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Peter Catterall MACMILLAN and EUROPE, 1950-1956

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Peter Catterall MACMILLAN and EUROPE, 1950-1956 Catterall, Peter. “MacMillan and Europe, 1950-1956: The Cold War, the American Context and the British Approach to European Integration,” Cercles 5 (2002) : 93-108 <www.cercles.com>. ©Cercles 2002. Toute repro- duction, même partielle, par quelque procédé que ce soit, est interdite sans autorisation préalable (loi du 11 mars 1957, al. 1 de l’art. 40). ISSN : 1292-8968. Peter Catterall Queen Mary, University of London MACMILLAN AND EUROPE, 1950-1956 1 The Cold War, the American Context and the British Approach to European Integration Much of the work which has so far appeared on Harold Macmillan’s attitude towards European integration has focused, understandably, on the period 1957-1963.2 This, after all, was the period during which Macmillan, as Prime Minister, moved from the expedient alternative of the Free Trade Area to the failed entry negotiations of 1961-1963. Work on the period up to 1957, in con- trast, has tended to be more sketchy and superficial. Its basic tone is summed up in Richard Lamb’s comment that Macmillan was “not consistent.”3 Hugo Young, more acerbically, refers to “a mixture of contradictions.”4 Nevertheless, this view would certainly seem to be supported by a cur- sory glance at the Macmillan record in these years. On the one hand Mac- millan was an enthusiastic participant in the Council of Europe from its creation in 1949 until his entry to government in 1951 made further involve- ment impossible, leading the Conservative delegation to Strasbourg in 1950 and 1951. After his appointment as Foreign Secretary in 1955 he complained in his diary: “The F.O. (so strong is tradition) is—from the time of Ernest Bevin and Eden—hostile to the European movement—as a Churchill stunt! I keep trying to persuade them that I favour it—as one of its founders!”5 Yet, on the other hand, many historians seem to have taken the view that this self-ident- ification was more apparent than real. Macmillan has been universally con- demned as having spent the rest of 1955 trying to sabotage the Messina negotiations and the Spaak committee that paved the way for the Treaty of Rome. Some have even portrayed him as consistently hostile to the European Defence Community.6 1. I would like to thank British Academy award OCG-32748 for helping to make the research on which this article is based possible. 2. See particularly Jacqueline Tratt, The Macmillan Government and Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996). 3. Richard Lamb “Macmillan and Europe,” in Harold Macmillan: Aspects of a Political Life, edited by Richard Aldous and Sabine Lee (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), 75. 4. Hugo Young, This Blessed Plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair (London: Mac- millan, 1998), 113; see also Richard Davenport-Hines, The Macmillans (London: Mandarin, 1993), 281. 5. Department of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford: Harold Macmillan Diar- ies [henceforward HMD]: 29 June 1955. Cercles 5 (2002) / 94 Even those who have appreciated his early advocacy of a European Army have tended to imply that such enthusiasm was buried under growing Germanophobia as the 1950s wore on [Young 113-114]. Macmillan’s Cabinet memoranda can prove a fertile source for such interpretations, not least the anxieties he expressed in March 1953: “Are we really sure that we want to see a Six Power Federal Europe, with a common army, a common iron and steel industry (Schuman Plan) ending with a common currency and monetary pol- icy?”7 All of this, he feared, threatened to hand to Germany “on a plate what we have fought two world wars to prevent.”8 The resulting historiographical tone is neatly summarised in the title of Martin Schaad’s recent book, Bullying Bonn.9 To be fair to Schaad, he does not, however, emphasise British anxieties about Germany and geopolitics. His fo- cus instead is on the extent to which Germany was seen, particularly after the normalisation of relations with the Federal Republic by 1955, as a means of le- veraging British ends in Europe. In Macmillan’s papers in 1960-1961 that pav- ed the way for the entry negotiations, for instance, a divergence between de Gaulle and Adenauer was seen as offering an opportunity for Britain.10 Whilst historians have disagreed, however, about the degree of cordiality in Macmillan’s relationship with Adenauer,11 all have tended to portray it as ins- trumental and ineffective. In Macmillan’s account, Adenauer’s approach to European integration was, however, no less instrumental. During Macmillan’s 1957 visit to Germany the Chancellor apparently told him “I don’t want us to get strong again too quickly […] I see great dangers ahead. That is why I yearn so for Eu- ropean unity and (in view of France’s weakness) for British participation.” [HMD: 12 May 1957] At the same time, as Young acknowledges [Young 114], the European idea in the 1950s was in any case far from crystallised. What form Europe should take, and to what purpose, remained a matter of debate. Even those 6. See Spencer Mawby, Containing Germany: Britain and the Arming of the Federal Republic (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), 7, 102. 