CHATHAM HOUSE, THE UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION AND THE POLITICS OF FOREIGN POLICY, c.1945-1975 By JAMIE KENNETH JOHN PERRY A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History School of History and Cultures College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham June 2015 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis details the purchase of liberal internationalism on elite and public opinion between 1945 and 1975 by examining two of its bastions, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, better known as Chatham House, and the United Nations Association, the successor organisation to the League of Nations Union. It reveals how liberal internationalism survived the collapse of the League of Nations and the Second World War by exploring the relationships Chatham House and UNA had with the public, media, Whitehall and the main political parties. Chatham House and UNA had a significant impact upon these groups, acting as democratising agents in foreign policy by extending debate over international affairs beyond Whitehall. Nonetheless, although elite and popular liberal internationalism survived past 1945, it struggled to do so and in order to fully appreciate how, it is necessary to simultaneously assess the confines they and their fellow NGOs worked within. Chatham House and UNA’s impact upon the politics of foreign policy must also be understood in connection with the formal and informal political structures that restricted their attempts to democratise foreign policy; structures that promoted the illusory bifurcation of domestic and international affairs. ii Acknowledgements A profound debt of gratitude is owed to my supervisor Nick Crowson whose formidable knowledge and generous support ensured that this project could attempt its more ambitious directions while remaining a logistical possibility. It has been a great pleasure to work with him. At the University of Birmingham, I have further benefited from the excellent advice of Matthew Hilton, James McKay, Jean-François Mouhot, Ben White, Sadiah Qureshi, Kevin O’Sullivan, Corey Ross, Chris Moores, Su Lin Lewis, Shirley Ye, David Gange, William Purkis and Chris Hill. I would also like to thank Antony Best, James Ellison, Michael Dockrill, Michelle Blagg, Michael Kandiah, Susan Pedersen, Larry Witherell and Anne- Isabelle Richard for their insights on various aspects of this work. I am immensely grateful to friends at Birmingham for their own insights, encouragement and provision of excuses to escape my desk. My thanks therefore go to Saima Nasar, Daisy Payling, Patrick Longson, Andy Jones, Amy Edwards, Rebecca Crites, Kelly Waterhouse, Sam Humphreys, Bob Brown, Geoff Humble, Ellis Stacey, Eliana Hadjisavvas, David Kerr and Rebecca Jones. This project was made possible by a College of Arts and Law scholarship. The Royal Historical Society kindly provided further funding to cover a significant portion of my research expenses. I am also very grateful for the assistance provided during my research by the staff at the BBC Written Archives Centre, the Bodleian Library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science, Chatham House, the Churchill Archives Centre, Hull History Centre, the University of Warwick Modern Records Centre, the Museum of English Rural Life, the National Archives, the Parliamentary Archives, the People’s History Museum and the Royal United Services Institute. Finally, heartfelt thanks must go to my family and old friends who have helped keep my spirits high throughout my doctoral research while enduring my neglect with grace and understanding. Special thanks go to my friends Mike Collins and Sarah Unwin, George House, Rebecca Kealey, Rebecca Cavill, Rebecca Warren, Tom Woodward and Mark Gosling. I am extremely grateful for the support provided by my sister Marie Perry and her partner Tim McCarthy, my grandmothers Valerie Whent and Marguerite Perry, my great- uncle Arthur Gamblin and my partner’s parents Alan and Jackie Brooks. Without the unwavering support, past and present, supplied by my parents Melvyn and Joanne Perry, this project would never have come into fruition. Without the patience and generosity of my partner Gemma Brooks, this thesis would have been a pale imitation of what follows. iii Contents List of Illustrations and Figures vi List of Tables vii List of Abbreviations viii 1 Introduction: Beyond the Twenty Years’ Crisis 1 The Strange