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Beyond essential: Britons and the Anglo-American Special Relationship

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Journal of Transatlantic Studies Aims and scope

Abstract

This article assesses the unsuccessful attempt by US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron to rebrand the ties between their countries as ‘the essential relationship’. The failure of that initiative revealed the enduring attachment of ordinary Britons to the notion of a UK–US ‘special relationship’ regardless of how accurately it reflected the changing reality of the two nations’ interactions.

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Notes

  1. PM article in Wall St Journal: UK–US relations, July 20, 2010, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-article-in-wall-st-journal-uk-us-relations.

  2. ‘David Cameron presents Barack Obama with graffiti art,’ July 21, 2010, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10710074.

  3. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/13/barack-obama-david-cameron-essential-relationship.

  4. For the text see https://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/02/obama-to-host-state-dinner-for-cameron/1.

  5. See, for instance, BBC News [8].

  6. Seldon and Lodge [67].

  7. Cameron [14].

  8. ‘Britain’s Brown Meets Bush,’ http://www.reuters.com/video/2007/07/29/britains-brownmeets-bush?videoId62133.

  9. Bennett [10].

  10. Dumbrell [22].

  11. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House [59]; Lichfield [45].

  12. House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (HCFAC) [37].

  13. Marsh [51].

  14. ‘An interview with David Cameron’, The Economist, March 31, 2010, https://www.economist.com/node/15814344.

  15. Liberal Democrat Manifesto [44].

  16. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/14/hague-uk-us-clinton-afghanistan.

  17. Kirkup [41].

  18. https://www.channel4.com/news/harsh-criticism-for-british-military-in-us-diplomatic-cables.

  19. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/british-officer-in-afghanistan-criticises-us-role-1.953926.

  20. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-army-publishes-british-officers-essay-criticising-its-handling-of-iraq-6111967.html.

  21. Prime Minister and President Obama article: an ‘essential relationship’, May 23, 2011, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-and-president-obama-article-an-essential-relationship.

  22. Cited in BBC News [9].

  23. HCFAC, Global Security, EV34. See also Robin Cook quoted by Lister [47].

  24. See, for example, Dobson and Marsh [20]; Special Issue: Churchill’s Fulton Missouri Iron Curtain Speech, Journal of Transatlantic Studies 14, no.4 (2016).

  25. John Dumbrell, ‘Personal Diplomacy: Relations between Prime Ministers and Presidents’, 82.

  26. Bodleian Library, MS Wilson, 1179, Wilson speech at University of Texas, Master copy, ‘Anglo-American Relations—a special case?’, April 30, 1971.

  27. Ibid.

  28. [58].

  29. Marsh [53].

  30. Rachman [62].

  31. Seitz [66]. For an account of UK–US relations organised around prime minister-president pairings see Dumbrell [23].

  32. [61].

  33. Marsh [50].

  34. [95].

  35. ‘State visit gifts for the Obamas and the British royal family,’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/24/state-visit-gifts-obama.

  36. ‘Barack Obama's UK state visit—Tuesday May 24, 2011,’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2011/may/24/barack-obama-uk-state-visit.

  37. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8180709/WikiLeaks-Britain-mocked-by-US-over-special-relationship.html.

  38. Assmann and Czaplicka [2].

  39. Edwards [26]. See also Edwards [24].

  40. Edwards [25].

  41. Etheridge [29].

  42. Hendershot [33].

  43. [63].

  44. Bennett [12].

  45. Records of the first meeting of the BBLC, July 10, 1972, UEL, BBLC, C10, cited in Hendershot and Marsh [35].

  46. ‘The Bicentennial Bell,’ National Park Service, accessed September 23, 2017, https://www.nps.gov/inde/learn/historyculture/the-bicentennial-bell.htm.

  47. Charlton [15].

  48. Lothian, ‘Memorandum by the Chairman’, Records of the sixth meeting of the BBLC, February 12 1975, UEL, BBLC, C15, 1-2, cited in Hendershot and Marsh, ‘Renewing the Narrative of ‘Special’ Anglo-American Relations’.

