Sherfield Roger Mellor Makins - Diplomacy, Roger Makins and the Anglo-American Relationship

DIPLOMACY, ROGER MAKINS AND THE ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONSHIP

For Lin, Emma, Carla, Amy, Freddie and Alfie

RICHARD WEVILL

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Richard Wevill 2014

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Wevill, Richard.

Diplomacy, Roger Makins and the Anglo-American relationship / by Richard Wevill.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4724-4649-7 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-3155-7728-9 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-3171-5048-0 (epub) 1. Sherfield, Roger Mellor Makins, Baron, 1904-1996. 2. Ambassadors--Great Britain--Biography. 3. Great Britain--Foreign relations--1945- 4. Great Britain--Foreign relations--United States. 5. United States--Foreign relations--Great Britain. I. Title.

DA585.M36W38 2014

327.41073092--dc23

[B]

2014026567

ISBN 9781472446497 (hbk)

ISBN 9781315577289 (ebk-PDF)

ISBN 9781317150480 (ebk-ePUB)

Richard Wevill turned to the study of history after a successful career in investment banking. Richard gained his PhD from the University of Exeter where he is currently a Research Fellow. Richard is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of Britain and America after World War II: Bilateral Relations and the Beginnings of the Cold War (2012). He is currently working on his next book which is concerned with the role of the Treasury and Treasury officials in Anglo-American relations 19451960.

In undertaking to write Diplomacy, Roger Makins and the Anglo-American Relationship I have acquired debts to many people and certain institutions. Their mention here is only a small part of my gratitude.

I would like to express my thanks to Ashgate Publishing for agreeing to publish this book and I am particularly grateful to Emily Yates, the Commissioning Editor, for the efficient and impressive way she dealt with my book proposal. I would also like to thank the University of Exeter, and my colleagues in the History Department for their help and support, in particular, Professor Jeremy Black who undertook the burdensome task of reading an entire draft. Professor Black made many helpful and constructive comments and afforded me introductions to others who have also been helpful. I am also grateful to Dr Saul Kelly, Reader in International History at Kings College London, who gave me papers relating to his earlier work on Makins and for giving me helpful background information on him. I also benefitted from meeting with Professor Simon Green Reader in Modern British History at the University of Leeds and an Extraordinary Fellow of All Souls College and D.R. Thorpe, a senior member of Brasenose College. Professor Green offered many insights into Makins character and gave practical help in verifying points relating to Makins time at All Souls College. D.R. Thorpe, who had interviewed Makins several times, offered a very interesting assessment of the man and his career.

Almost without exception the staff at the various archives I have visited have proved to be both professional and helpful. I am especially grateful to both Patrick Maclure and Suzanne Foster at Winchester College, and to Judith Curthoys at Christ Church College for the time they spent with me and the trouble they went to in order to provide assistance. I have also benefitted considerably from meeting with many people who knew and worked with Makins. These include Sir John Herbecq, Sir Peter Marshall and Sir David Butler, Virginia Makins and David Shapiro.

I would also like to thank Lin who kindly proofread several drafts; a tedious job and I am grateful to her for undertaking the task. Finally, I would like to thank Freddie and Alfie, who between them have managed to impart a sense of reality during the more frustrating moments experienced while writing this book.

Diplomacy, Roger Makins and the Anglo-American Relationship explores the Anglo-American relationship through the prism of the life and career of Roger Makins. In doing so, it will not only provide an account of the life of one of the most influential civil servants in the twentieth century, but also emphasise the importance of the contribution made to British post-war history by diplomacy at the official, rather than the political level. Makins served as the British Ambassador in Washington from 1953 until 1956; he was Joint Permanent Secretary to the Treasury from 1956 until 1959 and he was the Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority from 1960 until 1964. His influence extended into both the Labour and the Conservative post-war administrations and across several policy areas, including atomic energy and economic policy. The common thread, however, which underlies all of his work, is the furtherance of the relationship between Britain and America.

The history of Britain in the twentieth century is a story with manyinfluence another. Diplomatic skill then, or indeed the lack of it, is an important consideration when discussing the events which mould a countrys history.

Allied to the study of a countrys decline is a consideration of the strategies which a country might adopt in order to arrest that decline or to extend her influence beyond that which may be implied by her natural resources. There were a number of strategies which Britain might have adopted in order to enable her to better cope with the post-war world including, for example, closer connections with the Commonwealth and/or responding to both Continental European and American overtures for a more integrated Europe. One such strategy, however, which came to dominate, was the attempt by Britain to harness Americas power for her own ends. The considerable drain on Britains resources during the war and the rapid decline in her relative position in the post-war period made the pursuit of effective Anglo-American relations an attractive strategy. An essential component of that strategy was diplomatic skill. This book is a case study in the application of power in the form of diplomatic skill in the pursuit of the Anglo-American strategy.

The case study approach takes the form of assessing the contribution one man, Roger Makins, made to the process described above and why he is considered an important figure in twentieth-century British history. It is, therefore, a study focused on the official rather than the political level. In the two decades following the Second World War he held positions of crucial importance within the British establishment. He was the civil servant at the centre of the post-war atomic energy debate in both London and Washington and, unusually for a Foreign Office official, reported on such matters directly to Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister. He was a close confidant of Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary at the time when Britain was attempting to cement the post-war Anglo-American relationship. Makins, who had worked with Anthony Eden in the 1930s, was appointed by him to become the British Ambassador to America at a time when the Eisenhower administration was taking over in Washington. Subsequently Makins was seconded from the Foreign Office to run the Treasury for three years, where his contribution in the immediate aftermath of the Suez Crisis was crucial. He ended his official career as the Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, a position to which his old friend Harold Macmillan appointed him shortly after the Windscale accident. In all of these positions, the unifying theme is Makins determination to strengthen the Anglo-American relationship.