Introduction

Abstract

The Anglo-American’ special relationship’ first emerged during the Second World War and, ever since, British governments have sought to maintain a close partnership with the United States. This collection provides a comprehensive series of chapters on the role of British Ambassadors to Washington from the start of the Second World War to the late 1970s which, as well as coinciding with the advent of the Carter administration in the United States, marks the current limit of the availability of British government documents under the so-called ‘thirty year rule’. Each chapter says something about an ambassador’s previous career and experience, and discusses why he was selected for Washington, before setting out the controversies and issues that faced him and drawing general conclusions about the success - or otherwise - of his embassy. This fills something of a lacuna in the existing literature. Many general works on the subject have been written with only a passing mention for the individuals who are the subject of this book. Most general academic studies treat ambassadors as incidental to the real story, which tends to focus on Presidents and Prime Ministers, from Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill onwards. Even specialist studies of Anglo-American relations or of British foreign policy devote scant attention to the contributions of the envoys.¹