The University of Texas Forum; Anglo-American Relations: A Special Case

There are occasionally passes our way. A person whose impact on world affairs has been so profound and whose role of the world stage has been so prominent that detailed recitation of his career and accomplishments would be redundant. The Right Honorable Harold Wilson has served with distinction in the academic world as fellow of University College Oxford as the author of a half dozen books on public policy and several fields as leader of the British Labor Party as British prime minister during the years 1964 to 1970 and now as leader of the government's loyal opposition the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and the state of Texas are honored and privileged to have him with us today to speak to us and to respond to your question. No one is better and far better qualified to inform

and enlighten on the subject of his address. Anglo-American relations. A special case question mark. Ladies and gentlemen the Right Honorable Harold was thousands of distinguished visitors and friends. May I at the outset. Thank Ill be very kind welcome. And may I say should there be any dissatisfaction with the terms of what I'm about to say. It is hoped that there will be time for a few I'm sure friendly questions

genuinely designed is on my mind or in the House of Commons to seek information. The title of my address was designed to enable me to say something about Anglo-American relations past and future and in particular to discuss the phrase often used though never defined the special relationship. I suppose the concept of a special relationship came into being that he's into journalistic use during and after the war notably because of the close national relationship of Britain and the United States during that war and during the preliminaries of peacemaking and because of the personal relationship between President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. That was a golden age of our relationship. Standing out the more clearly in that it followed a dismal period in which the American president President Roosevelt seeking to bomb to the Western nations together in a collective security exercise

to stop Hitler's campaign of aggression was knobbed and rebuffed by a British government which was still in 1938 and 1939 pursuing the Ignis fight us of appeasement. The coming of the new all party British government during the Bradys crisis in the wall which was headed by Winston Churchill added the possibility of a new dimension to the Anglo-American relationship. Readers of Winston's memoirs will recall many transatlantic messages to the president currently signed by the prime minister as a naval person. He had the first vote of the Admiralty and World War 1 accounts of the wartime relationship on a two way bases are of course difficult to evaluate since we only have so Winston Churchill's memoirs President Roosevelt did not live long enough to write a parallel set of

memoirs. There can however be no doubt of their close relationship. Certainly on wartime strategy whatever disagreements there may have been though it is clear that there were growing strains and at any rate deep divisions on policy when the emphasis was from the waging of war to the making of peace. Certainly the degree of integration between our two countries during that wall for example in combined economic and combined strategic planning the combined executives for dealing with economic warfare against common enemies the shipping executives such degree of integration of our economies as occurred to the combined production and Resources Board the combined combined raw materials and the combined food board went further than ever before and further than it has or to be in the case between two sovereign independent nations.

And I should make it clear that in much of this cooperation Canada as well was included and indeed. If a close relationship had not existed it would have had to be invented in the stress of war time. In one sense it was able to flourish without certain of the impediments or even partial concealment which accompanied the work of the Anglo-American relationship in later years due to the jealousy of certain European powers and the need for the United States to minimize any feeling of exclusivity. Though it's existence even at that time was carefully noted by General de Gaulle. Then in exile in London and what he noted what he thought. Was greatly to influence the pattern of European policies and indeed Franco American policies in the 1960s. President Roosevelt died in April 1945.

Hardly more than three months after that there was a new occupant of the driving seat at Downing Street as well as the driving seat at the White House. Personal relationships were soon established though of course communications in terms both of travel and telephones were far less well developed than they have since become. I believe one or two errors were made in Anglo-American relations with the ending of the war in Japan in August 1945 for example. That was immediately President Truman by cancellation of Lend-Lease the creation of which by President Roosevelt Winston Churchill had described as I quote the most sordid act in world history. And so in many ways it was though under it the total know how. The totality of the British invention of

jet propulsion in aircraft our fundamental nuclear is indispensable to the development of nuclear weapons and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Work in the field of antibiotics through the discovery of penicillin. All of these were transferred without charge on the Lend-Lease and became the foundation of great American industries. And it was quite soon. After the outbreak of peace that Britain was paying royalties to American corporations on these inventions. The cancellation of Lend-Lease immediately after the war plunged Britain into economic crisis. Britain said Winston Churchill was bankrupt and since part of the lend lease arrangement had meant surrendering many of the principal export markets to American traders. And much of this could be justified on shipping considerations when shipping was the great bottling it was impossible for

