Cakl 101- Ii

FCO HISTORIANS

OCCASIONAL PAPERS

No. 10

United Kingdom, United Nations and divided world 1946

Foreign and Commonwealth Office March 1995

FOREWORD

The end of the Cold War has brought the functions and mechanisms of the United Nations once more under public scrutiny. Fifty years ago, in the aftermath of the Second World War, the victorious Allies were concerned with establishing institutions which would transform their wartime coalition into peacetime collaboration. The essays in this edition of Occasional Papers

explore Britain's role in, and attitude towards, the new World Organisation during 1946, the first full year of peace. Two of them, those by Dr Edward Johnson and Dr Louise Fawcett, were originally prepared for a seminar which the Editors of the Documents on British Policy Overseas hosted on 30 September 1992. Contributions by Dr Ann Lane and myself are based largely upon material contained in the recently published DBPO volume on The United Nations: Iran, Cold War and World Organisation, 1946-1947.

At the time of the San Francisco Conference, British statesmen and diplomats were still optimistic about the United Nations. They hoped that the Security Council would function as a great-power concert for the management of international affairs, that the United States would henceforth be committed to the maintenance of world peace, and that Soviet Union, whose ambitions were already beginning to disturb

policymakers in London, would be bound by solemn obligations that it

would hesitate to repudiate. Clement Attlee announced, in October 1945, that his government intended `to make the success of the United Nations the primary object of their foreign policy'. Yet, as Dr Johnson explains in his

paper, during the course of 1946 such lofty ideals were soon dissipated. Divisions amongst the former wartime allies and misuse of the veto came close to reducing the Security Council to a tiltyard and, while British delegates praised the General Assembly for its `vitality', they also complained that their Russian colleagues were `rigid in their instructions

and aloof in their habits'.

No one issue did more to demonstrate the absence of unity amongst the permanent members of the Security Council than did the crisis that arose over the Soviet occupation of northern Iran. In her paper, which examines this question in the context of Allied conduct both during and after the Second World War, Dr Fawcett contends that Britain helped `bring the Cold War to Iran, by encouraging the Russians, alienating the Americans

and then finding itself in a position where it was too weak to act alone'. British diplomats might well have wondered if Russia needed much encouragement. Anglo-Russian rivalry in Persia was almost as old as the Great Game and, in 1946, British officials had, as Dr Lane suggests, to decide whether this or a new game was being played. Developments in

eastern Europe, and Stalin's use of ideology to achieve perceived Soviet

ends seemed to indicate that the methods and vocabulary of 19th-century imperialism were no longer appropriate to an emerging Cold War. In the event, British diplomats endeavoured, not without some success, to identify

the defence of British interests in Iran with the strategic requirements of American global strategy.

The British also ended by working closely with the Americans in an attempt to limit United Nations pressure on the Franco regime in Spain. Loathsome

though the latter's survival might have been to himself and his Labour

colleagues, Ernest Bevin was anxious to avoid any move that might lead to fresh civil war in Spain and a further expansion of Soviet influence

westwards. Moreover, whilst Franco's Spain may have been peripheral to the politics of Cold War, its consideration by the United Nations

threatened to establish precedents that the British wished to avoid. As I

argue in my paper, the Foreign Office was more aware of the dangers than the benefits that could accrue from accepting that the Organisation might sanction international intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. Like so many other matters raised in the Security Council and the General Assembly in 1946 it was a question of principle which is as alive today as it was at the foundation of the United Nations.

Keith Hamilton Library and Records Department

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

HISTORIANS

Occasional Papers

No. 10 March 1995

CONTENTS

Page

Britain and the United Nations, 1946 5 Edward Johnson

Britain, Iran and the Coming of the Cold War 22 Louise L'Estrange Fawcett

Bevin and Iran: Great Game as Cold War 33 Ann Lane

Non-Intervention Revisited: Great Britain, the United 46 Nations and Franco's Spain in 1946 Keith Hamilton

Note on Contributors 64

DBPO: Volumes published and in preparation 65

Copies of this pamphlet will be deposited with the National Libraries

FCO Historians, Library and Records Department,

Clive House, Petty France, London SW 1H 9HD

Crown Copyright ISBN 0 903359 56 1

BRITAIN AND THE UNTIED NATIONS 1946

Edward Johnson

In September 1946, the Foreign Office prepared a draft brief for a speech to be made by the Attorney General in the Attlee government to the United Nations (UN). Its first sentence noted that, 'the Prime Minister has

emphasised that the United Nations is the overriding factor in our foreign

policy'. 1 In the event, this was scrubbed from the brief at the behest of the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin. 2 The removal of the offending sentence was done not because of inaccuracy, Attlee had indeed made this claim for

the role of the UN in post-war British foreign policy, 3 but because by the late summer of 1946, the Labour government was beginning to see that the UN was not quite the forum for international peace that it had hoped for. The British had by then enough experience of Soviet behaviour in the organs of the UN to see that the elevated role that some government ministers had allotted to it was unlikely to be realised. The purpose of this paper is to examine the attitudes and policy of the Attlee government towards the UN in 1946 and to identify the reasons for the erosion of support for the UN in British governmental circles.

When the Attlee government came to power in July 1945, the UN Charter had only recently been signed at the San Francisco Conference. Expectations in the United States and to a lesser degree in Britain were high that the new United Nations Organisation and its Charter would ensure that the world did not lapse once more into conflict. The grand alliance of the great powers, the USA, the Soviet Union and Britain held

the promise that their wartime cooperation could, through the UN, be

carried on into the post-war world. The indications of success were however

mixed: the structure of the new organisation and its Charter were the product of the agreements hammered out among the allies at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference from August to October 1944. And, although there had been an impasse over the nature of voting, and specifically the role of the great power veto at Dumbarton Oaks, this had been apparently settled at the wartime conference at Yalta in February 1945.

1 FO 371 59755, Public Record Office, Kew. 2 See the minute by Gore Booth, 2 Oct. 1946, Ibid. 3 See Attlee's speech to the UN Nations Association at the Albert Hall, 10 Oct. 1945. A copy is in FO 371 50891.

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The UN that emerged as a result was the product of a planning process that had begun early in the war and which had been largely initiated by the US and British governments and to which the Soviet and later Chinese

governments responded. The Roosevelt government began in February 1942 in its planning for a post-war peace, 4 while the British began with the Economic and Reconstruction Department of the Foreign Office under Gladwyn Jebb drawing up the `Four Power Plan' for a post-war international organisation in September 1942. ý' The subsequent process of hardening plans for peace and post-war security ebbed and flowed through the policy making process in both states and encompassed a range of ideas

as the basis for the post-war organisation.

The United States' plans had evolved from a tension between universalism as the basis for the post-war body and a form of great power condominium through the continuation of the grand alliance into the post-war world. Roosevelt's original idea had been for four powers, the big three plus China to act as enforcers of post-war security: this would be a great power alliance with all other states being disarmed. Roosevelt considered that the four

nations had worked well during the war and the continuation of this security relationship should be the basis of any post-war order and post-war organisation. Underneath this alliance there was to be room for regional organisations, a position which was shared by Churchill and early on by the British Foreign Office, but the four power alliance was to be dominant in the enforcement of post-war security. 6 However, the arguments against a restricted organisation and regional structures in favour of a universal international organisation were compelling and eventually proved to be the basis of the plans which the Americans and the British took to Dumbarton Oaks in 1944.

While the idea of the great powers acting in alliance to maintain the security of the post-war world was rejected in favour of a universal international body embodying the sovereign equality of states, the UN's founders could not escape the dominant role of the major powers in the United Nations Organisation. Thus their importance was recognised in the

4 This was the creation in February 1942 of the Advisory Committee on Post War Foreign Policy which was divided into a number of sub-committees, one of which was a Special sub- committee on International Organization which met from October 19,42 until March 1943 and laid the basis of a draft Charter for a new international body; see RC Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United

. Nations and the Search for Post

War Security, (London: University of North Carolina (Press, 1990), pp. 6-19, and C Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1948), pp. 1626-33, and 1639-1640. 5 See FO 371 31525. 6 See Hull op. cit., pp. 1642-43.

permanent status granted to them in the Security Council and the veto powers bestowed on them. In taking this step, the founders of the United Nations recognised that the cooperation of the major wartime allies would be a pre-requisite for the success of the organisation. Without the cooperation and goodwill of all three powers the UN could not hope to lay

the basis of a post-war world order.

The UN in British Policy - 1945

What then was the British government's position on the United Nations in 1945? In order to answer this question we have to examine the reasons why the British embarked on the process of planning for peace in the first place. There were a number of reasons for this. The British proposals that were drawn up from September 1942 onwards presupposed that the American

government would be thinking along some lines to establish a post-war international organisation. Thus the British felt the need to be able to

respond to US overtures with some ideas of their own in order to establish the British government's position as an initiator of plans for peace and not a rn. ere follower of others. In particular, the British did not wish to lose any initiative to the United States and wished to protect British interests

through any post-war international organisation. The Four Power plan recognised Britain's post-war position would be weakened and visualized the promotion and protection of British interests and world power status as a fundamental element in Britain's support for a post-war international body.

There was moreover an added dimension to the British support for a post- war organisation which lay in the need for the British to tie the US into

assuming global responsibilities after the end of hostilities. Set against the isolationist tradition of the USA, which had triggered its absence from the League of Nations, membership of a post-war international organisation dedicated to peace was a means of justifying a global foreign policy while appealing to the moral sentiments of the US public. Thus any idea that British plans for the United Nations were based on some form of sentiment or expression of woolly Utopianism was clearly faulty. 7

However, there were some differences within British governmental circles in 1945 on the priority to be given to the role of the United Nations in British foreign policy. The political leadership of the Labour government were in

their internationalist spirit, keen supporters of the UN. In particular, Attlee

embodied the traditional, internationalism of the Labour Party and was

7 See Lord Gladwyn citing Charles Webster in `Founding the United Nations: Principles and Objects' in E Jensen and T Fisher (eds), The United liingdam - The United

. Nations, (London:

Macmillan, 1990) p. 36.

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greatly committed to the success of the United Nations. He had chaired the important Armistice and Post-war Committee which had played a leading role in planning for the end of hostilities and played a consistent part in promoting the idea of a post-war international organisation. Bevin had also been a member of the APW committee, but Bevin realised, possibly after Attlee that the UN could not supplant a distinct British foreign policy: it could be an important part in that policy but not, at least in 1945, a substitute for it. He saw, in the w; -, that Jebb's original Four Power Plan had done, that Britain's freedom (' action would be restricted in the post-war world and that support for the United Nations would be one means of defending Britain's global interests as well as retaining Britain's world power status. 8

In addition to these there was Bevin's Minister of State, Philip Noel-Baker, 'an unrivalled champion of internationalism and disarmament, ' and a passionate advocate of an international organisation to ensure post-war peace. 9 It was Noel-Baker along with Professor Charles Webster, another ardent supporter of international organisation, who did most of the work for the British government in the preparatory stage of the UN after San Francisco and before the UN met for the first time in 1946.10

At the official level, Sir Alexander Cadogan the Permanent Under- Secretary at the Foreign Office had been deeply involved in the wartime discussions on the UN and had represented Britain along with Halifax at Dumbarton Oaks. He had therefore played a key role in the formation of the UN Charter and the importance that Attlee attached to the UN was demonstrated when Cadogan, who might have expected to move to Washington, was appointed Britain's first permanent representative to the UN in February 1946.

Support for and an understanding of the position of the UN and the realities behind it were expressed forcibly by Gladwyn Jebb, in July 1945 in his 'Reflections on San Francisco'. I I Jebb Sought to contrast the enthusiasm and interest in the UN which the American public expressed, to the cynical disillusion felt, as he saw it, by the British. Jebb was keen to stress the vital

8 See A Bullock, Ernest Benin, Foreign Secretary 1945-1951, (London: Heinemann, 1983) pp. 110-111. 9B Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987) p. 94. 10 Ibid. 11 Documents on British Policy Overseas (hereafter cited as DBPO), Series I, Volume I, The Conference at Potsdam (HMSO, 1984). No. 407. Other volumes in Series I cited in this paper are Volume VI, Eastern Europe, 1945-1946 (HMSO: 1991) and Volume VII, The United

. Nations: Iran, Cold War and World Organisation, 1946-1947, (HMSO: 1995).

role that the British had played in the formation of the Charter and identified those parts of it which owed their origins to British initiatives:

articles 1,2,23,24,25,37,38,44,47-50 and the important article 99

giving the UN Secretary General an interventionist role. In addition the Military Staff Committee was a purely British suggestion and the Economic

and Social Council was modelled on the Bruce report which was in

accordance with British ideas: the Declaration on Colonial Policy was also essentially British in origin. In spite of this, Jebb noted that the British

appeared not to emphasise their achievements in the creation of the UN5 letting the USA take the leading light instead. This was mistaken because the UN achieved Britain's, 'major foreign political objectives'. 12 The United Nations bound the USA to its global responsibilities, the Soviet Union to solemn obligations, which it would be difficult to repudiate, and gave security to the independence and integrity of small states, an important factor for the British government. Although this paper did not reflect any official attitude on behalf of the British government, it received the support of some Foreign Office colleagues and Bevin did see it. Webster

praised its content while jG Ward of the Reconstruction Department was stimulated to press for a circular to be distributed with the Foreign Office

and the rest of'Whitehall conveying the line that the, 'UNO was HMG's

main objective and impressing on all Depts (sic) the need to make it a first

priority and a success'. f3

Other officials within the Foreign Office were not so sanguine about the role of the United Nations however. After Cadogan went to the UN, Sir Orme Sargent replaced him as Permanent Under-Secretary. According to Charles Webster, Sargent was keen to reduce the importance of the UN in British foreign policy and undertook a change in personnel within the Reconstruction department aimed at undermining the UN's prominence. 14 It is also interesting to note that when Deputy Permanent Secretary, Sargent had been responsible for the paper, 'Stocktaking after VE Day'

which aimed to provide pointers for British foreign policy at the end of the war in Europe. This paper, prepared for Eden then Wartime Foreign Secretary made no reference to the post-war international body. 15

There was thus some tension in the Foreign Office about the appropriate role that the UN should play in British foreign policy at the beginning of

12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., the minutes by Webster, 19 Sept. 1945 and Ward, 20 Sept. 1945. 14 R Smith citing Charles Webster in `Ernest Bevin, British Officials and British Soviet Policy 1945-47' in A Deighton, (ed) Britain and the First Gold War, (London: Macmillan, 1990) p. 39. 15 See DBPO, Series I, Volume I, No. 102.

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1946. And, moreover, there was a dilemma about the role the UN should play in post-war politics. While the organisation was built on great power unity and cooperation, the Soviet Union was more inclined to support a three-way division of the world into spheres of influence, something Frank Roberts made clear from Moscow in September 1945.16 Ward noted the British dilemma, that any failure of Britain and the US to endorse this role for the UN would lead to Soviet sabotage of the organisation, while at the same time, the British could not expect the US . support any bargain over spheres of influence, given the US support for u. iversalism and the UN. 17

The British position on the United Nations was therefore closely linked to the position on the Soviet Union. As the UN was based on the cooperation of the major powers, any rift in their relations would show up in the UN,

and conversely the souring of relations in the UN would eflect the policy line towards the Soviet Union. From 1946 onwards senior officials in the Foreign Office began to adopt a much firmer line towards the Soviet Union

and Soviet behaviour, a position from which they received the backing of Bevin, although he was prepared to give the Soviet Union the benefit of the doubt long after they were. 18 Roberts in particular sent a stream of' dispatches from Moscow in which he sought to explain Soviet behaviour and provide recommendations for British policy. With regard to the United Nations, Roberts noted in March 1946 that the Soviet Union would see the UN as a body based on the cooperation of the wartime allies and that if that cooperation fractured, then so would the UN. The Soviet Union

would ensure that the UN could never be used against its interests to the extent that Roberts conceded that the Soviet conception of international

negotiations was predicated on reaching agreement on Soviet terms. 19

In addition to this type of advice, the ammunition for this hardening of attitudes was provided by Soviet behaviour in the Council of Foreign Ministers, in Soviet backed actions in their occupied zone of Germany, in Eastern Europe generally and in the forums of the United Nations.

Britain and the Soviet Union in the UN 1946

Propaganda and the Veto in the Security Council:

16 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 30. 17 Ward minute 8 Oct. 1945 FO 371 50826. 18 For a discussion of the change in British attitudes towards the Soviet Union, see Smith, op. cit., and V. Rothwell, Britain and the Cold War, 1941-1947, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982) chap. 5 passim. 19 See DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 82.