  49. Records of the final meeting of the BBLC, October 15, 1976, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UEL, BBLC, C17, 2, cited in Hendershot and Marsh, ‘Renewing the Narrative of ‘Special’ Anglo-American Relations’.

  50. Hansard, Magna Carta Presentation: Speeches, HL Deb June 16, 1976, vol 371 cc1367-72WA, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1976/jun/16/magna-carta-presentation-speeches.

  51. Ryan [64].

  52. Iriye [39, 40].

  53. Gerald R Ford Library, Office of Editorial Staff, Robert Orben, Special Assistant to the President Files, 1973-77, box 38, 2/19/76, Press Release, Exchange of remarks between the President and Anne Armstrong upon being sworn-in as Ambassador to Great Britain, February 19, 1976. .

  54. For discussion of the Anglosphere see Bennett [11]; Kotkin [42]; Conquest [16]; Mead [55]; Hitchens [36]; Browning and Tonra [13].

  55. Culture is the driving factor in UK–US ties, according to new British Council research, July 2018. https://www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/policy-insight-research/a-special-relationship.

  56. Vucetic [94]; Anderson [3]; Haglund [31]; Cooper [17]; Dobson [19].

  57. See, for instance, Wiener and Hampton [96]; Edwards et al. [27]; Glancy [30]; Stubbs [68].

  58. Landsberg [43].

  59. Allen [1].

  60. https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/british-attitudes-americans-and-america.

  61. https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/survey/all/.

  62. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/donald-trump-president-wins-us-elections-world-more-dangerous-place-opinion-poll-british-public-a7413756.html.

  63. https://www.itv.com/news/2018-07-12/77-of-british-public-have-an-unfavourable-view-of-donald-trump-ahead-of-his-visit-to-the-uk/; https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/two-three-britons-feel-unfavourable-towards-donald-trump.

  64. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Donald_Trump.

  65. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/05/donald-trump-dangerous-opinium-poll-uk-voters.

  66. Balz and Witte [5].

  67. Lucas [48]. This section draws in part upon Dobson and Marsh [21].

  68. In May 1951 Iranian Prime Minister Mosadeq nationalised the Iranian assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, setting in motion a crisis resolved only by a CIA orchestrated coup and an international oil consortium in which the AIOC lost its monopoly position. Marsh [50]; Bamberg [6]; Heiss [32].

  69. Eisenhower [28].

  70. ‘The Current State of Confidence in the U.S. Among the West European Public,’ August 1961, Research and Reference Service, Public Opinion Barometer Reports, USIA, NARA, 7, cited in Robert Hendershot, ‘“Affection is the Cement which Binds us”’: Understanding the Cultural Sinews of the Anglo-American Special Relationship,’ in Anglo-American Relations, 65.

  71. Owen [60]. See also Sir Howard [38].

  72. Major [48]; Tony Blair, speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, November 15, 2004, http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6583.asp.

  73. Murphy [56].

  74. In 1952, Churchill declared the Kenya emergency and sent in troops to crush the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule. Obama’s grandfather was among the Kenyans who were detained without trial and allegedly tortured by the British. Obama hits back at Boris Johnson’s alleged smears, April 22, 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36112694; Baldwin [4].

  75. Newton Dunn [57]; ‘Churchill bust in Oval Office again as Donald Trump settles in,’ January 21, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/21/churchill-bust-returns-to-oval-office-as-donald-trump-settles-in; Schleifer and Liptak [65].

  76. Danchev [18].

  77. Marchi and Marsh [49].

  78. Barthes [7].

  79. Assmann and Czaplicka, ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’, 128.

  80. Toasts of the President and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the UK at a Dinner at the British Embassy, 20 February 1985, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/22085f.

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Marsh, S. Beyond essential: Britons and the Anglo-American Special Relationship. J Transatl Stud 18, 382–404 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-020-00054-x

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