deterrent. In any event it was csscntial that we should have
compktc positive control aud not inercly a right of veto over thc usc of our nuclear
forces. He did not acccpr that the independent deterrent necd cost more than a
contrihution . .
His peers were not so hullish or so sanguine about thc ‘Union Jack’ option.
Norman Brook caughr the dominant mood in his characteristicaily polishcd
summing up, declaring,
there was unanimous agreement that, while we should not adopt a policy of unilateral
.
njjclcar dtsarmsnient. we coiiid not hope to have straregic nuc!ear forces sufficient to
take on Russta on our own. Thc Chief of the Air Staff thought rhat we could, on our
own, maintain without undue cost a deterrent that would deter the Russians from attack
ing us and that in this way we could cxercise the greatest influcnce in world affairs.
Bot the Steering Commiuce Ss a whole took thc vicw that in thc workl-widc eco
nomic and military struggie over the next ten ycars, no one counny, not even the United
Staten, could on its own prevent the position of the Frce World being erodcd by the
Russians, and later by ihe Chinese ss welJ. Thercfore we must think incrcasingly in terms
of alliances in all our cfforts, military ss well as political and economic, and we must
use our nuclear skill and capacitv in the way best calculated to contribute [ml thc West’s
conrainmcnt of the threat. We should considcr what the sizc and narure of the detcr
57
Boyle sustained his solo flight till thc end. The Cabinet paper containing
Ise finai report stated in its concluding section dealing with ‘The Strategic
Nuclear Deterrent’ that: ‘Our purpose should be to maintain a strategie nuclcar
force wbich is accepted by the Americans, and by the Alliance as a whole, as
a signiflcant contribution to the Western deterrent... This would not mean
-
except in the view of one of those associared with this study) that we were
asming to provide a force capable by itseif of dcterring Russia.’
58
 HAVING IT SO G000
Brook explained his Lise oF the word ‘equipolse’ in his elegant dismissal of
the Boyle case in the final report, rcfcrring to the ‘position of nuclear equipois
[whicbj will sbortly be reached bctwecn thc Americans and the Russians whe
caeb side can desrroy the other and when no real purpose would be served
59 The UK sceking to
by adding to the strilcing power of the opposing forces’.
maxirnize its influence in a world of menacing equipoise was perhaps a delu.
sion that deformed the whole exercise.
The opcning section of the final document (it was completed at the end of
February 1960) rubbed in the price Britain and the other European powers
bad paid for thcir civil war of 1939—41 which triggered the world war of
194 1—5. Pre-cminencc bad gone, probably for ever, to the two great global
powers. In the UK’s case, its residual Empire and its growing Commonwealth
would do nothing to rectify thc imbalance. In fact,
ihe United Statcs and thc USSR wili increase their already formidable lead over the
rcst of the world; ihe United Kingdom and Western Europc will continue to gro;
thougb more slowly; by contrasr, the under-developed countries with their rapidly
cxpanding populations and rclatii’ely inert economies, will be hard pur to it ro advance
at all, and some may bli still further behind than they are now. Economic growrh in
0cr COlOnifS ma.. howvrr. continue ar a liithr1v hgher rare than that at which ihe
poptilation increascs. Non of thc under-dcvelopcd countries, with thc possible excep.
tions of China and India, are likely ro develop a significant industrial base.
°
6
For a country, and a Prime Minister, used to ‘rop table’ status (not least at the
Paris summit due in ten wceks’ time) rhc wider picture was sombre.
The narrowcr one of the UK and its European neighbours and compara
tors was little better: ‘Thc Europcan Economic Community is of immense
potcntial importancc. Their aggregatc industrial power is probably grearer
than that of the USSR and if they continue to grow at their recent pace they
will approach and perhaps reach thc present United States level by 1970. IF,
thcrefore, thc “Six” achieve a real measure of integration a new world power
will have come on the scene.’
61
Though the rcport did not speil it out, the inessage of that paragraph was
in neon: the Commonwcalth/Empire was now no longer serviceable as a
magnifier of Britain’s relative power in the world; a leading role inside a com
ing world power just across thc Channel could be. The following paragraph
Even Maonillan, who commisioned vhat wc would now call thc realiiy chcck’ whic[i the 1959—60
swcly represented. was, in Peter Rarnsbothams ‘new when I interviewed him injune zoo5, vulncrable
here. ‘Macnsillan’, he said, was fl dreamcr. Hr drearnt positivnly one day we wiIl recoser!’
— Cassandra role:
586
WEALT1-i, POWER AND INFLUENCE
ranimed the point home: ‘Evcn if the United Kingdom’s economy expands at
he rate required to “double the national income in a years” (z.8 per cent
per annum), we other groups. Though in
shall fall still furthcr behind the
absolute terms our economic resources should grow significantly, our relative
position vis-à-vis both the United States and Western Europe will ncverthcless
decline.’
2
The framers of the Future Policy Study, like thcir readers, were wcll aware
that the size of a country’s economy was but part of the story; a key qucstion
was how much of the nation’s wealth governments, parliaments and people
(where all three mattercd, not just the government) were prepared to see con
verted into the instruments of international influence.
To supplement the report, the Treasury produced a table detailing, ycar by
year, the proportion of its wcalth Britain bad spent since 1948 in support of
its ‘overseas policies’ in iggregate’ (i.e. ‘defence, economic aid, diplomatic
expenditure, the overseas information and cultural services, civil defence,
). It showed, in so far as any set of figures can, the price of sustaining a
63
etc.’ ‘1
serious place in the world at a time of Cold War plus imperial retreat with
between and 12.3 per cent of the national product flowing into its sus
tenance (see table overleaf).
Even if, the Whitehailcrysrai-gazerswarned, thc UKwas willing to continuc
pouring such a bigh proportion of its resources into its defence and overscas
efforts in the 1960S, relarive decline by 1970 was assured:
The economic, military and political pull wbich fl state can exert in the world in peacc
time should be measured not so much by its total resources an by ihat part of thcm
which in Government and people are prepared to use for defence and othcr interna
tional purposes. Viewed in these terms, only thc Unitcd States (because of her enormous
resources) and the USSR (because although her resourccs are smaller ti greater propor
tion of thcm are ar the Government’s disposal) have the srrength ro provide and sustain
ti complete power apparatus.
6
Macmillan would almost cerrainly have known rhat Part II of thc Futzire
Polic:y Study dealing with ‘The Resources of the United Kingdom’ would have
been minted by his least favourite department, I M Treasury. In fact, thc driv-
66 Even allowing for the Trcasury’s
ing force behind ir was Otto Clarke.
hahirual pessimism, Macmilian and his ministerial colicagues would have
found this section compounded the growing gloom. It did rccognize a dash
of ‘having it so good’, howcver, before resuming its customary Treasury
587
 WEALTH, POWER AND INFLUENCE

The national economy has recovered well sincc the war. Our industrial md
techno
0 14
S0
0 1 ss logical resources arr stronger and lietter attuned to world demand than form
cc 0 verv long
14 time perhaps even sLncc the carly ycars of rhe cenrury. The prospects for
economic
—

0 growth in the nexr decade provide a fair cxpectation that the gyoss
14 av cc v nanonal product in
1970 will be significanrly higher than in 19 5947
‘0
14
0
-3
‘-----i
r Now came thc rub:
00 ‘0 1<
‘fl ‘.0 cc 5’

H
o
5’
There are internal risks as well as cxternal — thr United Kingdom cannor claim to have
‘.0 0 4’- 0
S0 4— 0 solved the problem of combining full employment and rapid cconom
‘fl ic growth with
5’
14 >. nternal price srabihty. In order to rom our living as a rclatnvely smal ler powcr,
.
suhjecr
to the danger thar capital and skilled resourccs wiIl be attracred ro the greater aggiom
-

jr 0 cc el 0 0
0 0’ 00 cc -i 0
0’ ‘0
erations of rconomic resourccs, we have to show greater adaptability and
5’
readiness to
change our traditional practlces ihan in the pasr.
-‘4
0’ 5’
‘fl
1’-
14
el
0 0
i 11
How easy would ir be to wrest what one might call a place-i
n-thc-world
4’.
0
chvidend from a less than world-dass domestic cconomy in the 1960s?
‘4-3
‘fl I-. ‘.0 The
av ‘fl 14
‘resources’ section of the Future Policy Study saw overload and
0’
s0
05’
5’
difficulty
immediately ahead:
cc 0
‘3. 5’ 0
0: .3-
ii the nexr five years ...rhcre arr no dcclining puhlic programmes to make room for
«0
c the cxpanding ones. The dfencc and overseas claims arr expanding; public
0
00 cc 4-1
cc investment
0 0 is cxpanding; education and health and public
4-I
services generally arr expanding. Thesc
11 arr all good claima, and recently there has brun a succession of new ones,
0 0 0
0 -—
such as a
ci
1) 0
cc
0
4’- greatly expanded road programme [and] if the defence and aid programmes were
.“
0’
carried outwithour the necessary moderation in private and public spending,
11 thc impact
0:4 4-fl 14 .3- 0 000
ru svould fall on the balance of payments and on sterling. This is invariably
‘3- ‘.0 4-fl ‘3- ‘0 thc consequcnce
0’ I— cc
o ovcrloading the economy with large and inflexible comml
19 tmenrs.
0 —
cc .9
S0 0
In the Cabinet Office committee rooms, where the Future Policy
-
0.
0 w
cc 0: st
0 51
0 Study was
5’
pieced rogether, the British New Deal was creaking audibly a mere
- 9. decade
1105’
0 0 and a half after its creation.
Macmillan’s Cabinet (which was entirely male in 1960) had all
41 Ef come to their
0 0.53 formation during one or both of the world wars and the economic slump

III
which
41-’
0
disfigured many of the years between the conflicts. Standing alone in 1940—
41
and victory in i were memories both powerful and relativcly recent. Nonc

LOF2
0
II
-- 4-
9
-
9

-
of rhem was minded to contemplate a Scandinaviari

ofCoventry opened in November 1959.

or Netherlandic future for

Thc first motorway prograrnnie svas underway. Macmillan had opcned

thc Preston by-pass, in Decernber 0958. A substantial stretch of
a tiny scction of the M6,
the Mi from near Watford to west

589
 i-IAViNG iT SO GOOD
I I,
\VEALTI-i, POWE1S AND 1NFLIJENCE

Ris country. TRe eleven ‘general conclusions’ of tRe report spared their feelin
got hold of the document in draft before its circulation as a Cabinet paper.
to a dcgree noticeably out of line with the rclativc rigour of tRe anaiysis
which On 19 February 1960 be minutecl Macinillan personally tbat be found sonie
Rad preceded it. Bullets remained unbitten, not least on Europe.
aspects of the Fuwre Policy Study 1960—70 somewhat disappointing and
Churchillian geonsctry constructed tRe mentai framework of tRe eleven rnefl
depressing’. He thought the analysis lacked n appraisal of the economic
who put thcir signature to tRe document on Z4 Fehrua’ 1960:
effects of past and future developments in science and technology’ and failed
ihr corc of our policy is tRe Atlantic Alliancc. Our main task n tRe nexr decade
wjlj to appreciate the possibility that scientific investment in tRe 1950S might
be to maintain and make more intirnatc thc association between North America,
the
feed through as higher productivity in the 1960S plus thc fact that it was
United Kingdom aud the continental countrics of Westeru E.urope. Wc must
dierefore ‘well known that new techniques of computation and automation will be
work to ensurc continuation of the United States presencc in Europe, effecnve jcreasingly applied’Y
c
opcration between oursclvcs aud tRe eontinenral counrrics, aud tRe development Heathcoat Amory, to whom Hailsham’s minute was copied, sent a
vidc
ofa
and political communiry of interests embracing both tRe Uniteci States
ec000mic
-i TreasUrY.tlrafted rejoinder rightly pointing out that I-lailsham’s equation of
and Western Furope. scicnce plus technology plus investment equals everitual productivity
We must do all wc can to strcngthert tRe Comtnonsvcalch, which can be a ncreases and improved economic growth was excessively simplc. He agreed
1
vali
abl instrument or rnaintaining our influence as a Power with world-svide interesrs stad that with a ‘higher volume of industrial investment, and a more favourable
for propagating our ideas and idcals, aud can form a bridge between tRe Western world artitude by industry to technological change, there could certainly be a basis
and tRe devcloping countries of Asia and Africa.
75 for faster growth. But a large part of the working population is in service
activities which are not susceptiblc to increased productivity in any ordinary
The sustenancc of such a world role, however, would depcnd on many people
sense.’ Amory also stressed the need ‘to bear in mmd that a large part of
at home and ahroad being persuaded to sec things the way the British
our scientific and technological effort is engaged upon dcfence and similat
political, administrative and militaiy ciasses did a huge proviso.
—