Survival of Liberal Internationalism 4 Loud and Quiet Actors 15 The Existing Literature 28 Squaring the Circle 33 Argument and Organisation 40 2 Cultivating Public Opinion: Understanding the Public Understanding of 43 International Affairs A Tale of Two Models 46 The King-Hall Model Challenged 56 Internationalism with the International Politics Left In 76 Educating Unreliable Educators 98 The Public Understanding of International Affairs 116 Conclusion 126 3 The Same Old Diplomacy? Whitehall and Being an Insider 129 Dividing the China 133 New Beginnings 141 Unofficial Diplomacy at Home and Abroad 145 The World Federation of United Nations Associations 151 ‘Irresponsible Malcontents’ 155 Highs and Lows 162 Money 169 Conclusion 180 4 Fighting for Consensus: Party Politics and Internationalism 183 Politically Apolitical 186 Westminster 198 The Labour Movement 210 Conservatism 232 The Liberal Party and Centrism 251 Conclusion 261 5 Conclusion: Whatever Happened to Liberal Internationalism? 265 The Fracturing of Liberal Internationalism 266 More Sinned against than Sinning? 271 iv Lost Opportunities 276 After the Seventies 280 Extrapolations 286 Appendix: Chatham House and UNA’s Principal Officers, 1945-1975 291 Bibliography 293 v List of Illustrations and Figures Illustration 2.1. UNA advert in the Guardian, part of the 1968/69 membership 96 campaign. Figure 1.1. Total individual membership of UNA and CND, 1945-1988. 25 Figure 1.2. Total number of mentions received by UNA and CND in a range of 25 newspapers, 1945-1975. Figure 2.1. Chatham House membership intake and wastage, 1945-1953. 66 Figure 2.2. Membership of Chatham House, 1945-1975. 66 Figure 2.3. Total number of Chatham House’s corporate subscribers, 1945- 67 1975. Figure 2.4. Proportion of Chatham House’s total income from individual and 67 corporate membership, 1945-1975. Figure 2.5. UNA total individual membership, 1945-1975. 78 Figure 2.6. Total number of branches, 1945-1975. 78 Figure 2.7. Number of mentions of Chatham House in a selection of 99 newspapers, 1945-1975. Figure 2.8. Number of mentions of UNA in a selection of newspapers, 1945- 99 1975. Figure 4.1. Balance of party affiliation among the MPs sitting on the Chatham 187 House Council, 1945-1975. Figure 4.2. Balance of party affiliation among the MPs sitting on the UNA 187 Executive Committee, 1945-1975. Figure 4.3. Number of parliamentary debates and written submissions that made 205 reference to Chatham House, 1945-1975. Figure 4.4. Number of command papers and reports of committees that made 205 reference to Chatham House, 1945-1975. Figure 4.5. Number of parliamentary debates and written submissions that made 209 reference to UNA, 1945-1975. Figure 4.6. Number of command papers and reports of committees that made 209 reference to UNA 1945-1975. Figure 4.7. Party affiliation of MPs or peers who first mentioned Chatham 219 House within a parliamentary debate, 1945-1975. Figure 4.8. Party affiliation of MPs or peers who first mentioned UNA within a 219 parliamentary debate, 1945-1975. Figure 4.9. Number of mentions of Chatham House in parliament by party and 221 government, 1945-1975. vi List of Tables Table 2.1. The questions posed in UNA’s 1955 Citizens’ Enquiry. 87 Table 2.2. The questions and replies to UNA’s 1960 Disarmament Enquiry. 88 vii List of Abbreviations ABCA Army Bureau of Current Affairs AGM Annual General Meeting BCA Bureau of Current Affairs CEWC Council for Education in World Citizenship CFR Council on Foreign Relations CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament ECSC European Coal and Steel Community EEC European Economic Community EPA Empire Parliamentary Association EU European Union FORD Foreign Office Research Department FRPS Foreign Research and Press Service IISS International Institute for Strategic Studies IPR Institute of Pacific Relations ISD International Service Department LNU League of Nations Union NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NCANWT National Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Tests NGO Non-Governmental Organisation PSU Policy Studies Unit PUS Permanent Under-Secretary TUC Trade Union Congress UDC Union of Democratic Control UN United Nations UNA United Nations Association UNAPPG United Nations All Party Parliamentary Group UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund UNSA United Nations Student Association VSU Voluntary Services Unit WEA Workers’ Educational Association WFUNA