'special relationship' rejuvenated??

..to be honest, I do not know of any direct sources that give the indication that Britain’s policy in the American war in Vietnam was in part influenced by Washington’s actions during Suez…I would hazard an assumption and say that I am sure there were some British officials who saw Britain’s Vietnam policy as some sort of vindication over the Suez affair, I recall reading some material long ago that certainly suggested that some in the White House believed this to be so….even so, one account observes that later, Nixon and Kissinger would argue that the United States should have backed the British over Suez… (C. J. Bartlett, ‘The Special Relationship’: A Political History of Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (London, 1992) p.78)…

....as for British Commitment and Foreign Policy in Vietnam, Harold Wilson supported the view that Britain should attempt to re-build itself as an influential global power and the method he chose was not to support American military action but to put Britain forward as a political mediator in the Vietnam conflict…Wilson resisted all American pressure to commit ground troops to the fighting and continued to pursue a policy of peaceful conclusion to the Vietnam War…. Britain’s position in 1967-68 was one of conflicting loyalties between continuing Co-chairmanship of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China, and preserving a viable political relationship with the United States….this policy was influenced by the fact that Britain was struggling with its economic situation…..British Ministers were often pre-occupied in looking for options to resolve Britain’s domestic financial difficulties as well as minimising defence expenditure in Europe and elsewhere abroad…..during the latter half of 1967, discussions were already underway concerning plans for the withdrawal of all British military influence east of Suez…… against this backdrop of political and economic difficulties, a commitment of British troops to Vietnam was certainly out of the question….

...however, there is one argument that suggests that Washington applied a rather acute level of pressure on Britain if London supported a policy of total dissociation with American policy in Vietnam… the British Government’s willingness to defer dissociation was influenced by the possible long-term consequences of upsetting the American administration whose future actions could affect Britain’s role and status in Western Europe….. Dean Rusk had indicated that in the event of isolationist sentiment prevailing in Congress, it would be unwise for Britain to dissociate from United States policy in Vietnam. In a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, Rusk warned, “those very senators who are opposing the President’s policies in Vietnam are among the same senators who are pressing for our withdrawal from Europe.” Rusk continued that these politicians “are just as isolationist about Europe as they are about South-East Asia.” (Prime Ministerial Papers, The National Archives, PREM 13/2459, Rusk letter to Brown, September 1967)…

…..George Brown did express fears that if dissociation became public, the present and future American administrations might, “cease to exert themselves at all in favour of British interests,” adding that it would be hard to believe “the United States administration will take a helpful line in respect of our financial, economic and commercial problems.” (Cabinet Papers,, The National Archives, CAB 129/134/Part 1, Brown’s assessment for Cabinet discussion, 15^th November 1967)…

….This last point was particularly central to a British Government that knew devaluation of sterling was imminent. Indeed, practically all the Cabinet meetings in the latter half of 1967 were mainly devoted to the impending reality of the devaluation of sterling, and for the first two weeks of January 1968, the Cabinet meetings were all chiefly concerned with post-devaluation measures and difficulties. (Cabinet Papers, The National Archives, CAB 128/43/Part 1, CC (68), see conclusions for 4^th, 5^th, 9^th, 11^th, 12^th, and 15^th January 1968)…

..there is something else to this story, I seem to recall viewing some Foreign Office documents from the British archives that state, in the early 1960’s, the British government believed the war in Vietnam could not be won by the Americans…..hence, another reason  not to military commit to the conflict, but push forward Britain’s role as a mediator instead…now, I was pretty sure that I had these documents on file, but I simply cannot find them without looking through a vast amount of material, which then makes me doubt my memory(which is easy to do I can assure you!!)…I am quite certain that I have this evidence, but until it surfaces, I can only say the above statement is speculative at best…

…so, there were many practical reasons for British policy in Vietnam, but I doubt that ‘revenge’ over Suez was one of them…it seems that London was more preoccupied with more immediate circumstances…however, I would not be surprised if there was something more revealing tucked away in the archives…

..all the best….AoO..