10 Another Harold

The Wizard, a popular comic, featured the adventures of Wilson the Wonder Athlete, a homespun, elixir-drinking superman who emerged from the Yorkshire moors to break athletic records, including a three-minute mile, and become the first to climb Everest.

Is the Labour leader ripe for rehabilitation? Not quite. Wilson condemned the Macmillan government’s ‘inept handling of Anglo–French relations’ while displaying equal ineptness.2 This chapter advances three arguments. First, Wilson’s failure was primarily self-inflicted, not the work of a Gallic marplot. Britain needed French sponsorship but offered no incentives. Rather than woo the gatekeeper, policy-makers tried to outflank him. Second, demonizing the general has obscured his friendliness and efforts to reach out. Third, the Wilson government’s refusal to negotiate a new cross-channel relationship delayed entry into Europe until 1973. Downing Street’s disinclination to prepare party and public drained away support for membership. The Labour government of 1966–70 left Whitehall unprepared for an effective post-entry presence in Brussels. Labour’s European policy seeded Euroscepticism and Brexit.

When historian Robert Paxton left the University of California Berkeley in 1966 students gave him a dartboard with General de Gaulle for bull’s eye. ‘The French President was seen as an old man, harbouring the resentments of twenty five years earlier,’ wrote Wilson’s press secretary, ‘taking slow, deliberate and repeated revenge for the affronts dealt to him when he was wartime irritant to Churchill and Roosevelt’.

Labour’s talk of opening moves betrayed inexperience and the absence of hard thinking about a reconciliation with France. Apart from affirming a desire for a better understanding, the government had no proposals. The 100 days began ominously with the government scoring an own goal, angering France and Britain’s EFTA trading partners. Pleading financial necessity Wilson sought cancellation of the Anglo–French agreement of 1962 on the supersonic airliner Concord – Whitehall spelling without an ‘e’ – and illegally slapped a 15 per cent surcharge on imports – a hefty blow for the smaller EFTA economies. Aviation Minister Roy Jenkins flew to Paris to negotiate Concord’s cancellation. Warned by the FO to expect an ‘atmosphere of cold enmity’, Jenkins found his opposite number ‘friendly throughout’. It was Britain’s ambassador who caused displeasure by serving a lightly corked wine at lunch. The Concorde agreement’s status as a full-blown treaty gave the French the upper hand and Wilson surrendered.4

Talk of bridge-building and fresh starts in Europe grabbed headlines, but ran into trouble – which bridges? which starts? A UK negotiator found the process of establishing closer EFTA/EEC links ‘a peculiarly dispiriting one’ – since EFTA was a free trade area and the EEC a customs union, there were ‘no common policies’ to facilitate bridge-building. Discussions perforce focused on cooperation in ‘highly technical areas such as patents and customs facilitation’.5

The emphasis on rapprochement evoked a warm response from the French president.

De Gaulle blessed the warmer relationship, assuring his London ambassador that the two countries ‘will walk together’. An Elysee press conference confirmed the new direction: ‘there are no mountains between England and France.’ True, information minister Peyrefitte recorded the general lambasting Wilson: ‘a madcap … wants to make mischief … he beats on every drum … they have only wimps leading them, starting with the socialists. And they are under America’s heel.’ But de Gaulle expressed confidence in the UK’s future – Britons had too much energy and vitality to accept an American empire. Revival would come though ‘no one can say when’. Actions speak louder than words. Rather than exploit UK troubles the president instructed: ‘above all, don’t say anything which might seem to overwhelm them. You can see that they are down on their luck. When we were in a worse state after the collapse they still supported us.’ To be sure, tactical reasons in part motivated benevolence. The ‘empty chair’ crisis within the Community from July 1965 made a friendly Britain desirable, and Wilson’s denial of interest in Community membership reassured the Elysee. Affability had limits – the general refused support for a beleaguered pound in September 1965.7

The sequel to the conversation at Churchill’s funeral was a full-dress Paris summit on 2–3 April 1965, the first top-level get-together since the Macmillan–de Gaulle encounter at Rambouillet in December 1962.