projects which are not intcnded to yicld an economic return

Firstly, the Qucen’s subjccts and taxpayers would have to be prepared to
With hindsight, Hailsham was rigbt about tRe eventual impact of the dcc
scc 81/1 per cent of the Gross National Product now devoted to defcnce, aid
rronic revolution wbicli, a quarter of a century later, began to have a profound
and other overseas activities’ continue to be deployed on those purposes. The
British public. too, would have to restrain its appetites for public and private
3 transforming cffcct on the productivity of many service industries. In the
re;oinder to Amory which Hailsham sent Macmillan, the Minister for Science
spending to heed the call for restraint’ from ministers. Abroad, the UK
and Technology had a sense of this. ‘At the moment’, be told the Prime Min
work incrcasinglv with and through our friends and allies’ as the ‘abiirv of the
ister and the Chancellor of tRe Exchequer, ‘it is an unpleasant fact that in [sjel
United Kingdom to play its full part in ineeting the commitments of the West
this fleld of civil industry is being dragged forward, as it were by ha hair by
over the next decade will largely dcpcnd on the co-operation of our friends
our research expenditure on our defcnce Budgct. I bok forward to thc day
and allies Most of ihem are doing less than thcir fair share and we must
when rnuch larger sums of public money are spent on deveboping tcchnologics
...

make them realise tids arid do more.’

72
which have a primarily or dircctly civil interest. At prcsent we arc only begsn
ihe final section of the Future Policy Study part Pollyanna, part old-style
—

ning to think on these lines. It is for this reason that I have returned to
public school housemaster simply dicl not do justice to rhe paragraphs which
—

ntervene in the discussion.’

7
preccdcd it. Yet it was thosc passages of tough reality which secm to have
I doubt if Flailshum was fully briefed in February 1960 OD the latest dcc
struck ministers when they finally reccived the document ratber than the mix
ture of reassuraoce and wishful thinking in its peroration.
Lord I-Iailshain, whom Macmillan bad appointed Lord Privy Seal and .1 tronic R & D in tRe USA. Not docs be seern to have appreciated that both
America and the EEC nations could expect to achieve signiflcant technological
advaoces tj-temselves in tRe 196os which would decrease the cbanccs of a rela
Minister for Science and Technology after the 1959 general election, took
tive improvement in the UK’s position. But, in terms of the naturc and scope
characteristically ebullient exccption to its pessirnism. Hailshani had plainly
of the UK’s aud the advanccd world’s service industries, the transforming

