American Secretary Research Articles

Denmark and Greenland: American defences and domestic agendas

As the first American Secretary of State ever to visit Greenland, Colin Powell on 6 August 2004 travelled to the remote village Igaliku, population 40. Seated outdoors in bright sunshine with a blu...

Communicating Liberty: The Newspapers of the British Empire as a Matrix for the American Revolution

Warner.communicating.liberty-1 Communicating Liberty: the Newspapers of the British Empire as a Matrix for the American Revolution William B. Warner “I beg your lordship’s permission to observe, and I do it with great concern, that this spirit of opposition to taxation and its consequences is so violent and so universal throughout America that I am apprehensive it will not be soon or easily appeased. The general voice speaks discontent… determined to stop all exports to and imports from Great Britain and even to silence the courts of law…foreseeing but regardless of the ruin that must attend themselves in that case, content to change a comfortable, for a parsimonious life,…” Lieutenant-Governor of South Carolina, Wm. Bull to Earl of Dartmouth, July 31, 1774. [Documents of the American Revolution, 1770-1783, Ed. K. G. Davies. (Dublin: Irish University Press, 1975) VIII: 1774, 154.] Momentous historical events often issue from a nexus of violence and communication. While American independence from Britain ultimately depended upon the spilling of blood on the battlefields of Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown, the successful challenge to the legitimacy of British rule in America was the culmination of an earlier communications war waged by American Whigs between the Stamp Act agitation of 1764-5 and the Coercive Acts of 1774. In response to the first of the Coercive acts--the Boston Port Bill--Boston Whigs secured a tidal wave of political and material support from throughout the colonies of British America. By the end of 1774, the American Secretary at Whitehall, Lord Dartmouth, was receiving reports from colonial Governors of North America, like the passage quoted above from the Lieutenant-Governor of South Caroline, William Bull. These official private letters to Whitehall confirmed a catastrophic unraveling of British authority in America: colonial legislatures

Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France (review)

Reviewed by: Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France John F. Votaw Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France. By Hugh S. Thompson. Edited, with an Introduction by Robert H. Ferrell. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58544-290-9. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Further reading. Index. Pp. xii, 205. $29.95. In 2008 ninety years will have passed since the guns fell silent in France at the conclusion of the First World War. The United States sent more than two million men and about 16,000 women to serve alongside the soldiers of the Allied nations in that war to end war. Second Lieutenant Hugh S. Thompson was one of those soldiers. He was born in 1893 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, educated for two years at the Citadel in South Carolina and assigned to Company L, 168th (formerly the 3rd Iowa) Infantry Regiment, 42nd "Rainbow" Division. The 42nd was a composite division formed from troops from twenty-six states and the District of Columbia. The division headquarters was established in France on 1 November 1917. The 42nd served in every major campaign of the AEF until the Armistice on Monday, 11 November 1918. The Rainbow Division's veterans made American Secretary of War Newton D. Baker an honorary member of the division after the war. The division history bears the banner "Americans All." It was with this famous and courageous unit that Lieutenant Hugh Thompson served with distinction. The editor is a skillful, experienced historian accustomed to working with military materials. He has allowed the voice of Lieutenant Thompson to clearly carry the story of one officer's service in the most trying days of his life in battle. However, this is not a history in the usual sense. It deals with the impressions of battle and recollections of Thompson's fellow officers and soldiers going about their duties in France, not the details of military operations. It is the war of squads and platoons, not brigades and divisions. After returning from the trenches near Badonviller in the Lorraine region in the early spring of 1918, Thompson observed: "The smell of animals, even the [End Page 588] luscious manure piles, was welcome after the stinking trenches" (p. 64). Seriously wounded in the St. Mihiel operation, he received medical care in several base hospitals in France and then returned to the United States for a long, painful recovery. He died in Darlington, South Carolina in 1961. Thompson relied upon a "sketchy diary," letters sent home to his family, and loaned items from friends to write his narrative, which was serialized in the Chattanooga Times in 1934. Memoirs written many years after events can be subject to clouded recollections and interventions of moral reservations. Thompson used fictitious names for some of his contemporaries "[f]or reasons of propriety." As a result, we learn of Captain Clifton, Lt. Colonel Townes and many soldiers by only their last names. The editor's end notes fill in some of the details of the organization of the Rainbow Division and the colloquialisms of the doughboys. An appendix with the division order of battle and the names of key commanders would have been helpful. A bit more detail on the maps would have allowed orientation as Thompson spun out his adventures. A number of excellent general and popular histories have appeared recently. Perhaps the best of the personal memoirs are George C. Marshall's Memoirs of My Services in the World War 1917-1918, published in 1976, and Joseph Dorst Patch's A Soldier's War, published in 1966. Lieutenant Thompson's memoir should be included in that group of high quality first person accounts. Texas A&M Press and Robert Ferrell have made a significant contribution to the literature of World War I, one that gives us authentic details of the human dimension of modern warfare. This book is informative for the casual reader of history who is interested in World War I, but it will be most useful for specialists eager to understand how combat in the Great War affected the doughboys of Uncle Sam's expeditionary army. John F. Votaw First...

