Truman(72)

Attlee was quickly confronted by a letter of dissociation with America signed by half his back benchers. Churchill and Eden expressed slightly more measured dismay. Attlee calmed the House by proposing an immediate visit to Washington. This was a remarkable event, for he was no great traveller. He mostly left such things to Bevin. But Bevin was too ill to go, and in any event had been confined to travelling by ship for several years past, and the schedules of the Cunard Line were hardly adequate for such an emergency.

Attlee proposed to Truman a fairly broad-based three-pronged agenda, but the impression given to the House of Commons and the world was that he was going to read the riot act to the Americans. He was nonetheless able to command a full-scale Washington heads of government conference at very short notice. A significant part of the special relationship persisted, and the British had a hard-fighting brigade in Korea. Accompanied by a strong military team, Attlee flew to the United States on the night of Sunday, December 3rd, and had four full days of talks with the Americans.

This visit was, and remains, one of the most varyingly interpreted diplomatic events of the post-war decade. The extreme British and pro-Attlee interpretation is that the Prime Minister arrived at the White House like a feared but respected schoolmaster striding into a disorderly class-room and proceeded to tell Truman, with his well-known economy in the use of words, that he had better pull himself together, give up foolish notions of using the A-bomb in or around the Korean theatre, discipline Mac-Arthur, and generally reduce commitment in the Far East in order to get a better balance in Europe. The extreme American and anti-Attlee version suggests that the Prime Minister arrived in Washington as a lugubrious and unwelcome guest at a time when a tense administration needed sustenance not criticism, proceeded to whine a doctrine of total appeasement in the Far East, and was duly chastened by his firmer minded hosts until he departed, none too soon, with his tail between his legs.

It is not easy to determine exactly where, between the two, the truth lies. First, the myth that Attlee’s visit stopped Truman starting nuclear warfare in Korea can be quickly disposed of. Truman had no intention of doing any such thing, but he had mainly himself to blame for the fact that such a fear had become widespread. Second, it was probably the case that the news of Attlee’s imminent arrival aroused little enthusiasm in the White House. Margaret Truman, who normally reflects the atmosphere well, refers to the trip as being ‘unnecessary’ and ‘defeatist’. On the other hand, Acheson, who was in most ways the sharpest critic of the visit, actually recorded that on December 3rd he successfully ‘opposed efforts to obtain a cease-fire until Mr Attlee had arrived and been consulted’.1219 And the whole administration, President, State Department and military establishment, put themselves out to a remarkable extent for the exchanges. Apart from the four days of formal talks there was a Potomac cruise and a British Embassy dinner attended by Truman. Perhaps the dismayed administration was glad to have something to do other than listen to the mixture of bad news and bad advice from MacArthur. In any event it was treatment which no allied head of government could now secure in Washington, even at 96 days’ notice, let alone 96 hours’.

Truman’s own account of the meetings, given respectfully and at considerable length in his Memoirs (published in 1956) contains no criticism of Attlee. Unfortunately that amounts to little by way of evidence, for these Memoirs were written (certainly not entirely by Truman himself) with all the bland, formal accuracy of British Cabinet minutes. They are a good, flat account of the events of his presidency, purged of any authentic contact with his habits of phrase or thought. In books which better capture his views and personality he is mostly silent upon the visit.

Acheson therefore becomes an important if not wholly conclusive witness. Apart from anything else, he comes near to contradicting himself. He strikes a different note in his own memoirs (published in 1969) and the interview which he gave to Mr Kenneth Harris for his Attlee between then and his own death in 1971. Present at the Creation is, to say the least, waspish about the Attlee visit. ‘December opened by bringing us a Job’s comforter in Clement Attlee …’ he warmly began. ‘He was a far abler man than Winston Churchill’s description of him as “a sheep in sheep’s clothing” would imply, but persistently depressing. He spoke, as John J. Chapman said of President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, with “all the passion of a woodchuck chewing a carrot”. His thought impressed me as a long withdrawing melancholy sigh.’20 For the rest he described how he had to rebuke Attlee for believing that the United States could be expected to combine a policy of determined commitment in Europe with scuttle in Asia, and for saying that nothing was more important for the West than retaining the good opinion of Asia: ‘I remarked acidly that (there was) the security of the United States.’ For the rest he recorded that ‘the chief impression left with me was a deep dislike and distrust of the “summit conference” as a diplomatic instrument’.21