590
59’
 Ir1AVING IT SO GOOD
moment was i a September T 958 in rhe Texas lnstruments’ lahoratory in DaJ.
las. l’bat day a 34-ycar-old obsessccl by the mmiaturization of clectronjc
components called Jack Kilby ‘first demonstrarcd that an integrated circUit
worked’ the silicon chip was about to usurp the age of the transistor lust
—
the transistor bad made obsolete the radio valve in the ycars after 194776
i be humping and grinding between I Iailsham and Amory may be part
of
the explananon of a mystery which stil 1 clings to the Futnre Policy Studv Cab
inct paper. As Dean briefed Sclwyn liovd on rç March 1960, the plan
was
for the full Cabinet ro discuss it over two nieetlngs on 2.3 and 2.5 March’
7 For
somc reason Maemillan pulled it from rhe Cabinet’s agenda over the following
wcek. The paper wenr instead to an ad hoc ‘Meering ofMinisters’, coded EI’.
(for ‘Future Poliuv’) by rhe Cabinet Office, which mer on the late afternoon of
23 March 1960 in the Prime Minister’s Room at rhe House of
Commons, It
consisted of Macmillan and flve other nlinisters (Butler, Home Seeretai-y;
Lloyd; Amory; l-{ome, Commonwcalrh Relarions; and Watkinson, Minister of
78 Perhaps significanrlys Hailsham was not a member of the group,
Defence).
Macmillan gives flO clue in his diary as to why be decided rhe Future Policy
Siudy would be taken by a smaller, special group. The puzzle particularly
intrigued Field Marshal Lord Carver, who as Brigadier Miehael Can’er bad
been the War Office’s military representative at rhe working levd of the Future
Policy Studv. He had bccn posred elsewhere before it was conpleted,
79 but
spent a great deal 0 f time in the carly 19905 trying to get thc whole report
° and investigating why it did not go ro Cabinet7’
5
puhlished
In his 1992 study of British defence poliey since 1945, Carver suggested
rhat the report’s rcalistic attitude to the Commonwealth might have disrurbed
sevcral Conservative ministers as it ‘was not and never would be comparable
as a source of power with the USA or Western Europe. With the right policies
and some luek, it could be useful to us, but sentimenralitv must not blind us
to the facts, and that, in some respects it eould become more of a liabilirv
than an asscr.’
82
Maemillan, in fact, recognized rhe Carver poinr in bis opcning remarks
summarizing the study ar the meeting of ministers on 23 March 1960: At the
same time we sbould try to srrengthen the Commonwealth, the future of
which should not be incompatible with our plaec in the Atlanric Community.
Bur we musr rccognisc that all other groups in the last resort werc subsidiary
to thc Atl-mtic Allianee to developing a wide economic and polirical com
—
munity of interests that embraced both the United States and Westem
3
Europe’
592
WEALTH, POWER AND INFLUENCE
Tbe only dnc as to one of thc reasons the study bad been kept from the
whole Cabinet came in Macnlillan’s vet first words that evening to his FP
group: ‘TI lE PRIME MINISTER said that the Report should provide a
valuable baekground for consideration of oversen sicj policy questions; it did
,ot, however, attcmpr to provide answers to all the problems which it raiscd
and these, when specific decisions were rcquired, would come forward in the
ordinarY course to the Cabinet or the appropnate Cahinet Commjrtee.’
64 In
fact, Macmillan was in his longue durée mode broody, thinking in grand
—
sweeps above and beyond the immediate irritanons, of Brirairm’s waning
tnaterial power amid Cold War and European ec000mie anxieties.
Jr was almost as if be was raking the line of that most perceptivc of Anglo
phile French observers, Raymond Aron, who in a lecrure in London at much
the same time caught the paradox of the moment of decline amidsr prosper
ity: ‘The whole of Western Lurope, including Britain, has lost irs colonies, its
power and its diplomaric presrige, yet jr has never before reached such levels
of producrion and productivity.°
5
In a later passage in rhe same lecture, Aron unknowingly cued in rhe short
burst of eonsoling philosophy wirh which Macmillan opened the discussion
of thc wider significance of the Future Policy Study. ‘Greatness, Aron told
ho listeners, ‘is no longer indissolubly linked to milirary foree, because the
si superpowcrs can 00 longer use their weapons without causing their own
destruerion by way of reprisal, and beeause no sociery oecd rule over others
66 Macmillan, as we saw ar rhe very
in order ro give irs children a decent life.’
: beginning of rhis chapter, decided ro stress thc enduring genius of his coun
rry which bad preeeded its great-powerdom and whieh would ourlast it)° But
not evcryone round rhe Prime Minister’s rable was so sanguinc or SO sen
—
sible. ‘i
Mec Home, the Commonwealth presence in the room, rhought his patch
was underplaycd by rhe Future Policy Study: ‘Without rhe USA wc should
be defeneeless, without Western Lurope we should be poorer, bur withour
the Commonwealth our position in rhe world would rapidly decline. This
88 Watkinson, the Minister
latter consideration deserved greater emphasis.’
of Dcfence, hacked hirn up: ‘Part I seemcd to be more pessimistic rhan rhe
rest of the paper regarding rhc international role we eould play. By working
through our alliances and with rhe Commonwealth we could direetly exert
lcadership in many fields whcre the Free World was in oecd of
89
direction.’
The Chaneellor of the Exchcquer, Amory, would have none of these
593
r HAVING li 50 G000
consoling lullabies. Part I of thc Future Policy Stud’ ‘was not defeatist.
3
indeed in some respccts it was too optimisric’. He ‘could not see how we
could coritinue to carry our present cornmitments overseas, even with the
heip of our fricnds aud allies’. And could these friends and allies really be
persuaded to sce things Britain’s way? For example, ‘it was difficulr to se
at prcsent how wc could enter Europe in order to exercise grearer Ieader
ship tbere: the attitudes of the EEC counrries and of the United States were
not encouraging’.
°
9 not a whisper of the doomsday planning reached thc calibrators of future
But tbe most bizarre contribution was made by the numher rwo figure in
the govemment. Butler may have heen a vacillator/sceptic over Suez, but, less
than four years later, he now wanted to biffJohnny Foreigner irito line: 11-lE
HOME SECRETARY thought the trend of Part I too defeatist. It did no
sufficiently bring out thc possibilities of devclopment of the Commonwealth
and Colonial system. Why should we assume thar we bad to foilow an inevjt
able course in grantirig independence to our colonial rerritories and thus
crcate trouble for ourselves in the Unired Nations?’
As if this parody of Lord Curzon were not enough, the same Butler who
bad found the agcnda of the Messina talks so boring five years earlier flow
wantcd to bring Europc into line as well: ‘The forecasts of the growing srrength
of France aud Gerrnanv aud of rhe EEC Group in Wcstem Europe. carried
serious implications for thc United Kingdom. Should wc not “invade” Europe
aud take thc lead before ir was roo late, thus forestalling the possibilitv of
France adopting isolatjonisr policies with the consequent risk of collapse of
\Vesr European unity?” Quite how the UK should do this, or what instru
ments lay at hand for thc British governnient to so stecr Europe, the minutes
do not record Burler as divulging.
Thc stress of adjusting to straitened circumstances understandably pro
duced moments of private pctulance among ministers. And the Future
Policy Stud-v was much tougher on thcir psyches than rbe post-Suez reviews
of rg
—8 bad hccn. As wc have seeii, Macmillan could exhibir a mixrure of
57
pessimism and resentment at momenis when irritation with allies, amdenes
about thc Cold War aud a sense of waning British power afflicted him. The
1959—60 review discussion took place against the backdrop of a rencwed
Berlin crisis wirh Khrushchcv pushing his running demand, first articulared in
November 1958, that the 1945 victors sign a peace treaty recognizing iwo
separare Germanys, end their milirary occuparion of Berlin aud turn it into a
frce city’. His ninal six-month deadline had turned our to be moveable.
92 Bur,
594
WEALTH, POWER AND 1NFLUENCE
as we have scen, Macmillan lived in fear that the rolling Berlin crisis might
35 This continued to be his chief
trigger a thermonuclear Third World War.’
motivation for pressing on hoth the American and Soviet lcaderships the need
for a summit.
About the time be was setting up the Future Policy Study, Macmillan,
“ secretlY aud quite separately from its options, was also confronting his worsr
fear the consequences of nuclear war. Brook, narurally, was involved, but
—
policy. On Friday 5 June 1959, the day before he set off for Chequers and
the weekcnd rhat launched rhe FPS, Macmiflan presided over a mixcd Cahinet
Committee in No. to, GEN 684, which reviewed the readiness of the single
ost secret Cold War installation in the UK, the ‘emergeney Governmcnt
headquarters in war’. Codenamed ‘Stockwell’ at this stage, it had bcen autbor
ized by Eden in September I955 (and given the apt cover-name of
‘Subterfuge’) in the aftermath of thc Strath inquiry into the effect of ren ro
megaton Soviet hydrogen bombs dropped on the UK. 95 But injune 1959 it
was still in the process of construction beneath Box Hill on tbc Wiltshirc—
Somerserbord
Macmillan’si
96 mmenselysecretgroup er. thatsummcrafternoon
bad to ponder ‘the extent to whicb the Headquarters could be used if an
cmergency arosc in the near future’’
7
In fact, one of tbe last post-Suez reappraisals ro rcach the public domain
was a ‘crash’ review of emergency readiness for a Tbird World War undertaken
by two young officials in the Home Offlcc, Tony Brennan and Dennis Trev
elyan, in the very week in November 1956 that the Suez crisis boiled ovcr.
9 Aud the civil aud home defence position
They found inadequacy all round.
was still worrisonse in the summer of 1959. Macmillan’s GEN 684 group
was the first general revicw by minisrers of thc machinery of government dur
ing aud after a global war since Eden had commissioned tbe huilding of
Subterfuge’/’Stockwell’ deep inside the old Bath stonc quarry.
Macmillan was told that building work should be complctcd on ‘Stockwell’
by the aunimn of 1960 aud full communications installed in 1961—1. If an
cmergency occurred in the meanrimc, the ‘hcadquarters could be manned on
a limited basis in thc near furure’ (there would be room for about 1,500 of
A vicw shared, interesting1 by ihe ‘father’ of dir bru aiomic hombs, Rohert Oppenheinser, who
also said in r961, in an articie titlcd ‘A Time of Sorrow and Renesvai’, that ihosc rcsponsible for
ihe command md conirol of nucicar sveapons ‘have added chance to anger as another cause of
disster’ (Encozmnter, Februsry T961, p. 70).
595
 HAVING IT SO G000
thc planncd 4,000 officials, military and communications staff to accompany
Macrnillan and his Third World \Var Cabinet should Berlin trigger global
conflict in thc meantime).
99
GEN 684 agreed that the constnicting of ‘Stockwell’ should proceed as
planned; ‘that no provision necd be made in advance for the conunued func
tioning of Parliament after nuclear attaek’; and that the
security of STOCKWELL should be most carefully safeguarded and no visits should
be made by Ministcrs or others whose presence might draw atrention to the site. The
present cover story that a last war site was being tidied up would not satisfactori]y
explain constructional and othcr developments later in the year. A new cover story was
being prepared aud would be promulgated as soon as possible.’
Et was.
After several reftnements md help from M1
5 and the Directorate of Forward
Plans, thc Ministry of Defence’s deccption organization, the inquisitive, whether
nativcs ofWhitehall or the West Country curious about the buildiigworkvisib1e
on the surface, were from May 1960 to be told that the ‘site is primarily one of
a number of Post Office centres for internal and overseas communications in
‘var. Part of the remaining accornmodation is being developed as a Standhv
Regional Headquarters while any spacc left over will be used for storage by
’ It bad taken eleven months to work this up three
Governrncnt Departmcnts.’
10 —
months longer than it took to complete thc Future Policy Studv.
But neither the Cold War nor the decay of the remaining British Empire
nor thc European question stood still while thc planners planned and the
deception experts deceived. Over thirty years later SirJohn Coles, when Head
of the Diplomatic Service, sent for the FPS files and was struck by the difficulty
his prcdecessors bad in knowing quite what to do wth it. ‘This’, he wrote,
‘was strategic and long-terrn planning at the highest levd, for Macmillan bad
elearly intended intensivc Cahinet discussion at a later stage. The struggie to
define clear ailns for overseas policy continued but the problem of choice
apparcntlv remained intractablc for the authors of this document.”°
2 snobbery when it carne to men be disliked on regarded as humbugs. In that
The world was simply too molten and British power too diminishcd in
1960 for the opposition ofevents’ (as Macmillan liked to put it to distinguish
them froni thc parliamentary Opposition facing him across thc floor of the
) to be malleable, however powerful the ministerial and
House of Commons
103
official grev cells devoted to coping with them. Et is to Macmillan’s credit,
howcver, that for all his proneness to gloom, he did not cease to seek ways,
596
WEALrl-I, POWER AND INFLUENCE
as be expressccl it in the ‘Note’ to Cahinet colleagues be attached to thc frnal
FPS report, ‘to formulate policies for tbe intetvening ycars [19 60—70] whicb
svould allow us to continue to play a significant part in world affairs’.’°
4
In fact, be was in Africa in the throcs of just such an enterprise as the final
toucbes wcrc being put to the FPS by its framers. The trip was intcndcd to be
the sequel to his Commonwealth tour ofJanuary—Fehruary 1958 through
India, Pakistan, the Far East and Australia. But a great deal had bappened
within the residual territorial Empire in the meantinle: 1959 was the moment
when the rush to decolonjze over the next five years (between 1960 md r964
seventeen British colonies mostly in Africa gained independence) could
—
—
be fully sensed in Whitehall for the first time.
155
Macnsillan was a natural wooer of rniddle opinion. Part of his brain was
filled with a finely tuned electoral calculator (a piece of human technology of
which Lord I lailsham would undoubtedly have approved). The African factor
vorried him, especially the impact of the atrocities at the Hola Camp in Kenya
where Mau Mau suspccts were detained. During a not Ofl 3 March 1959,
eleven inmates wcre beaten to death by warders.
Imperial questions (rathcr like the European question in the t99os) also
had a considerable capacity to split intra-Conservative opinion. With hus
Colonial SecretaryAlan Lennox-Boyd considering resignation over thc Kcnyan
authorities’ handling of the Hola atrocit°
6 Macmillan spent a great deal of
June—July 1959 on Africa in general and stiffening Lennox-Boyd in particular.
On 4 Junc he noted in his diary:
A most unfortunate incidcnt in one of the Mau Mau camps (only the ‘hard core’ rebels
,snd fanatics remain) has Ut us in difficulties in ParI aud we now have to face a vote of
censure. The Scottish Church is getting worked up about Nyasaland. XVe shall probably
get a bad report frorn Mrjusticc Devlin and his etec. I have sct up an ‘Afnican Ctee’ wh
—
will meet evcry week, to try to work out a policy and givc us a grip on the situation.
I
107
Macmillan was, for all his other, feline qualities, prone to coarseness and
same diary entry for 4June 1959, he wrote:
Gaitskell, Griffiths [Deputy Leader of the Labour Partyl and Callaghan the three mus
—
keteers, a Professor, a Professional Preacher aud an Irish Corncr Boy [in fact, James
Callaghan was a I Iampshire boy who rcpresented a Wclsh constitucncyl came to see
us this afternoon. We have been in negotiarions for a ‘bipartisan approach’ to African
problems. This was thc third meeting. As I expected, their position bad hardened. See
597
r ing norhing clse ro clutch ar
stable —
—
HAV1NG jr so G000
full employmenr ha been restored aud rhe ceonorny is
rhcy cannor resist trying ru cxploit rhc African siruation.’
Yet Macmillan reserved one of his ripest pieces of abuse for the most elo
quent critic of his colonial policies on his own Conservative benches Enoch —
Powell. On 2.4 July, the day the Dcvlin Report on disturbances in Nyasalarid
was published dismissing the colonial authorities’ claim that Dr Hastings
Banda’s Congress Party had been planning murder and assassination and
descrihing the colony as ‘no doubt temporaril a police state’,’°
—9 Powell suc
ceeded in really getting up his Icader’s nostrils. In his diary Macniillari
deseribed him as sort of Fakir’»° Bot on Hola. the Fakirwas to prove much
more troublesome.
Thc brutalitv which led to the dcath of eleven Kenyan African detainees
had heen triggered by thcir refusal to undertake compulsory work in the carnp.
Thc Conservative Whips tried to minlmize the embarrassing consequences of
i
the resulting \Vhitc Paper by riming the dehate liste at night oil l7JUly 1959
on thc eve of thc summer recess.” Powell was determined that thcre should
be no double standards anywherc in the Queen’s renlms, colonies and
territories when it came ro coercive powcrs over her subjects.
Powcll’s ‘explosive speech’ in the Commons (perhaps the best that he ever
delivered) ‘was much more damaging to the Government’s case than the furi
ous attacks launched from the Opposition benches’}12 His magnificent
peroration came during the small hours of the morning of 2.8 July 1959 (hr
rose ro his feet at i i 5 a.mi;
.
Finally it is argued that this is Africa, that rhings arr different there. Of course thev
arr. 11w question is whether the difference betwecn th,ngs there and here is sueb
ihat the taking of responsihiliry rhere and herr should be upon different principles,
We claim that it is our object and this is somerhing which unites both sides of thc
—
1-Iouse to leave representative instirutions behind us wherever we give up our rule.
—
I cannot magine that it is a way to plant representative instirutions ro be seen to
shirk thu acceptance and rhe assignrnent of responsibility which is rhe very essence
of responsible govcrnment.
Not ran sve ourselves pick and choosc where and in whar parrs of rhc world we shall
use this or that kind of standard, We cannot sa’y We will have African standards in
Africa, Asian standards in Asia and pcrhaps British standards here at home.’ We have
not thar choice to make. We must be consistent with ourselves cverywhere. All Govcrn
ment, all influcnce of man upon man, rests upon opinion. What we ran do in Africa,
whcre wc still govern and where we nO longer govern, depends upon the opinion which
