Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration, 1945-63.

Doerr, Paul

Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration, 1945-63, by Wolfram Kaiser. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1996. xviii, 274 pp. $59.95.

This book represents a particularly weighty contribution to the slowly burgeoning literature on European integration. Kaiser's study covers British policy towards European integration from 1945 to 1963 in considerable detail, but the major focus is on the doomed application to the European Economic Community in 1961. British government files comprise the key source material, supplemented by a full range of secondary sources, private papers, and a few interviews. The, author's writing style can most charitably be described as workmanlike.

Despite some quibbles and differences in emphasis, this book fits comfortably into the mainstream of historical writing on Britain and European integration. Following the Second World War, British foreign policy was dominated by the "three circles" concept. Both Labour and Conservatives thought that Britain occupied a mediating position between the United States, Western Europe, and the Commonwealth. Such a unique position justified Britain's claim as a major power. The three circles concept remained dominant in British thinking through much of the 1950s, evidently surviving even Suez. Kaiser points out that the British government is often accused of having "missed the bus" after the crucial Messina conference of 1955 (which initiated discussions that led to the Rome treaty of 1957). Such an argument is un-historical, since "it was not at all clear in 1955 that the bus ... was actually roadworthy, nor that driver and passengers would be able to avoid a major diplomatic accident on the way. In 1955 not all roads led to Rome" (p. 54). Subsequent British efforts to avoid being shut out of the Common Market (such as the Free Trade Area plan of 1956-57, or attempts to link the European Free Trade Association with "the Six"), proved makeshift and futile.

The key chapter in the book deals with the British application to the E.E.C., a process finally vetoed by de Gaulle in 1963. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan suspected that the bid would fail, but pressed ahead regardless. Macmillan thought that an E.E.C. application would gain favour with the United States, since he could now refute charges that Britain was obstructing European integration. Domestic political calculations were also crucial. The Conservatives were in serious trouble politically, and Macmillan hoped that an E.E.C. application would enable the Conservatives to portray themselves as economic modernizers. It also might provoke a split in the opposition Labour party. The E.E.C. bid did not save the Conservatives in the 1964 general election, but the payoff in relations with the Americans was immediate.

Much of this will sound familiar to students and historians of post-war Europe. The author does justifiably make the claim to having adopted a wider perspective, along with "a more differentiated analysis," both made possible by access to archival sources. There is certainly no shortage of detail; this book contains many lengthy discussions of diplomatic dead ends. Coverage of Danish bacon exports and the minutiae of 1950s British trade policies are there for one and all. In the late 1950s British relations with the E.E.C. moved out of the confines of government corridors and into the larger realm of public debate. This broadening of the story is welcome, and Kaiser has little trouble managing the transition.

Macmillan and the Foreign Office emerge from this book in a particularly poor light. The Foreign Office was staffed by a "special elite" of Oxbridge graduates who "were educated to rule the Empire and not to manage its disintegration or search for a new role for Britain in the world" (p. 41). The Foreign Office, Kaiser charges, exhibited "departmental arrogance" and consistently manipulated government policy, running roughshod over the Treasury and the Board of Trade. (One wonders how the Foreign Office recovered so much power and prestige after bottoming out in the 1930s). Macmillan is portrayed as slippery, frequently duplicitous, and prone to self-delusion, a man for whom "continued world power" for Britain was more important than "cheap eggs for breakfast" (p. 141).

The last chapter is the most useful for non-specialists. Here we find an impressive discussion of the debates within the Conservative party on European integration. Kaiser's coverage of the Conservative party is a strong point of the book. Presumably this volume went to press before the most recent general election, but Labour will not have it any easier. Kaiser calculates that the Labour party has changed policy direction on Europe five times since 1961.

Paul Doerr Acadia University