7. Public Record Office, London [henceforward PRO]: CAB129/60, C(53)108 (&9 March 1953). 8. PRO: T234/100, Macmillan to Bridges (1 February 1956), quoted in James Ellison, Threatening Europe: Britain and the Creation of the European Community 1955-58 (Basingstoke: Mac- millan, 2000), 41. See also HMD: 16 November 1950, 14 March 1953. 9. Martin P.C. Schaad, Bullying Bonn: Anglo-German Diplomacy on European Integration 1955-61 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000). 10. See Oliver Bange, The EEC Crisis of 1963: Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and Adenauer in Conflict (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 18. 11. Sabine Lee [“Macmillan and Germany,” in Aldous and Lee, 117] acknowledges Mac- millan’s attempts to foster friendly relations, in contrast to Wolfram Kaiser, Using Europe, Abus- ing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration 1945-63 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996). Peter Catterall / 95 who agreed upon objectives did not necessarily agree upon the means. Fur- thermore, as Alan Milward has demonstrated,12 there was a clear instrumen- tality to the approach taken to European integration by all players. In an arena of competitive negotiation, this was, of course, always likely. Macmillan, Monnet, Spaak and others all had to articulate their positions against each other, react to different initiatives and cope with countervailing domestic pressures. After all, European ideas had to explained and promoted to natio- nal audiences who, as Spaak admitted, frequently had little grasp of the issues so avidly discussed by what was in many ways “an intellectual movement of the few.”[HMD: 26 October 1952] This was not the least reason why schemes such as the Schuman Plan or the European Army went through various itera- tions. Accordingly, even if Macmillan did shift his ground on these issues, which is a matter of debate, it does not prove that he was as inconsistent in his approach to European integration as has been claimed. This paper seeks to test this prevailing orthodoxy by looking in parti- cular at Macmillan’s involvement in the Council of Europe 1949-1951, and his reactions to the successive challenges of the European Army idea, the Schu- man Plan and the Common Market proposals. In the process it is hoped that it will provide a fuller analysis than any hitherto of how Macmillan’s thinking on European integration developed in the period up to his entry to 10 Down- ing Street. The Council of Europe In many ways Macmillan was an ideal delegate to the Council of Europe As- sembly. He spoke French fluently, and enjoyed friendships with many conti- nental politicians, particularly French and Italian, dating back to his time as Minister Resident in North West Africa in 1942-1945. As he acknowledged, I like foreigners; I like listening to their speeches; and I am beginning to under- stand, after a good many years of experience, their way of thinking. I find their speeches much more interesting and witty than those I have to listen to in the House of Commons. Their method of thought is at least logical. They try to arg- ue a case, where we are content with mere assertions. Apart from these person- al predilections, I must also admit that I like the life at Strasbourg. [HMD: 15 May 1951] From his diaries it is clear that he relished the polyglot manoeuverings for po- litical advantage in an assembly which had yet to acquire the rigid political divisions of the British Parliament. Not that he in any way wished the Assem- bly to be a mere talking shop, noting that, 12. Alan S. Milward The European Rescue of the Nation State (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1992). Cercles 5 (2002) / 96 My object all along has been to distract the delegates from their eternal (but bar- ren) exercise of constitution making to practical and urgent affairs. In 1949, we made the inclusion of Germany the central theme. In August 1950 we launched the European army. In November 1950, I want to keep the European [army] as the central subject. [HMD: 18 November 1950] This passage points to three components of Macmillan’s thinking on Europe. Firstly, Macmillan did have clear and practical objectives. To achieve these the Council of Europe did not necessarily prove a perfect vehicle. But that some of Macmillan’s ambitions were frustrated, requiring adjustment, does not de- monstrate inconsistency. As he noted when returning to the Council as For- eign Secretary, It’s fun to be back in Strasbourg, where I spent so many weeks 6 years ago, with Churchill, Sandys, Maxwell-Fyfe, and all the rest; in the early formation years of the European movement.
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