Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2008 Mr. Kerry goes to Washington: Lord Lothian and the genesis of the Anglo-American alliance, 1939-1940 Craig Edward Saucier Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Saucier, Craig Edward, "Mr. Kerry goes to Washington: Lord Lothian and the genesis of the Anglo-American alliance, 1939-1940" (2008). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1947. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1947 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. MR. KERR GOES TO WASHINGTON: LORD LOTHIAN AND THE GENESIS OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE, 1939-1940 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Craig E. Saucier B.A., Louisiana State University, 1981 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1995 August 2008 © 2008 Craig Edward Saucier All rights reserved ii To Triche Je suis perdu sans toi iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have come to fruition without the support, assistance, and encouragement of countless individuals. In the Department of History at Louisiana State University, I thank first and foremost the members of my doctoral committee, who not only accommodated my outrageous teaching schedule, but kept the faith and hung in there with me for over seven years. Thanks most of all to my major professor, Dr. Meredith Veldman, whose enthusiasm for this project became for me a source of motivation and rededication, particularly during my very few moments of fatigue and self- doubt. Her careful reading and rereading of the manuscript enabled me to produce a meaningful, tighter, and far more coherent body of work. I am equally indebted to Dr. Suzanne Marchand and Dr. Victor Stater, who also carefully read the text, and made invaluable stylistic and organizational suggestions, which helped to clarify and invigorate my writing. I deeply appreciate their enthusiasm for my research and their encouragement, as well as a lot of great hours in consultation over course work prior to general examis. I am both grateful and apologetic to Dr. Charles Shindo, who got dragged into this process at a fairly late stage prior to my general exams and helped me complete my minor field in United States history. I thank Dr. James Stoner of the LSU Political Science Department, the Dean’s representative in both my general examination and dissertation defense, and who brought an entirely different cosmology and much food for thought as I look toward getting this dissertation in shape for publication. I thank Dr. Stanley Hilton, who worked with me on United States military history, and Dr. Maribel Dietz, who got me up to speed in Medieval history and sat on my examining committee. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the Chair of the History Department, Dr. Gaines Foster, who helped me procure money from the Peggy W. Seale Fund, which enabled me to travel to the United Kingdom in order to complete my research. I also thank his predecessor as Chair, Dr. Paul Paskoff, who helped calm troubled waters following sudden and untimely changes in the graduate faculty. I owe a special thanks to Ms. Darlene Albritton and Ms. Sandra Kirby, for all of their assistance and acts of kindness over the past years. I owe a special and fundamentally unpayable debt to Dr. Karl A. Roider. From the time I was a iv freshman in his western civilization classes, through his supervision of my Master’s thesis, visiting in his office or in his living room, through the streets of London and Edinburgh, he has been my friend and mentor. More than most, Dr. Roider taught me how to be a historian. At the National Archives of the United Kingdom in Kew, London, I thank Ms. Julie Ash, Ms. Joanna Ward, and Mr. Greg Cole. And thank god to whoever made the decision at Kew to allow scholars to photograph documents with digital cameras. At the National Archives of Scotland, in Edinburgh, I thank Mr. Robert Gibb, Mr. Alex Cochrane, Mr. John Fairgrieve, and Mr. Stu McMillan for their assistance and relentless good cheer. I look forward to my return to Edinburgh. I deeply appreciate and thank all of my colleagues in the Department of History and Political Science at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. Unknowingly probably, but at all times, especially on days when I found my will and stamina weaken, their support for and understanding of what I was doing, helped me to remain focused. They loaned me books, allowed me to pick their brains, or shared their own stories and experiences. I am particularly indebted to the department Chair, my