'New' and 'Old Europe' in the Context of the Iraq War and its Implications for European Security

Abstract American secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld's characterisation in early 2003 of an ‘Old Europe’ and a ‘New Europe’, provides particular challenges when applied to the exploration of European security.The ‘New Europe’ is a very elusive concept. As far as the Iraq war is concerned, the ‘New European’ states have less in common than the US secretary of defence might have thoughtThis is indicated by an exploration of specific factors that have affected the attitudes of supposed ‘New European’ states towards the Iraq war in general, and towards their own security in particular. Slovenia is particularly interesting in this regard, as a country that found it especially hard to address the ‘New‐Old’ Europe dilemma. A theoretical framework for the analysis of this aspect of contemporary European diplomacy can be constructed on the basis of the two main positivist (rational) theories of International Relations: realism and liberalism, although neither offers any conclusive explanation of the post‐cold war division in Europe as constructed by Rumsfeld.

‘New’ and ‘old Europe’ in the context of the Iraq war and its implications for European security

American secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld's characterisation in early 2003 of an ‘Old Europe’ and a ‘New Europe’, provides particular challenges when applied to the exploration of European security.The ‘New Europe’ is a very elusive concept. As far as the Iraq war is concerned, the ‘New European’ states have less in common than the US secretary of defence might have thoughtThis is indicated by an exploration of specific factors that have affected the attitudes of supposed ‘New European’ states towards the Iraq war in general, and towards their own security in particular. Slovenia is particularly interesting in this regard, as a country that found it especially hard to address the ‘New‐Old’ Europe dilemma. A theoretical framework for the analysis of this aspect of contemporary European diplomacy can be constructed on the basis of the two main positivist (rational) theories of International Relations: realism and liberalism, although neither offers any conclusive explanation of the post‐cold war division in Europe as constructed by Rumsfeld.

