Britain and 'LBJ's war', 1964-68

Cold War History

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 63-92

  Young, John W ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 24644519262     PISSN: 14682745     EISSN: 17437962     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713999965     Document Type: Review

References (118)

1. Michael Stewart, Life and Labour (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1980), p.151.
2. Paul Gore-Booth, With Great Truth and Respect (London: Constable, 1974), p.334.
3. R.B. Smith, An International History of the Vietnam War, vols. I-III (London: Macmillan, 1983, 1985 and 1991).
4. See especially the covering account in George C. Herring (ed.), The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1983), part VI, chapter 3.
5. But also, for example: Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (London: Guild, 1983), pp.495-6;
6. Thomas Zeiler, Dean Rusk (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000), p.173.
7. Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999).
8. On British policy and Geneva: Geoffrey Warner, 'The Settlement of the Indochina War', in John W Young (ed.), The Foreign Policy of Churchill's Peacetime Administration (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1988), pp.233-59;
9. Kevin Ruane, 'Anthony Eden, British Diplomacy and the Origins of the Geneva Conference', Historical Journal, 37/1 (1994), pp.153-72.
10. But on earlier years: Peter M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War (London: Hurst, 1985), focusing on the British liberation of Southern Vietnam in 1945;
11. and Kevin Ruane, 'Containing America: Aspects of British Foreign Policy and the Cold War in South-East Asia, 1951-54', Diplomacy & Statecraft, 7/1 (1996), pp.141-74.
12. Peter Busch, 'Supporting the War: Britain's Decision to Send the Thompson Mission to Vietnam, 1960-61', Cold War History, 2/1 (Oct. 2001), pp.69-94;
13. Peter Busch, 'Britain and Kennedy's War in Vietnam 1961-3' (Ph.D., London School of Economics, 1999).
14. Rolf Steininger, ' "The Americans are in a Hopeless Position": Great Britain and the War in Vietnam, 1964-65', Diplomacy & Statecraft, 8/3 (1997), pp.237-85;
15. John W Young, 'The Wilson Government and the Davies Peace Mission to North Vietnam', Review of International Studies, 24 (1998), pp.545-62.
16. Michael Donohoe, 'The Wilson Government's Vietnam Peace Initiatives 1964-7' (M.Phil., University of Oxford, 1997);
17. Christopher Twine, 'Anglo-American Relations and the Vietnam War 1964-7' (Ph.D., University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 2000);
18. and just before going to press I have learnt of Sylvia Ellis, Anglo-American Relations and the Vietnam War, 1964-8' (Ph.D., University of Newcastle, 1999).
19. For example, John Dumbrell, 'The Johnson Administration and the British Labour Government: Vietnam, the Pound and East of Suez', Journal of American Studies, 30 (1996), pp.211-31.
20. But again there is some excellent doctoral work: Rajarish Roy, 'The Battle for the Pound: The Political Economy of Anglo-American Relations 1964-8' (Ph.D., London School of Economics, 2000);
21. and Jeremy Fleming, 'The Currency of Power: Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy and the Making of British Foreign Policy' (Ph.D., Yale University, 1999).
22. John Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno: British, American, Australian and New Zealand Diplomacy in the Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation, 1961-5 (London: Macmillan, 2000);
23. Matthew Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in South-East Asia, 1961-5: Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
24. David Easter, 'British Defence Policy in South-East Asia and the Confrontation' (Ph.D., London School of Economics, 1998).
25. For a short introduction: John Bartlett, The Special Relationship (London: Longman, 1992).
26. Donald Maclean, British Foreign Policy since Suez (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1970), pp.68, and 315-16.
27. Busch, 'Supporting the War'.
28. Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (London: Michael Joseph, 1989), p.227.
29. Paul Foot, The Politics of Harold Wilson (London: Penguin, 1968), pp.204-5 and 211.