The basic difference among the great powers was to emerge when the UN General Assembly and the Security Council met for the first time in London in January 1946. From the beginning it was clear that the allied cooperation so necessary for the success of the UN was going to be a hard won commodity. It seems to be the case that the British were eager to avoid any public display of discord in the forums of the United Nations. An early indication of this was the British policy of trying to stop the Iranian

government bringing the Iranian situation before the Security Council in January 1946. The British wished to avoid an open and public rupture of relations with the Soviet Union, preferring instead a resolution through diplomatic channels with the Soviet Union and the Iranians: a course opposed by the US government and by the Iranians themselves.

The Soviet Union did not appear to be so inclined to avoid a break with her wartime allies and certainly not once the Iranian issue had put them in the dock of the Council. It was the use of the Council and the Assembly for

propaganda purposes by the Soviet Union combined with the abuse of the veto in the Council that inflamed Anglo-Soviet relations and aggravated an already worsening condition.

During the first session of the Security Council, the Soviet Union raised a number of questions on the agenda which appeared to be aimed at causing the British government maximum embarrassment as well as complicating relations with friendly western states. In the cases of Greece and Indonesia which were raised almost immediately, the Soviet and Ukrainian delegations focused the attention of the Council on the presence of British troops in those territories. In Greece the British were charged by the Soviet delegation with being a threat to international peace and security. The Soviet move was a response to having the Iranian case brought before the Council at the same time. It had previously raised the subject of Greece at Potsdam and in the Council of Foreign Ministers and clearly wished to humiliate the British and drive a wedge between them and the US

government as there had been a popular American hostility towards British actions in Greece at the end of the war. 20 In relating the Greek case to the Cabinet, Bevin noted that Gromyko had refused to accept a statement from the chairman of the Security Council that the British presence had not constituted the alleged threat. 21 The immediate situation had been

resolved through the use of the consensus procedure whereby all sides accepted a statement by the chairman of the Council summarising the sense of the arguments of all the parties. However, the use of brusque language

20 See GL Goodwin, Britain and the United . Nations, (London: OUP, 1957), p. 74.

21 CM(13) 46,7 Feb. 1946, CAB 128/5.

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and open condemnations did not serve the position of the UN as a1 irum dependent on great power cooperation.

In the Indonesian case, the Ukrainians had called für a commission to investigate the presence of British troops in the territory: this the British

opposed but the Dutch merely refused to endorse any terms of reference which would allow the Dutch troops presence to be examined. The

supporting Ukrainian resolution had failed in the Council, but Bevin had been forced to warn van Kleffens, the Dutch epresentativf: to the UN that the Dutch government could not expect British support in the Far East if they disassociated themselves from British difficulties in the Council. 22

This apparent Soviet policy of seeking to cause embarrassment to the British by using the Council as an instrument of propaganda was heightened by what the British saw as the misuse of the veto in the Council. The veto had been a source of dispute at Dumbarton Oaks to the extent of threatening the very success of the Conference and the future of the UN. 23 It was a major area of discord among the great powers and in essence went to the core of the understanding that each had on the role that the UN

should play in post-war international relations. All of the great powers had been agreed on the need for a veto to be exercised solely by them in the Security Council of the new post-war body, but the extent of its use was to divide them at Dumbarton Oaks and was only to be resolved, and then it

would seem only temporarily, at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. The British position at Dumbarton Oaks had been that the veto should not be used when one of the great powers was itself a party to the dispute

under discussion. This argument was supported on the lines that to act as a restraining judge in one's own case offended against natural justice. But there was also a political argument, in that the British were sensitive to the view that if an absolute veto right were to be sanctioned, it would look like the endorsement, through the UN, of a great power hegemony which would undermine the effectiveness of the UN if only smaller powers were to be the subjects of UN action. It would, in Britain's case alienate the Commonwealth states and those smaller powers which it was vital to include in one successful operation of the UN. 24

The position of the Soviet delegation and part of the US team at Dumbarton Oaks had been in favour of the right of absolute veto by the great powers, as a recognition of the realities of post-war world politics. The

22 CM(14) 46,11 Feb. 1946, CAB 128/5. 23 See Hilderbrand, op. at., pp. 183-208. 24 See Hilderbrand op. cit., p. 185 and DBPO, Series I, Volume 1, No. 407.

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unrestricted use of the veto was essential in order to retain great-power unity and moreover to avoid the situation whereby smaller powers took decisions in the Security Council which then obliged some of the great powers to act against their interests. In response to the view that the great powers would thus be able to avoid an enforcement action against themselves, were they to be aggressors, the supporters of the absolute veto adopted the line of argument that such a situation would in effect signify the demise of the UN an yway and render the veto and other parts of the organisation meaningless. 25

The British were to play a key role in breaching the impasse the veto by

proposing the compromise which was accepted at Yalta. While still at Dumbarton Oaks, Cadogan suggested that the great powers should not be

allowed to use the veto in procedural matters, and that if they themselves were parties to a dispute, they would be denied the right of veto during the first stages of pacific settlement [what was to become chapter VI of the Charter]. However, and again reflecting the realities of the post-war world, they could retain the right of veto as parties to a dispute when enforcement action was contemplated [what was to be chapter VII of the Charter]. Although this did not gain acceptance at Dumbarton Oaks, it was subsequently adopted by Roosevelt and the US government and eventually by Stalin at Yalta26, and was incorporated into the UN Charter as article 27.

However the British were to experience what they considered Soviet abuse of the veto within a matter of weeks of the start of proceedings in the Security Council. Thus where the `Yalta formula' had been designed to secure great power cooperation while at the same time not alienating the smaller powers, the Soviet Union appeared to be deliberately using the veto to disclose the divisions among the great powers, not only between itself and Britain but also between Britain and the USA, to a lesser degree, France. The Soviet Union was, as Roberts was to explain to Bevin, defending its interests in an organisation in which it was in a minority.

In February 1946, for example, the Soviet Union and Egypt charged Anglo- French forces in the Lebanon and Syria with being a threat to international

peace and security. This was designed in part as a quid pro quo for the

25 See Hilderbrand op. cit., p. 184. 26 See D Dilks (ed), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan 1938-1945, (London: Cassell, 1971),

p. 669 and DBPO, Series I, Volume I, No. 407. Hilderbrand disputes that Cadogan was the source of the compromise and claims Leo Pasvolsky, the US government's chief planner on post war organisation was responsible for the proposal; see Hilderbrand, op. Cit., pp. 210- 211.

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placing of the Iranian case on the agenda of the Security Council, but also to create tensions amongst the Western powers. In the event, a US

resolution expressing confidence that Anglo-French troops would withdraw without delay was vetoed by the Soviet government ostensibly on the grounds that Soviet amendments to it had not been carried but more likely in order to deny the British and French governments the public endorsement of support from the Security Council. 27 In August 1946, the Soviet Union also vetoed a US resolution which called for the creation of a commission to investigate Ukrainian charges that the Greek government was a threat to international peace and was ., rovoking conflict with the Albanians. While this had the effect of dropping the charges against the Greeks revealed the erosion of great power unity on the public stage.

In all, the Soviet Union resorted to its veto nine times in 1946, three of which were on membership issues. The British accepted the Soviet right to veto applications for membership, but doubted the reasons offered by the Soveit delegates for their conduct. Thus, Eire, Portugal and Trans-Jordan

were vetoed because they did not have diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, 28 and as a quid pro quo for the exclusion of Albania and Mongolia from the UN through Western pressure on the General Assembly.

In relaying his views on the opening weeks of the Security Council, Cadogan let it be known that the Council was clearly being used as, `a forum for mischievous propaganda' and that the divorce of economic and social affairs from the Security Council and the nature of its continuous sessions compounded the situation and gave a licence to the Soviet Union

to exploit it for propaganda purposes. Cadogan was convinced that these two factors encouraged frivolous issues to be raised and that the Council

needed a further role besides that of security. Bevin agreed with Cadogan's diagnosis but felt that it was too early in the day [April] to seek a remedy. 29

The question of the use and abuse of the veto was to cause increasing

concern to the British throughout 1946 and it was to become more of a problem in 1947. The Cabinet discussed the issue early in 1946 and recognised that the veto was already being abused by the Soviet Union in

that it was raising issues, with which it was directly concerned, only to then

veto any resolution which sought to record a formal decision. 30 In February

27 See Goodwin, op. cit., p. 73. 28 See Annex III to brief on The Right to Veto, FO 371 59789. 29 See Cadogan to Bevin, 18 Apr. 1946 and Bevin to Cadogan, 27 Apr. 1946, FO 800/508. 30 CM(16) 46,18 Feb. 1946, CAB 128/5.

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Bevin gained Cabinet approval to seek a review of the use of the veto, 31

but from this position the British were to retreat. By March the Cabinet

accepted that any change could only follow an amendment to the Charter,

which would result in more harm than good. 32 By October, the Foreign Office noted that the British would prefer to retain the right of veto, 33 and the Cabinet supported Bevin's line that Britain should seek an agreement with the Soviet Union that the veto would be used as a weapon of last

resort and not as one to obstruct the functioning of the Security Council. The British however sought to avoid the convening of a public special conference and preferred, if possible, to use the more private Council of Foreign Ministers as a forum in which to reach agreement on the operation of the veto. 34 But there was also no doubt that the proceedings of the Security Council had undermined confidence in the UN Charter and that the Security Council was regarded, for the time being, as useless in the maintenance of international peace. 35

The Role of Armed Forces and the Military Stiff Committee

In addition to the direct attacks by the Soviet Union on the presence of British troops in non-enemy territories, the Soviet Union also sought to force the British and Americans to divulge the number of troops they had

stationed in these countries, a line which the British saw as another way of making the same point about British troops. 36 The Soviet Union had raised it in the Security Council in 1946, but the resolution had been thrown out. This merely led to the Soviet Union indicating its intention to table a resolution to the second part of the first General Assembly in New York in

the autumn of the same year. The Foreign Office were opposed to the Soviet move: Bevin expressing the concern that it could lead to the strengths of British and American forces in many parts of the world, including eventually Germany and Austria, becoming general knowledge,

which was, 'not in our common interest to divulge at the present time. '37 The Chiefs of Staff were also emphatically opposed to the proposed Soviet

move fearing that, 'such disclosures would give away Anglo-American

weakness in Europe and British weakness in Greece and Iraq, ' in return for inaccurate Russian information. 38 The problem for the British was that the

31 Ibid. 32 CM(27) 46,25 Mar. 1946, CAB 128/5. 33 FO 371 59787. 34 CM(99) 46,21 Nov. 1946, CAB 128/6. 35 See minute FO 371 59787. 36 See FO 371 59789. 37 See Bevin to Inverchapel, 21 Oct. 1946, FO 371 59789. 38 See a copy of COS(155) 46 of 21 Oct. 1946, in FO 371 59790.

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US State Department and the US Chiefs of Staff would not support Britain on this. The British were irritated that Byrnes were irritated that Byrnes had accepted Senator Vandenberg's view that the UN General Assembly was the, 'town meeting of the world' and could not oppose inclusion of these types of items on the agenda. 39 The British were however, able in part to deflect this attempt to embarrass them and create friction with the Americans by turning the tables on the Russians in the General Assembly when Bevin linked the typt ; of disclosures asked for to the successful working of the Military Staff Co; '- jmittee: when that had been

established, the British government would I; prepared to provide the information required without hesitation. 40 By raising the issue of the Military Staff Committee, the British were able to target the Soviet Union

and put the ball back in their court for the failure of the MSC to work.

The role of the Military Staff Committee was to become embroiled in the deteriorating relations among the great powers from 1946-48 such that its

primary function was never fulfilled. The idea of the Military Staff Committee had been a British one in order to give some direction to article 43 of the UN Charter which rectified a weakness that the League had faced by providing for armed forces to be made available to the Security Council in its enforcement role. In spite of its British origins, there was some difference within the British policy making community on the need for

a UN armed forces and its feasibility. The Chiefs of Staff were not unnaturally sceptical of the idea of standing armed forces which they considered 'moonshine'41 but they were aware that the political necessity of seeking agreement among the major power overrode their 'realism'. Also,

within the Foreign Office the doubts over the feasibility of a UN armed force and the success of the Military Staff Committee reflected the more general divisions in the Office towards the UN. By the end of 1946, it was clear that there were differences among the major powers on the nature of the force to be provided to the UN and the principles which by which it

would operate.

The British position was tabled to a sub-committee of the Military Staff Committee in a paper, 'The Size and General Location of the Forces at the Disposal of the Security Council'. 42 This constituted a statement of understandings that the British government held on the provision of armed forces and their underlying principles. It was based on a joint Planning Stafr

39 See Invercha. pel to the FO, 19 Oct. 1946 in FO 371 59789. 40 See FO 371 59795. 41 Jebb in Fisher and Jensen, op. rit., p. 34. 42 COS(46) 60 27 Feb. 1946. This should be in CAB 80/100 but is missing. A copy can be found in FO 371 57065.

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memorandum, 43 and had been prepared in consultation with the Foreign Office and approved by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet in March 1946.44 Iii this statement of understandings, the Chiefs of Staff were keen

to ensure that the UN was not provided with such large forces that any British contribution would appear insignificant, nor did they wish to see the exercise develop into one which permitted any one state to sustain excessive and unnecessary large forces. The British were inclined to support the idea of an open commitment by UN members to put all their forces at the disposal of the UN, thereby curtailing the need for a specific and potentially embarrassing pledge by the British. 45 And, in a restatement against regionalism, the British position expected to see all great powers involved in any combined military operation under the aegis of the Military Staff Committee, thereby resisting the tendency of any one state to increase its influence by dominating UN military operations in particular regions. 46

While the USA, France and China submitted similar statements to the MSC sub-committee by the requested date of April 1946, the Soviet Union did not move until September. This delay on the part of the Soviet Union

created some divisions on how the apparent impasse should be managed. Without a statement by all the members of the Military Staff Committee, the UN could not move forward on the provisions under article 43 and this would inevitably create a lack of' confidence in the Security Council's

capacity to deal with threats to international peace and security. The delay by the Soviet Union was probably linked to problems over Germany

encountered in the Council of Foreign Ministers, 47 and the Foreign Office

and the Chiefs of Staffdisagreed in the approach to be taken to resolve the difficulty. Bevin was opposed to discussion on the nature of UN armed forces being allowed to aggravate relations with the Soviet Union, 48 and Sargent instructed the Foreign Office News department not to highlight the apparent deadlock in the Military Staff Committee discussions. 49 Although

the Chiefs of Staff pressed for a far harder line to be taken against the Russians, 50 the Foreign Office took the view that while there was still hope

of reaching agreements under article 43, it would be unwise to criticise the

43 See JP(46) 21,11 Feb. 1946 CAB 84/78. 44 DO(46) 9th mtg, 27 Mar. 1946 CAB 131 / 1. 45 COS(46) 60, FO 371 57065. 46 COS(46) 60 Annex, FO 371 57065. 47 British delegation at the UN to the FO, 17 May 1946, FO 371 57069. 48 Ward's minute 31 May 1946, FO 371 59666. 49 Sargent memorandum, 18 June 1946, FO 371 57069. 50 L, t_Col Haddon of the COS Secretariat to Sargent, 15 June 1946, FO 371 59666.

17

Soviet Union publicly. 51 The Foreign Office did recognise however that if,

after the Paris Peace Conference, no movement was possible on the Military Staff Committee, it might be necessary for the British to consider proceeding without the Soviet Union, but this was of such importance that it would need to be discussed at Cabinet level. 52

The British were saved this course of action as the Soviet Union did in fact

submit a statement of principles on a UN ar-ied force to the MSC sub- committee in September 1946.53 The effect of this was to show that the Soviet Union was fairly clear in what it expected of' a UN force, but the western powers, including the British were not so sure. The major areas of division, which were to persist beyond 1946, lay in the Soviet insistence on equal contributions from each permanent member, the length of time a UN force should stay in the field and the location of forces designated for UN

work. These differences with the other members of the MSC underlined the divergent views that the Soviet Union and the western powers held

towards the role of the UN. The insistence on equal contributions was a way of allowing the Soviet Union to dictate the size of the UN force, and especially the naval and air elements, while the Soviet demand that UN forces withdraw after three months was an attempt to ensure that any UN

operation did not gain a toehold in parts of the world close to Soviet interests. There was every indication that initial UN intervention would be by air and naval forces, precisely those in which the USA and Britain would be strongest, and the three month deadline sought to deny any western long term intervention under the banner of the UN. Finally as the Soviet Union had no imperial territories, it sought to deny for others the use of forces

marked down for UN duty in imperial possessions by demanding that force

contributions to the UN should reside in the national homeland.