Dominique de Villepin

Daniel Vernet directeur des relations internationales, Le Monde, Paris.Translated by Susan M. Murphy.IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD--or was it the deed? Dominique de Villepin hesitates between Saint John and Doctor Faust. For this French minister of foreign affairs, who arrived at the Quai d'Orsay after the defeat of the left in the spring 2002 elections, the word deed. One might expect a careful, polished discourse, the usual technocratic jargon, from any civil servant whose career had taken the traditional path of studies--brilliant ones, at that--to Paris's Institut d'etudes politiques (Sciences Po) and the Ecole nationale d'administration (ENA, the prestigious training ground for the country's governing elite, whose graduates are known as enarques). Nothing of the sort from Dominique de Villepin: before being an enarque and a diplomat, he a poet, a lover of words, a manipulator of lapidary phrases.Consider one example: Jacques Chirac, whom de Villepin has served since the end of the 1970s, found himself in difficulty over a potentially embarrassing videocassette relating to the Paris public markets. De Villepin rode to the rescue, turning to none other than the 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud, from whose works the foreign minister managed to dig up the adjective abracadabrantesque. And this precisely the word Chirac chose on national television to characterize the affair involving the markets, in a masterful display of obfuscation that made everyone forget what the affair was supposed to have been about in the first place--namely allegations concerning bribes and under-the-table financing of certain political parties. The incident reveals a Dominique de Villepin who never finds himself at a loss for an explanation, a figure of speech or a lesson from history, and as always with him, the epic competes with the lyrical. Asked, during a short visit to Poland, about agricultural subsidies to Poland and the other candidate countries for admission to the European Union, de Villepin took advantage of the setting, Warsaw's historic marketplace, to wax eloquent about the relationship between Napoleon and Maria Waleska. Let the Polish peasants figure that one out.Several minutes later he was on the phone with Colin Powell to put the finishing touches on what would become UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Did he inundate the American secretary of state with historico-cultural considerations pertaining to the Middle East, or haggle over every comma? His colleagues confirm his ability to switch registers as easily as he devours a book of poems or masters a difficult file. It very rare to meet a man such as him, who both a poet and a very good squadron commander. Yes, an excellent commando, declares Jacques Chirac himself, adding that one of de Villepin's qualities is his pace. For every page I read, he reads four.Any self-respecting French politician must show a penchant for things intellectual and have published at least one book (of which he may not necessarily be the author). In de Villepin's case, no one doubts the authorship. This the man who, while serving as secretary general of the Elysee Palace, a post demanding constant vigilance, found the time to write a history of the hundred days, Napoleon's brief return to power following his exile to Elba and preceding his defeat at Waterloo, and then followed this up with a political essay poetically entitled The Cry of the Gargoyle (Le Cri de la gargouille). Shortly after assuming his current job of foreign minister, he published a tome on poetry that ran to more than 800 pages, entitled (again a borrowing from Rimbaud) In Praise of Fire Thieves (Eloge des voleurs de feu). Far from being a simple anthology of French poetry such as Georges Pompidou produced prior to becoming prime minister under, and subsequently successor to, President Charles de Gaulle, de Villepin's was a work teeming with ideas, nourished by decades of reading. …

"Three Cheers for the Abolitionist Pope!": American Reaction to Gregory XVI's Condemnation of the Slave Trade, 1840-1860

In December, 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued In Supremo, an apostolic letter that condemned the slave trade the strongest possible terms. he published the statement at the prompting of the British government, which had been campaigning for years to bring the trade to an end. The British believed that a papal letter might persuade Spain and Portugal to enforce the laws against slave trafficking their domains, but it had little impact on either country. Instead, Gregory's pronouncement set off a debate both within and without the Catholic community the United States. During the 1840's and '50's, it twice surfaced during presidential campaigns, was hotly debated by supporters of the Irish Repeal1 movement, and was hailed by the abolitionist leader Wendell Phillips. Even the Catholic bishops, who were very wary about making political pronouncements, were drawn into the fray. Indeed, as the Church's ranks swelled through immigration from Ireland and to a lesser extent from German states and made it America's largest religion, arguments raged over what it really taught about slavery.2 All the way up until the Civil War, abolitionists repeatedly put forward Gregory's letter when trying to make the case that the Catholic Church opposed slavery while American Catholic leaders sought to interpret it a narrow fashion so as to minimize its significance. Enlisting the Pope In the 1830's, the British government was on a crusade to suppress the African slave trade.3 The British and the Americans had both outlawed the practice 1807, and France had followed suit 1818.4 At the Congress of Vienna 1815, the British had persuaded the other powers to sign a declaration against the slave trade, but it was vague and nonbinding.5 They then negotiated separate treaties with Spain and Portugal an effort to suppress it. By 1838 Lord Palmerston, the British foreign secretary, was growing impatient. Slaves were still being shipped by the thousands from Africa to Cuba and Brazil.6 Consequently, he looked to the United States and to the Papacy for help. He contacted the American ambassador to the Court of St. James, Andrew Stevenson, to see if the United States might be interested sponsoring a worldwide conference on the slave trade. Stevenson, a Virginia slaveholder, was not enthusiastic, but he duly passed on the proposal to the American secretary of State, John Forsyth, a Georgian, who was deeply suspicious of anything that smacked of abolition.7 Although opposed at least theory to the slave trade, Forsyth was not about to devote American resources to such a project. Palmerston had more reason for optimism with regard to the Papacy. In 1815 Pope Pius VII had issued a brief condemning the slave trade response to an appeal from the British foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh.8 InJuIy, 1839, Thomas Aubin, the British consul at Florence, wrote to the pope's secretary of state, Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini, asking for a declaration from the Holy see. Aubin noted that the British had been working for years to suppress the trade. While European countries had willingly co-operated with them, the British had trouble with certain countries which were in spiritual communion with the Holy see.9 Aubin was sure that a public declaration on this subject by the pope would be most advantageous to the cause of humanity and would render a great honor to the Roman government.10 When Gregory learned of Aubin's letter, he decided to put the matter before the cardinals who served the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.11 Before being elected pope 1831, Gregory had served for six years as prefect of Propaganda Fide, the curial congregation that oversaw Catholic missions all over the world. Keenly interested evangelizing Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Gregory was very much aware of the hardships that these peoples were enduring. No doubt the slave trade was of great concern to him. …