us before we'd even begun to be mobilized troops or to convert industry back to peace. It was impossible for us to begin to pay our way in the world. We had to do this in a fundamentally different situation and that the overseas investment we did cumulated over the century had been spent to the limit to win the wall. The result was that by the end of that year of 1945. Britain was cap in hand to America for an enormous loan to titles through the difficult years ahead payment of interest and repayment of the principal of that loan is still a heavy burden on Britain and is due to continue until well into the 21st century. But inevitably acrimony used to get congressional approval of the law in which every aspect of British foreign and even domestic policy was dragged into a public discussion. This obviously created an unhelpful situation

for Anglo-American relations in the United States professional Britain baiters the Gaian to fill the columns of the press with complaints that the number of Oxford Rhodes Scholars in high places in Washington represented a takeover by the old imperial hall. I think Mr Dean you've got one in Texas. In the university. Or two. T. And from the extreme left of the Labor Party the equivalent complains about the growing dependence on America and the complaint. A gated cross section of British opinion from the extreme left of the Labor Party as I've mentioned to the flat section of the

extreme right wing of the Conservative Party. Equally in full cry. But his difficulties grew with the Soviet Union in those post-war years Britain and the United States grew closer together in the meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers in London and Moscow marked by a close personal relationship between Ernest Bevin Britain's foreign secretary and successive American secretaries of state and also very notably as I saw when accompanying as a very young minister as I then was then in Moscow during one of the meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers close relations between BEVAN And the American chiefs of staff. When the flooring of the relationship next became a matter of history it was on behalf not of Britain but of Europe as a whole. General Marshall speech in Chicago about aid for Europe was seized on by Ernest Bevan and with speed and imagination and his action in responding to what some of thought merely a general indication by the American secretary of state

by Bevan accepting it as a definitive offer of a programme of European aid. This was decisive. It led to Marshall Aid it led to a new organization in Paris. It led to the first ever close Economic Cooperation in Europe. Based on specific production programs in respect of each European country it was in fact private enterprise America. But their insistence on these programs which force which first forced the introduction of economic planning in Europe. It was necessary and it was successful. And indeed if you were observers in 1948 I would have wagered even a week of their salaries in support of the proposition that by 1950 Italy would not have passed under communist rule with other war shattered areas of Europe becoming vulnerable as a result. And of course the other great achievement above all the work of Bevin and Dean Acheson was the Western alliance symbolized a made effective by NATO's referee

attempted today to take NATO for granted. Because he's brought a degree of stability in the West and the relationship between the two blocs and this is engendered its own sense of security. It was the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia which I think brought home to the west two lessons one that we could not afford to relax but must indeed intensify the vigilance and cohesion of night and the realisation of the fact that wherever the Soviets had moved or threatened to move in the preceding 20 years that had never been any interference with the territorial integrity or political freedom of any state associated with all guaranteed by NATO. Now it happens that changes at the head of government level in Britain and in America. Seem very often to proceed in pads. I've already said it happened in nineteen forty five. It happened in 1963 to 64. It happened in

1969 70 if I may bring the discussion up today. And so it was in 1951 52. Winston Churchill becoming prime minister again in October 1951 and General Eisenhower President in the election of the following year. And this made possible the reestablishment of an old personal relationship of wartime potentially fruitful. President Eisenhower inevitably took time feeling his way. And while this was happening age was taking its toll of so Winston but so Winston's foreign secretary was Anthony Eden an old and trusted Washington associate. Then in 1956 with Antony as prime minister came the greatest crisis in Anglo-American relations fall over a century certainly since forty four Forty or Fight. The story.

Through. It'll. Be history I saw the film but you're too young to have seen the film. The story is told or at least partly told. With a decent opacity in Texas. And Bob's your auntie's I'm in the lady's volume of Mr. Houghton McMillan's memoirs just published which last week revealed in the London Times. That's not the only commercial you're going to get from me that. I. Hate. The story of the Anglo-American break in Mr. McMillan is my most forms an extensive part of his book. It deals of course with the suicide operation. And it is noteworthy that so far from blaming the operation on the observational

preoccupation of the Conservative Party with President Nasser. They associated with Hitler Mussolini. It's very interesting that the title of my chapter on Sue is called the Anglo-American Shiism schism which it is. And. Judge from that chapter it was really all the fault of John Foster Dulles and even when he had his eyes in the right direction the situation was really and almost inadvertently by some gaffe of President Eisenhower. The schizm was expressed in private and in public and reached the point of an American lead in the United Nations resolution denouncing Britain's action. Indeed that particular breach in the good relationship between Britain and America. Actually reached an unpardonable degree of Anglo-American discourtesy in that it involved the clearest breach ever known.

