Shaping British Foreign and Defence Policy in the Twentieth Century

A Tough Ask in Turbulent Times

M. Murfett, M. Murfett

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137431493
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This volume is devoted to the shaping of British foreign and defence policymaking in the twentieth century and illustrates why it's relatively easy for states to lose their way as they grope for a safe passage forward when confronted by mounting international crises and the antics of a few desperate men.

1

Professor David Neville Dilks, MA (Oxon), FRHistS, FRSL (1938–)

An Appreciation from Afar

Malcolm H. Murfett

I need to state at the outset that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to David Dilks for the significant impact he had on my life at Leeds and Oxford in the 1970s and at Singapore ever since. Without David’s influence and periodic intervention, my professional career would have almost certainly turned out quite differently.

Despite the fact that he has performed a number of cameo roles at various stages of my life, I have to confess I don’t begin to know what really makes him tick. He is an elusive fellow who guards his privacy almost inordinately well. For someone who has been in the spotlight for much of his life, he was rather embarrassed at the thought that I was going to prepare an essay on him for this volume and hoped it would be a brief affair. I laughed as only a prolix fellow should and gave him no such guarantee.

I think it would be entirely appropriate to call David a ‘high Tory’ – someone who early on in his career found a congenial home in the corridors of the Conservative and Unionist Party working closely with a number of the leading luminaries of that institution – some of whom had reached the top of the greasy pole in British politics in the post-war world. It’s clear that Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Lord Home and RAB Butler trusted him and with good reason since he never let them down. Secrets that he became aware of were never divulged – at least not by him. David’s moral integrity wasn’t compromised. His sphinx-like persona gave nothing away. If Robert Blake was the older generation’s official historian of the party, David was seen by many as his natural successor. His two volume study of another stalwart of the party – Lord Curzon – and his magisterial work on the much maligned figure of Neville Chamberlain, together with the scholarly grasp he acquired of Churchill’s turbulent career, made him a natural choice for that role until university administration lured him away from the archives and began to take up an overwhelming amount of his time. Tertiary administration’s gain was, alas, historical scholarship’s loss.

A Baring Scholar at Hertford College, Oxford (1956–59), David’s interests in International History were fostered by his two spells at the hothouse of St Antony’s (1959–60, 1961–62) and by his early undergraduate teaching assignments at the LSE. These were busy and productive years as he spent the decade working as a research assistant on the memoirs of Eden (1960–62), Marshal of the RAF Lord Tedder (1963–65) and Macmillan (1964–70). There was much to do. Access to closed archival papers is usually fascinating and always a great privilege, but the staple of fact checking, draft writing, editing and endless amounts of reading that comes with it does so at a great cost to the individual’s free time and often saps his energy. Working for prominent figures with a story to tell is rarely as easy as it sounds. Some can be considerable task masters and research assistants need as much enthusiasm and self-confidence as endurance and resilience to ride out the storms that occasionally erupt when material that they may have presented doesn’t go down well with their host and paymaster! On balance, however, David gained vastly from the experience. He was seen as a safe pair of hands: bright, scholarly and agreeable, but far from being a cloying sycophant.

Working on several fronts appealed to David. As he devilled in the archives for biographical details, he was gathering a mass of material for his projected manuscript on the tenure of the rather superior Lord Curzon as the Governor-General and Viceroy of India, and editing the diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, the analytically shrewd and dependable former Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. All of this hyperactivity was going on while he was moving through the lecturing ranks at the LSE. This fine institution proved to be an ideal launching pad for his assault in 1970 on the new position of Professor of International History and Politics (IHP) at the University of Leeds. Despite his unflagging energy and commitment to the cause, David at only 32 was hardly a cast iron certainty for a professorship at a well-established university in West Yorkshire that might have been expected to appoint a more seasoned academic with bags of administrative experience on his record. Although he had only eight years of university service to his name by this stage, David did have youth, flair and that key asset ‘potential’ on his side. When linked to an impressive maturity and a clear vision of where he wanted IHP to go, his inexperience no longer became an impediment to securing this post but actually a virtue. In 1970 professorships were not usually doled out to tall young willowy men of promise, but Leeds bucked the trend.