The Conditions for High and Stable Growth and Employment

I would like to thank the Royal Economic Society and the Scottish Economic Society for inviting me to speak today. It is a pleasure to be here in St Andrews to express my appreciation of the leading role that British economists, the Royal Economic Society and the Scottish Economic Society in particular have played over the years in the development of economic theory and practice. This paper discusses the conditions for stability and growth in the national and global economy, and the new policies, and new approaches being pursued in Britain and Europe to make stability the platform for high and stable levels of growth and employment. The paper includes an overview of the reforms to the international financial architecture being undertaken to improve the prospects worldwide for prosperity and growth. These discussions of the conditions for stability and growth should not be seen as a retreat into treating economics as a dismal science. Let me begin by affirming the high ideals and public purpose which ushered in the post war economic era and which, for economic policy makers, characterised the creation of the IMF and World Bank, as well as the domestic ambitions of post-1945 governments, and these ideals underlie our Government's aims for British economic policy. Indeed when the Bretton Woods conference met in 1945 it defined a new public purpose characterised by high ideals. Economics was about more than exchange rates, the mechanics of financial arrangements or even new institutions. At the very start of the opening session, the American Secretary of State said that: 'Prosperity like peace is indivisible. We cannot afford to have it scattered here or there amongst the fortunate or enjoy it at the expense of others ... prosperity has no fixed limits it is not a finite substance to be diminished by division. On the contrary the more of it that other nations enjoy the more each nation will have for itself . . .' The post-war arrangements were founded on the belief that public action on a new and wider stage could advance a new and worldwide public purpose of high ideals rooted in social justice. The aim was to achieve prosperity for all by each co-operating with every other. This meant new international rules of the game that involved a commitment to high levels of growth and employment. In short, the job of every economy was to create jobs for all. To seek in our generation the high ideals of the 1940s requires four conditions for high levels of growth and employment to be met:

Alfred Mordecai (1804–1887): A brief account of his report, Military Commission to Europe 1855–1856: II

Short descriptions are given of most of the 12 Parts of the Report made to the American Secretary of War of the findings of the Military Commission to Europe — France, Prussia, England, Austria, Russia and Italy — conducted in 1855–1856 by Major Alfred Mordecai.

Poetry and Alaska : William Henry Seward's Alaskan Purchase and Bret Harte's "An Arctic Vision"

On 30 March 1867, William Henry Seward, American Secretary of State (1861-69), provoked controversy both at home and abroad by signing the treaty that ceded Russian America to the United States. On the East Coast of America, reactions to the newly renamed Alaska were coloured by a personal antipathy towards Seward and the administration that he served. British considered the cession unfriendly towards their ongoing foreign policy of Canadian confederation in British North America. Geographically, Alaska, now under United States control, lay menacingly adjacent to the west and north of British Columbia. This potentially vulnerable British colony, which had not then entered the Canadian Confederation, quickly became the focus of conflicting territorial ambitions. For Britain, British Columbia would supply Canada with a much-needed Pacific coastline, while for Seward, it would link Alaska and Washington Territory to form a continuous Pacific coastline for the United States. For ten fraught days, Seward fought to ratify the Alaska treaty. On the West Coast, where the economic benefits of Alaska's purchase were more immediate, Seward won the approval of the popular press. Among his less likely supporters was the American writer and journalist (Francis) Bret Harte, author of such stories of mining life as The Luck of Roaring Camp, and conventionally thought to be a writer of western literature, turned the attention northward with a poem entitled An Arctic Vision.

