Europe

Introduction

“…This period saw 'an extraordinary degree of interaction, involvement, and influence between the US and British governments … with intense US involvement in such matters as the British budget process and subsequent reciprocal British influence, especially on US approaches to the alliance'. 86 According to Saki Dockrill, 'the Wilson-Johnson association demonstrated how close Anglo-American interests became as a result of financial considerations and the Vietnam War'. 87 Dumbrell characterises the mutual dealings of Wilson and Johnson as a 'complex combination of respect and irritation, of occasional British sycophancy and American temper, of subtle acceptance of the unequal power relationship'.…”

A foreign policy success? LBJ and transatlantic relations

“…Moreover, he came to rely on the guidance of Francis Bator, deputy special assistant for national security affairs, who specialised on Europe and was trusted by officials across the Atlantic. 11 Johnson's overriding foreign policy objective was to reduce the possibility of nuclear war. When briefed on nuclear war, shortly after Kennedy's assassination, he was told that 40 million Americans would be killed within an hour of one starting, and that figure stuck in his mind.…”

Transatlantic Relations at a Time When ‘More Flags’ Meant ‘No European Flags’: the United States’ War in South-East Asia and its European Allies, 1964–8

“…69 'There has been a spectacular decline in respect for US foreign policy,' Walter Lippmann commented from Paris in 1965. 70 The US writer's evaluation may have been premature, and perhaps unduly influenced both by his own negative views of US involvement in Vietnam and by his geographical proximity to the Champs Elys ee. His assessment did not represent the views of the NATO governments, but soon it became mainstream opinion among large sections of Western European 76 All this was soon to translate into tumult on European streets and squares and to rapid political change.…”

“…91 The British Ambassador to the United States, Patrick Dean, warned that, under Johnson, the United States viewed itself 'less a leader of the Atlantic Community and more as an Atlantic-Pacific power'. 92 Dean Rusk was to describe the state of the transatlantic relationship during the years of the Vietnam War in an acutely astute manner. He said: 'The mood of isolationism in the US and Europe were feeding off each other.…”

“…103 In adopting this view, they failed to recognise what Thomas Schwartz has described so eloquently, namely that the US administration was simply trying to 'draw a stable and definite "line in the sand" in South East Asia such as the one that existed with the Berlin Wall in Europe'. 104 Vietnam had come to crystallise and manifest the differences in political beliefs and attitudes between the two sides of the Atlantic. The concept of the domino effect had become questionable to the Europeans.…”