Within weeks Stewart returned to the charge. The Community’s growing strength might well push the Commonwealth and United States into dealing separately with the Six, bypassing the United Kingdom: ‘this is the time to resume our rightful place on the European stage and set about helping Europe towards a better relationship with the United States within the Atlantic Alliance.’ The Paris embassy added its ha’penny – ‘the mere fact’ of Wilson going to Paris would be interpreted as a success for France. ‘The principal French objective is to show to the world … that Britain’s exclusion is now accepted by the British as a permanent feature of the landscape.’ The embassy belittled expressions of Elysee goodwill, discounting as classic de Gaulle a ‘friendly and relaxed’ general’s ‘little speech about his respect and liking for the British people’.9

French distrust matched British suspicions. Wormser, director of economic and financial affairs at the Quai, pulled no punches. After trying to scapegoat France for the failure of the 1961 bid Britain had adopted a more nuanced approach, combining a strong presence in European institutions like the Council of Europe with efforts to reinvigorate EFTA.

At the conference’s opening session on 2 April de Gaulle offered a cue, asking ‘whether the Prime Minister wished to talk about Europe – the Common Market was making progress.’ Wilson batted away the suggestion, staying with East–West relations and Vietnam; Stewart, closeted separately with foreign minister Couve, provided easier prey. Did Britain intend to enter the Common Market? queried Couve. Unrehearsed, the foreign secretary improvised disastrously. A blame game erupted about responsibilities for the 1963 veto. Stewart insisted that the French had changed their tune – now singling out Britain’s agricultural policy after previously citing the special relationship as the chief obstacle. Overnight, the premier got his lines together and took the lead, enquiring ‘How de Gaulle viewed developments in Europe, both in the Common Market and more widely. In his view it was important to make the point that the Six were not the whole of Europe’. Wilson fenced off the question of British membership: ‘Britain would always be prepared to talk about joining on terms which would reconcile her national and Commonwealth interests … it could not be said that that situation obtained today.’11

France’s ambassador in London recalled the premier saying, ‘Personally, the Common Market is of no interest to me. What we must do is set up Anglo–French co-operation’. But No. 10 did not field anything new. Provision for regular consultations at ministerial and senior official level, and the creation of cultural hubs, would have energized the connection.

De Gaulle left the door ajar for further contacts: ‘the briefing about the talks, both from the Elysee and the Quai d’Orsay’, acknowledged Wilson, was ‘unusually friendly’. The tensions that climaxed in the Community ‘empty chair’ crisis of July 1965 were already evident, as indeed was France’s disappointment with the results of the Franco–German Treaty of 1963. Determined to oppose supranational trends de Gaulle withdrew French representation from the Community’s Council of Ministers. West Germany’s reassertion of ties to the United States disappointed the Elysee. By contrast, Britain opposed supranationalism and offered a credible counterweight to Germany. With presidential elections for a second term upcoming in December 1965 a Downing Street probe might have paid off. True, the couple differed over European unity – an Atlanticist Europe vs. a Gaullist European Europe, but this did not stop Conservative prime minister Heath and President Georges Pompidou agreeing British entry to the Community in 1971–2. Significantly, during the April talks de Gaulle stressed the couple’s agreement on fundamentals, despite differences of approach to international issues.13

Friendliness was no flash in the pan. The president remained affable and approachable through 1965. Peyrefitte called for France and Britain to draw closer and ‘build a future based on exchanges, cooperation and friendship’. Encouraging noises came from other French government sources. ‘Remarks which, in other circumstances, might appear conventional’, stressed Le Monde, acquired in the Empty Chair crisis ‘a new significance’. Britain’s official history – without citing evidence – shrugs off the episode: ‘there appears to have been little more to this flurry than a desire to signal to France’s partners that there were other fish than them in the sea’. Quizzed in July 1965 by former Conservative prime minister Alec Douglas-Home, the general after repeating his mantra – ‘we do not think that you are yet ready to accept Common Market rules’ – extended an olive branch: ‘I’m certain that for all kinds of reasons our two countries … still have lots of things to do together’.14