Christopher's First Tour of Sub-Saharan Africa Features Proposal for African Crisis Response Force

I think the Secretary of State is going to set the all-time distance record for any American Secretary of State on this trip. He has been busy over the last three years, circumnavigating the globe on a variety of issues.

In Memoriam: Joseph R. Murphy, 1925-1992

Joseph Robison Murphy was born 14 June 1925 in Salt Lake City, Utah and died of complications from prostate cancer in Yorba Linda, California, 17 June 1992. Joe spent most of his early life in Long Beach, California. His early college education was at Brigham Young University and it was there, after a Ph.D. from and a teaching stint at the University of Nebraska (1951-1960), that he spent most of his professional life. He served in the Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater at Okinawa during World War II. Joe was trained as an ecologist. His dissertation work was on the fauna and flora of hot sulphur pools in Yellowstone National Park. It was in the Park, working as a ranger-naturalist (1950-63), and as a seasonal summer ranger at Grand Teton National Park (1987-1991), that Joe was really in his element. His easy manner with people, his deep booming voice, his extemporaneous speaking ability, and his ability to lead discussions made him a favorite not only in the parks but with colleagues and students. Joe was among the most widely read of academics I have met. While he was not a Renaissance man in every sense of the word, he did give those who were a run for their money. He could discuss history, steam locomotives, Middle Eastern politics, and biology with equal ease and knowledge. His courses in the history of biology and human anatomy were exceptional and popular. Some of Joe's early ornithological publications concerned colonial nesting birds and the Bald Eagle in Yellowstone Park. Perhaps it was as a result of the Bald Eagle work that Joe's research emphasis shifted mainly to raptors. Most of his 20 or so graduate students worked on raptors, particularly the Bald Eagle. He served as president of The Raptor Research Foundation from 1975 to 1978, and as an editor of the journal of Raptor Research. He became an Elective Member of the AOU in 1985. He also served as the North American Secretary for the World Working Group on Birds of Prey, International Council on Bird Preservation, for several years in the 1970s. One of his last ornithological contributions (Condor 89:205-229, 1987) stemmed from his membership on the Scientific Advisory Panel on the Spotted Owl. He collaborated on research projects with many international colleagues, especially those working on eagles in Australia. His many consulting jobs with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service usually revolved around the status of eagles or raptors that were rare, threatened, or endangered. Joe's teaching assignments were as diverse as his knowledge of subjects. He was a favorite among undergraduates. In 1965, he was Honors Professor of the Year, an award given by the University to the outstanding professor teaching in the honors program. In 1967, he received the Maeser Teaching Award, the most prestigious teaching award that Brigham Young University grants. Soon after his early retirement from the University in 1985, his cancer began to give him trouble and he moved to California where he then remarried. He is survived by his wife and five children.

Islam and World History

The Western Scheme for the Periodization of HistoryAmong the greatest problems met with in historical work generally isthe frequent inability of the historian to liberate himself/herself from hidherown immediate background and environment and to cultivate a sense ofdetachment. Yet such detachment is necessary, for even if it will not leadto true objectivity, it will at least help produce more accurate results.Unfortunately, this detachment is the most difficult to achieve in preciselythose areas of the biggest, most familiar, and hence most importantassumptions. When these are skewed from the beginning, the entire thoughtprocess becomes skewed as well, with the result that all subsequent workis affected.This lack of detachment is outstandingly demonstrated by the ubiquitousWestern loyalty to a Eurocentric categorization and subdivision of world historythat informs virtually all Western historical thought. Dividing all of humanhistory into ancient, medieval, and modern periods revolving around WesternEurope, this schematization is promoted as if it were the final, fair, andobjective system for explaining all of history. It is then applied with thethoroughness one associates with state ideologies. All American students aretaught the tripartite ancient - medieval -modern scheme in high school. Itis also the basis for most history courses at the university level. Professorialappointments depend on it and thus do not encourage their holders to rebelagainst it. Textbook companies resist changing it because books holding tothis scheme are demanded by schools, colleges, and universities. Even theultraconservative American secretary of education, William Bennett, in 1988promoted this Western historical scheme and bemoaned its supposed decline.The Western schematization of world history is, in short, a hallowed traditionwhich it is difficult to ignore and still harder to break away from ...

