The Paris Embassy

British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations 1944–79

R. Pastor-Castro, J. Young, R. Pastor-Castro, J. Young

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781349337132, 9780230301559
• eBook ISBN: 9781137318299
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This collection of essays looks at Anglo-French relations from the Second World War to the advent of Margaret Thatcher's government in a new light, focusing on the work of Britain's ambassadors to France. In particular, it looks at moves towards deeper European integration, a key theme in twentieth century British foreign policy.

1

Alfred Duff Cooper, 1944–47

Edward Hampshire

On 4 June 1940, as the last British troops were evacuated from Dunkirk, diplomats were busily burning confidential papers on the manicured lawns behind the British embassy in the Rue de Faubourg St. Honoré. One of those watching was Alfred ‘Duff’ Cooper, the recently appointed Minister for Information in Winston Churchill’s new coalition government.¹ A few days later, the building had been emptied of people, except for two caretakers, and its furniture labelled and piled up on the ground floor, under dustsheets. It would be over four years before British diplomats reoccupied Britain’s oldest and grandest permanent embassy building. Duff Cooper, who had the honour of returning to a liberated Paris as the British ambassador, was an unusual holder of that post in that he was a career politician, rather than a diplomat, and one with a mixed record of achievement. His passionate advocacy of greater Anglo–French cooperation, coupled with his and his wife’s glamorous and sometimes controversial social life, made his embassy not only high profile at the time, but also much written about by historians since. What were Cooper’s achievements and how successful was his time in post?

Duff Cooper

Duff Cooper, the son of a wealthy society surgeon, had been educated at Eton and New College, Oxford. He joined the Foreign Office (FO) in 1913, but was called up in 1917 and he served with distinction, earning a DSO for single-handedly taking a German machine-gun nest. In 1919, he married the society beauty Lady Diana Manners. She would be a constant, if not uncontroversial, companion: a great hostess and socialiser, who ensured that Cooper’s career was always conducted in style. After the war, Cooper entered politics as a Conservative MP and held his first junior government post in 1928. He served in the cabinet from 1935, first as Secretary of State for War, and later as First Lord of the Admiralty. Cooper, who was always known as ‘Duff’, a childhood nickname, was a fine orator and writer but, as his biographer acknowledges, his ability and patience to deal with administrative matters was not great.² Cooper’s opposition to Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement of Germany led to increasing isolation and finally, following the Munich agreement, resignation. Returning to the backbenches, Cooper became a vocal critic of the government’s foreign policy and part of the circle of anti-appeasers coalescing around Winston Churchill. When Churchill became Prime Minister, Cooper returned to government as Minister for Information. Despite his undoubted communication skills, he was not a great success. His unwillingness to deal with the administrative challenges of a new department meant that he failed to make it work effectively or give it much needed direction.³

In July 1941, Churchill eased Cooper out of the Ministry and into the position of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, giving him rather undefined responsibility for the Far East and Singapore. Based in the region from September onwards, Cooper, partly due to the vagueness of his brief and perhaps a fondness for the social side of his responsibilities, was never able to stamp his authority on the civil and military leadership in Singapore. When the Japanese attacked Malaya, the governor of the Straits Settlements (which included Singapore) and the local commander-in-chief refused to take orders from Cooper, and the Minister’s belated attempts to coordinate defence were fruitless. Cooper left Singapore in January 1942, after General Archibald Wavell was sent to coordinate its defence. The city fell to the Japanese a month later.⁴ Despite his stellar pre-war career, Cooper was now perceived, fairly or not, to have failed in two important and responsible wartime positions. His unwillingness to grasp the nettle of the administrative hard-graft of both roles had been part of the problem. It had been darkly hinted by some that high living, an increasing fondness for drink and the perceived influence of his wife had also contributed to the lack of success. While Cooper retained his post as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he was given little to do.