It helped that David was (and still is) very suave and engaging; with a compelling delivery and an ability to convince even the most sceptical that his views are worth listening to and deserving of attention. I rarely agreed with some of the positions he adopted and failed to see what there was to admire in Chamberlain’s faulty grasp of foreign and defence issues, but David could fashion a heroic defence of the fallen ‘anti-hero’ of Munich like no other. His championing of Chamberlain was remarkable because it won him few favours among his peer group. Appeasement seemed as bankrupt in the 1970s as the Kreditanstalt had been in 1931. As for his students, we marvelled at how he seemed to turn black into white with the finesse of a master illusionist. In the face of overwhelming criticism of appeasement, David was stoically unmoved. He was convinced that history had given Chamberlain a raw deal and it was his task to enlighten the new wave of emerging historians that all was not what it may have seemed to have been back in the mid-to-late 1930s. His earnest conviction that Chamberlain had grasped the overall reality of the situation rather than merely a few straws of it certainly helped to underline the necessity for each of us to recognise that there is always another side to the argument no matter how stacked the odds are against it.

I invariably found him an amusing raconteur; an individual who could be relied upon to discover unfamiliar and yet captivating vignettes in the public records about the ‘great and the good’ which could then be used to enliven his lectures and improve their accessibility no matter whether his audience was student-orientated or non-university based. He had little difficulty in identifying the absurdities of life and the fecklessness of the human condition. As a tutor, I found him somewhat intimidating – a bit like an iceberg that you didn’t mess with but steered around. Collisions were out of the question. I can only recall having him as my tutor in the first year of the IHP programme and it was soon entirely evident that he seemed to know so much more than I did about everything! It was extremely galling. I wasn’t used to slipping under the radar screen, but tangling with David in his pomp when I hadn’t read everything on the subject seemed like a very bad idea to me at the time and still does!

Whether in class or not, David could be always relied upon to inveigh against the smug, self-satisfied tyranny of the Oxbridge-London ‘golden triangle’ which he felt looked down on the other tertiary institutions in the UK. Despite the fact that he had passed through two of the three elite universities himself and had recently been a visiting fellow at All Souls, he genuinely thought that the ‘golden triangle’ – for all of its wonderful endowments – didn’t have a monopoly on scholarly brilliance and its apparent disdain for the other academic outposts dotted about the country was both very demeaning and extremely unfair to them. In his view, Leeds and other universities like it weren’t there just to make up the numbers even if they were woefully underestimated and critically under-funded by the British Establishment.

While the iniquities of the British university system with its uneven pattern of resources could immediately gain his undivided attention, another touchstone of David’s passion lay in fostering links with the Commonwealth. While he was at LSE, he became a consultant to the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth (1968–75) and the founding member and first chairman of the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council (1968–73), both roles he took to Leeds with him in 1970. During this time he also developed a close rapport with a number of leading figures within the Canadian higher education system and solidified these links by initially establishing the Canadian Studies Committee at Leeds and becoming its chairman for a decade as it proceeded from an informal grouping to a fully-fledged, University-funded body (1974–84). He also took on the additional role of advisor to all overseas students who joined the School of History at Leeds in the 16 years after 1975. In this role he lent an ear to the homesick and eased the financial burdens of others who found themselves struggling to keep afloat in an increasingly expensive UK on inadequate funding. While he was not one to crow about his achievements in these fields, he was quietly appreciated by those who came to see him with their problems and benefited from his kindness and consideration. These administrative roles were not undertaken by him to add an extra line or two to his burgeoning curriculum vitae. After all, in the days before annual league tables and the quinquennial Research Assessment Exercise became a way of life for British universities, tenured professors of his ilk weren’t obliged to prove that they were instrumental in bringing extra value-added to their schools or departments. David helped because he wanted to. It was understated as usual with him. He wanted no publicity or fuss. He still doesn’t.

At Leeds he was synonymous with the advancement of the IHP degree. He was its lightning rod and from the outset its admissions tutor. This enabled him to take a punt on the unorthodox – the ‘second-chance’, mature students – as well as the gifted younger candidates who had jumped through the examination hoops at school with great facility and on time. Not surprisingly, IHP had an edge to it and rapidly became a flagship programme within the School of History. In establishing the BA in International History and Politics he was aided by a set of excellent, if occasionally highly idiosyncratic, colleagues with eclectic tastes. They made for a vibrant community of scholars. Steering such an assorted group with considerable abilities and egos to match would have been challenging for anyone. Whether David was inclusive or exclusive in the running of the department and as chairman of the School (1974–79) is better answered by those who were there at the time.

Whatever went on in the professional domain, however, he always had the loyal and consistent support of his family and a close knit circle of friends to rely upon. In particular, his wife Jill knew the score and had seen it all before since her father, the celebrated academic and prolific historian W.N. Medlicott, had been the former Stevenson Professor of International History at the LSE. Jill could therefore provide both a reality check and a calming influence if and when things began to go awry as they occasionally must have done over the years. Anyone who has had to deal with us on a long-term basis knows that academics can be notoriously difficult characters at the best of times – our insecurities often reign supreme regardless of how high our personal IQs may be. In any case, university politics is often contentious and frustrating, so a retreat to a lovely home environment after tangling with the levers of bureaucracy all day long becomes crucial if sanity is to be preserved. Jill clearly provided that oasis for David and the strong bonds of their marriage (1963–) and the joy that came from witnessing the growing exploits of their only child Richard (born in 1979) illuminated their family life together and put everything else into a welcome sense of perspective.