30. See Saki Dockrill, 'Britain's Power and Influence: Dealing with Three Roles and the Wilson Government's Defence Debate at Chequers in November 1964', Diplomacy & Statecraft, 11/1 (March 2000), pp.211-40.
31. also Jones, Conflict, pp.281-90.
32. Harold Wilson, The Labour Government 1964-70 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1971), p.48;
33. also see Foreign Relations of the United States (hereinafter FRUS), 1964-8, Vol. 1 (Washington: USGPO, 1992), pp.985-6.
34. Gore-Booth, Great Truth, p.335.
35. Wilson, Government, p.80.
36. For a summary of US evidence see Philip Ziegler, Wilson: The Authorised Life (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993), pp.223-4.
37. Philip Kaiser, Journeying Far and Wide (New York: Schribner's, 1992), p.230.
38. Henry Brandon, In the Red (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), pp.67-8;
39. Foot, Politics of Wilson, pp.213-14.
40. Hansard, House of Commons Debates, Fifth Series, vol.709, col.1981.
41. Steininger, '"The Americans are in a Hopeless Position"', pp.261-6;
42. Logevall, Choosing War, p.340.
43. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson (London: HarperCollins, 1992), pp.384 and 389.
44. Donohoe, Vietnam Peace Initiatives, pp.33-6.
45. Diary of 4 March, Barbara Castle, The Castle Diaries, 1964-70 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984), p.17.
46. Edward Short, Whip to Wilson (London: Macdonald, 1989), p.160.
47. PREM 13/693, record of meeting, 16 March. On the background see Twine, Vietnam War, pp.122-7;
48. PREM 13/352, record of meeting, 15 April;
49. and see FRUS, 1964-8, Vol.2 , p.557.
50. and in PREM 13/694 see especially Gordon walker's final report, 7 May 1965. Also: Steininger, '"The Americans are in a Hopeless Position"', pp.267-74;
51. Ziegler, Wilson, p.225.
52. Chris Wrigley, 'Now You See It, Now You Don't: Harold Wilson and Labour's Foreign Policy', in R. Coopey et al. (eds), The Wilson Governments 1964-70 (London: Pinter, 1993), pp.125-6.
53. For fuller discussions see Young, 'Davies Peace Mission', passim;
54. Gordon Walker to Wilson and Stewart, 30 June, reproduced in Robert Pearce (ed.), Patrick Gordon Walker: Political Diaries, 1932-71 (Historians' Press, 1991), pp.304-6.
55. PREM 13/693, Wright to Wilson, 1 March; Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970), p.248, quoting John son to Lady Bird, 7 March.
56. Clive Ponting, Breach of Promise: Labour in Power, 1964-70 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989), pp.53 and see 48-54.
57. Dumbrell, 'The Johnson Administration'.
58. For other discussions of the subject see Alan Dobson, 'The Years of Transition: Anglo-American Relations 1961-7', Review of International Studies, 16 (1990), pp.239-58;
59. Diane Kunz, Butter and Guns: America's Cold War Economic Diplomacy (New York: Free Press, 1997), chapter 8;
60. Jeffrey Pickering, Britain's Withdrawal from East of Suez (London: Macmillan, 1998), pp.136-74;
61. Roy, Battle for the Pound;
62. Fleming, Currency of Power.
63. Ponting, Breach of Promise, p.48.
64. Diary of 14 Feb., Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Volume One, Minister of Housing, 1964-6 (London: Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape, 1975), p.456.
65. Twine, Vietnam War 1964-7, pp.82-3;
66. Busch, Britain and Kennedy's War, pp.252-4; and documents in PRO, FO371/175484.
67. PREM 13/1272, South East Asia Department memorandum, 27 Jan., and Foreign Office to Washington, 16 Feb. 1966;
68. Tom Bower, The Perfect English Spy (Heinemann, 1995), p.40.
69. Simon Kear, 'The British Consulate-General in Hanoi, 1954-73', Diplomacy & Statecraft, 10/1 (March 1999), pp.215-39, especially 233-5 (quote from 233).
70. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot (London: Mandarin, 1989), p.151.
71. Easter, Confrontation, chapters 8 and 9;
72. Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno, chapter 8.
73. Diary of 29 June 1966, Tony Benn, Out of the Wilderness: Diaries, 1963-7 (London: Hutchinson, 1987), p.440.
74. Kaiser, Journeying, p.221.
75. One such intercept is evidently reproduced in part in Herring (ed.), Secret Diplomacy, p.400.