All the very essence of the Anglo-American relationship namely it involved interference with an American president presidential election which is of course simply not done. Every British politician learned of his mother's knee or if necessary of course of the joint for roughly one year. I. I needed that drink of water. For roughly one year in every fall starting about Labor Day in the presidential election. Nothing must be done said hinted at. Or even thought. Which might conceivably be used or misused first by aspirants in the primaries and conventions and then in the presidential election campaign and

conservative politicians in Britain for example were regarded as constituting just as bad for all. To say or do anything which could be used in the United States during such a period as it will be to shore to fish for salmon in the statutory close periods. Now this of course is very inhibiting. I know I've been through that. There is even a tendency now to suggest that a certain degree of discretionary paralysis should apply for at any rate a suitable part of the run up for the United States mid-term elections as well. The reason I've just given you that little homily on how we have learned to behave ourselves in the United Kingdom is that I have to recall that in the period I'm discussing 1956 Antony Eden committed the unpardonable sin of pouring British paratroopers into Alexandria on the very eve of polling

day in the 1956 presidential election and Anglo-American relations could sink to no more desperate level. It was a great tribute to Mr Howard on the becoming prime minister. And he became prime minister precisely because of the lead he had taken in going into Syria. He was able despite this to lead his party out of it. To the sound of martial music described by my colleague and friend as sounding the bugles of advance while beating the retreat. You may have gathered that revealed Mr. McMillan was not friendly but if you take the trouble to read it in your library you'll find it was uniquely friendly. And indeed his account of my discussions with him even went so far. He went so far as to say that in respect of his leaving the body in the series that I had caught in the phrase first in first out. Because of Mr close relationship with North

Africa in the early forties when he was minister resident he succeeded having become prime minister in re-establishing the close personal relationship between Prime Minister and President not least successful in the exchanges with the Soviet Union about nuclear problems. When I wanted to go rather faster than the more anxious Eisenhower was able to bring the two countries into line and it was the era of the known act. On the exchange of nuclear information a significant event in the Anglo-American relationship but one which had a deeply traumatic effect on France's incoming president General de Gaulle in 1958 and indeed for as long as he lived. I've always felt that we should read more of this in Mr. Matt Millen's next book. That is relationship with his old wartime companion was not reproduced with the younger and more questioning President Kennedy.

Now the pair theory that I've just enunciated about the change in the White House and Downing Street in the same or successive years did not work. At this time. And Anglo-American. When President Kennedy succeeded President Eisenhower prime minister Matt Millen who lingered on appeared to be a survivor from a past day. The National Conference of December 1962 was a disaster for Anglo-American relations as it quickly recognized by President Kennedy when he appointed professor Richard new start to prepare a full report on all of the gone wrong. That report was presented to the president in fact just two days before he left for Dallas he was intending to study it and apply its lessons the following week. And at that conference the prime minister Mr. McMillan was in a position of what the French are pleased to call a. Phrase was occasionally used used in common market negotiation. It's

political situation at home was difficult with the breakdown of economic policy with the impending veto on his application for him to do Europe and the collapse of his so-called independent nuclear deterrent with the cancellation of the American sky vault. And the outcome of that conference was unsatisfactory for America and for Britain. It was shortly after this. In the spring in March and April of nineteen sixty three that there's a newly elected leader of the Labor Party. I visited Washington for talks with President Kennedy. And in the course of this visit I was inevitably invited to the National Press Club in Washington where in subsequent questioning after my speech I was asked to summarize in one sentence the difference between my foreign policy and that of Mr. McClellan. Imagine that one sentence. And I replied Twenty two years. I never. Watch. Or to.