598
is
WEALrH, POWER AND INFLUENCR
entertained of che way in which this country acrs and thc way in vhich F.nglishrnen
cr. ‘Xe cannor, we dare not, in Africa of all places, fsll below our own high stindards
in rhe aeceprance of rcspons,bility)”
Some historians of Empire are convinced that thc ‘Fakir’ had an influence
on the way Maemillan’s thinking on Africa developed during the summer and
autumn of r959. By ihe beginning ofNovensber 1959’, writes imperial his
torian Larry Butler, ‘Macmillan had decided to make a visir to Africa. Among
rhe facrors influencing his decision were the critieism of government policy
inade by the former Conservativc minister, Enoch Powell, and Macmillan’s
growing coneern about his govcrnment’s apparent fallure to get its mcssagc
across to the young.”
4 On i November Macmillan told Brook of his plan to
visit Africa early in the new year ‘young pcople of all Parries are uneasy ahour
—
our moral basis. Something must be done to lift Africa on ro a more national
plane, as a problem to the solution of which we must all contribute not out
of spite but by some really imaginative cffort.”°
...
No Whig sceptie in this instance, he drafted this letter on a particularly
broody Sunday ar Chequers perhaps suffering from posr-elcction tristesse
—
rather than euphoria, as he implied to his diary on i November 1959:
Todv I shall not go to Churcli, hut continue thc cure [his docror had suggesrcd a fcw
days’ rest ar Chequersi nu after lr,nchcon, when I shall go ro Eton and hope to sec ny
grandsons.
I feel n;uch bettcr, tho’ still without much vigour. Pcrh I shall not recover ir, bur shall
just be an old gentleman from now on. (One can make quire a normal P.M. on rhis basis,
Perh less dangerous than with too much intelleccual energy— a sort ofArtlee.)’
Yer on the imperial front, Macmillan had just appointed the younhful lam
Macleod, brimming with intellecrual energy, ro succeed Lennox-Boyd ar the
Colonial Office.
The 45-year-old Macleod vas very much a young(ish) man in a hurry when
Macmillan gave him ‘thc worst ob of all”
7 in the post-election reshufflc. There
is no doubt that he wanred a vigorous new Colonial Secretary.”
5 Thcre is
equally no doubt thar Maclcod’s celerity in unserambling much of British
tropical Africa took rhe older man’s breath away. Seven years later with the —
When Rob Shcpherd and I intcrvicwed PoweII alinos, thirtyJour ycam later to thc day for What
Has Beco;ne of Us? we askcd him whar happcncd nexr. ‘I remcmbcr sirting down and crying.’ And
then? Peter Thorneycroft got ap and walked over and sal down besidc mc,’ Mr Powcll rccslled on
59 july 1993 — and promptly burst mm tears againi
599
i
 HAVING IT 50 G000
disentanglement largely complete apart frorn rhe enduringly knotty Rhodesia
— Macleod was very candid abcsut his differerices with his patron and fellow
Flighlandcr (as Macmillan liked ro rcgard rhc nvo of them°
):
9 reporred, ‘whieh’, noted Anrhony Sampson, one of rhe journalists to whom
I think the diEficuI with Flarold Macmillan in relation to Africawas that he had all th
right instincts, as hit ‘Winds of Change’ specels showcd qutte clcarly. Re was more than
prepared for a rapid move to independence as hit appointmcnt of rnyself showed.
—
But froin time to time hr wanted, as I dare say wc all do, the best of all worlds, h 1 that for so long it bad seemed secondary to Asia and cut off from the rest of
didn’t want to fall out w,th his good friends eithur ar home or in Central or East Africa
as rhc case mav be. \Vlttreas, I took the brutal, hut I think praerical view that this was
an omelette that you coulcln’t make without breaking eggs and one couldn’t be friends
wich everyhody howevcr much one wanted to do it, tvhile one was pursuing such a
poliy’’°
Macmillan’s amhivalencc was reficered in perhaps the best exarnples of bis
gift for ainbigwry in what for ever will be rernemhered as the ‘Wind of Change’
rour in January—February 1960 to which Macleod referred. Every line of every
remark he made in publie was scrurinized for ripples of meaning, especially
in the Central African Fedcration Northern and Southern Rhodesia arid
—
NJyasaland (now Zambia. Zimbabwe and Malawi) as Macmillan artempted
—
ro firid a mtddk way berwecn sertier and nationalisr aspirations wirh aduaiiy
growing polirical representations for Africans. Roy Wclensky, rhe Federation’s
bull of a premier (exrailway engine driver and prize fighter), treated hit deal
ings witb Maeniillan and Maeleod as if be werc wrestling with eels. The only
British minister be did trust was Alec F-lome, who, as Comrnonwcalrh Seere
tary, had responsihility for the semi-autonomous Southern Rhodesia whilc
Maeleod had it for the other two legs of rhe Federation’s tripod.
Welensky suspectcd that Macmillari, despite his protestations to the enn
trary, would envisage the break-up of rhe Federarion if rhe Commission
pondering irs future eurrenrly sirting under his old friend from Oxford, Walrer
Monekton, so reeomtnended.
’ In a moment of probably studied indiscreuon
12
while talking to journalists on the second Jeg of his tour in Nigeria, Maemil
lan ‘was asked by a group of reporrers wherher jr was coneelvable that thc
commission could recommend ihe break-up’ of the Federation. He ‘shrugged
his shoulders and said: “Well, I suppose if they all agreed rhar notbing eould
be done, rhev might have to say so. It would be like that rhyme from Belloc:
They answered as they toolc their fees
‘There is no cure for this disease. “122
6oo
WEALTH, PO\VER AND INFLUENCE
Welenskvwas furious. \Vben be arrived in Salishury, Southern Rhodesia (the
Federation’s capiral), Macmillan told him bis Lagos starement bad heen mis
Macniillan’s remarks bad been addressed, ‘ir bad not’.’
23
The private chats, as opposed to the public statements, of Macmillan on
his African tour art’ very revealing. Sampson quotes him as saying of Afriea
rhe world before suddenly erupring on the world scene (Maemillan bad never
visited sub-Saharan Africa before) rather ‘like a sleeping hippo in a pool, sud
denly ir gets a prod from the white man and wakes up; and jr won’r go to
sleep again’.
124
In old age Macmillan ralked of one particular white man who bad influenced
him in Nigeria (irseif a few inonrhs away from independence). He was Sir
James Roberrson, a Colonial Service vereran about to rente as Govcrnor
General in Lagos. After ‘artcnding somc mcering of rhe so-called cabincr, or
council’, witb Robertson, Macmillan inquired,
Are these people flt for self-governmenr?’ and he said, ‘No of course not.’ I said, ‘When
will rhey be ready?’ Hr said ‘Twenty ycars, rwenry-fivc years. Then I said, ‘What do you
recommcnd mc to do?’ Hr said, ‘I recommend y’ou to givc it to rhem ar once.’ I said,
Why that seems strange.’ ‘Wcll,’ hr said, if they were twcnty ycars weIl spent, if thcy
would be learning adm,n,stratmon, if they wcrc gerring expericnec, I would say wait, but
what vill bappen? All the mosr intelligenr people, all the ones I’vc been rraining on [sic]
tvill all brenne rehels. I shall have to put tbem in prison. There will be violcnee, bitter.
sett and hatred. They svont spend rhc twenty years learnmng. We shall simply have us
rwenty years of repression, and therefore, in my view, thet”d hetter start learning [to
rule themselves] ar once.’ I thought rbat was very serisihle.’°
Roberrson’s view was similar ro tbar of Macleod (who did not accompany
Maemillan on rhe African trip). Maeleod later recalled, ‘Ir has been said thar
after I became Colonial Scererary there was a deliherate specding-up of rhe
n1ovemenr towards independence. I agree. Tbcre was. And in my view any
orher policy would have led ro terrible bloodshed in Afriea. This is thc hcarr
of the
Maemillan was plainly susccprible to Robertson’s reasoning. Towards the
encl of rhe first Jeg of the mur in Ghana, Peregrine Worsthorne, covering it
for the Daily Telegraply, was summoncd for an evening drink with rhe Prime
Minister and Lady Dorotby in Acera. Re received a elassic gownsman/swords
man performanee laced with world-weary irony:
6oi
 HAV1NG IT SO GOOD
be struek n mournful note wbich was one of his favourites. I low sad it was, be said,
thar Britain was glving ip her Afriean Empire just at thc time whcn teehnology and
rcsources bad inade it possible for us ro transforin the conrinent. During the thirtjes
hc weni on. Britain could do very little for Africa. Esen If we bad the money, the tech.
nology was not thcre. We bad the political powcr, but not rhc physical means to pi it
to good cffcet. Now, just at the very moment when imperialism bad thc means to trans.
late irs high-sounding paternalistic words inro actions, to do all the good it bad promised,
jr was coming ro an end.’
Whau dal the future hold? Very little for imperialists and imperialized alike:
Foreign aid. be said, was no substirure. Not was rhere much hope rhat black Airi
would be able to modernise itself on its own. Fare was crucl. Freedom was coming to
Africa at the wriing time. I laving bad all tbe burniliation of being hossed around by
whitcs, thc hlacks, poor innoeenrs, werc bent on kicl<ing us out just when thev ough
ro lc begging ris to stay.’
10
Macmillan, the old elassieist, was plainly in his grand-sweep-of-history mode
that night.
Re was again, to even greater effect. in public and in infinitely trickicr cir
eurnstances at a rnccnng in Southern Rhodesia on the penultimate stage of
the tour. Thjs time ir was that connoisseur among Macmilian watchers, i—{enry
Fairlie, who caught the moment for tbe readcrs of Encounter:
i he whitc population ifSalisbury was arigry. even bewilclered, and was ccrtainly not
in a mood to trent him kindiv. When Mr Maerniflan rose to addrcss a huge meeting all
—
white anvthmg might have happened. Sir Roy Welensky, in introduiing hirn, had made
—
li quite plain he was not pleased with the Lagos dcclaration. But Mr Maemillan had hit
own methods: within a minurc h was talking gravely to his audience of the ebh and
llow of civilisations, especially those which have touched the African contirient; there
was evcn time for a word ahout the Phocnicians of the Mediterranean world. For
perhaps a quarter of an hour this cultivated discourse wcnt on. It was the effortless
superlonry of thc Balliol man being displayed before an audicnce which cvcry moment
I claim to an indepcndenr national life.°
hecansc more helplcss. By rhe time 1w reached the aorh cenmry and the L.agos
—
deelararion they werc readv to believe anvthing)
— ’
2 Then, before tbis most resistant of whitc-sctder audienees with Dr Hendrik
For all that extraordinary public poise and sang froid, Macmillan was irrit
ablc and tetehy for the hulk of thc tour and remained so until be bad delivered
the speech in Cape Town on the final leg in earlv February 1960.00 The press,
as Sarnpson later told Macmillan’s official hiographcr, bad been thc rccipients
6oa
WEALTH, POWER AND INFLUENCE
right acrOSS Africa of hints from Tini Bligh, che Prime Minister’s Principal
private Secrctary, tbat somcthiisg was cooking which would astonish and
satis& US all’.
131
Macmillan’s fifty-minute version of what Fairlie called his ebh and flow of
civiisations’ thcme in thc old Cape Colony I Iouse of Assembly buiiding on
February 1960 was, as Anthony Sainpson (who was listening from the hal
cony) put it, ‘prohably the finest ofMacmillan’s career... a spcech of masterly
construction and phrasing, heautifully spoken, combining a swccp of history
2 It did, and it has suirably impressed the
with unambiguous political points’.°
31 Yet far from his Cape Town
compilers of great political specchcs ever sincc.’
speech being the crowning example of Balliol-gencrated ‘effortiess supcrior
4 on Macmillan’s part, for all the poise of his eventual delivery of it, be
iry’°
was physically sick with anxiety in tbe bours beforc it.’35
In its ciassicatly constructed paragraphs we can deteet the baby-hippo ccli
oes of tbe regret-ringcd performance be bad laid on for Perry Worsrhorne in
Accra aud tbe Mediterranean lost world tbar so mesmerized the ill-disposcd
whitc settierdom be faced in Salisbury. All that was laeking was the impromptu
morris dance be bad skipped earlier in Pretoria to show ‘tbat thc English also
have their tribal dances .
-
‘Ever since tbe break-up of the Roman Empirc,’ be began, timelessly attired
in his Savile Row cbalksrriped suit and, as usual, bis Old Etonian tie,
137
one of the constant facts of political life in Europe has bcen tbe emcrgcncc of mdc
pendent nations. They have come into existencc over thc centuries in different forms,
with different kinds of Govcrnment, but all have been mnspired by a deep, keen feeling
of nationalism, which has grown as thc nations have grown.
In thc twcntieth cenrurv. and especially sinec the end of the war, rhe proccsses which
gave birth to rhe narion states of Europe lsave been repeated all over thc world. Wc
have secn the awakening of national consciousness in pcoplcs who lsavc for ecnwries
Lived in dependence upon some other powcr. Fifteen ycars ago this movement spread
through Asia. Many countrics there of different races and eivilizations pressed their
t
Verwoerd, the South African Prime Minister and incarnation of unflinehing
apartheid, beside him, Macmillan preached reality and delivered the phrasc
whieh was to gust round tbc world:
Today the same rhing is happening in Africa, and thc most striking of all ihe impres
6o
r siotis I have formed is
HAVING il’ SO G000
o ilie srrengrh of this African national 5
ConsCiousnts
clifferent places it takes different forms. bot it is happening everywhere. The vind
change is hlowing through this continent, aud whether we like it or not. this owth
of
of
national consciousness is a pouiticsl facr. We must all acccpt jr ass fact, aud our
national
policies must take accounr of it.’°
The pbrase ‘vind of change’ was minted by David Flunt, rbc Commonwealrh
Relations Office official accompanying Macmillan on the tour”° Çthough
others have clairned a hand in it).
t4t
What is generallv forgorten show this remarkable totir de force is its Cold
War element. As I sce it,’ Macmilian explained, rhe ear issue in this second
half of the rwentieth cenrury is whcrhcr the uneommirted peoples of Asia and
Africa will swing ro the East or to the West. Will they be drawn into the Corn
munist carnp? Or will rhe great experimcnrs in self-government thar are now
bemg made in Asia and Africa, especially within the Commonwealth, prove
so suceessful. and by rhcir example so compelling, that the balance will come
down in favour of freedom and order and justice?”
42
i And in a passage srrongly evocative of Enoch Powell’s ciosing remarks on
Hola rhat night in rhe I- Iouse of Commons just over six months earlier, Mac
millan declared: ‘The struggle is joincd, aud jr is a struggle for the minds of
men. What is now on trial is much more rhan our military strength or our
diplomatic and administrative skill. Jr is our wav of life. The uncommitted
uarions want ro see hefore they choose.’°
3 Freuch are the key’.’
Macmillan’s speech was, as so often with him, accompanied by a wbiff of
amhiguity. Was it a plea for swifr imperial retreat, as Macleod was urging? Or
was it an appeal for a more measured withdrawal not least wirh Cold War
—
i gloom and exaggerarion. For Macmillan’s ‘evenrs’ read de Gaulle’s ‘rorrent’;
repereussions in mmd of the land favoured by Alec Home? Home himself
—
sensed this element when recalling the Capc Town speech:
When I was in the Commonwealth Officc and Macleod wss in the Colonial Office, he
viss always for galloping slong with indepcndence ss fast ss be could. I took the view
tisat ever ycar gaincd gave thc countries a hetter chancc when they bcearne independ.
ent to be viable. Therc was soincthing to be said for botli points of view.
When one looks ar sonsc of the African countries. one reslises that another five ycars
of rumtion wouldn’t have done them any harm. But Mscmillan svas beginning to think
that our destiny lsy reslly in Europe, so I think he Ieancd rather towards the faster pro
On ‘owth of national consciousncss he banged ihe meters For effect; this is clearly audible in
ihu srchivc recording.
604
grainfllC
i vind of
WIiALTH, i’OWJSR ANIS iNFLUENCE
than th slnwer. If you svaor to put
chsnge man snd Macleod was a
it in s nutshcll, I think tbat Macmillau was
gale of cliange man.’’
4
1-lome, as we have seen, thoughr the Future Policy Study was too gloomy on
Commonwealtb matters. He was right ro mix, retrospeetively, the undeniable
irnpetial sunset with the possible Europcan dawn for Brirain. This very much
represented Macmiilan’s frame of mmd in rhc early weeks of 1960.
There was a thircl element swirling around in rhat ciassically formed mmd
f the occupanr of la Downing Strcct. Jr bad rhe unmistakable profile of
0
General Charles de Gaulle. Both wcre gownsrnen/swordsmen; borh quire
nawrally thought geopoliticaily; horh had a cerrain idea of bow rheir countries’
pasts spoke to their present and eould hint heavily about thcir future. Both
were proud and imprcssive political performers and rheir two nations bad
much in common: borh anciently occupied the same patches of Europe; both
werc considerahie extenders of their territory overseas; aud de Gaulle bad just
partiallycaught up militarilywith the testing of an atomic device in theAlgerian
Sahara in Fcbruary.
145 On 14 Fehmary Maemillan noted wryly in his diarv, ‘De
Gaulle has exploded his atomic bomb, and now claims equal parmership wirh
Brirain. Yét another problem!”
4t
Macmillan was preoeeupied by de Gaulle. In a letter ro the Queen at the
end of 1959 he told her, in the presenr state of Europe, ifwe are to reach
agreements helpful to this country, so long ss de Gaulle remains in power the
47 Yct if Macmillan felt be was the prisoner of ‘evenrs’ and
de Gaulle very ofren rheir initiaror or sbaper, be was succumbing ro borh
as the Freneh President wrotc ro Raymond Aron in May 1959: ‘I hoth admire
and envy your ability ro make insrant judgements on the events that we are
liviug [sjel and the rorrenr that is sweeping us along.”
45 The difference berween
rhem perhaps was the degree ro whicb de Gaulle ‘loved catastrophe.. beeause .
out of carasrrophe would eome regeneration’.’
”
4
Cerrainly the drafters of the Future Policy Study saw de Gaullc around
many a crueial eorncr in rhe eoming dccade. For them, ‘the future ofWestcrn
Europe, and of NATO as a whole, depends chiefly upon two unpredictable
factors the policy of France and the future of Germany. For France there
—
are rwo main possihiliries. The first is that de Gauule or his suecessors will
deeide to push ahcad wirh tbe cconomic (and consequently polirical) integra
tion of the “Sia”. If rhis happens, [al new world Power
... wilI emerge,
...
probably with its owu “European” nuclear deterrent.’°
5
6o
4 HAVINO IT SO 0000
r
The planners could perhaps shuuld also have mentioned the degree to
— —

