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Britain, America, and the Vietnam War
Sylvia Ellis
ISBN: 0-275-97381-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97381-0
328 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 5/30/2004
List Price: $82.95 (UK Sterling Price: £57.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Series Title: International History
Awards:
  • Choice Outstanding Academic Titles, 2004
Description: Isolated by much of the world for its conduct of the war in Vietnam, the United States saw British support as a key component of its efforts to sway public opinion. This is the first serious examination of the impact of the Vietnam War on the Anglo-American special relationship during the years of the Johnson presidency. Using recently released government papers, oral interviews, and transcripts of presidential phone conversations, Ellis discusses the discord between the United Kingdom and the United States over the war in Southeast Asia. She focuses on the pressures placed on Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labor Government to provide material aid to the war and to remain squarely behind the U.S. war effort in public.

Britain's refusal to send troops to Vietnam and Wilson's insistence on trying to mediate the conflict were both sources of tension between the allies. This study explores the extent to which the United Kingdom was pressured to send troops to the combat zone, the part that the personal relationship between Wilson and Johnson played in the tensions, and the evidence that a deal was done to link the maintenance of British defenses East of Suez with U.S. support for the pound sterling. It concludes that Wilson managed to walk a political tightrope on Vietnam, providing just enough diplomatic support for the Americans to keep Washington satisfied and putting just enough limits on that support to keep an increasingly vociferous domestic anti-war movement at bay.
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
    Introduction
    The Labour Government's Position on Vietnam
    The Search for an Understanding on Vietnam, January-April 1965
    The Search for a Wider Understanding, May-December 1965
    The Understandings Tested: January-July 1966
    The Collapse of the Understandings, August 1966-February 1968
    Conclusion
    Bibliography
About the Author: SYLVIA ELLIS is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, England. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Newcastle and has published several articles and book chapters on Anglo-American relations in the 1960s.
LCC Class: 959
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