Some subsequent critical comment in Britain after I became prime minister suggested the gap of not owed someone. There was some interest in Washington in this new phenomenon of the leader of the Labor party with a good chance of capturing office in perhaps a matter of months. And this is why I felt it necessary to spell out the Labor Party's attitude to the Western Alliance which is not fully understood and the monetary and economic policy which we were proposing and this attracted some attention. But this was the occasion when I first attempted to comment on the phrase the special relationship and made clear the title of my address today as a question mark after a special case. Is it a special relationship or not. I ventured to repeat today the words the news in Washington. Frequently asked what about the special relationship. I'm never quite sure I'm quoting here what this means I'm more interested I said in a close relationship based on a common purpose common objectives. And as far as can be achieved community of

policy. A relationship based not on condescension or on a backward looking nostalgia for the past but on the ability of both parties to put forward their strengths and their own unique contribution to our common purpose. I went on to say that Charles Lamb said in one of his S's there is nothing so irrelevant in nature as a poor relation. And I said that if ever a relationship with you based on that status. The sooner the better. And that is why the first priority in British internal policy is to build up our economic strength so that his partners in the alliance in Europe and the Commonwealth will become relevant and necessary. I said it is on that not on any conception of past greatness that our standing in the world will depend on our ability to restore the lost dynamic to Britain's economic society to restore a sense of economic and social and moral purpose with our far more bearing on our value as an ally and a partner than any nuclear

posturings. I concluded by saying it may not be long before the same truth dawns on President the girl. I was wrong about that. Two months after Labor came into office in October 1964 I had my first visit to the White House is the guest of President Johnson. It had been carefully prepared. To face a new start. As well as George Ball and out two ambassadors have been mobilized in the task. They had successfully identified all the problems we would want to discuss on the main lines of our approach. So I had to tell George Ball who seemed to want me to negotiate with him in advance that I would negotiate when I reached the White House and not before. This was the first of many a visit to the White House to meet President Jiang. I think historians have hardly yet begun to perceive in this day of speedy world transit the importance of such speedy contact. I remember as a member of the Attlee cabinet in December 1950 when there was

great concern in the House of Commons having a very grave debate on the Korean fighting and the news came on the ticket day that President Truman had indicated the possibility of using the atomic weapon in Korea. We were partners in Korea and indeed were all partners in a United Nations operation and climatically called the cabinet and said he must. Fly to Washington. To talk with the president. And then he had to wind up the debate and it was a very great debate as I've said there was deep concern. I know what it's like if you're winding up a debate in a situation like that. The meeting of the cabinet took place between 5:00 and 6:00 PM. And he did not know whether he would be able to establish communication with the White House by telephone or telegram in order to get an acceptance of his proposal to visit the White House in time to announce it in the concluding minutes of that debate which ended at 10 o'clock that night. Now of course all that has changed.

The first visit that I had to the White House with President Johnson in common with all the others was friendly and informal and constructive and down to earth. He would of course be improper to reveal to many of the details at this point particularly in view of President Johnson's forthcoming book of memoirs. Yes you walked into that one. Not to mention a forthcoming slim volume of my own. To. Vidal to Nicholson £4 to a to Africa. Each. Is also publishing books and present the girl's memoirs. It's like reduction for the story. This was. In my talks with President Johnson in December 1964. We were able to discuss a proposal which some consider divisive within the alliance a multilateral force

and to steer the discussion together on a new and more constructive basis which led to the nuclear planning group and the degree of nuclear consultation within Natal. Without even the suggestion being possible of a German finger on the nuclear trigger. And I believe this development of nuclear consultation and planning in NATO is one of the most significant advances in high level cooperation in the defense field. I'm mentioning this visit particularly because again I was involved in dealing with this for the special relationship and asking the question whether it's special The occasion was a banquet at the White House enjoyable for all the hospitality of Mrs. and President Johnson and to their guests. But you all know the story about the Christian in the arena. He was reprieved when the emperor asked him why and he said what he said to the lion

and he said well after the speech is. In this. And this particular case in the White House no one told me that up to date little gun of these pages. And the president made the most eloquent eloquent speech about our common Anglo-American links referring to your citizens kinship with many of us referring to the common origin of our legal system right back to Saxon times through. The Magna Carta the great battles for the sovereignty of the monarchy in times. And our efforts to create conditions of lasting peace following those walls. Unfortunately as I prepared speech I had to speak as they say right off. It. And taking up his reference which he had made to my atavistic origins in