In contrast to the Soviet Union, the British position on contributions was based on the principle of comparability with those of other states. Equal

contributions were a non-starter for the British as they could not hope to match the US in naval and air power nor the Soviet Union in its land

army. However, the British position did consider that British forces would be roughly equivalent to those of the USA and the Soviet Union, which did

not appear to jell with the principle of comparability. 54 The British position

51 Sargent to Hollis, 1 July 1946, FO 371 59666. 52 Ibid. 53 A copy of this is in FO 371 59670. 54 COS(46) 60, FO 371 57065. The British also sought to include bases and logistic support as contributions which could offset manpower contributions, but the principle of vaNing these was never made clear; see, aide-memoire prepared for the COS, JP(47)30(F), 18 Mar. 1947, in DEFE 6/1. The British representatives to the Military Staff Committee were later

18

on length of time UN forces could be deployed and also on their location before deployment were based on protection of British interests. The Chiefs

of Staff rejected the three month deadline as militarily unsound, while the British demanded that forces allocated to the UN did not need to be based

on the state's territorial homeland as the Soviet Union suggested: the British position was understandably one which sought to allow freedom of movement to station a range of forces, including those marked down for UN duty if necessary, across the globe and make the most of Britain's

manpower shortage. 55

The divisions within the Military Staff Committee were to rumble on until August 1948 when in effect the deadlock over both principles and then the size of contributions was to cause the premature demise of the idea of a UN armed force under article 43 of the Charter. It is interesting to note that the discussions in the Military Staff Committee never even approached the very difficult subjects of control of any force once in the field nor the question of financing. It is these issues which have been major factors in

subsequent peacekeeping forces which have not operated under chapter VII

of the Charter. How more important then would they have been to a UN

enforcement force which would have created political results through its intervention? 56 One cannot help feeling that the discussions in the Military Staff Committee were always avoiding these central issues and that the general deterioration of allied relations was the prime factor in the deadlock: the MSC issues were merely a reflection of this not its cause. But, it is instructive to see that the British were not prepared to see the MSC discussions worsen a set of relations that were already plummeting.

The General Assembly:

The British had always wished to see the UN as near a universal body as possible, but at the same time accepted that the great powers should play a dominant role in the maintenance of international peace and security. While the Soviet Union could use its veto in 1946 to defend its interests in

the Council, the Assembly was still a largely Western dominated body in

which the Soviet Union and its client states were relatively isolated and from which there was no escape through the veto. Even so, the Assembly

was a forum in which open diplomacy could flourish: a method which was anathema to the British government, especially if its object was to create

to admit that the British position on contributions was not as clear as that of the Soviet Union; see Annex to BMS(48), 6 July 1948, FO 371 72696. 5`' See the later DO(47) 47,27 May 1947, CAB 131/4. 56 This point is from E Luard, A History of the United

, Nations, Vol. 1, The Years of Western

Domination 1945-1955, (London: Macmillan, 1982) pp. 103-104.

19

bad feeling amongst the major powers through the dissemination of propaganda.

In his summary of the proceedings of the second part of the first session of the General Assembly of 1946, Bevin noted that the Soviet Union's

representatives, Molotov and Vyshinsky showed little flexibility in their positions, they being, `rigid in their instructions and aloof in their habits'. 57 The Soviet delegation was there to create pro) ins and their proposals on troop information had not been tabled in good ti th but rather to embarrass the British and American governments. Aiýoo the committees of' the Assembly had in some cases been operated dishonestly as in the example of the Political Committee under the chairmanship of Manuilsky and Sobolev. 58 In others, there were signs of future difficulties for the British as in the Fourth Committee in which the general atmosphere was tense as some of the delegations were intent upon pressing for widespread political independence with no regard for the economic and social development of the territories under discussion. 59 In support of this, the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs noted that there was evidence from this Committee that states with no colonial responsibilities were eager to go beyond the Charter by conferring a power of UN supervision on all colonial territories, a development which was unfortunate. 60

Bevin was not too despondent however about the working of the Assembly in 1946, but he wished the US delegation had been more active. Throughout the session in New York from October to December, the Americans had shown a lack of direction: Byrnes had been a let down, and although Dulles, Vandenberg and Mrs Roosevelt were more respected, the British were finding it necessary to take the lead in playing the western hand, which presumably put it more directly in the firing line of Soviet

attack. 61

Not everything was gloom for the British though. In October 1946, Bevin welcomed the progress of the UN in the social, economic and cultural fields

57 Bevin to Attlee, 4 Jan. 1946 (sic), relaying his Observations on the 2nd part of the Ist session of the General Assembly Oct-Dec 1945 (sic) in FO 800/508. It should be noted that this is

wrongly dated in the original and should refer to the Assembly meeting in 1946 and the memorandum be dated 1947. `'8 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 See the Cabinet paper, CP(47)5,16 Jan. 1947, the memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, CAB 129/16; the background briefs to this can be found in CO 936/l/5. 61 Bevin to Attlee, Observations, 3 Jan. 1946 (sic) FO 800/508.

20

and in the specialised agencies, and he was keen to express his regard for 62 the British performance in the UN's forums during the year.

Conclusion

As 1946 drew to a close, an audit on the British experience of the UN

would have justified Bevin's changing Shawcross's statement on the role of the organisation in British foreign policy. In particular the way the Security Council, the centre-piece of the UN in which great power cooperation was vital, had failed to live up to its expectations was a major disappointment,

not least to Bevin, who was never as optimistic as others. The veto had been misused thereby impairing the usefulness of the Council, in which, by late 1946, the British had no confidence. Sargent, never a great believer in

the UN, suggested in November that Bevin should declare Britain's doubts

publicly about the effectiveness of the Security Council. Bevin was to desist, 63 but he had already indicated to Attlee his disappointment with it, 64 and in a private meeting with the representatives of the permanent members was to state his lack of trust in it. 6

Bevin and the British government had pinned their hopes on the UN as conduit for the continuation of great power cooperation. The British had

shown how important they regarded the UN by the personnel they appointed to represent them, specifically the likes of Cadogan and the members of the British team on the Military Staff Committee. And, the British had shown themselves anxious not to use the UN to emphasize differences with the Soviet Union, a policy which appeared to have reaped few gains at the end of the year. Perhaps as George Kennan, the American State Department official, realist interpreter of international politics and author of containment, noted in his memoirs, and echoing Frank Roberts:

the UN was flawed in the sense that Stalin attached importance to it only in so far as it maintained great power hegemony and spheres of influence. The UN would thus be expected to serve as a way of enlisting British and American support for the maintenance of these spheres and in the climate of 1946, this was not possible. 66

62 Bevin to Attlee, [n. d], notes for a Commons debate for 22-23 Oct. 1946, FO 800/508. 63 See the correspondence between Sargent and Bevin, 27 Nov. 1946, FO 371 59720. 64 Cadogan to Attlee relaying views of Bevin, 7 Nov. 1946, FO 800/508. 65' See Peck's minute relaying Bevin's position in FO 371 59720. 66 G Kennan, Memoirs 1925-1950, (London: Hutchintion, 1968) p. 220.

21

BRITAIN, IRAN AND THE COMING OF THE COLD WAR

Louise L'Estrange Fawcett

Until quite recently Britain's role in the origins of the Cold War was seen as a relatively minor one. Cold War historiography was dominated by two competing approaches: the orthodox and revisionist schools which laid the responsibility for the conflict at the feet of the Soviet Union and United States respectively. Rightly or wrongly, other players were seen as having

only peripheral importance. By the 1980s however, this picture was beginning to change, the opening of state archives resulted in some pioneering studies of British foreign policy, and produced some new conclusions about its impact and significance in a Cold War context. The

wave of so-called `post-revisionist' works that have appeared during the past decade or so bear testimony to this rediscovery of Britain's role. 1

Post-revisionism, as applied to the case of British policy in Iran, has meant elevating Britain's role from that of a minor to a major actor, and to some extent thereby transferring a large part of the `blame' for the Cold War,

attached previously to either the Soviet Union or the United States, to Britain. The move away from traditional interpretations has necessarily produced a number of critiques of British policy in Iran and elsewhere. I,

among others, have argued, among other things, that British policy was characterised by `hypocrisy and arrogance', that it was destabilising to Iran

and helped turn the country into a zone of Cold War conflict, while hastening the demise of British influence in the region. 2

I will return to some of these points in more detail in a moment, but I

would first like to respond to a question sometimes asked of `over-zealous'

post-revisionists in search of new evidence: namely have we not been too hard on Britain? I would say no. I don't think we have. In my book Iran and the Cold War. I was equally hard on the Russians, and only slightly less hard

on the Americans - in the latter case it is not difficult to see why for their previous involvement in Iran, in contrast to their wartime allies, had been

minimal. What I would say is that if British policy in Iran often appears in

retrospect to be unjustifiable, it was nonetheless understandable. Given

I For a survey of the literature and competing approaches with particular reference to British policy, see Anne Deighton's introduction to her edited volume Britain and the First Cold War, (London: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1-7. 2 See Louise L'Estrange Fawcett, Iran and the Cold War. The Azerbaijan Crisis of 1946, (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), and my contribution to Anne Deighton, ofi. cit., `Invitation to Cold War: British Policy in Iran, 1941-1947', pp. 184-200.

22

Britain's global power and influence, particularly in the Middle East, and

given the pressing concerns of war, it is quite comprehensible that she pursued policies towards Iran that were believed to be in her own, and her

allies' best interests, rather than those of Iran. It is also perhaps understandable, under the circumstances of the time, that those policies were at times hastily and perhaps even rashly conceived, for no one thought

or cared much for long term consequences of their policies, particularly in

the early desperate months of war. Yet we are now looking at these events with the benefit of hindsight and are interested not so much in why Britain did what she did, but what the consequences of British policy were and it is

there that I will concentrate my attention in this short paper.

For those unfamiliar with the developments in Iran in the 1940s that turned the country into one of the first non-European Cold War theatres, I will briefly summarise the events of the period 1941-1947. Iran was invaded

and occupied by the British and Russians in the autumn of 1941. The Americans came to Iran a little later to assist in the management of the

supply line, and to advise the Iranian government in various areas. (This

was in fact the beginning of what was to become a permanent US presence in the country - at least until the Iranian Revolution of 1979. ) Reza Shah Pahlavi, the reigning monarch, who made known both his pro-German sympathies and his opposition to the presence of allied troops on Iranian

soil was forced to leave the country on the eve of the allied invasion and was replaced by his young, and comparatively malleable, son Mohammad Reza.

Iran was deeply affected by the occupation, no area of its economy, society and political system escaped entirely unscathed. A succession of weak governments, exposed to allied intervention, provided the political background to a period of instability and change. The years 1941-1947

were punctuated by crises, many provoked by the impact of the war on Iran

but also by the struggle for control of the country's most important resource:

oil. However, the decisive event in this period from a Cold War viewpoint was the Soviet decision, in the autumn of 1945, to support the creation of two autonomous governments in Iran's northern province of Azerbaijan

which fell within the Soviet zone of occupation. The USSR continued to

support these movements by retaining its troops in northern Iran after the

war in direct contravention of wartime treaties.

What the USSR sought in Iran was not necessarily annexation of the

strategically important and resource-rich province of Azerbaijan, but rather influence in Tehran where a friendly regime would greatly relieve at least

one of the Soviet Union's many security dilemmas. No doubt Stalin would

23

have preferred a pro-Soviet government in Tehran, along the lines of those ultimately imposed in Eastern Europe, but he was willing to settle for a major oil concession in the north, and of course the political and economic influence that such a concession would bring. Yet while the British, as we shall see, were on the whole willing to concede such a sphere of influence to the USSR, at least in northern Iran, the United States was opposed. By the spring of 1946 and with the lessons of Eastern Europe fresh in mind, the United States was to provide strong support to Iranian efforts to resist Soviet pressures, inside and outside the United Nations forum. The result of a firm US policy over Iran, as well as some crafty diplomacy by the Iranians themselves, was first the Soviet abandonment of the autonomous northern regimes and secondly Iran's decisive rejection of the proposed Soviet oil deal. In short, the Iranian round of the Cold War had been won by the United States.

In order to examine Britain's role in the Iranian crisis, and I make no bones about subscribing to the post-revisionist view which would place Britain squarely at the centre of the conflict, I propose to examine British

policy in Iran at three levels: firstly British policy with regard to Iran's internal situation and developments; secondly, British policy with regard to external powers and developments and finally British policy with regard to Britain's own long term interests in Iran and the region.

Of course all these three areas overlap, but for the purposes of this paper it is helpful to make such a division in order to demonstrate and clarify Britain's role in the development of the Cold War in Iran.

Britain's attitude towards Iran

In 1941, in discussing plans for the joint occupation of Iran, Viscount Halifax wrote that `the result of the dual occupation might be the disappearance of the Iranian government, perhaps temporarily, perhaps forever. But I cannot say that their conduct has been of such a kind as to impose any deep obligations on us'. 3 This and other similar statements provide an idea of how Britain viewed Iran at the beginning of the 1940s. Attitudes towards Iran, at least since the 1930s and until the end of the Second World War and beyond, were characterised by a certain dislike, if

not contempt of Iranian officials, and such attitudes naturally played a part in determining policy decisions.

3 FO 371/24580, Halifax to Amery, 1 Aug. 1940.

24

What accounts for these attitudes? To attempt an answer this question, let

us quickly examine British policy in the pre-war period. Since the Russian Revolution of 1917, Britain had been the predominant power in Iran. It

was unable to consolidate formally its position through the Anglo-Persian Agreement: Curzon's attempt to secure Iran as a `buffer to protect India

and a pillar of British influence in the Middle East', 4 but the results of their policies were similar. Reza Shah did not perhaps fall entirely into the mould that the Foreign and India Offices would have desired, but nor did he seriously challenge British interests, even in his attempt to renegotiate the oil concession, although this was certainly a cause of irritation to Britain. However in the late 1930s the situation changed. As war with Germany approached Iran assumed a new importance for two reasons: first, a flourishing economic relationship existed between Iran and Germany and the country was, on the whole, pro-German; second, Iran, particularly once the USSR joined the allies was a vital wartime supply corridor. Iran must be compliant, but Reza Shah's attitude both towards the breaking of links with Germany and towards the prospect of allied troops entering Iranian soil -- negative in both cases - convinced the British government that `the greatest benefit would be drawn from the elimination of the Shah'. 5 The Shah, as we know, left Iran in September 1941, spending his last days in South Africa, where he died in 1944.

The Shah's removal was to have important political consequences. Many Iranians were happy to see hirn go, but the manner of his demise did not augur well for the country's political stability. New political parties came and went, often at the whim of a few individuals with the backing of one or other foreign power. There appeared momentarily to be a real chance for Iran to establish democratic government and practices, but this opportunity was frustrated - none of the external powers involved in Iran was seriously interested in promoting democracy. The British, in particular found dealing

with the new Majlis particularly irksome: each successive administration - and many were pro-British - was criticised for its apathy or corruption. A typical Foreign Office comment at the time was that Persia was simply not `ripe for democracy... unless the Majlis is sat on it become a nuisance'. 6 Growing unease at the new political trends in Iran even led to suggestions that the Majlis be suspended altogether, or at least `fettered', 7 while the British placed their trust in a few chosen and trusted individuals. There

4 Malcolm E. Yapp, '1900-1921: The Last Years of the Qajar Dynasty', in H. Amirsadeghi and R. W. Ferrier (eds. ), Twentieth Century Iran, (London: 1977), p. 20.

F0371/27217, India Office to FO, 14 September 1941. See also Sir Reader Bullard's, The Camtls Must Co. An Autobiography, (London: 1961), p. 230 6 FO 371/31385, FO minute, 10 Apr. 1942. 7 FO 371/31385, Tehran to FO, 10 and 21 Apr. 1942.