76. Ilya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago, IL: Ivan Dee, 1996), pp.100-106.
77. George Brown, In My Way (London: Gollancz, 1971), pp.146-7, and see his account of the episode on pp.142-6.
78. For a summary of opinion poll evidence see Caroline Page, US Official Propaganda during the Vietnam War (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1996), pp.190-225.
79. Bernard Levin, The Pendulum Years: Britain and the Sixties (London: Sceptre, 1989), pp.253 and 256.
80. Caroline Moorehead, Bertrand Russell (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992), pp.521-30.
81. James Callaghan, Time and Chance (London: Collins, 1987), pp.258-61;
82. Kenneth Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp.314-16;
83. Nelson Lankford, The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of Ambassador David Bruce (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1996), pp.337-9.
84. Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, Smear! Wilson and the Secret State (London: Grafton, 1992), pp.185-6.
85. Nicholas Henderson, Inside the Private Office (Chicago, IL: Academy, 1987), pp.98-103 (quote from p.103);
86. Stewart, Life and Labour, pp.154-5; and on the Oxford 'reach-in' see the documents in Stewart papers, Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge, file STWT 12/3/3.
87. Page, Official Propaganda, pp.108-20 and 150-75, quotes from 114.
88. Andrew Roth, Heath and the Heathmen (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), p.202;
89. John Campbell, Edward Heath: A Biography (London: Cape, 1993), p.228.
90. Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1998), pp.278-9.
91. Andrew Alexander and Alan Watkins, The Making of the Prime Minister, 1970 (London: Macdonald, 1970), pp.81-2;
92. see also Heath, The Course of My Life, p.283
93. and, for a fuller discussion, Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell
94. Vanessa Redgrave, An Autobiography (London: Hutchinson, 1991), pp.138-41.
95. Barbara Castle, Fighting all the Way (London: Macmillan, 1993), p.382;
96. diary entries of 9 Feb. and 17 March 1968, Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Volume Two, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons, 1966-68 (London: Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape, 1976), pp.674 and 716.
97. Diary of 14 Feb. and June 1967, Castle, Diaries, pp.220 and 262; diary of 27 Sept. 1967, Richard Crossman, Volume Two, pp.498-9.
98. Geoffrey Goodman, The Awkward Warrior: Frank Cousins (London: Davis-Poynter, 1979), p.440.
99. Diary of 26 May 1965, Benn, Out of the Wilderness, pp.261-2.
100. Peter Shore, Leading the Left (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993), pp.94-5.
101. Diary of 1 July 1965, Benn, Wilderness, p.285.
102. Pimlott, Wilson, p.459.
103. PG. Richards, Parliament and Foreign Affairs (London, 1967), p.141.
104. Goodman, Awkward Warrior, p.433.
105. On the three conferences see Craig Wilson, 'Rhetoric, Reality and Dissent: The Foreign Policy of the British Labour Government 1964-70' (Ph.D., Washington State University, 1982), pp.87-91, 105-7 and 114-16.
106. Wilson, Rhetoric, Reality and Dissent, p.125.
107. Christopher Hill and Christopher Lord, 'The Foreign Policy of the Heath Government', in Stuart Ball and Anthony Seldon (eds.), The Heath Government (London: Longman, 1996), p.307, and see 302-9 on Anglo-US relations under Heath.
108. Shore, Leading the Left, p.95.
109. Austen Morgan, Harold Wilson (London: Pluto, 1992), p.277;
110. Edmund Dell, A Strange Eventful History: Democratic Socialism in Britain (London: Harper Collins, 2000), pp.354-5.
111. Wrigley, 'Now You See It', pp.126-7.
112. Diary of 29 Sept. 1965, Crossman, Volume Two, p.339.
113. This is true of Roy Jenkins, A Life at the Centre (London: Macmillan, 1991);
114. Douglas Jay, Change and Fortune (London: Hutchinson, 1980); and even Healey Time of My Life, whose only detailed points on Vietnam concern the period before Labour took power.
115. Callaghan, Time and Chance, deals in detail only with the October 1968 anti-war march in London.
116. Castle, Fighting all the Way, has a few pages (pp.362 and 382-4)
117. but the only extensive discussions are in Wilson, Labour Government;
118. and Brown, In My Way.