Yorkshire I was able to point out that it was just a Texas's competing for the position of the state. In my ignorance I said Texas was the largest state but no Texan will find fault with that. It's one of the coefficients we have all learned from Texan citizens when discussing your state. I pointed out certain similarities between respective citizens in Texas and of Yorkshire including for example a total inability to speak in the softer accents of diplomacy. To have to. Atl. We have that in common. And also an insistence in person on the official dealings of saying what each of us respectively thought in a mistake of a language. Need I point it out to both Texas and Yorkshire respectively noted for the colorful nature of the language they were prepared to employ. As the occasion demanded. The president will agree when they read this. It was

only one occasion very early on in our relationship. We had an oratorical contest of this kind on the hotline telephone. And metaphorically shook hands afterwards with linguistic honesty. Even so. Never in the whole history of the Anglo-American relationship to my knowledge has either a president or a prime minister spoken to the other. In language one tenth as abusive as well concurrently many English were saying about their prime minister. Many Americans are saying about their president. But as I had to speak at this banquet totally unprepared I felt it right to spell out my idea of the Anglo-American relationship. I added to what had been said about Magna Carta and about. Norman law. And about the stewards of our parliamentary systems. The fact that of course your Constitution which you will learn by heart at school or. Which when you become a president or a member of Congress you'll find

rather less easily workable than you've been taught at school. Even that constitution was in fact based on the Frenchman's misreading of the British constitution. Are yourself or to. Shop division of powers between the executive legislative and judiciary. It was in fact as we all know. If you didn't learn it in school you learned of the university. The founding fathers study by. Law say privacy on day which was based on his misunderstanding of what 18th century England was really all about. But I went on from that to go down very well actually. That night I went on from there. To ask what does the relationship not in a special sense special.

Well that's in the text of all that might mean in terms of violence. Yes it is first a relationship at all levels. I said President Prime Minister meetings are essential and should be frequent. There is a great deal to be said for the growing in formality which is being developed so that they tend to be regarded as routine and not symbolizing any great crisis or dramatic turn of events. It means I shared an equally close relationship between senior British ministers and senior American Cabinet officials particularly Secretary of State Security friends and secretaries to the Treasury. Throughout the years I was in office personal meetings in each of these three spheres were often more frequent these three high level. Than meetings that head of government level. They invariably occurred of course when the United States and British heads of state were meeting at the United Nations or NATO SEATO or under any other Aegis but there was a similar close personal relationship between Dennis Healey involved McNamara.

Later with Clark Clifford and ultimately as Republicans that just as there was between James Callan and Roy Jenkins on our side. And Secretary Kennedy. How intricate elaborate secure system of hotlines between the White House and Downing Street was paralleled by frequent telephone calls between senior ministers in both capitals between their principal assistants and civil servants right down the line. I trust that I shall do nothing to strengthen the hands of what may remain of the anti British fringe in the United States today. When I mention the two senior members of President Johnson's administration well former Rhodes Scholar pupils of mine at Oxford. Clearly the role of the ambassador is vital and it's a mark of our relationship that an American president is never too busy to see the British ambassador whom we usually regard as a personal friend and of course the United States ambassador to the Court of St. James finds a similarly Downing Street during my time

and I can only speak with authority about my own time. Both countries have been uniquely by their successive ambassadors Washington by David Bruce a pair among diplomats with more experience and wise judgment than possibly anyone else in the diplomatic profession of any country. And now by world renowned success as I've had occasion to see on both sides of the Atlantic particularly so far as personal contacts with Britons of every persuasion and walk of life are concerned has been in total contrast to the somewhat jaundiced views of the occasional journalistic comment. Fortunately as a newspaper proprietor ambassador Anand is well placed to give comments of this guy and the precise significance of a marriage. I believe also that an outside lot holic specially requested to remain in office after the change of government. So Patrick Dean and John Freeman have the same degree of confidence in the United States and have contributed to the flourishing of

relationships not only between governments but between peoples and I'm sure the same will prove true of Her Majesty's president and vice presidential and prime ministerial styles vary in my time by far the most frequent means of communication was by the mathematically controlled teleprinter linking the White House with Downing Street. This made possible official communications between heads of government frequently supplemented by personal estimates of the realities underlying one of the government's approach to the problem. And then of course there was a hotline or more accurately hotlines telephone system. So much for the mechanism of the relationship. Now I turn to its content of objectives and purposes. If what I've said is accepted our close relationship is based to a large extent on an identity a view one purpose over a wide area of world problems. We are not seeking in the main so much to decide

on Anglo-American action in particular areas as to coordinate our influence in the acceptance of objectives and plans we have formulated in common most frequently and comes up with our other partners in NATO and in various international economic organizations and above all in the United Nations. Very often on many issues our purpose is complimentary rather than identical. Britain cannot compete with American power whether in defense terms nuclear and conventional or in military and industrial terms. But there are areas of the world where we have influence or a special entree as in other areas. Of course this is a very powerful neighbor. We have a little I believe to bring the common purposes to the military value of Britain's nuclear capability and nothing at all to contribute by the pretense of being a so-called independent nuclear power. But our nuclear