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were a series of pro-British prime. ministers, although none proved entirely satisfactory from the British viewpoint. More contentious was Britain's

support for an individual like Sayyid Ziya Tabataba'i, who had helped bring Reza Shah to power, or for the tribal leaders in southwest Iran, whom it

was believed, could be counted on to support British interests. Not

surprisingly an independent-minded prime minister like Ahmad Qavam, who first came to power in January 1946 and was committed to pursuing a non- aligned foreign policy, was unwelcome to Britain. When he finally

succeeded, with US assistance, in ridding the (--)entry of Soviet troor ýs, the British were only too happy to see him go. `A man who would have s, ild the pass if left to his own devices', was British Ambassador John Le Rougetel's

comment on Qavam's two years in power. 8 Arguably his demise marked the end of any real chance for the establishment of a reformist and truly independent government in Tehran.

The destabilising and potentially dangerous political impact of the occupation was matched by major changes introduced in the Iranian

economy as a direct result of the war. Iran's wheat fed allied armies, her

communications network was given over to the transport of troops and supplies, her industries, notably oil, directed towards meeting allied wartime needs. It was, to some extent, unavoidable that Iran's economy should be harnessed to the war effort, but the resulting disruption was perhaps unduly extensive and provoked deep resentment and misunderstanding both among Iranians and among Britain's own allies (see below). Iranians went short of essential items, like wheat, kerosene and sugar, and all available transport was requisitioned. The country was wracked by inflation with wholesale prices rising nearly 400% between 1941 and 1944. And when, för example, shortages of basic items became a major problem, Britain's response was to blame Iranians for `hoarding, obstructionism and smuggling'. ` In short Britain's record in Iran during the early part of the occupation was not a happy one and led to frequent accusations of `high handedness', most notably from the United States. 10

Two important developments during the occupation served to further demonstrate this high-handedness of British policy: the first was the way in

which Britain handled the whole question of oil, both that of concessions in

general and in its response to a series of oil strikes in the southern oil fields,

the second was the discreet encouragement given to southern tribal leaders in a widespread rebellion aimed to check the spread of Soviet influence in

8 FO 37175458, `General review of events in Persia, 1947 and 1948', Le Rougetel to Bevin, 17 Jan. 1949. 9 FO 371/31419, Eden to Clark-Kerr, 3 Nov. 1942. 10 See Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 112-113.

26

Iran. In both cases a rather short-sighted view of British interests prevailed, despite the genuine efforts of certain enlightened individuals. 1 I As the most important power in Iran Britain might have tried to set an example to the

allies. They might also have tried to appease the Iranians: in short Britain had an obligation to ensure that the Persian way of life should proceed with the minimum possible disruption: this obligation was clearly not met.

Britain and external powers

If Britain's management of Iranian affairs at the internal level was potentially destabilising, so too was the way in which she managed her

relationships with the two major external powers involved in Iran: the Soviet Union and the United States. In the case of the USSR it was clear that British policy was tempered by the need to secure Soviet cooperation in the war effort. It was also conditioned by Britain's desire to prevent Soviet meddling in the south. The result, not surprisingly, was a tendency to disregard some of the more undesirable consequences of the Soviet

occupation of northern Iran. The B: fish position was summed up in an FO

nnnutee: `So long as the Russians don't interfere with our sphere in Persia,

we shall have to put up with those goings on in their sphere provided that their actions do not embarrass us politically or interfere with supplies'. 12 This consideration guided British policy throughout the Iranian crisis, and perhaps one of the most important conclusions that can be drawn about British policy in this period, and one which clearly separates it from that pursued by the United States was that Britain was ultimately prepared to sacrifice Iran's territorial integrity in order to satisfy the Russians and thereby secure and consolidate Britain's hold on southern Iran to protect her own vital interests there. Thus when faced with a succession of crises, provoked by the war and the USSR's desire to achieve its long-term

ambitions in Iran, the British resorted to a series of expedients designed to give the Russians a piece of the Iranian cake while retaining the larger part for themselves. Once the nature of Soviet intentions became clear, it was suggested that the Soviet threat to northern Iran could be met by the introduction of a form of local self-government throughout Iran, an idea

which was later incorporated into the more ambitious Tripartite Commission scheme. 13 For the British the idea of self-government meant

11 Bevin for example, was anxious to secure reforms in the AIOCC concession, describing the Iranian oil industry as a `fertile field for reform'. Bevin, like Bullard also strongly opposed any idea of rallying support among the southern tribes to check the expansion of Tudeh Party influence. Both these issues are discussed in greater detail in Fawcett, chi. cit., Chapter 6. 12 FO 371/1388, FO minute, 18 Jan. 1942. 13 This scheme is discussed in detail in Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 162-4. Relevant PRO files include F0371/45436,45437,52661 and 52667.

27

that while the Russians might have a free hand-in northern Iran, the British

would enjoy similar privileges in the south.

Similarly in the oil concession crisis of 1944 -- not finally resolved until 1947

- caused by the Soviet demand for an oil conccssion, the British, for obvious reasons, were fearful of the implications of delivering the USSR an `blank

negative', which might expose the AIOC conct scion to similar scrutiny and discussion or block the British government' f7oal of acquiring further

concessions for itself in other parts of Iran. 1 t .. its both in 1944 and 1947 it

was made clear to the Russians that `it was not part of (British) policy to prevent Russia from obtaining oil in north Persia'. ' 5' If Britain was unopposed to the USSR's obtaining an oil concession in Iran, was it then really opposed to the creation of the pro-Soviet autonomous regimes in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan? The answer, as already suggested, was probably no, as long as Soviet influence was really contained in the north, and preferably through the face saving measure of formally implementing the provincial councils idea. The problem was of course just how to contain the USSR and prevent the nightmare scenario of the Soviet absorption of Persia, which as one Foreign Office official put it would allow the USSR `to acquire the warmwater ports which have been almost a pathological craving since Peter the Great. They would interpose between Baku and India a vast defence area... They would acquire oil resources of great value, shake Britain's whole position in the Middle East to the point of collapse..., 16

This is where it seems that Britain miscalculated in trying to meet the Soviet threat by condoning the USSR's efforts to regain a foothold in north Persia. For one thing Soviet ambitions could not be contained within neatly defined boundaries. Obviously the USSR sought a `friendly government' in Tehran, just as they did in Berlin, Warsaw or Prague. Yet British policy merely encouraged the USSR to press förward with its demands. It also had the effect of further alienating the Persians, and to some extent the Americans. It is not difficult to see how the ambiguity of British policy led

ultimately to a serious clash of interests between the USSR and the United States in Iran.

As far as the United States was concerned British policy regarding Iran

went from a rather smug superiority reflecting Britain's greater knowledge

14 FO 371/61974, `Summary of the Soviet-Persian ail agreement', 31 Oct. 1947 and FO minute on the above dated 23 Oct. 1947. 15 See FO 371 /45430, correspondence between British Prime Minister and US President

and accompanying minutes, 15 Jan. 1945. 16 FO 371/45434, FO minute, 10 July 1945.

28

and experience in dealing with Iranian allairs, an attitude only slightly tempered by the urgent need to secure US support for the allied effort in Iran, 17 to a rather desperate last ditch attempt to get the Americans to `take on' Iran, as Roosevelt put it, after the extent of Britain's weakness and the nature of the Soviet threat became apparent. 18

From the very beginning of the allied occupation it was evident that the Americans and British found themselves in frequent disagreement over Iran. America's high-minded approach based on the strict application of Atlantic Charter and later UN principles, clashed with logic of Britain's own position and policy. There was thinly disguised hostility between the two delegations in Tehran, with the Americans criticising Britain for its political 'machinations', 19 the handling of supplies, and, as noted, for its `high- handed' attitude towards Iranians in general. They suspected Britain of pursuing `imperial style' policy aims in Iran and were often anxious to distance themselves from British policy altogether, an approach favoured in

particular by the US minister in Tehran during the early part of the occupation, Louis Dreyfus, a man known for his anti-British sympathies.

That the US government remained unhappy with British policy towards Iran in general, and in particular disapproved of the apparently complacent attitude that Britain adopted towards the USSR both on questions such as oil concessions and the status of Azerbaijan is evidenced by subsequent statements. In late 1945 for example, the then US ambassador George Allen, admitted his suspicions that Britain had reached a `tacit deal' with the USSR whereby the latter would be given a `free hand' in northern Iran

while Britain consolidated its hold on the south. `It would be most unfortunate... ' so Washington warned London, `that the impression which is

already prevalent be intensified that the British are lukewarm and merely desirous of protecting their interests. '20 Surprise and disappointment were also expressed at Britain's fainthearted support for Iranian appeals to the United Nations. Iran's first attempt, early in 1946, to appeal to the United Nations Security Council against Soviet interference was opposed by Bevin

who called it a `half formed plan', and stressed his anxiety at placing `too heavy a strain' on the newly formed Security Council. 21 This led to expressions of' US concern about Britain's attitude while US Secretary of States Brynes told the British Ambassador in Washington that he though it

17 Early US-British relations are discussed in Fawcett, op. cit.; see especially pages 112-14. 18 Ibid., p. 119. 19 Ibid., p. 113. 20 `Invitation to Cold War', op. czt., p. 194. 21 FO 371/52661, FO to Tehran, 2 Jan. 1946; ibid., FO to Washington, 5 Jan. 1946.

29

`inadvisable for a great power to assume responsibility... of' dissuading a small country from invoking the machinery of the UNO whenever it thought fit'. 22 When, partly at US prompting, the Iranian government made a second appeal to the Security Council in early March, Britain did offer its support, yet it is noteworthy that Britain took a back seat during the deliberations. Britain had, of course been embarrassed by a complaint made by Iran's Tudeh (Communist) Party against British activities in Greece and Indonesia, but during the whole discussion of the Iranian case, which revolved not only around troop withdrawals, but also the question of oil concessions, Britain appeared reticent. 23 Clearly she did not want her own position in the south of Iran to receive similar exposure. Indeed it was the fear of drawing undue attention to British oil concessions in Iran - changes that might oblige the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to reform the nature of its operations - that led the British government to oppose an initiative that the whole question of oil concession in Iran be placed under UN control. 24

So we find that in the critical months of early 1946, Britain kept a surprisingly low profile over Iran, With the United States moving decisively to the forefront of Iranian affairs. The US ambassador, then Wallace Murray, perceived what he called a `decline of British prestige and leadership in Iran'. He also considered that the departure from Iran of Reader Bullard as ambassador in March and his replacement the following

month by John Le Rougetel, a man with `no area experience', could only serve to heighten this impression. 25 And if the Iranian case was indeed a victory for the United Nations, a debatable point given that it seemed to endorse a permanent Soviet sphere of influence in the north through the award of an oil concession, then it was undoubtedly an American-led one, for ultimately the UN appeal only served to expose the many contradictions of British policy, in particular with regard to its position in southern Iran.

There is little doubt then that British policies helped to step up the pace of US involvement in Iran, while of course determining that the direction such involvement would take would not necessarily coincide with British interests. For the US perceived that it needed not only to restrain the USSR but also Britain, while Iran was to prove a fertile field for the expansion of American interests. Hence a `marriage of convenience' combining principles and interests was quickly effected, with the Americans

checking Soviet pretensions in Iran and gradually assuming the British

22 FO 371/52661, Washington to FO, 7 Jan. 1946. 23 See Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 165-66. 24 FO 371/52669, Foreign Office to Tehran, 30 Mar. 1946. 25 See Fawcett, op. cit., p. 129.

30

mantle as protector of Western interests in the region. It is difficult to

escape the conclusion however, that the conversion of Iran into a zone of early Cold War conflict owed almost as much to British policy as to that of the USSR.

Britain's long term interests in Iran

Britain's attitude towards the internal situation of Iran during the Second World War, together with her attitude towards external powers and developments cannot be understood without reference to its long-standing

economic and strategic interests in the country. I have thus included Britain's long-term interests in Iran as a third and concluding level of analysis of British policy, although I have already touched on them in my previous comments. Britain's economic interests in Iran, as is well known, lay largely in the exploitation of Iran's oil resources by the AIOC; its

strategic interests lay both in protecting those oil interests and in the security of the empire, Iran being an important buffer to British India.

When one considers Britain's relations with Iran, for example, given her long-standing interests in the country it is easy to see why there was little

real interest shown in promoting strong independent government in Tehran. `Nationalist' or `democratic' prime ministers like Ahmad Qavam, or Muhammad Mussadiq for that matter were unlikely to be welcome to Britain, since they were bound in the long run to upset Britain's interests in

the country. Even a strong-willed, if distinctly undemocratic ruler like Reza Shah, had proved troublesome. It could thus perhaps be said that weak, and malleable governments suited Britain best. The Tripartite Commission

proposals, had they been successful may have provided the sort of central government acceptable to Britain. However, these proposals were, as we know, considered unacceptable by most Iranians. 26

Similarly in considering Britain's relations with external powers, it can be

seen how long-standing interests again dictated attitudes. The Soviet Union

was, at it had always been, a potential threat, so it must be courted for its favours to avoid any unseating of Britain's position in the south. When this seemed likely anyway, as the events of 1946 unfolded, there was no option but for the United States to be encouraged to pick up the pieces of British

policy. Hence the increasingly strident appeals of Bevin and others for a

26 See further F. Azimi, Iran. The Cri i of Democracy, (London: I. B. Tatiris, 1989), pp. 140- 141.

31

more active US policy, appeals that were to finally bear fruit only early in 1946.27

Yet, the United States, while an important ally, was also a potential threat: it was interested in Iran's oil, it advocated the dismantling of old imperial systems, so the British were cautious, and at times even hostile in their dealings with the Americans in Iran. American `principles' and an unblemished reputation in Iran were an annoyance to Britain. Louis Dreyfus's view, expressed early in the occup; tion, that in supporting the advisor programme the British believed that `if given enough rope wf- might hang ourselves in Iran', 28 was not altogether unjustified. Britain needed US help in Iran, but wanted it on British terms. Ultimately, of course, Britain's hopes regarding the containment or education of its wartime allies were frustrated. The Russians would not be contained, and the Americans would not follow in British footsteps. What Britain did was to help bring the Cold War to Iran, by encouraging the Russians, alienating the Americans and then finding itself in a position where it was too weak to act alone: it was perhaps the worst of all possible worlds. And in the bargain, the British had

succeeded in permanently alienating the Iranians, many of whom even today link the British and the Americans as the joint `satans' who led the country to crisis.

Was Cold War in Iran inevitable? It is impossible to say, but Britain, as the available documentation both in this country, but also in the United States29 amply demonstrates, was certainly a prime actor in the process that led to the US Soviet standoff in the UN forum in 1946, and in the United States decision to extend containment to Iran.

27 See in particular Alan Bullock, Ernest Benin: Foreign Secretary 1945-1951, (London: 1983). 28 Y. Alexander and A. Manes (eds. ), The United States and Iran: a Documentary History, (Maryland: 1980), p. 101. 29 The relevant documentation is to be found in the US National Archives in Washington under the classification: US Department of State, Record Group 59

32

BEVIN AND IRAN: Great Game as Cold War

Ann Lane

The first necessity of any game is to know what the object of the game is. If it is to make ground, certain rules are appropriate, if to destroy one's opponents, then others. It looks as if the Russian aim is to eliminate British influence rather than to limit it or even merely to increase their own. In such a game there are no rules and we must get the Americans to understand this first.

JT Henderson, Eastern Department, 4 July 19461

One contemporary preoccupation of post-revisionist historians has been to establish the measure of Britain's responsibility for the Cold War. For the purposes of this paper, however, I intend to take as a premise the observation that the Cold War was a combination of failure, misjudgement and misunderstandings on all sides, which were steadily compounded until a stand-off position had been achieved. This said, the question arises as to what made this period so uneasy that it became one of cold war rather than true peace. Formerly, a sense of peace had been maintained in areas where the influences of great powers converged, by some form of agreement, tacit or actual, by which a demarcation between these areas of influence or interest was accepted. Wars occured when one or other of the great powers attempted to change the lines of demarcation. In one sense the early post-war years were no different from earlier times: Great Powers

still existed, although two of these were being differentiated, particularly from Britain, by the term super-power, while Britain herself, through the

continued existence of global interests retained her position as a major player on the world scene. What made this period different, however, was the high degree of political involvement required on the part of the

principal players, which was so because of the ideological component to the

The opinions expressed in this paper are the authors' own and should not be taken as an

expression of official government policy. 1 Documents on British Policy Overseas (hereafter cited as DBPO), Series I, Volume VII, The United Nations: Iran, Cold War and World Organisation, 1946-1947, (HMSO, 1995). Other

volumes in Series I cited in this paper are Volume II, Conferences and Conversations, 1945: London, Washington and Moscow, 1945, (HMSO, 1985) and Volume VI, Eastern Eurofee 1945- 46, (HMSO, 1991).