which thr pace of French decolonization migbt affect the rate at which thc
UK shed its rematning territories in Africa especially. Certamly this was onC
ot the themcs Maemillan intended to raise with de Gaullc on his trip to Paris
over iz and 13 March 1960. In the words of No. ios pre-briefing flote:
i low does be fdc Gaullel sce dir clcvcloprnent of Africa and the French lover.
seasi cornmunity gcnerally?’°’
Macmillans aide Philip de 7.ulucta’s record of the ‘Points discussed with
General dc Gaullc at Rambouiller on March TZ and 13, 1960’hi is fascinat
ing on several levels not Icast hecause, without mentioning it, naturally,
—

Macmillan scems to have tried out several of the key themes of the Future
1oIky Study (eleven days hefore his own ministerial oup met to diseuss it)
on the Frcnch President. On Africa generally’ thc report notes that:
Guneral de (,aulle said that ihe various status of thc French community wouid gradually
dernand independcncc and hr would not obecr. Somc of thern might not really exist
in any effccnve way, bur they woold no doubt inanagc sornehow. Eie was worried about
dir position in Guinca and the heip which Mr Nkrumah was giving to Mr Sckou-Toure,
46. Dismissing rhe political crisis over The local difficulties’ in person:
who was slipping into dir Communist camp. Er was very important to have contlnuing spending as Ititle local difficulties’, Trcasury resigners Peter ‘1 horneycroft
Arielo-French conraers ahont Africa.n IacmiNan prepares to leave Hearhrow for a (bottom luft), Fnoch Powell (bottom t’ight)
Cornmonwealth tour, 7 january 1958. and Nigei B,rch (abouel.
[ That last sentencc is intriguing, not least bceause such ‘contacts’ bad been few
and occasional over the previous rwo years.
Perhaps this was unsurprising. For there was no pattern of co-operation
berwecn Europc’s imperial powcrs (Sue7. briefly cxceptcd in the ease of the
UK and Franec) even when rising nationalism in Africa and Asia threatened
The deeisions of de Gaulle and his immediatepredecessors bad
all of them.°
4
not helped the school of thought still prevalent in Whitehall in 1957—8, if not
‘1959—60, whieh believed that, apart from Ghana and Nigeria, if things went
well thc rest of British Africa could expect their flag-down/flag’op moment
somewhere hetwecn s97o and ‘1980:

In [956 thc French Fourth Repuhlic, grappling with insurrcction in Algeria, tried to
rallv the lovalty of its oiher African territories by an extension of representative govcm’
ment. Two vcars later thc Rcpublic itself was overthrown as a direct consequence of
theAlgerian rebcllion. ‘The new constination framed by De Gaolle offered French Africa
sclfgovernment within a French Commoniry and rhen, as the struggle in Algeria
intensified, full independence inside or ootside the Commonity}
5

6o6
 WEALTfS, t’OWER AND INFLUENCE

Largely as a response to French developmcnts thc ‘political geography of colo

mai Africa’ bad changed witbin two ycars. The sudden dccision of tbe Belgians
in January 1960 to pull out of the Congo during the summer was the most
drarnatiC consequence but, in 1960, sixteen new African countries (mainlv
FrancOPhile) joined the United 6 Narions.°
Macmillan made a strong pitch for real Anglo-French co-operation in his
talks with de Gaulle at Rambouillet and tried to use the scramh]e out of
periallsm as a lcind of European entry card: ‘We had no Empircs left and —

therefore no rivalries. All rhcse days were past. I think I did something to con
vince him of our real desire to work ciosely together, not only in Europc, but
everymilla
5
Mac wher
7 c.”n felt the ‘talks were intimate’ and said of the General,
Now thar be is old (69) and mellowed, his charin is great. Re speaics heauti
ful, rather old-fashioncd French. He sceined quite impersonal and
disinterested.’° The old statesnsen had hut one aide each in thc rooni (de
t
Zulueta with Macmillan; de Courcel with de 9 Gaulle° and Macmillan ‘felt
)
tired from the stram of talking nothing but French

I
and trying not to fall
...

into any niajor error of judgement’}°

There are certain passages in de Zulucta’s note of the exchanges wbich do
suggest a genuine intimac not least when de Gaulle made a pitch for British
5 help in building up his nuclear weapons capacitv. If there was no general
nuclear disarmament, the British record reports dc Gaulle as saying,
and he doubted if the Russians for rcasons of prestigc reailywanted this, then France
would
continuc to try to obtain a nuclcar armament. fhe Americans had rcfused to give any
.5 help. I le svould be glad if it was possible for the Unitcd Kingdom to assist even
with
rneans of delivery only. The Prime Minister cxplaincd the complications of
thc [1958)
United Kingdorn arrangement with the United States. Gcncral de Gaulle understood

The General might have ‘understood’, but be didn’t approvc of thc wider
geopohtics that made such an ‘arrangement’ possible.
Under the heading ‘Anglo-French Relations’ de Zulueta recorded, General
de Gaulle said that be thought the United Kingdom was always unwilling
to
choose berween heing part of Europe and having a special connection with
the United States. The Prime Minister explamned the special position of
the
United Kingdom, which France in many ways sharcd. Thc United Kingdom
5.
would like to see a renascent Europe led by 62
France” a fair dcgree of high
—

6 s. Parisian gloom, i 8May 19 bO De Gaulle, Macmillan and Eisenhower after KrushCh5. levd flirn-flam thcre.
breaks up the suinrnit which ‘lia blown up, like a volcano! It is gnominlous; it is tragie; it IS
almost incrrdihlc,’ Macmillan svrore.