experience and expertise both in political and technology and technical matters means that we can make an important contribution for example and discussions on the nuclear planning group of nature on the new and more streamlined strategy of NATO and in the consultative discussions at the United States government holds with our NATO allies about the Strategic Arms Limitation talks the SALT talks with the Soviet Union. So the areas of cooperation I would define are these. First the NATO allies. It will be unthinkable that any major new initiative within NATO's whether for increasing its strength and effectiveness or combining its power to work for a detente with the Eastern world will be undertaken. During Mr. Johnson's presidency between Washington and Moscow. That one of the most difficult moments. It was a British initiative which helped to bring the two sides together. And helped secure the nonproliferation agreement.

We have to out support of the United States view that the more generalized advances we all seek in nuclear disarmament cannot be regarded as secure without adequate inspection new and improving techniques for the outside detection of nuclear tests are being developed all the time by the scientists. And in this context the very close and largely unpublicized comes alterations between the British cabinets scientific secretariat and opposite numbers in the United States can be of vital importance as indeed can be the work of non-official scientists at such meetings as the Pugwash conferences with similarly unofficial Soviet scientists at the end of the day with perhaps not quite reached it yet. It will be a matter of a combined scientific and political judgment where the balance of advantage rests between disarmament on the one hand and security on the other. In deciding how long must be the threshold for the outside detection of nuclear

tests that we should regard as adequate. Then said. Our cooperation is vital in economic matters as fellow members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But also more than plenty groupings such as the group of 10 the monthly meetings of the central bankers and the wider than Atlantic organizations such as the OEC de when I spoke at the Washington Press Club. And also in my discussions with President Kennedy in April 1963. I then propose new initiatives in the world liquidity. Some progress has been made. I would regard the decision to introduce a special drawing rights to which we both made a big contribution that. Has historic within its field. And I would deprecate loose and possibly prejudice or proposals which I have read in certain countries recently for terminating or limiting the system. In these matters on the whole I think the successive British governments have found the American treasury and the federal banking authorities more cautious than we have been

and I should like to see our two countries working together to make a reality of a proposal I made in Washington eight years ago linking the improvement of world liquidity with the special needs of developing countries. The attention was and must be that liquidity could be provided for new programmes of development. Over and above what can be achieved by the World Bank in such a way that it places no present strain of future balance of payments strain on the developing country and an equally since it would involve the creation of new forms of currency around the transfer of old ones. No burden would fall either on the balance of payments of the developing country contributing to the program but no less important. Our continued measures for freeing world trade. Kennedy around arose from a proposal by one president of the United States and it became a reality to the energy and vision shown by his successor by Britain and others. And not least in the final and decisive stages by a remarkable

cooperative effort by the European Economic Community. Last night speaking in New York. I went into some detail about the problem of Britons joining the Common Market and I won't repeat what I said that obviously Britain whether Britain can join depends on the terms we can see great advantage of the terms are right. But the big question is whether the Common Market. And love does its founders intended is going to be genuinely outward looking and a step towards a world wide freer trade. Whether it will become increasingly inward looking. Then for us we have to maintain the closest cooperation and coordinating our policies in the danger areas. And for this purpose I will instance the Middle East and Southeast Asia. There was continuous top level consultation between the White House and Downing Street in the dangerous period of 1967 which followed the dismissal of the United Nations peacekeeping forces and the Egyptian threat to close the Gulf of Aqaba I referred to the fact that Britain took the lead in

working for cooperation between the principal maritime powers to make a reality of the declaration 10 years after the suicide operations. The Straits of Tiran must be kept open as an international waterway free to the ships of all nations. One of my senior ministers together with naval Jeeves went to Washington to start discussions on this in a few days later I was in Ottawa and then in Washington to discuss them with the president. And we concerted our policy. Of course the situation was changed two days later by the outbreak of the Six Day War. Anonyma at least we remained in the clothes he's dug throughout all the U.N. discussions leading to the adoption of Resolution 242 of the Security Council in November 1967. We had joined in the talks which followed that they were due for a very long period to plow into the sand and for a time Britain and for and friends to stand aside biting our nails during the abortive and protected protected bilateral talks between Washington and