33

Cold War conflict. Any discussion of the. foreign policies of the protagonists in this period, and the consequences of these . artiotis, is incomplete without constant reference to the way that this factor influenced poll(-, '.

As a localised conflict, British policy in Iran was designed to protect her interests - interests she was prepared to preserve through accommodation with her wartime allies as necessary. But the rules of the game had now changed. The Atlantic Charter, and indeed the lofty principles of the United Nations Organisation, combined wit! the recent experiences of fascist totalitarianism, had introduced a new irroral tone to international

politics.

There was nothing new in 1945 about Anglo-Russian rivalry in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Throughout the nineteenth century, as the Ottoman Empire decayed, so Russia had sought to extend her influence

south and south-east. Britain, whose interests were conditioned by her trading routes through the Middle East to India, had made it a maxim of foreign policy that such Russian expansionism should be prevented. 2 By the mid twentieth century the quest for oil, which existed in abundance in this region, had raised the stakes considerably in this Anglo-Russian rivalry. During the Second World War this rivalry was quelled by the mechanism of a division of Iran into Russian and British zones3 but was revived immediately the war in Europe ceased. The difference in 1945 was that the balance had shifted as the Soviet Union emerged from the war a much stronger player in world politics than she had been at its outbreak. Furthermore, the United States was also keen to develop her economic interests in this region: indeed, British officials were well aware that an American presence would be required if Soviet encroachment were to be

prevented. However, Britain did not want that presence to replace her own - only to bolster it so that her existing position might be sustained. Herein lay one of several complications for Britain in pursuing her Middle East

policies in this period

But the 1946 crisis in Iran took on particular importance to the British, as to the Americans, as a result of the emerging perceptions of the underlying motivation and long-term trend governing Soviet foreign policy. Their

reactions were conditioned in part by the immediate experience of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and the Balkans where the Russians, in imposing their influence were systematically excluding all others and, more

2 See further Edward Ingram, 'Great Britain's Great Game: an introduction', International History Review, II, I, January 1980. 3 The political arrangements in Iran during the Second World War are discussed elsewhere in this Occasional Paper.

34

ominously, seemed determined on the imposition of' a political and economic conformity in line with the teachings of communism. By the autumn of' 1945, British officials were increasingly considering the extent to which Moscow's policy was fundamentally revolutionary and boundlessly

expansionist. In December 1944, the Joint Intelligence Sub-committee' had

concluded that in the post-war world, the Soviet Union would at the least be prepared to 'experiment with collaboration with Great Britain and America in the interests of world security' and only if she suspected that collaboration was not being taken seriously, would she attempt to expand her military frontiers and 'stir up trouble in Greece, the Middle East and India. ' At this stage the JIC felt confident enough to conclude that relations with Russia would depend very largely on the ability of' each side to convince the other of the sincerity of its desire for collaboration: 'She will adopt a policy of opportunism to extend her influence wherever possible without provoking a major war, leaving the onus of challenge to the rest of the world'. 4

With hindsight this judgement seems shrewd. But as British officials and policy-makers sought over the following fifteen months to explain Soviet

policy, so the bogey of an ideological warfare designed to undermine the British position at all its weakest points, took hold. That it did so was clearly due to the interwar experiences of policy-makers and advisers who had witnessed the rise of totalitarianism linked with a messianic ideology during these years, the consequences of which were all too apparent across Europe. It is unsurprising, perhaps, that presented with another example of totalitarianism, this time apparently legitimised through the mechanism of communist demagoguery, that a parallel should be drawn. Thus, in April 1946 Christopher Warner, then head of the Northern Department in the Foreign Office, in his often quoted paper, 'The Russian Campaign against this country and our response to it', its very title indicative of a growing sense of persecution, felt moved to write that to ignore the possibility of a connection between present Soviet policy and Marxist-Leninist teachings would be as irresponsible as it had been to disregard Mein Kampfs

This view was being taken, to various degrees, in the political reporting emerging from the Moscow Embassy during the first three months of 1946 and was reflected in an assessment produced by the JIC in mid-April. Much

attention was given in these documents to the nature of Soviet intentions in Iran. In a despatch of 30 January, the British Charge d'Affairs in Moscow, Frank Roberts, wrote that it seemed as if Britain, 'with doubtful American

DBP), Series I, Volume VI, No 78. Ibid., No. 88.

35

backing', was facing 'constantly increasing Soviet pressure in the whole zone vital to British security between India and the Dardanelles'. Six weeks later, following the Soviet-Iranian negotiations in Tehran, he warned that unless there were some prior Anglo-Soviet agreement on zones of influence the Soviet Union would seek to extend her domination incrementally over the whole of Iran:

I cannot produce concrete evidence of Soviet designs to secure an outlet on the Persian Gulf and to control South Persian oil, and indeed such evidence would never be obtainable in Moscow. But I am convinced, and so is my American colleague, that these are Russian objectives. These

are not of course immediate objectives and the Russians

realise that to attempt to attain them would mean a risk of war (which they will not take). 6

Britain herself had clearly defined interests in this region which had been

set down by the Post-Hostilities Planning Sub-committee in May 1944. Included on their list of Britain's most important strategic interests were the protection of Middle Eastern oil, the Mediterranean and vital sea communications. 7 Despite the subsequent Cabinet decision to withdraw from India, this position was reaffirmed by the Chiefs of Staff in the Spring

of 1946 when they argued, in a report of 18 April, that the British position in the Middle East was essential to prevent the spread of influence throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and into Africa, noting that 'the

extremely vulnerable' oil supplies of the Middle East were 'of immense importance to the Commonwealth'. 8 At much the same time, pressure was being applied in the Cabinet by the Minister of Fuel and Power, Emmanuel Shinwell, for a foreign policy in the Middle East which gave priority to the protection of the concessions in south-west Iran. He had good reason: British influence in the region was exerted predominantly through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), which operated the Abadan refineries, at this time the largest in the world. Given British dependence at this stage on Middle East oil, it is unsurprising that the spectre of the extension of Soviet influence into Iran was of considerable concern.

Bevin was well aware of the significance of Iranian oil: indeed, at the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers in December 1945, he had warned Stalin not to interfere with the Abadan oil concessions. Stalin

appeared to understand their significance for Britain but characteristically

6 Ibid., No. 86. 7 Elisabeth Barker, Churchill and Eden at War, (London: Macmillan, 1981), pp 290-91; Hugh Thomas, Armed Truce, (London: Sceptre, 1986), pp. 309-10. 8 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No 90.

36

gave no guarantees. 9 However, the region was unsettled politically, and the

withdrawal of British and Soviet troops scheduled for early March 1946 had left the way open for the various factions to compete for power. In such vacuums communism had already found fertile ground and Iran was no exception. The left-wing Tudeh party, though nominally not communist, was nonetheless increasingly a willing tool of communist sympathisers which were making themselves active among the labour force in south-west Iran. Recognising the potential dangers of political destabilisation, Bevin

suggested at Moscow a joint Anglo-Russian-American Commission to resolve the problems raised by Anglo-Russian withdrawal. This scheme was viewed by all other parties concerned with suspicion, albeit for differing reasons, and in January, Iran's problems became the first major subject to be debated by the Security Council.

Bevin had several problems in evolving a policy toward the protection of the AIOC's position in Iran. For one thing, the Atlantic Charter contained passages dealing with self-determination and equality of access to raw materials. There was also the question of the Iranian government's wish to nationalise its resources, a policy with which a Labour Government

committed to a nationalisation programme of its own, was hardly in a position to quarrel. Furthermore, in the spring of 1946, Bevin was unconvinced that Soviet policy in Iran was expansionist, preferring instead to seek the explanation of their behaviour 'in their oil interest rather than a desire to acquire fresh territory or an outlet to warm water ports'. ' ° He reiterated this to his officials at a meeting in the Foreign Office on 18 April when he argued that since the Russians had obtained, through their agreement with the Iranians on 5 April, concessions in the north, they would be unlikely to interfere in the south. I1

His officials were less convinced. Christopher Warner, in the passage dealing with Iran in his Memorandum of 2 April, had noted that the greatest danger lay in the possibility that a Soviet stooge government would emerge in Tehran which would, through its subservience to Moscow, be

used as a means to interfere with the AIOC concessions. Two weeks later, the head of Eastern Department, Robert Howe, submitted a paper to Bevin which argued that while British policy should continue as at present to encourage the Iranians to rely on the Security Council and to seek UN

supervision of the elections, consideration should also be given to the

9 DBPO, Series I, Volume II, No. 308 10 CM 25 (46), 18 March 1946 quoted by Wm. Roger Louis in The British Empire in the Middle East 1945-51, Arab

. Nationalism, the United States and Postwar Imperialism, (Oxford:

Clarendon, 1984), p. 54. 11 DBPG, Series I, Volume VII, No. 35 note 9.

37

possibility of adopting 'Soviet tactics' which in this case Howe defined as the possible encouragement of the existing anti-Soviet autonomy movement in south-west Iran.

Bevin, however, as yet to be swayed by the arguments of those who believed that Britain was confronting an expansionist Soviet Russia, was still more inclined to follow the traditional British policy in the region. Lord Bullock has described how in the spring of 1946, Bevin was considering whether it might be possible to organise a reconstructed Middle East under British leadership to take the place of India. He was also toying with the idea of approaching the Russians directly with the offer of a straightforward recognition of 'spheres of influence' in Iran. 12 During the war the question of whether it would be to British advantage to encourage a Russian oil concession under 'fair' conditions had been discussed and several views of the problem emerged. Within the Foreign Office in London, there was an influential group who believed that Anglo-Soviet relations could be improved in this region if it could be demonstrated to the Russians that the British did not intend to corner all the Iranian oil resources. This view, of course, squared with that being presented by the JIC of the Soviet Union

seeking security and willing to co-operate with the West so long as her interests were acknowledged. Indeed, from a geographical point of view, this made much sense since the mountainous areas of northern Iran were not ones which the British could reasonably hope to exploit.

However, this was not the opinion of the British Ambassador in Tehran, Sir Reader Bullard. It was his conviction that the Soviet Union would be self- sufficient in oil and he consequently perceived their purpose in demanding

concessions as part of a long term strategy to extend the Soviet sphere. In May 1945 he recorded his view that 'on what the Russians do in North Persia depends the fate of Persia as a whole - including in the last analysis, the fate of our vital oil supplies in the south'. 13 Accordingly he spent much of the war encouraging the Iranian Government to resist Soviet incursions.

The options presented to Bevin in mid-April 1946, were the continued monitoring of Iranian affairs through the United Nations, while tackling peculiarly British problems at Abadan at local level, and initiating political agitation to encourage the existing anti-Soviet separatist movement to make itself heard. Of these, Bevin firmly ruled out the latter which he regarded as 'a very dangerous policy'. 14 The first was already being pursued, and so

12 Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin. Foreign Secretary, (London: Heinemann, 1983), pp. 242-43. 13 Quoted in Louis, obi. cit., p. 63. 14 DBPO, Series I, Volume VII, No. 35 note B.

38

he now turned his attention to developing the second line of approach which appealed to him in keeping with his labour movement background. He believed that countries in the Middle East should be responsible for the

economic and social welfare of' employees. 15 The Abadan oil fields were proving fertile ground for communist sympathisers owing to the general unrest among the work force which was being generated by poor pay and working conditions. During the third week of May, Bevin discussed this point with Sir William Fraser, Chairman of the AIOC, whom he

encouraged to take immediate steps to address the issues being raised by the labour councils in Abadan and to bring working conditions into line with the best western standards. 16 Shortly afterwards, the AIOC began

negotiations with the Tudeh Party, while a cross-party delegation of MPs travelled out to Abadan to see conditions for themselves.

At the same time, Bevin was also considering how to involve the United States more closely with Iran. While in general the Americans had favoured

allowing the post-war problems in Iran to be dealt with by the Security Council, they also regarded this area as primarily a British responsibility. and continued to leave for the British the initiative in matters pertaining to the exploitation of Iran's resources. However, during early March, when the Russians had failed to withdraw their troops from the northern provinces as required under the terms of the 1942 agreement, the United States had felt sufficiently alarmed to make strong representations in Moscow which did indeed, after a short interval, produce the desired Soviet announcement confirming and timetabling their impending withdrawal. Despite this success, the bankruptcy of the British and American policies of checking Soviet

activities in Iran primarily through the mechanism of the United Nations Security Council, was by the end of May, all too apparent. In Tehran, the pattern of Soviet takeover already observed in Eastern Europe, seemed to be in the process of being repeated. While politicians who had actively opposed Soviet influence were being arrested, in the south-west the

activities of the Tudeh Party, which seemed to be steadily aligning itself

with the communists, were expanding, a development which the central authorities seemed increasingly disinclined to meet with a firm hand. Writing on 9 June to Archibald Clark Kerr, by then Lord Inverchapel and newly appointed Ambassador in Washington, Bevin speculated that the Russians might shortly achieve what he now seemed increasingly to accept as their objective of making Iran entirely subservient to them: 'obviously the Persian Prime Minister is already very inclined to take his orders from

15 This point is expanded upon by Louis, op. nit., pp. 56-57. 16 DBPO, Series I, Volume VII, No. 47.

39

Moscow'. 17 Lord Inverchapel was instructed to raise the question with the State Department. Two days later, John Balfour, British Minister in Washington, met Loy Henderson, head of Middle Eastern Affairs at the State Department, and handed him an aide-memoir outlining the four possible policy options identified by the Foreign Office in April. 18 Henderson was less than welcoming. He was personally suspicious of British policy in Iran and laid much of the blame for the present crisis on the shoulders of Reader Bullard's determindly anti-Soviet stance. 19 Furthermore, the State Department was sensitive to the slightest suggestion of an Anglo-Russian carve up on traditional lines which it saw as inimical to the principles on which the new peace should be established Somewhat tartly, Henderson commented that for the sake of British prestige in the United States and elsewhere he hoped that the British Government 'were in no way seriously contemplating any return, even as a pis-aller, to situation of' 1907' which he assumed was being used 'as a bogey with which to scare the Persian Prime Minister'. Indeed, American public opinion, as evidenced in the press, was censorious of British policy in Iran which it defined as the 'protector of "oriental feudalism" in the interests of British imperialism'. 20

In replying to Henderson's charges, Be , iii: ( s(rved that °'w Am-,, -'-an had been `doubtless thinking of a division of Persia into British and Russian spheres of influence', but added, 'We had no such scheme in mind'. 21 This

was a little disingenuous. In a subsequent minute of 5 July, Betirin wrote that the Soviet Government might be asked what they 'require of us in

order to feel sure that the British are not going to interfere with them in Baku?... the facts are that we have no intention of int' rfering with their commercial interests in north Persia and in return expect a hands off

' 22 attitude towards our interests in south Persia.

Meanwhile, the JIC had produced a further assessment of Russia's strategic interests and intentions in the Middle East. 23 Dated 6 June, it noted that this region was of particular strategic concern to the Soviet Union where the centre of gravity of her industry resided in the Caucasian oil fields. They had now concluded that the Russians, in keeping with a general determination to diminish any strong power or -'ombination of powers in

17 Ibid., No. 59. 18 Ibid., No. 59 note 8. 19 See Louis, op. cit., p. 58. 20 DBPO, Series 1, Volume VII, No. 59. iv. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., Series I, Volume VII, No. 61-i- 23 Ibid., No. 58.

40

areas in which she was vulnerable, saw the British Commonwealth as a threat in the Middle East and, moreover, that it would also he easier to

oppose Britain there than elsewhere because of the less solid Anglo-US

combination. Perhaps this observation is also a measure of British

perceptions of their own vulnerability. A further paper produced the following day, stated that if the supply of oil from the south Iranian oil fields

were cut off 'the loss to British industry would be the equivalent of its total requirements, exclusive of motor spirit, and it would be impossible to make up the whole of this loss from other sources'. The JIC concluded that there was 'no doubt that the Russian threat to our position in Persia was a very real one, and their tactics could, moreover, equally well be used against us in the same way in Iraq. ' The analysis of Soviet policy had become

noticeably less speculative: as these appreciations became more definite in their assertions as to the reality of the Soviet threat, so a tailoring of policy to check any further Soviet encroachment into Iran was inevitable. 24

At the Cabinet meeting on 17 June, which Bevin missed owing to the Paris Peace Conference, Shinwell fuelled existing concerns at the crisis which was building up in the Abadan oil fields, and chastised both the Foreign Office

and Chiefs of Staff' for their apparent disinclination to treat the question with what in his view would be suitable gravitas. Later the same day, Orme Sargent, held a meeting at the Foreign Office, attended by Eric Berthoud from the Ministry of Fuel and Power. This resulted in preparation of a further paper, addressed to Bevin in Paris, which reconsidered the policy options in the light of the present crisis. 25 It was not substantially different from the Eastern Department paper of April, although an innovation was the recommendation for the organisation of publicity offensive.