Even at the best of times tertiary administration is an acquired taste; endless amounts of times stuck in committees arguing the toss about procedural items, government interference, policy matters, faculty budgets, and funding initiatives would test the patience of Job and drive most people to despair. Somehow David acquired the taste for navigating his way through the swirling shoals that lie in wait for even the most intrepid of administrative helmsmen. His motivation was laudable in that he sought to try to make the university he served more responsive to change and better able to cope with the compelling demands of the modern world. It wasn’t a case of mere survival, by the 1970s that wasn’t good enough any longer. David was hardly alone in recognizing that any institute of higher education needed to shake off the lethargy and complacency that may have arisen in the wake of the Robbins Report (1963) and the expansion of the tertiary sector to take account of the ‘baby boomer’ generation that would be beating a path to its door from then onwards. It was evident that all centres of higher learning needed to improve at all levels if they were to become more appreciated in a hyper-competitive world. David quite naturally wanted to attract the best students and staff to Leeds and subsequently to Hull and knew it wouldn’t happen unless the university actively courted them and showed that it was a place worth coming to. He saw it as his task to try to lay the groundwork for that desired objective. It would require more than talk to bring this about but policy guidelines needed to be drawn up to facilitate progress in these fields and that was where David felt he could contribute in a meaningful capacity. While at Leeds he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts (1975–77); he had two spells on the Planning Committee of the Senate (1977–79 and 1981–84), the latter period coinciding with his chairmanship of its Research Policy Committee; and if that wasn’t enough, he was also a member of the Council of the University (1977–79) and six other university committees ranging from industrial relations to military education.

Amazingly, that was not all. He also performed a number of non-university roles, in particular on the Advisory Council on Public Records (1977–85), the Central Council of the Royal Commonwealth Society (1982–85) and the Universities Funding Council in London (1988–91). In addition, he was a trustee of the memorial trusts established for two Privy Councillors and Companions of Honour he greatly admired: Baron Boyle of Handsworth (better known as Sir Edward Boyle) and Viscount Boyd of Merton (the former Alan Lennox-Boyd). Both had reached Cabinet rank – the former for education and the latter for the colonies – but had become disenchanted with the daily grind of knockabout politics and sought solace in organ music and scholarly pastimes (Boyle) and mapping out the fortunes of Arthur Guinness & Sons (Boyd). David’s trustee work extended across a variety of other areas to embrace the Imperial War Museum, the Royal Commonwealth Society Library, the Heskel & Mary Nathaniel Trust, and the Young Historians Scheme. Worthy though these causes were, it remains a mystery to me how he found the time to conduct these extra-curricula activities and yet still keep his head above water. But there was more because he was also a Freeman and subsequently a Liveryman of the Goldsmiths’ Company – one of the 12 great livery companies in the City of London. Need I go on?

When David arrived at Leeds in 1970, the Brotherton Library already had a very fine collection of printed works and published sources which it had built up assiduously over the years. Working closely with the librarian, however, he identified a whole range of additional public and private collections in the realm of international history that could be purchased in microform to complement the library’s existing holdings. His efforts in this regard helped to ensure that an impressive array of primary research materials was made available for project work at all levels of the IHP scholarly community. David also played a vital role in raising £250,000 as a precursor to acquiring the vast Liddle Collection of materials on World War I – the largest of its kind in existence – for the Brotherton.

Supported by an increasingly strong research environment, he supervised a raft of MPhil and PhD theses on a diverse range of topics covering many aspects of modern foreign and Commonwealth affairs. It was not unusual for him to have eight or nine graduate students working on their dissertations at any one time. In the ultra-competitive era of the 1980s British universities were expected to vie for the best students not only domestically but internationally. David saw this as an ideal opportunity to draw on the strengths and attractions of Leeds to reach out to a much wider audience. Using his high profile position on the British National Committee on the History of the Second World War (1983–2005) and as a founder member of the Study Group on Intelligence (1982–91) to great effect, he began organizing a series of stellar conferences throughout the decade in which a cast of leading academics from Europe, the US, and the wider world beyond were persuaded to come to Leeds to thrash out a number of hugely contentious issues within the realm of modern international history. These proved to be intellectually engaging affairs and showed Leeds in a very positive light. Building on this momentum, he became instrumental in promoting the establishment of the MA in Modern International Studies. An advanced degree by course work and dissertation, the new Masters course proved to be a very attractive magnet drawing students from around the globe to Leeds in the post-1989 period. Already postgraduate admissions tutor since 1985, he was the natural candidate to become appointed director of the Institute for International Studies in 1989, a post he retained until Hull hove into view in 1991.