Taking the Pledge: Oliver Franks and the Negotiation of the North Atlantic Treaty

In March 1949, with its text published and its signature imminent, the North Atlantic Treaty and the relationships it implied gave rise to an official State Department joke. It was the story of Anna Pauker, Communist foreign minister of Romania, who ventured out with an umbrella overhead on a beautiful day in Bucharest. "But Anna," one of her friends protested, "it isn't raining." "It is in Moscow," she replied. There followed, for the uninitiated, an official State Department explanation. "The United States, like Russia, has emerged from the war in a position of world leadership. One important difference, however, is the fact that we do not expect the French foreign minister to walk with an umbrella in the Paris sunshine because it is raining in Washington."1 Not the least remarkable aspect of the strange and wonderful process by which the North Atlantic Treaty was negotiated was its capacity to amuse. Some of this was unintentional. The initial phase of the negotiations was coyly camouflaged as the Washington Exploratory Talks on Security. Under this threadbare cover the ambassadors of Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the Benelux countries found themselves locked in seemingly interminable negotiations with the American secretary of state from 6 July 1948 until the business was finally concluded on 4 April 1949. The transcripts of these meetings are preserved in the archives. They are irresistibly ironic, purporting to be unedited even as they mark, straightfaced, the regular interludes in which the participants go literally off the record.2 The fundamental American concern about the nature of the U.S. commitment to a collective defense is described, rather presciently one might think, as atomic not automatic. The mysterious Mr. Cannon at some of the early meetings turns out to be that well-known contortionist George Kennan, who proceeded, as if in defiance of this sobriquet, to dispute the relevance of a military alliance and dissent from full U.S. membership in it.

Japanese-Soviet Relations in the Early Gorbachev Era

Research Article| November 01 1987 Japanese-Soviet Relations in the Early Gorbachev Era Chalmers Johnson Chalmers Johnson Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Far Eastern Survey (1958) 27 (11): 1145–1160. https://doi.org/10.2307/2644719 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Chalmers Johnson; Japanese-Soviet Relations in the Early Gorbachev Era. Far Eastern Survey 1 November 1958; 27 (11): 1145–1160. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2644719 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1987 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Mission as Seen from Geneva: A Conversation with Eugene L. Stockwell

Eugene L. Stockwell is Director of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where his father was studying theology, and was raised from the age of three in Argentina, where his father served as president of Union Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires. As a young man Stockwell studied and practiced law before deciding to enter Union Theological Seminary (New York) and the ministry. He and his wife worked as United Methodist missionaries for ten years in Uruguay, from 1952 to 1962. This was followed by two years as Latin American Secretary of the Methodist Board of Missions and then eight years as Assistant General Secretary for Program Administration. In 1972 Stockwell became Associate General Secretary for Overseas Ministries of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. He took up his present responsibilities in Geneva in 1984. While visiting at the Overseas Ministries Study Center recently, Stockwell shared some of his thoughts on developments and directions in world mission with Editor Gerald H. Anderson and Research Assistant Robert T. Coote of the International Bulletin.

Henry Stimson's opposition to American Jews and Zionism

Henry Stimson, American Secretary of War during the Second World War, though not a rabid antisemite, strenuously opposed allowing Jewish war refugees into the US and objected strongly to American recognition of the Jewish right to a state in Palestine.