Bevin's reply, which constitutes one of the rare full summaries of his

thinking, was ascerbic. 26 In his view, his officials had failed to take into

account the AIOC's contribution to causing the present crisis through their

archaic labour policies, nor had the Foreign Office understood the Tudeh Party programme which, as he reminded Sargent, he had already remarked for its relative moderation in many respects. He wanted to see the crisis defused through 'vigorous application by the AIOC of a social programme and consultation with their workpeople'. As for the other suggestions contained in the Foreign Office paper, he again dismissed any suggestion of intervention on the grounds that 'we shall be back exactly where we were in 1907'. While he liked the recommendation of a publicity offensive, he

24 Ibid., No. 58. ii. 25 Ibid., No. 60. i. 26 Ibid., No. 60.

41

wanted this to extend beyond the bounds of' anti-communist publicity. Indeed, the question of a publicity offensive had also been raised and discussed at the Russia Committee on 11 June. 27 Bevin's endorsement of' it

as a means of dealing with the local problems in Iran was the first step towards the evolution of an organised publicity offensive directed against all aspects of the perceived Soviet threat.

Clearly stung by the tone of Bevin's riposte, Sargent sent a personal minute to the Foreign Secretary in which he defended the substance of tim paper. As to the possibility of intervention, he explained that the Foreign Office

was not advancing this as a favoured option, but merely pointing out that the option existed. Addressing the reference to a spheres of influence

arrangement, he observed that it seemed to him 'that the Persian situation is drifting in that direction quite regardless of our policy'. He continued: 'You will remember that the Persian Prime Minister has already suggested that both we and the Russians should def ye our res-)ective interests in Persia and we have suggested a reply suggesting some tripartite understanding about Russian oil interests in the north and British oil interests in the south'. 28

TL. is, in fact, seems to be the last serio-,. -, -mention of the possi', ility of a spheres of influence arrangement in Iran. The explanation for its

abandonment lies partly in an awareness of American sensibilities, but more important was the growing certainty about the nature of Soviet policy. In this process, the report submitted by the British Ambassador in Tehran, John Le Rougetel, which arrived in the Foreign Office at the beginning of July was critical and proved the decisive influence on British policy for the remainder of the year. 29 Le Rougetel had replaced Reader Bullard following the latter's retirement from thfe Foreign Service in March. Admittedly, Le. Rougetel was not a Middle East specialist, but he had, as British Political Representative in Roumania, witnessed the establishment of Soviet hegemony in the Balkans and this experience clearly influenced his judgement in assessing Soviet policy in. Iran. He made it clear that he

was now convinced that, under Soviet communist direction, an attempt was being made to eliminate British influence from Iran and that the Tudeh Party, although originally progressive left-wing, had now come under Communist domination. The object of attack was the AIOC because this was the principal instrument of British mntluence in Iran. In addition to recommendations encompassing a publicity offensive, the stepping up of

27 Ibid., No. 56. i and No. 58 note 3. 28 Ibid., No. 61. 29 Ibid., No. 63. i.

42

present efforts to wean the Iranian Prime Minister from Soviet influence

and the encouragement of progressive elements to look to the west rather than to the Tudeh party, he also addressed the question of' a general settlement with Russians. To this he was unequivocally opposed, on the grounds that to attempt such an arrangement in either the ideological field

or in the sphere of oil relations in Iran, before there had been some quantifiable progress in checking the Russian advance, would amount to an indication of weakness which would merely encourage the Russians to re- double their endeavours. In this, of course, was an echo of Bullard's

wartime attitude and, as in the earlier period, conflicted with the Department's own view that it might not be impossible to reach some sort of understanding regarding concessions in Iran.

Bevin seemed inclined now to accept the Le Rougetel thesis. In any event, he regarded it as unwise to attempt anything with Russia while the Paris Conference was underway. 30 While he urged that the AIOC increase their efforts to resolve their problems with the Abadan labour force, Bevin resolved on a policy designed to demonstrate British determination to retain her position in south-west Iran, a position for which he was prepared, if necessary to risk British lives. At the Cabinet meeting on 15 July, one day after the declaration of a general strike in the Abadan oil fields, Bevin announced detailed plans, which had been prepared in conjunction with the Chiefs of Staff, to protect by force if necessary, Middle East oil and British personnel employed in this region. 3'

What killed the idea of a spheres of influence arrangement, then, was the belief that Soviet policy in Iran was based not on oil considerations, but was part of a general campaign being waged against the British position not just in the Middle East, but throughout the world. Indeed by the autumn of 1946, Howe was writing to Sargent in early October, in response to a suggestion from the Managing Director of Shell, Sir Andrew Agnew, that 'outside the area occupied by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's concession, an endeavour should be made to work on a commercial basis with the Russians', that 'On present Russian form, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Soviet Government would use this position [ie

concessions in south-east Persia] to continue their present policy of undermining British influence in general and British oil supplies in

particular'. 67 Bevin's acceptance of this emerged clearly in his minute to the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, dated 13 January 1947, in which he

30 Ibid, No. 59. i. 31 Ibid., No. 64. 67 Ibid.., No. 72.

43

incorporated the substance of his Department's views as expressed in Howe's paper of 4 October. Pessimistically, he concluded:

I feel we should try to reach an understanding with the Russians on oil matters through the extension of the Anglo- American Oil Agreement... The Russians may not like to join

an international organisation originally sponsored by the Americans and the British, but there seems to be no harm in

asking them to join. 32

In one sense events in Iran in the spring and summer of 1946 may be

regarded as a continuation of the Great Game which Britain and Russia had played in Asia throughout the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries. Iran was still regarded by the British as a buffer state; Russia remained the great rival and potential enemy. And just as the statesmen and diplomats of nineteenth century Britain had been uncertain about Russia's ultimate objectives - frontier changes and concessions in the north or the transformation of Persia into a Russian dependency so as to ensure Russian access to the Indian Ocean - so in the mid-twentieth century they remained doubtful as to whether the Russians wanted oil or control of the government in Tehran.

During the First World War, two new factors had been introduced into the equation. Following the discovery of oil in Iran, the country became of increasing importance to Britain and by 1945, the AIOC concessions were regarded as vital to the well-being of the British Empire. Moreover,

although the British and Russian governments had before 1914 aligned themselves with rival conservative and progressive forces in Iran, since 1918, Bolshevik Russia had increasingly sought to use radical nationalism in Iran

against the British.

Partition, the solution which the British had so often favoured in response to perceived problems of great power interests, now surfaced again as Britain considered how best to protect her interests in Iran in the post-war world. But such a policy also had considerable short-comings. If the Russians

were allowed a relatively free hand in the north, could they not then use this to extend their influence over the government in Tehran and eventually draw the whole of Iran into their bloc.

There was another fundamental difference between the situation in 1945- 46 and that which had existed in the days of the Great Game, and this was derived from the experiences of war and its aftermath. The triumph of the

32 Ibid., No. 74.

44

Red Army in Europe had opened the way to a vast expansion of communist

power and influence. Moreover, by the beginning of 1946 developments in

eastern Europe had set precedents which British officials feared would be

repeated elsewhere. Ideology offered a plausible explanation of Soviet

policy. But more important for British diplomats was the fact that in 1946 it

was also an effective instrument for the establishment of Soviet control. With or without spheres of influence or disclaimers of interest, the Russians

could always use local radicals for their own ends. Of course, this also occurred at a moment when Britain was acutely aware of her own military and economic weakness. Thus, convinced by the summer of 1946 that the Soviet Union would seek to extend her influence wherever she did not meet firm resistance, the British sought to identify their perceived interests in Iran with the broader requirements of American global strategy. As a consequence, these interests soon ceased to be defensible as peculiarly British and came to be regarded more specifically as anti-Soviet and thus intrinsically Western. The Great Game with its buffer states, and its spheres of influence and interest, was subsumed in a nascent Cold War whose rules had yet to be determined.

45

NON-INTERVENTION REVISITED Great Britain, the United Nations and Franco's Spain in 1946

Keith Hamilton

Early in March 1946 Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary in Clement Attlee's Labour government, received two letters offering him contrary advice. The first, from Walter Citrine, the Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), informed him of the TUC General Council's

endorsement of a World Federation of Trade Unions' resolution calling for

a breach of diplomatic relations with Franco's Spain. The second, written by a Mrs M. Alexander on behalf of a group of Torquay housewives, called for Spain to be left alone and protested against any sanctions which might interfere with Spanish food supplies to Britain. She objected to Britain being drawn by an ungodly France and Russia into a confrontation with Spain, adding `hands off our Seville oranges and cheap wine ...

1 have not tasted a drop of wine or tasted a chicken for six years'. As a former trade union leader who could take a strong line with diplomats when they seemed not to appreciate the social dimensions of an issue, Benin might have been

expected to sympathise with Citrine. Franco's triumph in the Spanish Civil War had been assisted by the former Axis powers, he had continued to consort with the latter during the ensuing World War, and his repressive rule was an affront to the democratic principles enunciated by the Allies. Bevin had been speaking for party and government when on 5 December 1945 he told the Commons that their attitude was `quite plain. We detest

the [Franco] regime'. 2 Yet, as the Foreign Secretary of a country which, having survived the austerity of war, now faced the strictures of peace and reconstruction, he was fully aware of the importance of Spain to the British

and the world economies. He also understood that any attempt to bring

about internal changes in Spain through the application of international

pressure might set precedents and have implications which could in the long-

run be detrimental to Britain's global position.

The opinions expressed in this paper are the authors' own and should not be taken as an expression of official government policy. 1 Documents on British Policy Overseas (hereafter cited as DBPO), Series I, Volume VII, United Nations: Iran, Cold War and World Organisation, 1946-1947 (HMSO, 1995), No. 26. i. Other

volumes in Series I cited in this paper are Volume I, The Conference at Potsdam, 1945 (HMSO, 1984); Volume II, Conferences and Conversations, 1945- London, Washington and Moscow, 1945 (HMSO, 1985); Volume III, Britain and America- Negotiation of the United States Loan, 1945 (HMSO, 1986); Volume V, Germany and Western Europe, 11 August - 31 December 1945 (HMSO, 1990); Volume VI, Eastern Europe, 1945-1946 (HMSO, 1991). 2 The Torus, 6 Dec. 1945, p. 6ii.

46

Bevin's personal views on Franco's Spain were never in doubt. In July 1936,

when the Spanish Civil War began, he was chairman of the General Council of the TUC and he readily identified with defenders of the Republican cause. And, along with other members of the Labour

movement, he was indignant at the way in which the non-intervention policy of the British and French governments, which he initially backed, worked to the advantage of the Nationalist forces. Nevertheless, as his biographer, Alan Bullock, has remarked, Bevin `did not deceive himself with the belief

that to call for arms for Spain and to denounce the hypocrisy of non- intervention was a sufficient answer'. 3 The Spanish imbroglio had to be set in its broader international context and, after the outbreak of the Second World War, British policy towards Spain was largely concerned with limiting

such assistance as Franco might be tempted to give his erstwhile associates in the Axis camp. The British may have disapproved of the politics of the Caudillo, and they complained over his export of wolfram to Germany, the non-internment of German U-boats in Spanish ports, and the activities of the Blue Division on the Eastern Front. But they were also aware of the benefits they derived from Spain's non-belligerency in the Mediterranean. Only when victory over Nazi Germany seemed certain, did the British

government begin to give serious consideration to ousting Franco and his

allies in the fascist-styled Falange.

In October 1944, Lord Templewood, who was about to retire as British Ambassador at Madrid, suggested that the Allies should warn Franco,

possibly with the additional threat of economic sanctions, that their post-war relations with him would be jeopardised if he did not change for the better the character of his administration. Attlee, who was then Deputy Prime Minister, was of a similar opinion. He doubted if a democratic government could be established at once in Spain and, given Spanish xenophobia, he

questioned the value of overt action, but he thought that Britain might work `in the economic field' with France and the United States to deny Franco's Spain facilities. 4 Senior officials of the Foreign Office were even more cautious. Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Under-Secretary,

considered there was little Britain could do without abandoning its general policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of foreign countries unless they threatened aggression, and he argued that it was impolitic to indulge `in the luxury of economic sanctions for ideological ends'. 5 And while

3 Alan Bullock, The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin, Vol. 1, Trade Union Leader, 1881-1940 (Heinemann: London, 1960), pp. 586-8. 4 Sir Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, Vol. IV (HMSO: London 1975), p. 30. 5 Ibid.

47

Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, favoured collaborating with the United States in putting diplomatic pressure on Franco, Churchill opposed any action that might risk bringing about further conflict in Spain. Evidently

with the prospect of economic sanctions in mind, he warned Eden: `You begin with oil; you will quickly end in blood. ' There would then, he feared, be the danger of the communists gaining a foothold in Spain and of that `infection' spreading quickly to France and Italy. 6

By the end of the war in Europe, British policy towards Spain was one of `cold correctitude'. 7 The Foreign Office thought a friendly Spain desirable for reasons of strategy and trade, but did not think it possible to be on cordial terms with a regime whose continuance was offensive to democratic

sentiment and a temptation to trouble-makers. At the San Francisco Conference in the spring of 1945 this meant Britain's endorsement of a Mexican-sponsored resolution excluding from membership of the new world organisation any country whose regime had been installed with the help of forces of powers that had fought against the United Nations -a phrase construed with the assistance of Spanish republican exiles and intended to apply specifically to Spain. 8 But at Potsdam Churchill resisted Stalin's

emotional plea that the Allies should not `let this cancer in Europe pass in

silence', and that Britain and the United States should break off all relations with Franco in order `to render support to the democratic forces in

pain and to enable the Spanish people to establish such a regime as [would] respond to their will'. The Prime Minister would like to have seen the establishment in Spain of a constitutional monarchy on democratic lines. He nevertheless argued that action such as Stalin favoured might simply strengthen Franco's position, isolating his regime and leading those elements that had been deserting the general to rally to his cause. Moreover, in his

opinion, it would conflict with the principle, endorsed by the United Nations, that one country should not interfere in another's domestic affairs. 'There was also', Churchill added, `the consideration that we had very important trade relations by which we secured oranges, iron ore and wine and received a market for our manufacturers. '9

These three arguments against interference in Spain's internal affairs, the tactical, the legal and the economic, were employed with equal force by the incoming Labour administration in Britain. There was, as Frederick Hoyer Millar, Head of the Foreign Office's Western Department, recognized,

6 Ibid., pp. 31-2. 7 DBPO, Series I, Volume V, No. 13. i. 8 Paul Preston, Franco. A Biography (Harper Collins: London 1993), pp. 534-5. 9 DBPO, Series I, Volume I, No. 194.

48

something to be said in favour of' trying to find at Potsdam `some fairly

anodyne form of anti-Franco resolution' for otherwise the Russians might become more obstinate on points to which Britain attached importance and run the risk of giving to the Americans the impression that it was `pro- Franco and reactionary'. 100 And the British government eventually agreed to the inclusion in the Conference protocol of' a statement which seemed simply to reaffirm the San Francisco resolution, making it clear that Spain did not possess the `qualifications necessary to

, justify... [UN] membership' ,

11 On 20 August Bevin stated in Parliament that it was for the Spanish people to decide the regime in Spain 12 and, two days later, Sir Victor Mallet, Templewood's successor at Madrid, told Alberto Martin Artajo, the Spanish Foreign Minister, that the evolution from the existng regime `ought now to be pressed forward as soon as possible, and that Franco, as long as he

remained in power, must be the greatest obstacle to good relations between Spain and the rest of the world'. i3 Henceforth British diplomacy coupled official and private pressure on Franco to go, with a marked reluctance to associate itself with the cause of any would-be successor administration.