Moscow. The problem now is how to bring the parties together to secure what I think all agree the objectives and almost the details of any settlement. In this connection let me say I take the view very strongly that it is not for Britain to attempt any independent role in these matters between the United States on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other. Distancing ourselves from the American viewpoint with its recognition of every detail of the Israeli position but not whole hearted acceptance of every detail nor for us. In Britain or by any move to be taking a more pro arab line than the United States has done. Because mediation between the four powers as a means to mediation between the warring parties is not the right way. Those with whom we will be negotiating will probably accept in full the move we've made away from the United States a position and then suggested all parties start negotiating a new. From that point. Now the other

great danger area is Southeast Asia. It would take a book to tell the story of Anglo-American relationships over the past six years on the question of Vietnam. It's an issue of tremendous political sensitivity with the American public and politicians and the British public and politicians sharply divided on the issues even the moral issues which are involved. The British government's support of the basic objectives of the United States government namely the desire to allow the people of South Vietnam to settle their future in their own way not by the use of force or a result of outside intervention. And to this end all British efforts both in our capacity as cochairmen with the Russians of the Geneva Conference and through other initiatives alone or with others such as the prime ministers these efforts were so directed. Our firm belief in Britain from the outset that there will be no military solution in the sense of an enforced settlement had as

its goal or a determination to get the parties to the conference table. We welcome the Baltimore speech of the president as early as April 1965 with his insistence on the three D's determination to resist an enforced solution development with his imaginative $1000000 Meekin development. One billion dollars a week on development and discussions. These will progressively spelt out of course in greater detail in successive speeches notably in San Antonio in August 1967. The British people. My own party my front bench colleagues in Parliament are watching anxiously the most recent development in Southeast Asia including Vietnam. In-laws opposed the recent intervention as you know as we opposed the intervention from the north on Vietnam we watch with concern. The Great Debate debate about withdrawal and speed and timing

and we shall watch to the outcome of the My Lai event and which clearly I cannot comment today as it is still Subhuti. It would be wrong for us today to enter into questions which are matters of deep political controversy in the United States. Controversy in which both sides are equally conscious of 45000 American dead in South Vietnam. But I do wish to make comment briefly onto our space of Vietnam as a test case in the Anglo-American relationship and wanted to nail the lie. There was a small minority on the extreme left in Britain who sought to sustain the accusation. That the relationship between Britain and America was not so much a relationship as a Cash Nexus. When the Labor government came into office in October 1964 we inherited the biggest balance of payments deficit in one hundred fifty years of trading history. We soon came under heavy political sieges international Wildcat speculators seized

on every event external and internal to sell. Britain short. When we left office last year we had transformed that deficit into the biggest balance of payment surplus in our history. One of the two or three tongues in the world but for nearly five years while we were battling to put Britain economically right to sharpen the cutting edge of the industrial effort we needed help in the shape of short term monetary accommodation from our friends and partners amongst the advanced industrial and financial countries and in the case of the United States as with others it was arms didn't it. But the legend from the extreme left was that it was a made available only in return for a secret understanding that Britain would support American policy in Vietnam. This was a gross libel on two governments and if any proof is needed I want to do's that weekend of crisis in July 1966 when despite the fact that we had by that time really reached equilibrium in our balance of payments an outburst

of speculative activity arising from a combination by the foreign exchange speculators arising from a combination of elemental ignorance and overwhelming malice drove us into the most critical situation we had faced. And it was at that very time the president and I were in touch on the debt now. He asked of you on a possible token contribution of British troops in Vietnam. He'd always understood our position as Geneva cochairman and the enormous burden we were carrying in Malaysia with a long drawn out military confrontation with Indonesia Australia New Zealand sent troops to Vietnam. We were not able to agree despite that despite our dissociation from the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in June 1966. There was never any suggestion that these matters should be taken into account when urgently needed economic co-operation was involved. And my second comment on Vietnam in our relationship.

But an event rather later in history is designed not to nail a lie but to assert. A truth which has not been sufficiently clearly asserted. Whether Sir Winston Churchill's description of Lend-Lease as the most stuff on sordid act in history and this is being questioned is true. I do believe history will confirm no less. But in this case unquestioned accolades on President Johnson's UN self-regarding act in March sixty eight when he deliberately announced he would not go forward for re-election. A clear signal that America's president would devote his final months of electoral authority in pursuit of peace and to bring peace to Vietnam. During those months every action he took every initial initiative he proposed could then be interpreted uniquely as directed towards ending the wall without any suspicion or charge that they carried electoral overtones. As I conclude.