I never thought that David would end his career at Leeds even though he had done so much to raise its profile as a cool place to do history at university. I imagined that he would ultimately return to the ‘golden triangle’ as a master or warden of a college. I was wrong. A vacancy as vice-chancellor arose at the University of Hull and David, already something of an institution at Leeds, opted to apply for it. After two decades in West Yorkshire, he was ready to face another challenge. Going to Humberside would prove to be all of that and more. By the time of his appointment David could draw upon a vast well of university administration. Much of that, of course, had been devoted to preserving the interests of the historical discipline from administrative intervention and the impact of government policy. Now he was directly in the firing line on behalf of the entire university. He couldn’t seek to protect one discipline or faculty over another. History would have to take a back seat for the duration.

Funding issues were, naturally, of paramount importance in higher education in the 1990s. A university could have a great strategic plan for the future but the ability to implement it was almost always driven by the financial health of the institution. New sources of revenue were therefore vital if a university was to move forward in this new and rather unsatisfactory ‘bums on seats’ era. Vice-Chancellors like David were forced to spend a good deal of their time on financial matters, making earnest appeals to alumni as well as potential donors to sponsor a multiplicity of academic initiatives and infrastructural needs. It was often a ‘fire fighting’ exercise in which some success on one front was mitigated by failure to arrest its depressing negative momentum on another. Even at the best of times administrators are rarely beloved by academics who accuse them of being divorced from the reality of the classroom, lecture theatre or laboratory and obsessed by the minutiae of box ticking, form filling and number crunching. Sitting on the top of this unforgiving pyramidal structure are the well-heeled Vice-Chancellors who chair high powered committees, meet visiting dignitaries and preside over matriculation and graduation ceremonies. In the past they were often seen as being largely inaccessible figures surrounded by an equally remote entourage who lived ‘inside the academic tent’ with them. In recent years they were encouraged to get out more and David didn’t need any cue to follow suit. As a result, he travelled abroad extensively presiding at degree days and cultivating links with an extensive cast of government officials, business executives and potential or actual benefactors who could be used to Hull’s advantage. In my experience, however, teaching staff don’t have to be querulous and disputatious to consider all bureaucrats – elite or otherwise – as a frictional element in their lives. Rarely are they embraced for their foresight or initiative, let alone the formal work that they do. David’s time at Hull, therefore, was hardly likely to be a bed of roses. I’m sure he realised that from the beginning as he began negotiating the congested M62 from Leeds out to the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Nonetheless, whatever difficulties the staff might have posed for him, the students at Hull during the 1990s were consistently known for having a great time, being very satisfied with their courses, and finding little difficulty in getting jobs once they graduated. Such very positive student feedback suggests that Hull had got its act together under David’s resolute leadership. This was independently confirmed by The Times Good University Guide which saw Hull vaulting more than 20 places up its ranking list during the eight years that he remained at the helm in University House (1991–99). A marked improvement of this nature was no mean feat in a restless tertiary sector. Moreover, it wasn’t a marketing ploy devised by the public relations unit on campus or some spurious claim on a website; the fact was that Hull’s fortunes were distinctly and officially ‘on the up’. While there are many causes for this startling progress, team work obviously played a vital p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• 1. Professor David Neville Dilks, MA (Oxon), FRHistS, FRSL (1938–): An Appreciation from Afar
• 2. The British Empire’s Image of East Asia, 1900–41: Politics, Ideology and International Order
• 3. The Struggle to Maintain Locarno Diplomacy: Britain and the Idea of a Political Truce in 1931
• 4. ‘Leaving Us in the Lurch’: The British Government, the First DRC Enquiry and the United States, 1933–34
• 5. Chamberlain, the British Army and the ‘Continental Commitment’
• 6. Eden, the Foreign Office and the ‘German Problem’, 1935–38
• 7. Harold Nicolson and Appeasement
• 8. Another Jewel Forsaken: The Role of Singapore in British Foreign and Defence Policy, 1919–68
• 9. Quadruple Failure? The British-American Split over Collective Security in Southeast Asia, 1963–66
• 10. GCHQ and UK Computer Policy: Teddy Poulden, ICL and IBM
• Select Bibliography
• Index