The imperial premiership

The role of the modern Prime Minister in foreign policy making, 1964–2015

Sam Goodman

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781526108456
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Recent votes in the House of Commons on British military intervention have put foreign policy at the heart of public consciousness. This book spans British foreign policy over the last fifty years and nine premierships from Harold Wilson to David Cameron. Based on the author's first-hand interviews with former foreign secretaries, Cabinet ministers, senior civil servants, party officials, military chiefs and diplomats it offers a unique account of the growing role of the prime minister in foreign policymaking and its impact. Written by a senior parliamentary researcher it offers an insider account of votes on military intervention in Syria. The prime minister now spends more time on foreign policy than any previous period outside war, yet the public and MPs themselves remain relatively ill-informed of foreign policy outside of crises. If we are to avoid the mistakes of the past and utilise our country's full capacity on the world stage we need a societal change in how we vet those who seek the office and in educating the electorate.

1
Harold Wilson, 1964–70

Harold Wilson ascended to the premiership on 16 October 1964 gaining a parliamentary majority of four in a close fought election. After thirteen years of Conservative Government, marred in the later years by the Profumo scandal and claims of cronyism, the electorate were ready for a change of party. Wilson, at forty-eight years of age, formed the first Labour Government since Clement Attlee.

The left wing of the Labour Party had high expectations of a more left-leaning foreign policy from a Wilson Government. Elected leader on a centre-left platform in January 1963 after the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell, Wilson already had a long association with the left wing of the Party. Together with Aneurin Bevan, his mentor, and John Freeman, Wilson had resigned as President of the Board of Trade from Attlee's Cabinet in protest against the introduction of fees to the National Health Service to help offset the financial demands of the Korean War.

Labour's 1964 manifesto also offered a return to a more socialist foreign policy, promising ‘an end to colonialism’, vigorous efforts to relax Cold War tensions, the introduction of new initiatives on disarmament, and leadership at ‘the United Nations [as] the chosen instrument by which the world can move away from the anarchy of power politics towards the creation of a genuine world community and the rule of law’.¹ Many at the time questioned whether these ideological manifesto commitments would be sustainable against the pragmatism that foreign policy often requires.

Wilson was thrust into foreign policy literally within minutes of his arrival at No. 10 when he was handed two telegrams: one telling him that the Chinese had tested their first nuclear weapon, the other that Khrushchev had been overthrown in Russia.²

Like all premiers, Wilson inherited the foreign policy decisions of his predecessors. Macmillan in his ‘Wind of Change’ speech had committed Britain to a timetable of decolonisation across Africa, and since 1945 five prime ministers had sustained Britain's Cold War military spending and defence obligations. In both of these areas there was an expectation that he would continue to do the same.

Vietnam

As Prime Minister, Wilson also inherited strained relations with the American President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ), over the growing spectre of Western intervention in Vietnam. His Conservative predecessors, Macmillan and Douglas-Home, had both been close to President John F. Kennedy but neither developed such a relationship with his successor LBJ.

The USA had been involved in Vietnam since the end of the French War in Indochina, when the country was partitioned at the 1954 Geneva Conference. Since then the country had been caught in a fractious civil war between the Communists in the north and the Western-backed military regime of the south. Vietnam was increasingly viewed as a proxy war, with many in the United States citing the fear that if the country fell to the Communists it would create a domino effect in the region. The USA had enacted a policy of committing military advisers to train and assist the south since November 1955.

Prior to his assassination in November 1963, President Kennedy had pledged to remove military advisers by the end of 1964. LBJ initially supported this policy but upon assuming the presidency he soon found himself under pressure from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to commit US troops or watch South Vietnam fall to the Communists.

Britain's role

Under Harold Macmillan, Britain also committed military advisers to help train the South Vietnamese in the form of the British Military Advisory Mission. Running from 1962–64, the Mission advised and trained South Vietnamese soldiers in British counter-insurgency tactics in Malaya.³

The strain in relations between No. 10 and the White House first came about over the topic of the US embargo on Cuba. Alec Douglas-Home, on a trip to Washington in the summer of 1964, used a press conference to criticise US policy on Cuba. President Johnson was incensed, later stating that Home had not raised such concerns in their discussions.⁴ Instead he felt that the Prime Minister's criticism was an electioneering strategy to win votes and portray himself as independent from the USA. In response Johnson told British newspaper editors that he would never trust a British Prime Minister again.⁵

Wilson criticised Western involvement in Vietnam early on, stating in 1954 that ‘not a man, not a gun, must be sent from this country to defend French colonisation in Indo-China . . . we must not join or in any way encourage an anti-Communist crusade in Asia under the leadership of the Americans or anyone else’.⁶ As Leader of the Opposition he pressed the then Prime Minster Alec Douglas-Home in early 1964 to advise LBJ against extending the war in Vietnam. This criticism was noted by the Johnson Administration and created an early distrust of Wilson's premiership in Washington.

Escalation

The war in Vietnam escalated when on 30 July and 4 August 1964, two American navy cruisers on an intelligence-gathering mission in the Gulf of Tonkin were allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. In response to the attack President Johnson addressed the American people declaring that North Vietnam had attacked the United States. The US Congress, in support of the President passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution declaring that ‘the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression’.⁷ This resolution effectively gave the President unilateral power to escalate the conflict without requiring a formal declaration of war.

Despite Congressional authorisation, LBJ chose not to escalate US involvement in Vietnam straight away. This restraint was largely due to the upcoming presidential election in November 1964.

A changing position

Early in his premiership Wilson was advised by the Foreign Office to consider changing his position on Vietnam to support the US in ‘limited’ and ‘controlled’ action.⁸ Fundamentally a pragmatist, he took this advice seriously.

In December 1964, Wilson visited Washington for the first time with his Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker. Both men were pressed by US officials for a British commitment to the war effort in Vietnam. Walking in the Rose Garden of the White House, Johnson asked the Prime Minister to send troops to Vietnam, even if it was just a symbolic force like the Black Watch pipers.⁹

The Prime Minister parried his request b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Timeline
• Introduction
• Prologue
• 1 Harold Wilson, 1964–70
• 2 Ted Heath, 1970–74
• 3 Harold Wilson, 1974–76
• 4 James Callaghan, 1976–79
• 5 Margaret Thatcher, 1979–90
• 6 John Major, 1990–97
• 7 Tony Blair, 1997–2007
• 8 Gordon Brown, 2007–10
• 9 David Cameron, 2010–15
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index