‘The impression is growing … that the United States is hard when dealing with us’: Ernest Bevin and Anglo-American relations at the dawn of the cold war

Abstract

This article examines British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin's views on Anglo-American relations during the crucial year of 1947. It challenges the view that Bevin was unquestioningly pro-American. It demonstrates how Bevin pushed the embassy in Washington to project a view of Britain, based on answering American criticisms robustly. He saw Britain's problems to be a consequence of American failures to act responsibly, as he saw it. Bevin was frustrated with American attitudes, and sought to bring them to underwrite his own policies and shape theirs around his strong belief that Britain had earned their support and that they should compensate Britain for its past sacrifices in the common cause. Bevin was not coldly pragmatic, nor was he uncritically pro-American, or merely a puppet in the hands of his Foreign Office officials.