I 607

-
 l-IPVING 11 50 G000
In his diary Macmillan left a ratber fuller account of de Gaulle’s rawness
on chis prohahlv grearest arca of contenrion berwecn them:
I bad fortunarely read thc last volurne of his rnemoirs, and I asked dc G why he coj-.
tinuaHv harped on thc rheme of thc Anglo.Saxons’. Apart from a general feeling rhat
be is lefr out of Angln-American ralks, aud jealousy of my close associanion with rhis
panicular President lEisenhower], jr clearly all srems from thc war.
I-le rcseiitcd ratber absurdly in the setting of Viehy aud all thar the Roosevelt_
—
Churchill hegcmcinv. He goes back roo in his rerenrive mmd ro all rhc rows about
— —
Syria; ahnur D-Day; about tlie position of thc Frcnch Army in the final stages of the
war; about Yalta (and the hetrayal of Europc) and all the rest.ii
Regarding orher rroubling areas, however, Macmillan lefr Paris somewhat
encouraged. On that subsranrial cause of concern ro the FPS planners rbe — some agreement at rhe summit; he felt that Mr Khrushchev would also want
possible economic supcrpowerdom of the EEC ‘Six’ by 1970 de Zuluera’s —
note containcd otber surprises, especially the revelarion that bad de Gaulle
been France’s head of governmenr in 1957 he would not have signed the
heary of Rome:
Tbe Prime Minister explained the dangers which he saw in a divisjon of Europe between
rhe IEECi Si and tb [Europcan Free Trade Areal Seven, and in particular urged that
rhe programmc of thc Six should not be acceierated because this would increasc the
measure of discriminauun. General de Gaulle sajd that he regarded the Six as a com
mcrcial treaty; be would not have signed it bur be accepred jr. Jr had had cerrain good
effects, particularly on French indusrry which bad heen forced to make itseif more
competirive. As it was a commercial arrangement ir should be possible to make a com
mercial hargairs berwcen the Sj>c and the Seven. I-le did not commit himseif about
accdcrating the Six’s prograinmc.’
64
A future symbol of Anglo-French accord, the Channel Tunnel, even bad its
hricf moment on rhe Rambouillet agenda. ‘There was’, de Zulueta recorded,
‘some desultory discussion about rhis. President de Gaulle said that it would
be a fine thing. The Prime Minister said that it would be better If it did not
need trains. President de Gaulle did not seem to attach any urgency to tbe
Tunnel idca.’
165
The most urgent single matter sculling about the chåteau over those two
days was the forthcoming four-power summit, the diplornatic prize for which
Macmillan bad long been striving made all the more pressing by the rurming
—
crisjs over Berlin. Here de Gaullc and Macmillan were cioser than Macmillan
aud Eisenhower. A year earlier Macmillan bad flown to Paris ro brief de Gaulle
6o8
I
WEALTH, POWER AND INFLUENCE
On his talks in Moscow, aud, ro rhe Prime Minister’s pleasurc, the President
agreed thar a cap-badgc at rhc chcckpoints on the Autobahn to Berlin if the
East Germans replaced rhe Russians was not worrh a Third World War. When
they met at thc Elysée on ro March 1959 Macmillan recorded that: ‘De Gaulle
rarher put out of countcnance his team, by admitting right away thar one cd
not have a nuclear war in Europe on the question of who signed the pass to
go a]ong nhe autobahn or the railway to W. Berlin a USSR sergcant or a
—
DDR fEast Germanj sergeant. In his view the only question which wd justify
svar wd be an acrual physical blockade.’
166
A year later at Rambouillet, as de Zulucta noted, borh Macmillan and de
Gaulle hoped the Paris summit two months abead would take the venom our
of the Berlin crisis: ‘General de Gaulle agreed that it was desirable to reach
this. On Berlin be thoughr that some provisional arrangemenrs mighr perhaps
be rnade to last for a limired numhcr of years, leaving tbe status quo more or
less unalrered.’ De Gaulle and Macmillan also ‘agreed rhar the final decision
on Berlin could probably only be taken at rhc vcry end of the summit meeting
aud rhat meanwhile the West should appear very frrm’.’
67
On returning to London Macmillan penned one of his most amusing letters
ro the Qucen, hriefmg Ficr on whar had happened in Pans aud whar mmghr
rranspire when the de Gaulles arrived in London for thcir state visit in early
April:‘.. Madame de Gaulle is very sby aud speaks practically no English.
.
She is a woman of considerable character: I have even heard it said that she
is the only human being of whom the General stands mildly in awe but I —
can scarcely believe tbis .
.
In fact, it turned out to be one of the most stylish stare visits of the post
war years. In the opinion of Macmillan’s official biographer jr stood out ‘as
the most magnificenr reception accorded a visiting ruler in the post-war era.
It would not have escaped dc Gaulle’s eye rhat ir was considerably more lav
ish rhan that even besrowed on Macmillan’s beloved Ike rhe prcvious summer
Huge Crosses of Lorrame, lit by a myriad of flreworks, illuminatcd the
front of Buckingham Palace. After a fanfare by tbe massed trumpeters of the
Household Cavalry, de Gaulle was accordcd the signal honour of addressing
the Lords aud Commons jointly assembled in Westminster FIaII.’
Therc was a little spasm of murual emotion wben de Gaulle caughr Church
ill’s eye just before be spoke.°° Aud how the General rose to the oecasion!
He delivered a marvcllous eulogy upon the British genius for government
aud the mystical (in fact, non-existenr) constirurion which captured jr. Ho
6o9
 IIAVING IT SO G000
talked of Bnitain’s ‘oursranding role in che midst of the storm’ of rhe Second
World War, linking it ro ‘rhc legitimacy and autbority of che state’, Continu.
ing in a similar vei:
Although sincc i 940 you have undergone ihe hardest vicissitudes in your history, only
four statesmen. mv friends Sir Winston Churchill, lord Attlee, Sir Antbony Eden aud
Mr Harolcl Mac,nillan, have guided your affairs over these cxtraordioary ycars. Thus,
lacking metieulously workcd out constirutional rcxts, but by vjrrue of an unchallenge.
ablc general consent. you 6nd the means on cach occaaion to ensure che efficient
funenioning of demoeraey withour incurring tbe exeess,ve crit,cism of the amhitious, ur
thc punctilious blame of the purists.°’
All chis was dclivered in French without a notc in front of bim, as Macmiflan
noticed with adrn,ration.’
72
lwo days earlicr. shortly after his grand arrival at Victoria station and his
progression in a landau through tbe streets of London beside the Queen, de
GauHe told Macmillan be was optimistic about thc fortbcoming summit,
rhough be was worriecl about che Americans: ‘De G thinks that K[hrushchev]
does want a “détcnte” does want disarmament, but that (except perhaps for
—
Eisenhower) the Americans want neither.”
3
Neirbcr of rhem could have fercseen the May Day event chat would doom
the suinmit due within days. EspionagL is meant to be an aid to diplomaey,
not its destroyer. But on T May 1960 a Soviet surfacc-to-air missile brought
down an American U-a. reconnaissance aircraft and its CIA pilot, Gary Pow
ers, over Russian airspacc. Eisenhower bad authorizcd the flight, ‘Operation
Grand Slam’, so called because ‘jr was thc tongest aud most daring U-z mis
sion yer attempted. traversing che whole of tbe Sovjet Union from Peshawar
74 Bad weather bad delayed it. And, it bemg
in Pakistan to Bodo in Norway’.’
ihe May Dav holiday in Russia, chere ‘was almost no military traffic over the
Sovict Union and so tbe U-z was easy to track rhe Russiansi bad fired t4
SAM missiles [at 70,000 feet, the Americans bad believed their U-2s to be
,nvulncrablel, destroving one of their own MiGs rhat was in bot pursuit. One
missile damaged the control surfaces of tbe flirnsy U-z. Wirh the aircraft in a
flat spin, causcd by tbe U-z’s large wingspan, Powers struggied cven to get the
canopy opcn and was unable to activate the self-desrruct mechanism before
bailing out. The flat spin jj ensured that the Sovjets retrtcved rhe aircraft all
but intact.’
’
0 another form of consolarion or certainly they read chat way):
Maemillan lived in blissful ignorance of this ruinous event for six davs,
until the news was hrought to him as be sar worrylng in rhc country about
6eo
WEALTI-4, 1’OWER AND INF1.UENCE
rhe huge rows ar the Com,nonwcalrh Prirne Minisrers’ Conference between
South Africa aud the rest (on lI March, sixry-scven Africans bad dicd with
a furrber i 8o wounded when police fired on clemonsrrarors in the Sharpeviile
):
76
rownsbip’
May: Chequers. A glorious day svarm aud sunny. The Americans have committed
—
a great folly. Tbcre have been going on for some time photographic f]ights at very high
altitudes over Russ,a. We acwally have cione some very successful oncs (with airplanes
wh ihe Amcricans gave us). We call the exercise ‘Oldster’. But, with the summit nego
tiations coming on, all ours have bcen cancclled by my orders. The Americans wcrc to
do the same, bot made their ending date thc end of April. Now one of rheir rnachines
has been shot down by is rocket (it is said, a few hundred miles from Moscow)
The Russians have got thc machinc; ihe canseras; is lor of the photographs aud the
—
pilut. God knows whar hc will say when corrured! I don’t know (hut I greatly fear) how
far be knows about ;vhat we have done. Thc President, Srarc Dept, aud Pentagon have
all told separatc md conflieting stories, aud are clearly in a state of panic. Khrushchev
han inadc two very atnusing aud effcctivc speeches, attacking th Americans for spying
incompetently aud lying incompctently too. He may dcclare rhc sumrnit off. Or the
Aniericans may be srung into doing so.
With a touch of che comédie noire, is frcquent consolarion, Macniilla,i con
ciuded: ‘Quite a pleasant Saturday che Commonwcalrh in pieccs and thc
—
summit doomed.”
77
So it proved. Tbe four leaders mer in Paris on 14—17 May. Kbrushchev
postured. Eisenhower refused to offer apologies or assurances that reconnais
sance fligbts over Soviet airspace would not recur. Macmillan tried to act che
honest broker, telling Kbrushchev chat spionage was a fact of life, aud a
disagreeable one’.’
75 De Gaulle did his best, too, observing, as Alistair Horne
put it. ‘with his usual lofty irony’ rhat: ‘At tbe present time, anyway, a Sovjet
satellite passes each day over che sky of France. It flies over ar an altitude much
higher chan an airplane, but it still flies over it.”
79 All to no avail.
No disarmament. No Berlin settlement. Norhing. Macrnillan came home
on the afrernoon of 19 Ma That morning, dog tired and ‘with much pain in
the region of the heart. Is ir tbrombosis or incligestion?’, he found be could
scarcely read or write.’
° Re reached Downing Srreet ro find a cheering mes
8
sage from the Quecn. He immediately wrore to chank her (these letters were
—
I hope I may say how heartened I was on my return to to, Downing Strcct to receivc
die message which Sir Michael Adeane [the Queen’s Private Secretaryi bad transmitted
6ci
 1
HAV1NC, FU SO G000 wEALTH, POWER AND 1NFLUENCE

on your behalf. It is indeed sad to have returneci without anything to show for ourwork De Zulueta was the man best placed ro pick up Macmillan’s geopolirical
of the last fcw ycars and I shll not conecal frorn Your Majesty thc shock and disap. hought on a daily basis. After the débacle in Paris bad worked its way
pointrnent which I have sustained. rough that tired bot finely tuned mmd ofMacmillan’s, de Zulucta believed
the failure of the 1960 summit was really crucial in the dcvelopment of his
ihen, over eight pages, the tired old man gave the Queen a full accourn of
concept of Europe, because at that surnnair it became apparent that he really
his futile efforts to salvage a littlc from the wreckage and speculated, errone.
couldn’t, by himseif, bring irreconcilable American aud Russian positions
ously as it turned out, that possibly ‘there has been sorne internal change in
cioser. General de Gaulle just washed his hands of it aud said the whole
the halance of power in Russia wbicb has caused Mr Khrushchcv to retreat
thing bad heen decided in advance in Moscow anyway, aud there was no
from his policy of détente It may be, therefore, that the Russian Govern.
.

point in arguing and [hel really wasn’t intensely worried on the subject.’
. .

186
ment used the American aircraft incident as a convenient excuse ...

Not so for Macmillan:

He cheerecl up a littlc tbe following day, Friday, after he had a good recep
tion for his statement on the summit in the House of Commons and tas I think this led him to think vcry rnuch again about what the British position was in the
doctor told him he had not bad a heart attack, ‘hut that the symptoms of world. 1he colonial empire was, if not gone, rapidly going, thc Commonwcalth obvi
extrcme exhaustion are not dissimilar’. Hc turned to Dickcns (Do;nbey and cusly not being really strong enough, coherent enough as an economic force. So what
Son) for 182
respite. By Saturday morning gloom struck him powerfully once does Britain cIo? I Iow does she play a part in the world?
more as be lay in bed at Birch Grove aud srarted to write up his diary: ‘The I don’r think there was a day on which be suddenly decicled, you know, Furope is
Summit on wh I bad set high bopcs aud for vvhich I worked for over z years
—
the thing. But certainly be moved, from then onwards, really rather fast in the direcrion
— has blown up, like a volcano! Jr is ignominious; it is tragic; it is aimost incred of feeling that this was the right road for Britain to follow, aud that Europc was going
° It was unqucstionably mc of thc greatest disappointments of his
5
ible.’ to be united, and that without being a part of it Britain would neither be important on
F life. its own not play a part in a wider grouping)
87
It is easy, looking back, to claim that Macrnillan was overplaying his md Somewhere in the twelve days between thc Thursday afternoon of 19 May
Britain’s hand as the great summit maker. It did not seem so hubristic at the when he sat down in No. 10 to draft his letter to the Queen about the
1960,
time and not just to the Prime Minister himself. Jr is intriguing, for example,
—

ro find the admittedly Anglophile Raymond Aron writing in 1955 (perhaps
significantiv, prc-Suez) that ‘Grear Britain was never much liked at the time
when she dominated thc world- British diplomacy has regaincd some prestige
since rhe cnd of rhe Second World War; now that she no longer takes the
major dccisioiis aud has adopted the role of critie, adviser and referee
Paris in May r96o was thc time and the place, howevcr, when the lack of
ruined summir, and i June 1960 Macniillan seems to have erossed the mental
threshold described by Philip de Zulucta. For on that day he eireulated a list
of questions to his top offleials on the pros and eons of British entry to the
EEC. The exercise possessed a bite and an urgeney laeking in the Europe
related sccrions of the Future Policy Study just over three months earlier. It
carried a Macmillanesque title ‘The Six and the Seven: The Long-Term Objcc
—

rive’NS and it was led by one of the most remarkable Whitehall offmcials of
relative British power rcally caught up with its would-be sustaincr and deployer.
—

the postwar years, Sir Frank Lee, whom we have already eneountered as a tar
Macrnillan sensed ir as clid those closest to him, such as Philip de Zulueta:
—

