The foreign policy of the Douglas-Home government : Britain, the United States and the end of empire

This book provides an important study of a short-lived government making foreign policy in the shadow of an impending general election. It considers Britain's relations with the United States, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This book provides an important study of the foreign policy of the short-lived Douglas-Home Government, which arrived at a crucial juncture on a number of international issues and in the shadow of an impending general election. During its existence, Anglo-American relations were strained by US opposition to the sale of buses to Castro's Cuba and concern about independence for British Guiana, whilst American promotion of a scheme to pool nuclear weapons within NATO threatened to undermine Britain's own independent deterrent. Further, in Commonwealth matters, the Government faced international criticism for its relationship with apartheid South Africa. It also worked to prevent a white minority government in Rhodesia from declaring independence unilaterally. East of Suez, there was nationalist violence in Aden, Britain's only Crown Colony in the Middle East, and the confrontation between Indonesia and the British-backed federation of Malaysia. Finally, Cyprus, already independent but home to British bases, nearly descended into civil war in December 1963 and remained tense thereafter. Holt examines these issues, and analyses how policy-making was complicated by the division of responsibility between the Foreign Secretary, R.A. Butler, and the Commonwealth and Colonial Secretary, Duncan Sandys, and by the imminence of the forthcoming general election Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-26 Anglo-American Relations and the Caribbean....Pages 27-46 NATO and the Multilateral Nuclear Force....Pages 47-63 Africa, Race and the Commonwealth....Pages 64-85 Aden, Yemen and the Middle East....Pages 86-103 Confrontation in South-East Asia....Pages 104-124 The Cyprus Crisis....Pages 125-144 Conclusion....Pages 145-155 Back Matter....Pages 156-219