Topic 3, Lesson 15: How close was the 'Special Relationship' during the 1970s?

Topic 3, Lesson 15: How close was the 'Special Relationship' during the 1970s?

Edward Heath and the ‘Special Relationship’

• Was Edward Heath more interested in Britain’s relationship with Europe or with the United States?

• What evidence is there to justify this?

• What did Henry Kissenger want to use Britain for in terms of international relations with Europe?

  How did Heath react to this?

• What was Heath’s personal relationship with Richard Nixon like?

• What was Heath’s stance on the war in Vietnam?

• When, during Heath’s premiership, did Britain’s relationship with the United States suffer?

  What caused the tensions between the two countries?

Heath was more interested in Britain’s relationship with Europe than with the USA.

Heath committed himself to the entry of Britain into the EEC

Heath rejected attempts by US Secretary of State, Henry Kissenger to use Britain as a link with Europe and insisted that the US negotiate with the European Community as a whole rather than using Britain as a go-between.

Personally, Heath got on well with US President, Richard Nixon.

Heath was more publicly forthright in supporting the US in Vietnam than Wilson.

Relations with the US suffered in October 1973 during the Arab Israeli War:

Britain, under Heath, refused to allow the US to use NATO bases in Europe to airlift military supplies in support of Israel because they feared that supplies of oil from the middle East would be put at risk.

NB: Britain was right. The Arab Israeli War led to the 1973 OPEC Energy Crisis.

Topic 3, Lesson 15: How close was the 'Special Relationship' during the 1970s?

Wilson/Callaghan and the ‘Special Relationship’

• Were Wilson and Callaghan more inclined to the relationship Britain had with Europe or the United States?

• How did Callaghan’s relationship with Henry Kissenger benefit Britain’s nuclear defence?

• Which foreign policy concluded by the Labour party was not best received by the US?

Both Wilson and Callaghan were keen on the special relationship with the United States.

Callaghan forged a relationship with Henry Kissenger and negotiated the replacement of Britain’s Polaris nuclear weapons with the newer American Trident nuclear missiles in 1979.

However, Labour completed Britain’s military withdrawal from the East of Suez which it had started in the 1960s despite this upsetting the US.

Topic 3, Lesson 15: How close was the 'Special Relationship' during the 1970s?

Arguments that the 1970s ‘Special Relationship’ was Good

• What international concern ensured the special relationship between the United States and Britain remained strong?

The Cold War between the US and USSR ensured the special relationship between America and Britain remained strong.

Britain copied the United States’ approach to diplomacy with the Soviet Union and then again with China in 1979 following Nixon’s famous visit in 1972.

Topic 3, Lesson 15: How close was the 'Special Relationship' during the 1970s?

Arguments that the ‘Special Relationship’ was Bad

• Which foreign policy concluded by the Labour party was not best received by the US?

Labour completed Britain’s military withdrawal from the East of Suez which it had started in the 1960s despite this upsetting the US.