Mr. Dean I'm conscious there are issues I haven't discussed in any detail cooperation to the United Nations two very very powerful figures such as Lord Carrington who was not only an ambassador there but a minister a member of the government. And of course Hadley Stevens. Arthur Goldberg. And of course Ambassador Yost. I haven't referred to that. I believe that this is a however of the highest significance because in the modern world the best part of a hundred nations judge and will increasingly judge the Anglo-American relationship not by what we do together. Not by what we do for each other or for ourselves but by the contribution we can make to that other wall. The world wall for human decency in matters of race and color. And human rights because the majority of the world's population they're interested they're not enjoying the things that we Western diplomats and

politicians and statesmen are interest in. They are interested fundamentally in human rights. And in that fifth freedom the freedom from contempt on grounds of color and of race. So Mr. Dean I conclude with just a few words just a few brief lessons to be drawn from 30 years of the Anglo-American relationship. Special. Question mark is it special. No if that means that we have inherited from the past an intellectual or diplomatic capital on which we can draw. If a sense of common purpose is lacking. No it is not special if that means exclusive in this interdependent world it can flourish only in a wider Association. So the United Nations through our system of alliances for as long as they are needed through our joint efforts to fight racialism and the abuse of men because of race and color and our joint efforts to fight world poverty know it is not a special relationship

if in its content it is living in the past. That's the age of an imperialism that's gone forever. Or even the more recent era of the Cold War. No it is merely a medium in which politicians and diplomats post your eyes and strike attitudes. It just got to be a relationship between people. No if in its content it fails to reflect the needs and aspirations of those people. In an internal as well a national as well as the international society. So far the problems of race and color nondiscrimination a concern. Problems of employment and living standards problems of learning to live with ourselves in the environment we've created an environment where else now systematically polluting as year succeeds year. On the eve of my visit when still prime minister President Nixon 15 months ago I suggested that the most

meaningful special relationship that perhaps we could offer to one another. In terms of our survival only will be one in which we pooled our individual experience and know how in dealing with our national and also with the international problems of the environment. If we fail. To recognize the political realities of our two countries again there can be no special relationship. All the realities of those with whom we are associated and indeed the two most recent practitioners of the Anglo-American relationship. Who as of this moment are both. In the south of Texas I think will be the last to be charged with a tendency to forget such eternal verities as to watch very closely political realities. If their two countries. I do not know Mr. Dean and I think about the examination system of the University of Texas. I remember when I took my final on a school in a philosophy politics and

economics before the war in 1937 it was very common in those days I don't know if you do it. Among the questions a lot of questions about to elicit facts of which some of us had only a sketchy knowledge. There would also be a series of questions in which a statement would be made between quotation marks. Sometimes I discover it from some long forgotten philosopher. Sometimes something made up ad hoc for the purpose of examination by the examiner. And. To be very careful in saying it was nonsense. And then just discuss this. I don't know if you do that in Texas examinations I should watch for that. I remember when I took my final on the school in the political institutions paper The first question I saw on the first question I said was Would you prefer to be president of the United States or

primary to the United Kingdom. State your reasons. Well I did. I don't need the text to survive it might be interesting if. But I probably think I can remember what I said. Of course I pointed out one of the big difficult differences between our two countries. A British Prime Minister can remain as prime minister only so long as he retains a majority in the House of Commons and the confidence of the House of Commons. As a president of the United States once you like to remain there for four years and that's something you need very gravely because he remains there for four years and even loss of congressional support does not affect the security of his presidency. On the other hand of course. British Prime Minister because he only survives as long as he carries the confidence of the majority of the House of Commons is

probably able to be more successful. Not always but usually in asking for his parliament to provide the legislation he needs for the continuance and the fulfilment of his policy than an American president who on going to Congress may find that Congress does not always accede 100 percent to every request that he may make. And these are some of the political realities to which I refer. Some of the realities of which a president or prime minister forget or ignore or under plus. If they fail to show sensitivity to the problems of the partner with whom is dealing. These are the kind of problems that can make our relationship close as it has been. Over the years. Very close and intimate as does being in various times I believe particularly in the war. And not least in these past six or seven years to make

that relationship something less effective. And to the extent that it is less effective in the sense that it becomes under attack is not believed in by the American or the British people to that extent. I believe it will have serious effects not only for each of us separately and both of us together but for what both of us together properly led can bring to all the peace and progress of the world. Each. Day.