Modest institutional reforms in Spain and the almost complete reconstruction of Franco's government in July gave the British cause for

cautious optimism. 1 ̀t Municipal elections were scheduled for the following March, discussions continued fitfully between representatives of the regime and Don Juan de Borbön, the pretender to the Spanish throne, and in February the latter flew to Lisbon with a view to entering into possible negotiations with Franco. Meanwhile, reports of increasing public support for the early replacement of Franco by a broad coalition of the left, centre and moderate right confirmed the Foreign Office in the view that it was in the best interests of' Spain for this internal situation to be allowed to develop without foreign interference. 15 But Bevin could not easily ignore the fact that both at home and abroad large sections of public opinion were impatient for action on Spain. The left in France was particularly vocal in demanding Franco's removal and, in notes of 12 December 1945, the French government proposed that Britain and the United States join them in breaking off diplomatic relations with Spain. 16 Within the State Department there was some sympathy for the idea of tripartite action. The

10 Ibid., No. 195. 11 Ibid., No. 603. 12 DBK), Series I, Volume V, No. 13. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., No. 5. 15 DBPO, Series I, Volume VII, No. 18. i. 16 DBPO, Series I, Volume V, No. 104; Fareign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1945, Vol. V, pp. 698-9.

49

Americans had already indicated to the British that they were considering a rupture of diplomatic relations with Spain, and Dean Acheson, who during

the Moscow Foreign Ministers' Conference was acting Secretary of State, informed the French that the United States Ambassador at Madrid, who was shortly to retire, would not be replaced. He further stated that the United States was ready to take part in an informal exchange of views `to discuss frankly and realistically all aspects of this question'. 17 The Foreign Office was reluctant to go even this far. British officials thought that a rupture of diplomatic relations would be premature, that it would inhibit

progress towards democracy, and that if there were to be consultations on Spain they should proceed through normal diplomatic channels without the attendant publicity of a ministerial meeting. Mallet, who could envisage no peaceful solution of the Spanish problem except a constitutional monarchy ushered in by a provisional government in which there was a strong military element, considered that a breach of relations with Spain might `produce the rapid collapse of Franco'. He, nevertheless, feared that the risk of a violent upheaval would be `very considerable and that the United Nations

would then be faced with a new hornet's nest at a time when their hands [were] full enough with more urgent problems'. 18

In a telegram to Paris of 21 December Attlee, who was temporarily in

charge of the Foreign Office, rejected the French proposal on the grounds that it would be resented by the bulk of the Spanish people who, fearful of renewed civil disorder, would hasten to back Franco. And, as Attlee

explained, if Franco were to fall there was no alternative administration which could readily assume power: the government-in-exile of the veteran republican, Jose Giral, which was much favoured by the French, did not even enjoy general support amongst other Spanish emigres. Moreover, there were sound practical reasons for maintaining diplomatic relations with Spain. If they were to withdraw their missions from Madrid, Britain, France

and the United States would deprive themselves of their best means of monitoring and moderating the actions of Franco's government, and would be unable to ensure the success of Allied policies regarding German assets and nationals in Spain. 19 Such considerations seem to have carried little

weight with French parliamentarians. On 17 January 1946 the Constituent Assembly at Paris resolved unanimously that France should break off diplomatic relations with Franco's Spain and enter into contact with Giral's

government. This provided the State Department with a pretext to return again to the Spanish question, and on 18 January John Balfour, the British

17 Ibid., pp. 706-7. 18 DBPO, Series I, Volume V, No. 104. 19 Ibid.

50

Minister at Washington, was warned that Acheson still favoured a three- power pronouncement on Spain which would condemn the Franco regime and assert that they would not be prepared to recognise Franco indefinitely. 20

Acheson's words were unfavourably received in London where Bevin's

officials were beginning to doubt the State Department's `sense of reality as regards Spain'. The French vote had, after all, seemed to reinforce the British case for allowing matters to take their course in Spain. It certainly infuriated many Spaniards, including opponents of Franco, who, Mallet

explained, resented crticism from the French `for whom they have a historic dislike and whom they despise for their feebleness during the war'. In Mallet's opinion repeated blasts against Franco did not lead very far unless they were really calculated to expedite action by the Spaniards themselves and this could only be done by closer unity amongst Spanish party leaders. This indeed was the nub of the problem. Bevin may have been worried about `world opinion' and have been afraid that the situation could not be held much longer, but he was not ready to back the formation of an alternative administration. 21 The government had been reluctant to facilitate Don Juan's journey from Switzerland to Portugal, and Bevin

rejected Mallet's suggestion that he, Bevin, should state Britain's readiness to recognise a constitutional monarchy in Spain based on democratic

principles. Bevin insisted that the government could not contemplate intervening directly in Spanish affairs, and its actions `must be confined to stimulating the Spanish people towards finding a satisfactory solution of their own problems'. 22

It fell to Hoyer Millar to explain, in a minute of 7 February, the illogicality

of a policy of `pressing hard, within certain limits to get Franco

out,... [whilst] ... taking no active steps to encourage the opposition elements

to agree on an alternative Government'. Britain might end up with the worst of all worlds: Franco's regime might collapse before any alternative government was ready and the resulting confusion could lead to civil war. Nevertheless, as Oliver Harvey, Superintending Under-Secretary of Western Department, pointed out, if pressure on Franco were not stepped up he would cling on and his opponents in Spain would go on `funking a coup d'etat'. The only practical option seems in his opinion to have been for Britain to support a monarchical restoration and for Mallet to be instructed to urge the opposition group in Madrid, which was mainly

20 DBB), Series I, Volume VII, No. 18. ii. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., i.

51

conservative, monarchical and military, `to take immediate action to depose Franco and invite Don Juan to return'. Sir Orme Sargent, Cadogan's

successor as Permanent Under-Secretary, thought there was much to be

said for adopting this course. 23 But, as Bevin later remarked, the Labour

party were opposed in principle to the Spanish monarchy, 24 and when he discussed Spain with Harvey and Hoyer Millar on 18 February nothing was said about Mallet encouraging Franco's opponents. Bevin simply expressed doubts about whether Don Juan would prove satisfactory, and reasserted that he wanted to do nothing that would precipitate a civil war and saw no advantage in withdrawing Britain's Ambassador from Spain. Moreover, in a subsequent interview with Georges Bidault, the French Foreign Minister,

who stressed that he was under great pressure to take independent action on Spain and talked of France appointing agents to the Giral government, Bevin maintained that British opinion was neutral as between royal and republican alternatives to Franco. 25

Whilst the Foreign Office reconsidered its attitude towards Spain, `world

opinion' reacted. On 9 February the United Nations General Assembly,

which was meeting in London, endorsed a Panamanian-sponsored resolution recommending member states to `take into account the letter and spirit' of what had been agreed at San Francisco and Potsdam `in the conduct of their future relations with Spain'. The British delegation were able to support this motion. The Foreign Office was also ready to proceed with a joint note, drafted by the State Department, and published on 4 March in

which the British, French and United States governments called for the `peaceful withdrawal of Franco' and the establishment of a caretaker government which would allow the Spanish people an opportunity freely to determine the type of government they wanted. Much more worrying from

the British point of view was the French response to the execution in Spain,

on 21 February, of ten communists, including Cristino Garcia, a hero of the French wartime resistance. 26 Despite Spanish claims that the men had been convicted on criminal and not political charges, the French were indignant at the news and proceeded to close their frontiers with Spain. Then, on 27 February, Bidault addressed fresh notes to the British, Soviet

and United States embassies at Paris asking them if they would be

prepared to associate with France in taking up the Spanish question in the United Nations Security Council. The notes referred to the execution of Garcia and to `concentrations of Franquist troops' on the Franco-Spanish

23 Ibid., ii. 24 Ibid., No. 77. i. 25 Ibid., No. 18 and ii. 26 Ibid.

52

borders, and claimed that Franco's policy, 'constituting.. .a real challenge

both to the principles of international right and democratic ideals, [risked]

creating a situation jeopardizing peace and international security'. In

addition, they cited the Anglo-American-Soviet declaration of February 1945 on liberated Europe, which had affirmed the Allied purpose `to aid by

common accord the peoples of the former Axis satellites to solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems'. 27

The French proposal was, to say the least, ill-timed. Since its first meetings in London, during January, the Security Council had been beset by a prolonged wrangle over the Red Army's occupation of northern Iran. And,

with little prospect of the Russians fulfilling their treaty obligations and withdrawing their forces by 2 March, it seemed likely that the Council

would soon be preoccupied with another crisis. 28 The British were in any case already engaged in what amounted to a major reassessment of Soviet

aims and intentions. Not only did the Russians seem set upon establishing a belt of subservient satellite states around their frontiers, they also appeared ready to contest Britain's predominance in the Mediterranean basin. 29 The

part played by communist insurgents in Greece, Russian demands for a say in the future governance of Tangier and a trusteeship in Tripolitania, and Soviet pressure upon the Turks over the future control of the straits between the Aegean and the Black Seas, all served to reinforce British fears. By March 1946 the Joint Intelligence sub-Committee (JIC) was predicting that in the lands beyond those immediately adjacent to its frontiers Russia would `adopt a policy of opportunism to extend her influence wherever possible without provoking a major war', and to this end Russia would `use, in the way she thinks effective, Communist Parties in

3° other countries and certain international organisations'.

This analysis seemed particularly appropriate in the case of Franco's Spain. Reports from Moscow suggested that the Russians would be reluctant to

witness a peaceful transfer of power and that they considered present conditions in Spain favourable to the spread of communism. In a telegram of 3 February, the substance of which was subsequently communicated to the Foreign Office, George Kennan, the United States charge d'affaires at Moscow, warned the State Department that, politically as well as strategically, the Russians recognized in Spain a `key territory' in which it

27 FRUS 1946, Vol. V, pp. 1043-4. 28 DBPO, Series I, Volume VII, Chapter I, passim. 29 Keith A Hamilton, `The quest for a modus vivendi: the Danubian satellites in Anglo- Soviet relations, 1945-6', FCO Historical Branch Occasional Papers, No. 4, Eastern Europe (London, 1992), pp. 4-18. 30 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 78.

53

was `highly important for them to gain influence'. Spain, Kennan observed, was to the Soviet mind: (1) an important flanking position to France and Italy, in both of which countries the Russians hoped eventually to achieve a dominant political position; (2) an `entry to backward peoples of Morocco';

and (3) a potential direct channel of influence to the Latin American world. He also noted that Spain controlled the western entrance to the Mediterranean, a sea to which the Soviet Union was `close to being a littoral power'. 31 Frank Roberts, Kennan's opposite number and friend in the British Embassy at Moscow, was of much the same opinion. In letters to Hoyer Millar of 14 February and 2 March he argued that the Russians

would be content to see Spain `plunged into anarchy' and that it would suit them if Western governments were forced to conduct their policies `with ideological prejudices dating from the past'. By contrast, he thought the Soviet government `much too realistic to be guided by such considerations in

their own dealings with states of Eastern Europe. They work there with people who have helped Germany quite as much as Franco has done and

32 whose past record is as bad if not worse'.

Information from Spanish sources further indicated that the communists in Spain were determined to provoke a civil war. Moreover, according to the veteran Spanish diplomat, Salvador de Madariaga, Franco `in order to maintain his position in Spain aimed at keeping political passions in Spain

at fever heat, and for this purpose he relied on the Communist menace'. 33 In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that Bevin rejected the French

proposal as `most ill-advised'. He warned Duff Cooper, in a telegram of 2 March, that Britain must be careful not to provoke another civil war, fear

of which was `effectively preventing Spaniards themselves from overthrowing Franco'. He added:

... we feel that at this time when there are so many difficult problems elsewhere in the world requiring urgent solution and when economic and food conditions are in so parlous a state, it is most important to keep Spain tranquil and not allow it to become yet another area in

which the interests of the Big Powers may clash. The Russians on the other hand

... are only too anxious to make trouble over Spain, and would welcome any opportunity for reviving direct intervention there. The fear of starting civil war would not deter them - indeed they would welcome it.

31 FRUS 1946, Vol. V, pp. 1033-6. 32 DBPO, Series I, Volume VII, No. 18. iii. 33 Ibid., No. 18.

54

The French, Bevin reasoned, were simply `playing the Russian game and providing Moscow with yet another opportunity for making mischief'. Under

pressure from his left-wing colleagues, Bidault seemed all too ready to put day to day issues before long-term complications. 34

Bevin was in any event convinced that the French had an `erroneous belief in the possibility of effective outside action to hasten the fall of Franco'. 35 And whilst he continued to insist that the British government wished to accelerate Franco's departure and peaceful replacement, he remained reluctant to contemplate either Mallet's recall or the imposition of economic sanctions. Even if universally applied, there was no guarantee that such sanctions would bring down Franco, and they might well end in the civil war that Britain was so anxious to avoid. It was estimated that Franco

could survive at least four months of an oil embargo and that it would take

eight months to bring about the collapse of the Spanish economy. Meanwhile, sanctions would prejudice Europe's economic recovery and jeopardise Britain's financial and commercial position. In addition to importing Spanish fruit, vegetables, wine and iron ore, Britain depended on Spain for two-thirds of its supplies of potash. The closure of the Franco- Spanish frontier had already threatened to deprive British agriculture of Spanish superphosphates and further measures against Spain could react unfavourably upon Gibraltar. 36 At an inter-departmental meeting held at the Foreign Office on 28 February the Treasury's representative was adament `that Britain was getting a lot more out of Spain than they were putting in. The Spaniards were prepared to give credit and hold sterling, and if Britain had to look elsewhere for purchases then made in Spain it

would have to part with all too precious dollars. Indeed, even if international action against Spain amounted to no more than a breach of diplomatic relations Franco could still retaliate in a way that would seriously damage the British economy. 37

These were practical considerations derived from current assessments of British needs. But Bevin's response to the French proposal also reflected broader assumptions about the powers and functions of the new world organisation. The French were, in Bevin's words, raising `one of the most contentious and difficult points of interpretation of the United Nations Charter', notably the extent to which collective intervention by the organisation was legitimate in a situation arising directly out of the internal

34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., No. 26-iii. 36 Ibid., No. 18. ii. 37 Ibid., No. 26. i.

55

affairs of a sovereign state. Article 2 (7) of the Charter clearly stipulated that the United Nations was not authorised to intervene in matters which were `essentially within the jurisdiction of any state', and since Franco's

government was not taking action outside its frontiers the argument that it

constituted a threat to peace was tantamount to saying that its mere existence aroused such hostility on the part of other governments that they felt obliged to act against it. In British eyes this meant setting an unfortunate precedent. During January and February the Soviet Union and its allies had used British military involvement in Greece and Indonesia as a pretext for bringing the internal affairs of these countries before the Security Council, and if the French were to succeed in making the regime in Spain a reason for international action it was quite plausible that other states, including perhaps Britain and France, might be arraigned before the Council over essentially domestic issues. Moreover, it was far from clear from the French note that the Quai d'Orsay had given much thought to how they would frame their reference to Spain to the Security Council. 38

The Americans were equally doubtful about this French initiative. James Byrnes, the United States Secretary of State, complained of the way in

which Britain and America had been `put on the spot' by France advancing a proposal the ramifications of which appeared not to have been thought through and which were fundamentally contrary to the interests of the Western powers. 39 Yet, despite repeated representations by the British and United States governments, the French seemed determined to persist. Bidault told Duff Cooper on 18 March that it would create a most dangerous precedent if the United Nations, when faced by a situation they all deplored, `were bound to register their own impotence to do anything about it'. France intended to take the Spanish question to the Security Council as a `situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute'. 40 This, however, was a contention that Bevin explicitly rejected. To Cadogan, who was now Britain's permanent representative to the United Nations at New York, he telegraphed on 23 March that there could be no real justification for claiming that the continuance of the Franco regime was of itself likely to endanger the maintenance of peace and security. This would only happen if other countries were to intervene in Spain either in order to bring about a change of government or because of the outbreak of civil war. There was no force in the argument that the presence of Spanish troops on the Pyrenees constituted a threat to peace: there was no evidence that Franco's government intended to use them for

38 Ibid., No. 18. 39 FRUS 1946, Vol. V, pp. 1051-2. 40 DBPQ, Series I, Volume VII, No. 26.

56

aggressive purposes, for which in any case they were quite unfit by modern standards. 41 Bevin was also opposed to the idea, floated by Bidault, of' referring the matter to the Council of' Foreign Ministers. `Besides affording the USSR a further opportunity of' making trouble, such action by the Council might', he observed, `set an undesirable precedent for other occasions'. The League of Nations had, he remembered, been sidetracked when, in 1923, the Italian bombardment of Corfu and its antecedents had been referred to the Ambassadors' Conference at Paris. 42

The Foreign Office held to the view that change in Spain must necessarily be gradual, that it could only be retarded by excessive outside pressure, and that the most effective way of influencing Spanish opinion was to continue to show international dislike for the present regime and to seek to bring home to the Spanish people the extent to which Spain was becoming isolated from the rest of the world. But, though prepared to admit that the British case was valid, Bidault continued to stress, the importance of `doing

something'. Moreover, Bevin, who was anxious not to give the French a `flatly negative reply', was ready to have tripartite discussions on Spain with the French and United States Ambassadors in London provided that their meetings were not publicised. 43 This was not sufficient to restrain the French from further action. When, on 17 April, the Polish delegation at New York submitted a draft resolution to the Security Council condemning the Franco regime for endangering international peace and security and calling upon United Nations members to sever diplomatic relations with Spain, France's representative gave it his enthusiastic support. In British

eyes the Polish initiative seemed more likely to strengthen than weaken Franco's standing in Spain. It also threatened to stretch too far the remit of the Charter, and only reluctantly did Bevin agree to support an Australian

amendment for the establishment of a sub-committee of the Council to enquire into the Spanish question. Henceforth, British policy was directed

towards ensuring that the sub-committee did not get out of hand, that it

confined itself to considering those present activities of the Spanish

government which might endanger international peace and security, and that it did not become a public tribunal before which Spain might be

arraigned. At the same time British diplomats sought to avoid giving the impression either that they wished to stifle discussion or that they were defending Franco. 43

41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. See also Documents on British Fareigm Policy, 1919-1939, Series I, Vol. XXIV (HMSO: 1983), Nos. 631,632,635 and 643. 43 DBPO, Series I, Volume VII, No. 26. iii. 43 Ibid., No. 42.