Algiers and the western bloc concept

Throughout the autumn of 1943, Churchill and Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, considered what to do with Cooper. The Prime Minister was eager that his loyal supporter should have a post that reflected his skills, but Eden and his private secretary, Oliver Harvey, were not keen on Cooper taking up a junior ministerial post at the FO, warning that he did not have the administrative capacity. The post of ambassador to Rome was considered, before all three agreed on offering Cooper the post of British representative – at ambassadorial rank – to the French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL), based in Algiers. The FCNL, led by General Charles de Gaulle, was the umbrella body for those French organisations opposed to the Germans and to and the collaborationist Vichy regime. To Eden and Harvey, the appointment seemed a good one: Cooper was an avowed Francophile, would have few administrative responsibilities and, as a confidant of Churchill, might be able to mollify his increasing aversion to the abrasive de Gaulle.⁵ Churchill had some qualms about Cooper’s enthusiasm for de Gaulle (even though he told Cooper to gain the confidence of the General) and instructed Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Under-Secretary of the FO, to disabuse the new representative of such notions.⁶ Cooper arrived in Algiers in January 1944 and, while he and Lady Diana adjusted to the temporary lack of some basic amenities such as hot water, he was immediately immersed into the seemingly unending battle to prevent Anglo–French relations from breaking down. Both de Gaulle and Churchill went through episodes of being deeply offended by the actions and supposed slights of the other. In the first few days, Cooper successfully salvaged a meeting between the two, after Churchill threatened not to meet de Gaulle because the latter vetoed the visit of another French general who the Prime Minister had invited to Algiers.⁷ Cooper was also successful at maintaining decent personal relations with de Gaulle, much to the distaste of Churchill. This relationship had its advantages during the regular crises, the most serious being just before D-Day, when de Gaulle threatened to withdraw French liaison officers from the invading forces. Cooper was able to calm de Gaulle, and eventually persuade him not to withdraw his officers.⁸

As Allied Forces advanced and Paris was liberated, thoughts turned to the re-establishment of the British embassy. It had been indicated to Cooper, when he became the representative in Algiers, that this post would be likely to transform into that of ambassador.⁹ Cooper’s performance in Algiers, although he had managed to irritate Churchill with his supposed siding with de Gaulle, had been a success from the perspective of Eden and the FO, so Cooper was the natural choice as the new ambassador. But, before turning to the re-establishment of the embassy, it is essential to analyse the ‘Duff Cooper despatch’ on a potential ‘western bloc’ in Europe, which has been regarded as one of the earliest articulations by a British official of a western alliance with an Anglo–French agreement at its heart. Its significance and impact has also been contested by historians, but it clearly marked out Cooper’s views and set the tone of ambassadorship.¹⁰ An Anglo–French treaty and following that, the creation of a broader western bloc, would be a recurring objective of British policy over the following years and the signature of such a treaty was arguably Cooper’s major achievement in his post.

In what John Charmley calls ‘one of the last great state papers of British diplomacy’ Cooper, in late May 1944, wrote a thirteen-page despatch to London.¹¹ It proposed the creation post-war of an Anglo–French alliance around which a wider western European alliance of democracies could be created, to defend against a Soviet Union that would inevitably dominate a post-Nazi Europe. Its rhetoric was at times soaring and its canvas was broad – moving from advances in the speed of travel between the Romans and the age of airpower, to the rapid increase in the destructive power of weapons and explosives. Cooper argued that it would only be through creating a political association, and eventually an economic alliance, that Europe and Britain could hold their own against the United States and the Soviet Union, post-war.¹² Eden replied on the 11 July, nearly six weeks later, with a response that was lukewarm and non-committal.¹³ This was taken by Cooper at the time, and partly re-iterated by his biographer, to confirm a lack of FO interest in developing an association of western European states. John Young, conversely, has argued that Cooper’s despatch did have a significant impact and that helped launch the concept of a western bloc.¹⁴ However, the situation was more complex than either of these analyses suggests. To comprehend the disappointing response from the FO, it must be understood that not only was Cooper unlucky in that his despatch arrived at an unpropitious time – both from the perspective of the military situation and within the context of pre-existing discussions on just such a concept – but also that it became part of a bureaucratic tangle involving Eden, Harvey and Gladwyn Jebb, the head of the FO’s Reconstruction Department. In addition, the despatch’s anti-Soviet tone did not help Cooper’s argument gain what in a later age might have been called ‘traction’. The Chiefs of Staff (COS) were, like Cooper, suspicious of Soviet intentions and, before the year was out, willing to countenance re-arming the Germans against them. From the FO perspective, this anti-Soviet stance needed combating as long as the war ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1 Alfred Duff Cooper, 1944–47
• 2 Oliver Harvey, 1948–54
• 3 Gladwyn Jebb, 1954–60
• 4 Pierson Dixon, 1960–65
• 5 Patrick Reilly, 1965–68
• 6 Christopher Soames, 1968–72
• 7 Edward Tomkins, 1972–75
• 8 Nicholas Henderson, 1975–79
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Structure of Staff in the Paris Embassy, 1965
• Further Reading
• Index