‘1 ncver saw him more depressed. Re was really cast down aud glum after it.
Apart from all the effort he had personally put into it, this was the moment
be suddenly realised that Britain counted for nothmg; be couldn’t move Ike
to make a gesture towards Khrushcbev, md de Gaulle was simply not inter
ested. I think this represented areal watershed in his life Could salvarion
‘
ity in 1955—6 in believing Britain should have takcn the road from the Messina
talks to the Treaty of Rome.
By early 1960 it was evident to both Lee aud Macmillan that the British
designed European Frce Trade Area (the old Plan G applied to non-EEC
wesrern Europe) would not hold as a permanent or dynamie trading arrange

Be on the other side of thar mountaln of disappointment? might. And if it
Jr
did, it would come with a label marked ‘Europe’.
ment for the UK. The final EFTA agreement had been coneluded in
November 1959. EFTA came into operation on i January 1960, embracing
Brirain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria aud Portugal. Bot

6iz 613
 [iAViN( li SO GOO1J
(rom the start, it was ‘incffuctive as a lever on the Six to make them change
ihiir cnmmcrcial policy. For one thing, jr was not a big enough marker.
Fo
anotber, important political diffcrences be’een EFTA member states made
them acr less coherently than the EEC. In a period wben high rates of owrJ
of foreign trade wcre believcd to be making a major contrihution to high rates
ot growth of GNP’, its EFTA parrners ou1d not do as much for British
exports as rbe EEC did for the exports of irs 89 memhcr-states’.’
It must be remembered, too, that as Whitehall wrestled with the ‘sixes and
scvens’ quesrion in May—July 1960, ‘Europe’ for the British was not a shining
collecrive goal in itseif but a mcans of susraining British power; as a concept,
therefore, it was instrurnental rather than inspirational. As Raymond Ai
put jr in 1962, ‘those for whoni Europe is to be a fatberland cannot avojd’’;
recognii.ing that in British eyes (cxcept for a small minority), it will never be
anything hut a means for somerhing else’.
”
0
Ihe historian of Brirain aud Furope, in Chris Patren’s words, wharever the .
period under examination, is dealing with a 19 ‘psvchodrama’. François Mit
’ relationship wirh the United States. Thc position has now changed and rhe (inited
terrand when President of France is said to have remarked that the -eat divide
within the Furopean Communiry was between those who treated it as a wajj
aud thosc who saw it as a cathedral.’
92 Margaret Thatcher, Mittcrrand’s polit
ical eonternporary. deciarcd in the aurumn of 1999, ‘In my lifetime all our
problcms have come from mainland hurope and all the solutions have come
(rom the English-speaking nations of rhe world.”
91 ‘Psychodrama’ really is the
word.
Macmiflan’s European instincts were profoundly different (rom Thatcher’s. .1
It was significant that the leading politician in the Cabinet and rhe rop eco
nonlie permanent secretary of the day now brearhed largely as one on Europe.
I. Frie Roll, who represented the Ministry of Agrieuhure, Fisheries and Food
on rhc Lce Commirtee, always believed that Lee and Macmillan thoughr rhis
was where Britain’s fuwre lay even before the exercise began. ‘Frank, Lord
Roll told mc in 1991, ‘held a rremendous position’ in the Whitehall of 1960.
He reached his dccisions ‘on a sobcr ealculation of rhc facts. That is why whe
be came down in favour of Europc jr bad a tremendous impact. His word
counted for a great deal. Harold Macmillan had reachcd that conclusion any-
94
way.”
The answer to Maemillan’s Question 22. in The Six and the Seven report
eaptures the cssence of the Prime Minister’s and Lee’s thtnking and whar thy
scnsed as special about the circumstances now facing the UK:
1:
614
\X’EALTI-i, POWER AND INn UENCE
QUESTI0N 2.2.
Wbat /ais changed in tJa! situatinn since Ministers decided on Ille basis ofa full review
1956 aud again 10 1959 agaiust /oining the Crunmon Market?
t
ANSW
here have heen flve main changes in rhe siruation:
,) Earlier on it sccmcd very doubtful If the Europeao Eeonoinic Community would
Iver sel the light of d;iy owing to the nability of a wcak Francc to wiihstand
inereased cornpctirion (rom her fururc partncrs, especially (rom Gerniany.
jj) We rhought rhar, even if thc Common Marker did come off, we should be able to
.2 make our own tcrms for associaring with it. ihe Free Trade Area negotiations
proved us wrong.
France aud Western Europc generally is nu longer weak. The Cominon Market
(iii) —
—
is hccoming a powerful and dynamic force, economically aud politically.
(iv) In 1956 Wc thought rhat joiniiig the Coinmon Marker would wcaken our special
States are artachiog increasing imporrance ro the views of the Communiry Iv is by
.1
nO means clcar, thcreforc, rhat the best way of reraining our influencc with the
United States would be by sraying nutside rhe Cominunity, rather than by becom
ing a lcading member of rhe group with a powcrful influence on thcir policies.
(v) In so far as our prcvious atritude was influenced by our desire ro do norhing which
mighr prejudice rhe Commonwealrh relationship, rhis considerarion is now
matchcd by thc fear that the owiog power and influence of the Six wilI seriously
affect our position in thc world if we remain outside and this itsclf svill be
—
—
damaging to our relationship with the 5 Coinmonwealrh.°
In the fuller answer ro Maemillan’s Question zz, which was appended as
an annex to the main report of the Lee group, the threar to Britain’s plaee in
the world is even more bluntly expressed ‘They {thc Sixj may bccomc a bloc
—
comparable in influence with the United States and the USSR, and if that hap
pens and if we remain outside, our relative position in the world is bound to
dccline ,
‘196
As with the Future Policy Siudy, and the Prime Minister’s own mmd after
the failure of the May summit, the motor driving The Six and the Seven was
the need to sustain Britain’s power in international affairs. The working papers
of the Lee group, whose full tide (as an official Cabinet Office body) was rhe
Economic Steering (Europe) Committee, show this plainly. On 2.7 June, a
draft circulared which, under the heading ‘Foreign Policy Considerations’, I
615
 1-IAVING IT SO 0000
WEALTH, POWER AND 1NFLUENCE

stared rhar: ‘In rh first place, jr ernerges rhat there are verv strong reasons
foreign policy for our olning rhc Six; tndecd, the argumenrs of foreign
of
POliq
are perhaps even srronger rhan the arguments of eeonomie policy.’°’
TIje final reporr did nor quirc give this degree of primacy ro rhe grear-pow
impulsc over econonjje facrors, hut in answer ro Macmillan’s Qucsrion
— edied if the UK werc ro be eompetitive inside or outside the EEC. After a
‘liotu tvil! the developnient o[the Six affect our relationship with the
Unjd
States and znfluence in the rest ofthe world?’ ir did say rhar, were Brij
our
0
ro remain ‘aloof from rhe Six, rhe relarive decline in our srarus
would reduce
our influcnce in the Commonwealth and wirh the uncornmirred counrries
We should run the risk of losing polirical influence and of ceasing ro be
able
fl) exereise any claim ro be a World Power.’
H
19
The ‘grear power’ impulse was rhe element wirhin The Six and ihe Sevesi
likely ro have mosr favourable impaet upon rhe lninisrers round Maemillan’s
Cabinet rahie. Bur wbar ahour rheir equally insrincrive anxiery about rhc
loss
of British sovereignry implicit in joining the EEC?
Macniillan bad posed this in his Quesrion 19— ‘To whatextent wouldjoi.
ing the Six recjuzre Us to give U sovereigizt i.e. to give up such control as
we stil! have over our domestic econoinic policies including agriculture .tnj
our social policies?’ The Lec Commirree was soothing, even in rhe face
of
lonming federalisrri:
ANSWER
Betwcen now and 1970 there woulcl be some progrcssivc oss of sovereignty in a number
of matrers affeeting domestic policy, of which agriculturc is likely ro be an imporrant
e:ampIc. It is difficuh to say how much would be invelved in any single field. Thc terms
ot application of the generally imprccise provisions of the Rome Treary affecring the
issues other than tariffs have still ro be agreed between the Six in rnany cases. If we
wurc to join rhe EECat an early dare we could take part in rhe formularion of thesc
provsiols, and influcnce the extent ro which they affeeted frcedorn in domesric policy.
1hL effccts of any eveiituai Joss of sovcreigoty would be niirigated:
(i)by our parrieipation in majorirv voting in the Councii of Mirtisters and by our
being ahie ro influencc rhc Coinmission’s prepararory work;
(n) if rcsisranee ro Fcderaiisin on ihe part of some of thc Govemrnents conrinues,
wluch our membership might be expcctcd ro encourage.°
union in irs opening paragraphson rhe grounds rhar only French rnysries such
as Monnet and his followers eould possibly subscrihe ro ir.
Where The Six and the Seven really did rub minisrers’ noses in reality was
io irs passage on rhe wcakncsses of rhe Brirish economy rhar bad ro be rem
pacan ro the benefirs of joining ‘a smgle marker of over zoo million peopie’
in rerrns of ‘more specialisarion, Iarger-seale produerion, higher efflcieney
hrough grearer eomperirion and a more rapid spread of rechnicaI skills and
new deveIopmenrs’, rhe reporr warned rhat,
lwlhether we join the Six or not, we shall have to reduce the proportion of our ourput
devoted to eonsutnpriofl, and increase the proporrion which is invesred or exporred. IF
we join rhe Six and seek ro securc the benefits of associarion with thc Communiry, we
shail have to be fully competitivc with them and this may involve changes in our indus
mai structure which may be borh more rapicl arid et a clifferenr charactcr rhan wouid
be the case if we staycd outsidc. Whilc thesc changes were raking placc, thcrc wouid
be greater need for mobilirv of iabour in rhe United Kingclom, and sorne social hard
ship mtght be involved.
Bor entry eouId Iead ro economic expansion and changes in the parrern of
indusrry wouid be easier ro handle in such circumsrances. ‘If, on rhe orher
hand, we deeide ro stay our of rhe Common Marker, we shall not be faced
with rhese parrieular, shorr-rerm problems, ar any rate in the same form. Bur
neither will United Kingdom industry have thc advantages of our association
with rhe Six, and rhis may icaci ro sragnarion and rhe country as a whoIe being
the poorer for it.’
’
20
As part of irs own deliberations the Lee group did rhink about the psy
ehodramatic elements implicit in rhe Stx/Seven question. Bot rhetr conciusions
0
did not find a place in rhe finaI reporr, perhaps because of a tradirional
Whirehall belief rhar ir was not for civil servanrs ro rell nsinisrers how to
manage public opinion. (That was a skiIl rhe polirical elass was, and is,
expeered ro possess.) Yer the 2.7 Jurie 19 6o draft contains a section on ‘Pub
lie Opinion in rhe Unired Kingdom’ thar snu has exrraordinary resonance
today:
it is to be cxpected that, if we wcre to om thc Six, therc would be considerable oppe

A dasb of wishful thinking rhere and a rraee of a British tendeney which
endured not ro believe what rhe Treary of Romc bad to say about ever eloser
—
sition from somc secrions of publie opinion in rhis country which would find expression
—
in Parliament and in some newspapcrs ... Wc should have to contend wirh rhe ordinary

Englishman’s almost innatc dislike and suspicion of ‘Europeans’.

