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- Title
Overstretched and overstrung: Eden, the Foreign Office and the making of policy, 1951-5.
- Authors
Adamthwaite, Anthony
- Abstract
It is generally agreed that the 1945-51 Labour government coped well with Britain's retreat from world power--the period has been described as 'among the most successful in the history of British external policy'.[1] By contrast, the 1951-5 Churchill government has won few accolades. Even discounting the retrospective blight cast by the 1956 Suez crisis, Britain's greatest postwar humiliation, the fact remains that the second Churchill cabinet's lasting achievement was small. The descent from power continued apace. Why, despite sharing the same objectives as Labour governments, did the second Churchill administration accomplish less ? The explanation lies largely in the interaction of three elements: Britain's want of power to solve its problems; the uneasy Churchill-Eden partnership; and the deficiencies of the government machine. <BR> This essay will argue that the only realistic option at the time was the gradual reduction of overseas commitments while seeking a reduced world role. This was the strategy Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had successfully pursued. The same strategy might well have worked for Conservative leaders but never received a fair trial. Prime Minister Winston Churchill opposed any withdrawals and quarrelled with Eden on a number of issues. Their bitchy and acrimonious partnership contrasted sadly with the solid and harmonious Attlee-Bevin relationship. Furthermore, institutional weaknesses ensured that policy-making was badly fragmented and ill defined.
- Subjects
INTERNATIONAL relations; ECONOMIC conditions in Great Britain
- Publication
International Affairs, 1988, Vol 64, Issue 2, p241
- ISSN
0020-5850
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2621850