57

Reports from Madrid seemed to confirm British fears about the impact of the debate in New York on politics in Spain. On 17 April Mallet informed

the Foreign Office that developments in the Security Council were deeply

resented by most Spaniards. A week later he wrote of Franco: `He is a great deal less unpopular than two months ago because he has cleverly cashed in on the national contempt for France and hatred and fear of the Communists which is [sic] universally considered to be the driving force behind Polish move at UNO. ' And Mallet was by no means sure that the Spaniards, `in their present patriotic mood', might not give Franco a majority in the event of his deciding to hold a plebiscite. 44 In a minute of 24 April Sargent commented on the United Nation's handling of Spain that British efforts to get rid rid of Franco as quickly as possible had `been

completely wrecked by this policy of intervention'. Moreover, the UN's case against Franco was hardly assisted by such patently absurd Polish allegations as that the German `heavy-water' specialist, Herman von Segerstady, was working on atomic energy at a heavily-guarded plant at Ocana near Toledo, and that Spain had between 600,000 and 700,000 troops mobilised for action' with 200,000 massed in Catalonia alone. All that Mallet's staff could find at Ocana were a brick factory and an alcohol distillery, and Bevin frankly admitted that, on the information at his disposal, `the

situation on the French side of the frontier would seem more likely to lead to international friction than that on the Spanish side'. 45

The Foreign Office found it equally difficult to understand how Spanish

conduct with regard to the Allied acquisition of German assets in Spain and the repatriation of German `undesirables' could be regarded as dangerous to international peace and security. Indeed, Cadogan told the Security Council on 18 April that the Spaniards had so far been co-operative in

allowing Allied missions to take over German property, that in this respect their attitude compared `favourably with that of other neutral Governments', and that the great obstacle to the repatriation of German

nationals had been the lack of transport. 46 Bevin's officials doubted whether the Spaniards were doing all they might to round-up former German officials in Spain. 47 Nevertheless, they were indignant when the sub-committee, having decided that the regime in Spain constituted, not an existing threat to peace, but a situation `likely to endanger international peace and security', proceeded to recommend that the Assembly should call for a rupture of diplomatic relations. They were particularly worried about the

44 Ibid., No. 42. i. 45 Ibid., No. 42. i and ii. 46 United Nations Security Council Official Records, Ist Year, Ist Series (New York, 1946), p. 183. 47 DBPO, Series I, Volume VII, No. 42-iii.

58

legal implications of' this proposal. As Bevin explained to Cadogan in a telegram of 14 June, it could mean the Council acting beyond its powers and would `establish a right of interference with any state, whenever members of the Security Council might for their own purposes wish to do

so'. 4B Such encroachment on the sphere of ' domestic , jurisdiction could leave

a colonial power like Britain especially vulnerable to foreign intervention in its affairs. The new world organisation could then develop in a way quite contrary to that conceived by its British protagonists. The United Nations

was, the Foreign Office's legal adviser explained, `not a federation but a loose confederation', and it could only work on the basis of mutual toleration permitting each state its own form of government. 49

Much more was at stake than the future of Franco's Spain and the narrow economic and strategic interests of its neighbours. For Bevin it was important that there should be a ruling on the legal principles involved. Cadogan was thus instructed to put forward a resolution proposing that the Spanish question be referred to the General Assembly at its next meeting in

the autumn. jurists would then be at hand to examine the scope of the Charter and the rights of the Council, and the Assembly could always obtain a ruling from the International Court. 500 But the Council's handling

of the matter proved in Cadogan's words to be `as confused as it was tiresome'. 51 Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet delegate, wanted the Council to act on its own initiative and opposed reference to the Assembly and, whilst the original Polish motion was not carried, the Council remained seized of the issue. Meanwhile, despite pressure from within Parliament and the TUC for the government to recognise Giral's government-in-exile, Bevin

clung to the policy recommended by Hoyer Millar and Mallet, whom he

met in Paris in October, of leaving matters alone in Spain in the hope that Franco would eventually depart and be peacefully replaced. 52 Rumours

emanating from Paris to the effect that the Russians might seek an accommodation with Franco were deprecated by British diplomats in Madrid and Moscow: both Franco and Stalin would risk sacrificing too valuable a propaganda weapon. Nevertheless, Frank Roberts conceded that the Russians were prepared `to do business with dictatorial regimes rather

. than with the moderate type of regime we wish to see installed in Spain '53

48 Ihid., No. 52. 49 Aid., No. 52. ii. 50 Ibid., No. 52. 51 Ibid., No. 52. iii. 52 Ibid., Nos. 55 and 77. i. 53 Ibid., No. 55. ii.

59

For the moment it seemed unlikely that the Russians would even agree to the Spanish question being referred to the Assembly. And although Benin's

officials recognised that the Assenmbly, equipped as it was with its own legal

committee, would be in a position to clarify principles, by September, they too were having second thoughts about the wisdom of initiating a discussion

there. In a paper of' 12 September William Hogg of the Western Department argued that it was impossible to foretell what would happen in

the Assembly. `We should', he observed with reference to the United Nation's handling of the matter, `at best gain a temporary respite fron

these unprofitable proceedings at the cost of instituting discussions in the Assembly which might not go the way we want... there is nothing to be

gained by further discussion in the Assembly or the Council'. 54 This

remained British policy up until the convening of the Assembly in New York. but on 24 October Trygve Lie, the United Nations Secretary- General, publicly invited the Assembly to give `comprehensive guidance' to the difh'rent organs of the United Nations and its members `regarding their relationship with the Franco regime'. Then, eleven days later, at the instigation of the Polish delegate, the Council removed the Spanish

question from the list of items on which it was exercising its functions so that it might be discussed by the Assembly. The prospect of the Assembly debating Spain, the apparent absence of any progress towards the removal of Franco, and domestic pressure, including a call from the TUC at its Brighton C-onkrence for a breach of diplomatic and econornic relations with Spain, 55 led Bevin to review his tactics. From New York, where he had

gone for the latest gathering of Foreign Ministers, Bevin informed Attlee

that he had no doubt that a twcº-thirds majority would support whatever was put up on Spain and that he now favoured Britain taking the initiative. He evidently hoped that he could thereby promote democracy in Spain,

satisfy opinion at home, and `prevent injudicious action by others'., b

Still anxious to avoid any move that might mean his `conniving at action which, if carried to its logical conclusion must end in sanctions, civil war and military intervention', »7 Bevin opposed the United Nations making empty threats which `we would not be willing to carry through'. His officials at New York prepared a draft resolution which, after censuring the Franco

regime fier `pursuing policies inimical to freedom, democracy and enduring peace', called for free elections in the presence of United Nations

observers. This met with a critical reception in the Foreign Office. Sargent

' Ibid., No. 7 7. 5' Ibid., No. 91.1. 56 Ibid., No. 91. 57 Ibid.

60

was reluctant to use language which might imply that Franco's regime was in itself a threat to peace, and he f<)r(-saw difficulties with regard both to the selection and protection of' United Nations observers. He and his

colleagues also wished to make it clear that the form of a country's government was a matter of' domestic jurisdiction. 58 But the British delegates were well aware that they were engaged in a damage limitation

exercise and that the Slav group in the Assembly and a vociferous minority of Latin American states were determined on stronger action. Their efforts to sell a draft resolution to, Guille"rino Belt, the leader of the relatively moderate Cuban delegation met with little success: `Dr. Belt proved to be

talkative rather than active and the lack of progress began to become

alarming'. Then, on 19 November, Byrnes indicated his readiness to take over the British draft and, a fortnight later, Senator Tom Connally of the United States delegation submitted to the Assembly's Ist Committee a draft appealing for the continued exclusion of Franco's Spain from the United Nations and its agencies, the resignation of Franco and, following

the establishment of' a provisional government, the holding of a general election in Spain. The British hoped that this would satisfy the Assembly

and deflect demands for sanctions or a breach of'diplomatic relations. The

most Bevin was prepared to accept was a withdrawal of ambassadors, but

then only on condition that a majority was secured for the American

resolution `more or less as it stands without strings attached'. 59

The appointment on 4 December of a sub-committee on Spain gave the British little cause for optimism. Its composition was heavily weighted in favour of' the `interventionists' and, in the opinion of one British diplomat, Paul Gore-Booth, its meetings in the Security Council room, `like a stage dinner party on a rostrum', militated against any intimate exchange of views or coinlpromise. The sub-committee soon split into two opposing camps and, on 8 December, it voted in favour of a Latin American motion calling for a breach of diplomatic relations with Spain and passed a French-sponsored

resolution recommending an embargo on the import of Spanish foodstuffs. Finally a confused debate in the main committee ended in two tied votes and the Assembly's adoption, on 12 December, of a resolution which inter

alia recommended that member states recall their heads of mission from Madrid and that Franco's Spain be barred from United Nations agencies and conferences. Powerful lobbying by the British delegates succeeding in blocking the French amendment on food exports. Nevertheless, they still had to register their non-acceptance of' the inclusion in the resolution of a recommendation that if, `within a reasonable time', there were not

511 Ibid., No. 91. ii. 59 Ibid., No. 101.

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established in Spain a government deriving its authority from the consent of the governed, the Council should consider `adequate measures to be taken to remedy the situation'. This not only contradicted the British view that it

was for the Council, not the Assembly, to decide whether further action be taken, but it was also in Bevin's opinion `the thin edge of the sanctions wedge'. 60

All that was immediately required was Mallet's recall. This was a course in

which Bevin had already indicated his readiness to acquiesce; it was not one he favoured. He had told Commonwealth delegates on 7 November that he regarded the withdrawal of ambassadors as futile since in no case that he knew of had it ended in anything other than embarrassing stalemate. 61 Yet, as Bevin informed Mallet on 20 December, the part played by Britain and the United States in the discussions at New York at least served to explode `the myth that either Government would be quite content to see the present regime continue in power'. Mallet admitted this was so. He was, nevertheless, far from optimistic about the outcome. The

effect of the debate in the Assembly and the passage of the resolution had, he noted in a private letter of 23 December, been `to inject General Franco with new vitality and [had] given h. iin a great chance of once more appealing to Spanish nationalist pride'. He doubted if this `emotional phase' would last more than a few months, but in his estimate there could be no denying that `except for the persistent foreign pressure and agitation against Spain in which the British Parliament and public [had] taken a prominent part, events might have moved differently in Spain'. It was, he admitted, a matter of `pure guesswork' whether, if Franco had been left alone, he would have lost most of his popularity and disappeared. But the Caudillo's position had almost certainly been strengthened by his being able to pose as a bulwark against civil war and communism. 62

Bevin and his senior officials in the Western Department sympathised with Mallet's analysis. It is, however, unlikely that they would have agreed with the Ambassador's assertion that the British government had `now engaged themselves deeply in the policy of intervention in Spanish affairs which started at Potsdam'. 63 Ever since the Spanish question had been raised in the Security Council the British had opposed international interference in

what they regarded as the domestic affairs of a sovereign state. Much as they may have desired change in Spain, they were determined to uphold

60 Ibid. 61 Ibid., No. 91. 62 Ibid., No. 106. 63 Ibid.

62

the principle enshrined in Article 2 (7) of the Charter. The dangers of doing

otherwise became only too apparent when in the autumn the Assembly

took up an Indian complaint against South Africa's treatment of its Asian

community, a move which seemed to portend further international meddling in the internal affairs of the Commonwealth and Empire. 64 The British

could, of course, have sought reciprocal advantage by using the Charter to challenge domestic developments in eastern Europe. There was justice in Artajo's contention that those political liberties which the Franco regime recognised were `much more sincere and far above pretended democratic

protestations' of some of those countries which had taken the initiative in

criticising Spain. 65 But all too conscious of the power of the Soviet

propaganda machine, the British were reluctant to embark on such a venture. 66

Benin's diplomacy at New York was in any case constrained by his fears of a `free-for-all' in the peninsula and of a further expansion of communist influence westwards. He thought renewed civil war in Spain would be a `major disaster' in view of the present political situation in Europe and Britain's `heavy commitments elsewhere, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean'. He also felt that the British public `were already bearing a heavier burden and subject to more restrictions than any other', and that it

would not be `fair to ask them to accept a further handicap in the shape of economic sanctions'. 67 Much as he sympathised with his fellow trade unionists in their opposition to Franco, he was not prepared to impose more hardship upon the British people for an end which he believed it was for Spain and the Spaniards to achieve. Unfortunately, Foreign Office records do not reveal whether or not the housewives of Torquay were able to obtain their Seville oranges: marmalade was not the stuff of haute politique. Mrs Alexander could, nevertheless, rest assured that in 1946 neither an ungodly France nor an unholy Russia would have their way in Spain.

64 Ibid., Nos. 84 and 100. 65 FRUS 1946, Vol. V, pp. 1082-3. 66 RWK Sloan of the Western Department suggested in August 1946 that `possibly bearing in mind the situation in Bulgaria, Roumania. or Poland, it may be desired that we should use the wrangle over Spain to test the applicability of the Charter to a live issue of domestic jurisdiction'. But the idea was opposed by his colleagues. DBPO, Series I, Volume VII, No. 77. 67 Ibid., No. 91.

63

NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

Dr Keith Hamilton Joint Editor of Documents on British Policy Overseas and Historican in Library and Records Department, FCO, since 1990. Formerly, Lecturer, Department of International Politics, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1967-1990.

Dr Edward Johnson Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management, University of Central England, Birmingham.

Dr Ann Lane Assistant Editor of Documents on Britislz Policy Overseas and historian in Library and Records Department, FC: O since 1991. Formerly Research Assistant at the Imperial War Museum, London, 1986-91.

Dr Louise L'Estrange Fawcett Wilfrid Knapp Fellow and Tutor in Politics at St Catherine's College

and CUF Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Studies, Oxford University.

64

DOCUMENTS ON BRITISH POLICY OVERSEAS

This collection of documents from the archives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is published by authorization of Her Majesty's Government. The Editors have been accorded the customary freedom in

the selection and arrangement of documents.

Published SERIES 1 (1945-1950)

Volume I The Conference at Potsdam, July-August 1945.

Volume II Conferences and Conversations 1945: London, Washington and Moscow.

Volume III Britain and America: Negotiation of the United States loan, August-December 1945.

Volume IV Britain and America: Atomic Energy, Bases and Food, December 1945 July 1946.

Volume V Germany and Western Europe, August-December 1945.

Volume VI Eastern Europe, August 1945-April 1946.

Volume VII The United Nations: Iran, Cold War and World Organisation, January 1946 January 1947.

Published SERIES 11 (1950-1955)

Volume I The Schuman Plan, the Council of Europe and Western European Integration, May 1950-December 1952.

Volume II The London Conferences, January-June 1950.

Volume III German Rearmament, September-December 1950.

Volume IV Korea, June 1950-April 1951.

65

In preparation

Volume V Germany and European Sr 'unto, 1952- 1954.

Volume VI The Middle East, 1951---1953.

Free lists of Titles (state subject/s) are available from Her Majesty's Stationery Office, HMSO Books, 51 Nine Elms Lane, London SW8 5DR.

66

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