Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In the spring of 1954 the war in Vietnam between the French and the communist-led Vietminh came to a head. With French forces reeling, the United States prepared to intervene militarily to prevent the further spread of communism. Turning to its allies, first and foremost Britain, to join in what the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called a 'united action' coalition. Far from agreeing to participate in a coalition, the British government set out to frustrate US military plans and to work instead for a peaceful negotiated resolution.
Ultimately fearing eruption of a Third World War from US intervention, the British envoy led by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden managed to broker a peaceful outcome. Professors Kevin Ruane and Matthew Jones chart the history of this last occasion when British diplomacy played a key if not decisive role in resolving a fundamental issue of war and peace. Eden's diplomatic victory over the Americans in 1954 is nearly always overshadowed by the catastrophic political outcome for Britain and Eden in the Suez Crisis two year later.
This book, however, seeks to counter some of the retrospective blight that Suez has cast over his pre-1956 career and realign Eden's reputation with a more balanced perspective, taking a larger view of his influence on peace in Southeast Asia.
Synopsis
In the spring of 1954, after eight years of bitter fighting, the war in Vietnam between the French and the communist-led Vietminh came to a head. With French forces reeling, the United States planned to intervene militarily to shore-up the anti-communist position. Turning to its allies for support, first and foremost Great Britain, the US administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower sought to create what Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called a "united action" coalition. In the event, Winston Churchill's Conservative government refused to back the plan. Fearing that US-led intervention could trigger a wider war in which the United Kingdom would be the first target for Soviet nuclear attack, the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, was determined to act as Indochina peacemaker - even at the cost of damage to the Anglo-American "special relationship".
In this important study, Kevin Ruane and Matthew Jones revisit a Cold War episode in which British diplomacy played a vital role in settling a crucial question of international war and peace. Eden's diplomatic triumph at the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina is often overshadowed by the 1956 Suez Crisis which led to his political downfall. This book, however, recalls an earlier Eden: a skilled and experienced international diplomatist at the height of his powers who may well have prevented a localised Cold War crisis escalating into a general Third World War.