friend and fellow Beatles disciple, Dr. Bill Robison, who facilitated my progress by providing me, semester after semester, with a teaching schedule that afforded me large blocks of more or less uninterrupted time to read, read, and read. I give thanks to all my friends everywhere, both within graduate school and without, whose support and love helped bring me back to earth from time to time: Dr. Bobby Matthews, Dr. Gary Winston, Mary Johnson, Mark Beard, Keith and Val Altazin, Marshall and Beth Schott, Ronald and Alison Barr, Harley Anton, Robert Melson, and David O’Brien. Finally, and most important, to my family -- I neglected all of them over the past seven years as I pushed through the Ph.D. process. I know I’ll never be able to make up lost time, and I am truly sorry for that. I thank them so much, from the bottom of my soul, for their love and support. My parents, Charles and Irene, who provided me with the opportunities; my sister Carrie and brother Scott; my daughters Gabrielle, Sydney, and Amy. Most of all, my wife, Triche. I owe her everything and I will spend the remainder of my life trying to somehow be worthy once again of her love. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………….……. iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………… vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION………………..………………………………………….. 1 CHAPTER TWO: THE MYTH OF THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP……………….……….. 9 The Great War, The “Great Divide”…………………………………………………………… 10 “Financially in Our Hands”: Economic and Financial Strains……...…………………………. 26 Naval Rivalry…………………………………………………………………………………... 34 The Great Depression…………………………………………………………………………... 47 The Growing Question of Security…………………………………………………………….. 52 CHAPTER THREE: LORD LOTHIAN – A DIPLOMATIC APPRENTICESHIP……….…… 77 South Africa and the Round Table……………………………………………………………... 77 Kerr at Downing Street…………………………………………………………………………. 90 Kerr in the 1920s……………………………………………………………………………….. 109 Lothian the Appeaser…………………………………………………………………………… 119 Appointment to the United States……………………………………………………………… 141 CHAPTER FOUR: LOTHIAN DURING THE PHONEY WAR………………………………. 149 Lothian Assumes the Position …………………………………………………………………. 150 The Phoney War………………………………………………………………………............... 164 Continuing British Skepticism about the United States…………………………....................... 174 Lothian Confronts American Public Opinion…………………………………………………... 188 Before the Storm……………………………………………………………………………….. 218 CHAPTER FIVE: THE DESTROYERS DEAL……………….……………………………….. 222 Churchill and Lothian Begin the Dialogue with Washington………….………………………. 226 France Collapses………………………………………………………….…………………….. 242 Lothian Takes the Offensive -- Reopening the Destroyers Question………………….……..… 258 Lothian Takes the Offensive -- Selling the Drama……………………………………..………. 263 Lothian Leads the Roosevelt Administration to Water……………………….………………... 289 The Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement……………………………………………………….…. 308 Significance: Lothian Helps to Bake the “Sugar Cake”………………………..……………… 321 CHAPTER SIX: LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS FOR LEND-LEASE……………...………. 327 Selling the Drama, Continued……………………………………….…………………………. 328 London Awaits the Fifth of November……………………………………………………….... 340 Meet the Press………………………………………………………………………….………. 359 The Letter…………………………………………………………………………….………… 377 “Good Night, Philip”…………………………………………………………………….……... 387 Significance: Lothian Nudges the United States to “Unsordidness”………….………….……. 399 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION…………………….……………………………………... 406 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………...……………………………... 425 VITA………………………………………………………………………………….………….. 432 vi ABSTRACT The purpose of this dissertation is to examine and assess the role of Philip Henry Kerr, eleventh Marquis of Lothian, the British ambassador to the United States from August 1939 to December 1940. While much of the historiography of Anglo-American relations during the Second World War focuses on the Roosevelt-Churchill axis, this dissertation contends that Lord Lothian played a vital, if not the principal, role in creating that axis and in forging closer relations during the vital months before Pearl Harbor. More generally, this dissertation contends that Lothian is a vital, if not the principal, architect of the “Special Relationship.” Anglo-American relations during the interwar years were characterized by an underlying discord, caused by economic disparity, naval rivalry, and divergent approaches to international