6i6
617
 HAVING 11, SO G000
i his opposicion wouicl rcquirc careful handling; intensivc re-education would b
needed ro bnng tids scction ut the publie to realisc that in the modern world evefl
the United Kingdom eannot stand aione, and timat if we are cxciuded frum th
powcrfui F,uropean Commumty our influcnce and standing in the world ar large
tnciuding the Commonwcaith and the uneommirted countries would be bound to
—
2
diminish.°
What a chilliimg, decidedly un-English word ‘re-education’ is.
None the less, the Cabinet or a substantial section of it was apparently
— —
in need of just such ‘re-education’ themselves when they noet on 13 July I96
to consider The St’c and the Seven document. The minutes do not reveal who
made the most effective case against. Norman Brook, however, put tIme resist.
ance togetber in a composite paragraph:
In further diseussion it was suggested that thc advantages of joining the Cominuriity
md thc dangers of staylng outside bad been exaggerated. Many other parts of tIme
world besidcs Europe were cxpanding rapidly; and as a country with world-wide trad
ing conriectlons we were in a good position to exploit thesc wider opportunines. To
become a member o thc EEC could be positively harmful to our position in the world.
since some of the polirical and economie policies of the EEC countries did not inspire
rcspcct. France and Bclgium bad colonial difficulties, Germany was followtng an
ungenerous credit policy, and the EEC countrics generaliv were seeking to expand
thor productiori o primarv commoditics at thc expense of the lcss-devcloped coun
tries. In trying ro negotiate a settiement with thc Communitv we might run grave risks
of impatring the unity of ehe Comrnonwealth and undermining the confidence of us
otber members in ihe United Kingclom, with scnous financial and econornie conse•
quenccs to ourseIvcs.
20
In the I. IK/Europcan psychodrama, Act I, Scene i took place in 1950 when
Monnet and Schuman carried the plan for a Coal and Sted Community to
London, Scene ii was Eden and Messina and Scene iii Maernillan and Plan
G. Perhaps the Cabinct Room on 13 July 1960 was the setting for Scene i
ofAct II.
It may have heen that, but for Cabinet disagreements about the Lee report,
the first British application to min the EEC would have come before July
196 i 204 The tone of thc minutes of the 13 July meeting do suggest that cspe —
cially thc bridging position taken by both Alec I lome (still Commonwealth
Seeretary) aud Macmillan himseif.
Horne’s views wcre attributed in Brook’s minute, and they took on an even
6i8
WEALTI-I, POWER AND INFLUENCE
greatcr signifrcance within a few days when, av part of his ministerial reshuffie,
Macmillan made him Foreign Secretary. For Home on 13 July,
from the point of view of our future political influcnce in thc Arlantic Community there
were strong argurnents for joining tIme EEC. \Ve might hope eventually to achievc lead
ership of it and we couid use our influenee us it to keep West Cermany indepcndent of
the Soviet bloc. On the other hand our wider intcrests and influcncc tlmroughout time
world depended to a considerable extcnt on our iinks with time Commonwealth; anci if
by joiniflg time EEC, we did fatal damage to these we should lose our power to exert
our mfluenee on a world scale. An association short of mernbership svould not secure
for us cnough infiuence in time Community to malcc tIme price wortlm paying. We should
therefoee eonsider full membcrship, but scek special terins to meet our fundamental
interests and those of the Commonwca1tim.°
5
Maemillan sumrned up in a similar fashion. Parliament should be told ‘that
there were insuperable difficulties in the way of our aceepting membership of
the Community under the existing provisions of the Treaty of Rome, especially
in relation to our responsibilities to the Commonwealth; but that we fully
accepted the establishment of the Community and, with our partners in EFTA,
would continue to seek for a mutually satisfactory arrangement bctween time
EEC and EFTA’.
2
As Ene Roll recalled, Whitehall bad already sensed the tilt towards Europe;
217 The best-informed journalists bad
the Lee Committee becanme ha fulcrum.
sensed it too. On 5 July 1960 Don Cook, aftcr talking disereetly to Patrick
208 ran a finely crafted artiele in the New York Herald
Dean and others,
Tribune which pulled together the strands linking the Future Policy Study
with thc Europe Questions’ facing Macmillan and his Cabinet: ‘the senior
civil servants have now advised the Prime Minister in a special report on trends
of British foreign policv that a basic aim of the future must be a solution of
British relations with Europe. Though carefully worded, as befits advisers to
the government, the report invites the conciusion that entry into thc European
Economic Community sbould be the logical objective.’
209
Macmillan, still brooding post-summit (be recalled in bis memoirs that ‘my
Peter Ramsbotham, who had nu idca of the identiiy ut Cook’s nforrnants, niinuted Dean himseif
0117 Julv 1960, saying, ‘1 here have been odd leaks bcfore ahout the Future Policy Report, but Don
Cook hav ihis time elearly got more information about it ..it is not possible that the attention of
.
ihe Prjmc Minister ur of some other Minister will be drawn to hus articie. So many officials aud
i Ministers have read thc Repori timat any post.mortcm svould be useless. Dean initiiollcd and tieked
Ramsbotham’s minute on 8 July.
619
 HAVING il 50 G000
nurid was stil! turiiing more and more to the dangers of Britain remaining
outsidc a comrnunity which controlled a ccntral position in what was
left of
free Furopc
), placed a particularly evocative entry in his diary for
210
Jul).
1960 as be prepared to put the Lee report hefore his Cabinet:
Shall we be caught betwecn a hostile (or ar Icast Icss friendly) America and a
boastful
powcrful ‘Empire of Charlcmagne’ now under French but later bound to
—
e
0
beco
under German control. Is this tbe real reason for ‘joining’ the Common Market
(ifwe
are acceptablc) ancl for ahandoning (a) the Seven (b) British agriculture (c) the
Cor.
monwcalih? li’s a grim choiec.
°
1
This was Macmillan’s own personal manifestation of the ‘psychodra’
The facts, as Churchill might have pur it, glared upon him.
° The geometrj
2 rcgarcled the mixed-economy welfare state model as a generally successful
conecit had mmcd into an asymmetric nightmare for Macmillan, his govem.
ment ancl his country. Over a mere fifteen years since 1945, Britain bad
gone
from the peaceinaker and reconstructor of Europe to its awkwarcl supplicant.
The vieW from No. TO and those Cahinet Office committee rooms suggested
the road to 1970 might prove even roekier.
Was it a moment that marked a change of period in British history?
The’i
rims of epocbs, whether great or smal!, are very difflcult to define. li
is
tempting for a British historiau to use thc dates of general elections for smh
purposes. Oftcn this is justified: 1945, 1951, 1979 and 1997 unarguably
fit the bill. But even though there was no change of government
or even
Prime Minister that ycar, 1960 is, in my judgement, such a moment. The
‘Wind of Change’, the failcd summit, the turning of the European question,
the abandonment of the attempt to stand alone as a nuclear power all —
crammed into the first six mouths of 1960 combine to illustrate a proud
—
old political society on a tilt. This is not the same thing as a sclerotic society
on the slide. Much was stall to be played for in the world. The appetite for
the game was still there, even if it was now shaped by intcrlocking worries
about domestic economic performance and overseas influence. But early
1960 did prescnt a new geometry and it marks the end of the ‘short
post
war’.
Certainly illusions remained to be shed in T96O from senior Cabinet min
isters to those of the Qucen’s subjects tasting affluence for the first time and
assuming that full employmerit and steadily rising consumption was as much
a given as fear of unemployment and privation bad been just a generation
earlier. Similar strictures can be applied, with hindsight, to those policy-makers
who believed tbat such a henign cycle was sustainable tbanlcs to the combina
6zo
WEALTH, POWER ANO 1NFLUFNCE
tjo 0 ideas aud instrurnents hcqueathed to the posar generation byWilliam
veridge aud Maynard Keynes.
But this, in the words of Edward Thompson, auiouuts to an example of
‘tbe enormouS eoudesccnsion of posterity’)° Tbompson was a man of the
lft writing in the 1960s about the eighteemh and nineteenth ccnturics, aud
tellectually, on this point at least, be bad a curious ally in a celebrated man
0
j
f tbe right, the late uineteentb and early-twentietb-century Conscrvative
0
prjnlc Minister, the third Marquess of Salisbury. For Salisbury, the ‘axioms of
the last age are the fallacies of tbc present, the principles whicb save one
generation may be the ruin of the next’.
°
2
In 1960 the tough and the soft-minded alike could, with reason, have
banisher of tbe domestic aud economic ilis of 1930S Britain. Homes and jobs
bad been available for returning wartime heroes and their families, fulfilling
post-1945 Lloyd George’s vain boast to the Tommics of the Great War in
19,8.20
There is much to be said for ‘a better yesterday’ as a politico-cconomic and
social inotivator. But, of itself, it is not enough. Soeieties aud economies need
to be stimulated, not just to right past wrongs bot to face future difficulties
aud developments. mauy of which, as the Lee report to ministers showcd,
were certainly foreseeable as the decades turned. Yet, as the increasing per
sonal consumption of the Fifties put flesh on the austere bones of the late
Forties, only the most abstemious and mean-spirited curmudgeon could fall
to give at least two ebeers. Britaiu, unlike most of its westemn Europcan com
petitors, was not in 1960 completing the first fiftceu of ‘thirty glorious years’
) of higb and sustaincd ecouomic growth.
(as the French came to call them
216
But Britain in the Fifties was flecked even if it wasn’t plated with gold.
— —
i be couutry sbould have felt a greater sense of urgency about its relative
ecouomic performance, its place in Europe and the wider world. Bot comfort
able socicties can be very difficult to invigorate. Much of thc Sixties werc to
be marked by competition hetween thc political parties as to who could most
cffectivcly ‘modernize’ the ancient polity tbat had become thc world’s first
industrial society, wbich will be a theme of my next volurne.
But in early 1960, in Shakespearean metaphor, the hlood was not sum
moned up any more than the sinews were stiffened. The British people were
not girding themselves for a decadc of struggle in Europe’s om the world’s
markets. The politics of affluence mather than anxiety (tbe bomb apart) were
making the weather. Despite Suez aud a cluster of vcxing colonial wars and
6zi
 HAVING Vr 50 G000

retreats, the still-vivid memory of a brave, heroic, energetic and world.saving

Fornes conrmued to envelop Fifties Britain like a coinfort b]anket.
In April 1960, during the state visit of Charles (le Gaulle, the Queen,
one head of state to anorher, had asked him what he thought should be her
role amid rhe unccrtairiues chat faced her country. The General replied, per.
haps as only he could, by saying ‘In that scation to which God has called you
be who you are. 7 Madam!’° She did so; so did her ministers and so dal her
i Chronology

country. Perhaps her people, like lier Maesty, could do no other.

‘95’
erper
Qctober 25 General election: Conservativeswin butwithasmall
votes cast than 1.abou r (48.0 per cent to
centage of the
,
48.8 per cent); Conscrvatives, 321 seats; Labour
2.95;

ls, 6; otbers, Conscr vative majori ty of 17. Turnout

L.ihera .

8z. per cent.

z6 Churchill hecomes Prime Minister.
Eden
30 Butler announecd as Chancellor of the Exchcquer,
as Foreign Secretary, Maxwell Fyfc as I-lonie Secr etar.
and dete
31 Butler drafts Cabiner paper warning of a parlous
riorating econoinic position.
November 7 Butler announces rise
in Bank rare from 2. to z½ per cerit.
rcphased
Labour’s planncd increases in defence spending
over four years instead of three.
on the
21 Churchill briefed on Attlee govcrnments’ work
atomic bomb.
le’ to
23 (IN and North Korean negotiators agree ‘in princip
a truce line along the 8th paralle l.
plain thai
29 Churchill’s ‘United Europc’ Cahinet paper makes
the Euro
he never contemplated Britain actually joining
pean Coal and Sted Community.
eoncealed
December ii Churchill briefed on how Attlee governments
cost of the atomic bomb from Parliament.
14 Churchill auchorizes bomb test in
Australia.

62.3