The Parity That Meant Superiority: French Naval Policy towards Italy at the Washington Conference, 1921-22, and Interwar French Foreign Policy

On December 16, 1921, Charles Evans Hughes (and President Warren Harding) pressed Aristide Briand to accept the famous 5, 5, 3, 1.75, 1.75 ratio on capital ships already reached by the United States, Great Britain, and Japan at the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament. France and Italy had been assigned the lower figures. Warning the French premier that the success of the entire conference hinged on his decision, the American secretary of state suggested that France ought to reconstruct its economy and country rather than build battleships-a threat from France's major creditor.' Briand and other French leaders responded positively as long as French demands in lighter ships (cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and others) were respected. Furthermore, although

Edmund Burke, Economical Reform, and the Board of Trade, 1777-1780

Little attempt has been made by historians to inquire into the motivation behind the particulars of the Economical Reform movement which seemed, like a storm, to arise suddenly in 1779, blew steadily through the early '80s, and then died away as a discernible movement in the mid-'80s. Recent contributions have modified the earlier Whig picture of the movement as a wholly spontaneous, altruistic, patriotic response to corrupt opposition politics and to the stock opposition program, dating back to the early eighteenth century and beyond.1 Than an unsuccessful war, a bumbling ministry, a frustrated opposition, and the popular political turbulence of the 1760s should produce such a movement is not surprising; nor is it surprising that the opposition should grasp the opportunity to embarrass and weaken the government. Tfhat is surprising is that so little has been done to examine the details of the program put forward in 1780 and largely enacted in 1782 and thereafter. What specialized studies have been undertaken examine the effects of Economical Reform legislation rather than focusing on the origins of it.2 From a party standpoint the major targets of Edmund Burke's first effort at reform were well chosen: the royal household, suspect in Rockinghamite eyes since the accession of George III, and the American Secretary, Lord George Germain. The mysteries of royal finance could easily be given a sinister and politically advantageous twist by those who, for more than a decade, believed that secret service money and royal pensions were the wellspring of unconstitutional influence. Germain, personally unpopular as well as unsuccessful, had a particularly exploitable past; his phoenix-like rise to the secretaryship could be portrayed easily as an example of the excesses of royal power and influence.3 The inclusion of the Board of Trade as a candidate for abolition in Burke's 1780 Bill, alongside the inevitable placemen and the vulnerable Germain, is less understandable. Although abolition of the Board would eliminate eight administrative positions tenurable with a seat in the Commons--a major aim of Burke's Gill--and would save a little over L11,000, these figures appear paltry beside the fifty placemen and B200,000 saving which Burke

NIGERIA, THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTHERN AFRICA

RELATIONS BETWEEN Lagos and Washington were decidedly cool from 1966 until about September 1977. The main source of disagreement between the two countries had been what appropriate policies should be adopted towards the white supremacist regimes in Southern Africa,' although there were other reasons such as the refusal of the US Administration not only to sell arms to the Federal Military Government during the Nigerian civil war (1967-70) but also to permit, if not to connive at, the massive pro-' Biafra' propaganda campaign during and after the war, as well as the tough and the uncompromizing style of the Nixon-Ford Administrations in dealing with Third World countries. The American importation of chrome from Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) until the repeal of the Byrd Amendment led to an anti-American outburst in Nigeria. Similarly, the Ford note to all the OAU member states on the eve of the extraordinary summit meeting of African leaders in Addis Ababa early in January 1977, designed to influence their attitudes to the Angolan imbroglio, provoked bitter official attack against the US by the then Nigerian Head of State, General Murtala Muhammed, who described the note as 'an insult to the African leaders'. The tragic assassination of General Muhammed on 13 February 1976 during the abortive coup of Lt.-Col. B. S. Dimka led to anti-American demonstrations by university students in Lagos and other parts of the Federation, with the positive encouragement of the Federal Military Government which rightly or wrongly suspected the involvement of the CIA in the attempted coup. On two occasions, the FMG under General Olusegun Obasanjo refused to allow Dr Henry Kissinger, the then American Secretary of State, to visit Lagos during his shuttle diplomacy over Southern Africa late in 1976. Indeed, in October 1976, the Obasanjo regime rejected the Anglo-American proposals for the settlement of the Rhodesian crisis.2 Yet within a year of this series of unfriendly episodes American-Nigerian relations had become so relaxed that in October 1977 General Obasanjo paid the first state visit by any Nigerian Head of State to the US since independence. A return state visit to Nigeria by President Carter, the first by an incumbent