Introduction

Abstract

Since its inception during the Second World War, the Anglo-American special relationship has remained a central feature of contemporary British foreign policy. Moreover it has been personified by its chief architect — Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. The strength of Churchill’s enchantment was to create a platform whereby subsequent generations of Britons regarded the special relationship with increasing fondness and in ever more monolithic terms. Yet — as successive historians have argued — the special relationship that Churchill sought to construct, with the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was neither monolithic nor harmonious. After all, American and British war aims were very different; nowhere was this more evident than in the Allied high-policy debate towards French Indo-China — modern Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.KeywordsSpecial RelationshipAmerican Foreign PolicySuccessive HistorianChief ArchitectLost OpportunityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.