THE U.S. AND BRITAIN THE “SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP” GETS YET ANOTHER BURIAL

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31502, 17 October 1967, Page 16

THE U.S. AND BRITAIN THE “SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP” GETS YET ANOTHER BURIAL

IB V

VINCENT RYDER.

“ / writing to the '‘Daily Telegraph," London, from Washington.)

Some on-the-spot thoughts on the “Special Relationship” between the U.S. and Britain were set down by the Washington correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” in the light of the dispute when the U.S. Congress passed legislation that would prevent British shipyards tendering for U.S. vessels, thus breaching a reciprocal trading arrangement made by the U.S. Defence Department.

I Reprinted from the "Daily Telepraph" by arrangement.] Beat the drums slowly. They are giving the Special Relationship another burial. It has been buried so often that perhaps it ought to be made an annual event, like Trooping the Colour. The ceremony would fit nicely into that category of British tradition in which the past is incorporated into the present. And it would appeal to Americans’ sentimental affection for British custom. If it still needs saying, after an indecent number of burials, the Special Relationship really is dead. Let us be sure we are burying the right thing.

The Special Relationship was that state of affairs in which a basic national interest of Britain or America automatically was treated as a basic interest of the other and was not to be disregarded in determining national policy. For nearly a quarter of a century, from its birth in the 1939-45 war, it worked most of the time, if not all the time. It was a most remarkable sta e of affairs, a “nonpareil” among national alliances, a blending of two sovereignties in circumstances that historically have led to the worst kind of rivalry. No Parallel It is not easy to find a parallel for a shrinking superpower and an emerging super-Power managing their mutual affairs with such intelligence and generosity of spirit. It made the process for both countries much more painless than it might have been; Perhaps that is why some people still find it hard to realise the exercise has been' completed.

It had to end. There is no rational or responsible way in which America can act as though the two countries were on the same plane of existence. America, with only six per cent of the world’s population but 50 per cent of its wealth, towers above the rest of humanity in its power to build or destroy, bestrides the world economically and militarily, uses, the stars and planets as scientific playthings and agonises over Its own strength. Britain, with about two per cent of the world’s population but, it often seems, 50 per cent of its economic problems, is reduced to agonising over the hawking of a few wooden warships. All this does not make Britain irrelevant to America. It does mean that relations between the two Governments, and what is special between the two peoples, ought to be seen separately and without the politics of one being fogged by the sentiment of the other. Policy Not Influenced British Ministers make a great big thing of the flow of communications between

the two Governments and the ease and frankness with which counterparts talk in personal meetings. This is true.

Up to a point. More American diplomats and political chiefs know more about Britain than can be said for any other country. The habit of trust persists, on the personal level.

It is the residue of the special relationships and a product of the non-political ties between the two peoples. It is an error to think that it gives Britain a strong influence of the direction of American affairs or reflects a profound American need for British support. In the exercise of American power there is a serious

use, but by no means an absolute need, for British support. Americans would hardly put it in such stark terms. Nevertheless, the underlying assumption is there in the making of policy. It could hardly be otherwise. The domestic and foreign pressures and counterpressures that are taken into account in forging policy represent real power that can help or hinder. Britain rarely wants to hinder, and would be in an even feebler position than General de Gaulle if she wished to. She helps in some ways around the world, though the gratitude in Washington diminishes steadily in proportion to the dimishing help. For reasons that have their roots deep in each country, their main purposes coincide. What is certain now is that it is beyond the capacity of a British Government to change -any basic purpose that the Administration in Washington does not want to change. It is not even within its capacity to markedly influence any basic American policy, nnless British pressure happened to coincide with pressure from more powerful quarters. Few Stirred

In the absence of real national power, ringing declarations on foreign policy by British leaders suffer from a technical deficiency, like playing Beethoven’s Fifth on the ukelele. Few souls or hearts are stirred in Washington. When the - special relationship was in full bloom it both cloaked British weakness and protected her from some of its worst consequences. It was a short step from that to becoming, in defence, an adjunct of American power. Where that has led us can be seen in the business of the minesweepers and the proposed Congressional ban on all future arms deals between the two countries. In a way which few could have foreseen, reliance on the American Government, which was a fairly safe bet, has degenerated into Britain taking her chances in the maelstrom of petty American politics.

In the minesweeper contract affair the dilemma was between President Johnson’s urgent need of the defence Appropriations Bill and the refusal of the House of Representatives to override a handful of members who wanted the ships built in Wisconsin. Mr Johnson decided he had to take the bad with the good. The wider arms ban issue, still not finally resolved, has something to do with the ostensible excuse —the use of British-flag ships between

Hong Kong and Haiphong—and a good deal to do with domestic American politics and the general bloody-mind-edness of the present House of Representatives.

It is true that the minesweeper contract was not very big and that the Administration has promised to make up in other ways and meanwhile is trying to get the other arms ban proposal killed. This is all very well so far as it goes. Politicians’ Fight It does not get around the fact that a vital British interest has to be fought for by American politicians, against American politicians, on the same political level as the fights that go on all the time over the interests

of some American constituency or the budget of some Government Department.

Even if the storm blows over it has shown what shallows Britain is sailing in. A few years ago such a dispute would have had the capital agog and the serried ranks of Anglophiles crying out for justice and calling on Congress to remember 1940 and all that.

There has been no such outcry this time—just a modicum of public interest, some scattered public complaints and a quiet uneasiness among some members of Congress. It is understandable in political terms, if regrettable. The world grows older. Americans do not have long memories Cultural Cataract To a great many Americans the days when Britain, as a nation, was thought of as America’s necessary, reliable and stout-hearted friend are as remote as the Second Punic War. As a nation, she is another ally, better than the rest on that side of the Atlantic, not as good as some on the other side of the Pacific. Britain’s future as a nation is a minor concern, granted the hope that she will be spared some ultimate disaster. As for the Britons—that is a different thing. The British influence on American culture grows and grows. In the theatre, in books, in the cinema and in the cataract of commercial subculture of music and fashion its effect is felt everywhere. How lasting it will be is beyond guessing. Its importance goes beyond the dollars it puts into British pockets. America at home is going through a difficult, confusing and sometimes painful process of remaking its society. It is not simply the racial question, or a technology that threatens to turn “God’s Own Country” into a technicians’ purgatory. There is a widespread questioning of some of the basic assumptions about the “American way of life,” and, when this energetic -nation turns restless, old standards tend to disappear quickly. Inevitably, the young are doing most of the pushing. And it is the young who are grabbing at every idea and fad that comes out of Britain.

Perhaps in a few years’ time it will be looked back on as the paissing “British phase.” Or perhaps it is the onset of a future in which distance is almost meaningless, the wholesale exchange of ideas instantaneous, the social patterns in the two countries indistinguishable and we all have a new special relationship to argue about.