In November the president warmly greeted Heath, the new Conservative leader. Heath rebutted criticism of Britain’s military dependence on American Polaris technology, pointing out that Europe lacked the technical resources to achieve independence. The solution, answered de Gaulle, was for ‘England and France to work together … If England and France decide together to make Europe they will succeed’. The general criticized Germany, wondering whether ‘it’s possible to conclude European arrangements with Germany since she has provocative and even warlike ambitions towards eastern Europe’. Prime minister Pompidou assured Heath that France would like Britain ‘to be in the Community for geographical and human reasons and to act as a counterweight to German industry and because a political Europe would be unthinkable without her … Germany over the past two years seemed to have changed her thinking, to be less attached to the European Community and to consider herself more and more as a world economic power’.15

De Gaulle persevered, despite No. 10’s unresponsiveness, informing his cabinet on 24 November that UK relations with continental Europe seemed to be ‘ripening in a positive sense’ and France looked sympathetically on this evolution. Instantly, the FO – without consulting the Paris embassy – spiked the statement, informing UK missions that it was not based on any London–Paris contacts and seemed designed for domestic and Community consumption. The embassy protested that it was highly unusual for press briefings about cabinet meetings to include verbatim texts and London’s trigger-happy response had created a very negative reaction in the French press. The ambassador’s request for authority to take up the matter with the French came to nothing.16

The friendlier the French the more suspicious Stewart and Co. Officials squelched any suggestion that an understanding might be possible. Alpha diplomat Michael Palliser, soon to become Wilson’s private secretary, underscored the ‘fundamentally negative character of de Gaulle’s policy. He destroys. He builds nothing’. In December 1965 Stewart returned to the warpath: ‘French influence in Western Europe will continue to grow and British influence to diminish’. A ruthless, unprincipled de Gaulle endangered British interests. The government, continued Stewart, should announce its willingness in principle to accept the Treaty of Rome. Without an early profession of British intent French nationalism might infect Germany – giving her hope of becoming leader in Europe. Wilson stopped circulation of the paper, finding the message ‘hard to swallow’. The foreign secretary renewed the attack in late January 1966 with a forecast of ‘General de Gaulle’s foreign policy over the next two years’. Anticipating France’s departure from NATO within two years the foreign secretary recommended reviewing ‘our co-operation with France … it may, for example, become impossible to reconcile an exclusively bilateral cooperation with her over a range of technological and defence projects … with our loyalty to NATO’. He concluded grimly, ‘we are … dealing with a regime under the control of a man whose attitude and intentions are … hostile to our own’.17

Two months later, in March 1966, de Gaulle announced France’s withdrawal from NATO’s integrated military command. The action undermined any prospect of Franco–British agreement. Elections in December 1965 had given the French president a satisfying vote of confidence: 85 per cent turnout; 54.6 per cent votes for another seven-year term. In January 1966 the ‘Luxembourg Compromise’ resolved the Community’s ‘Empty Chair’ crisis by freezing moves towards greater political integration. Reassured, the president returned to his route map – exiting NATO’s integrated command and pursuing detente with the Soviet Union and Communist satellites. The UK joined the international chorus condemning de Gaulle’s perceived disloyalty to the Western alliance. Surprisingly, an ‘unusually warm’ exchange of letters followed. Wilson assured the general of ‘the overwhelming desire of the British people, animated by … respect and affection for France and her achievements, to have the closest possible relations with their French neighbours’. In a handwritten letter the general spoke glowingly of Britain’s record – ‘constant ally, proven with glory, of France and a great European state’, Wilson confided to Stewart a sneaking regard for the general’s savvy – his ‘assessments of the way things are moving in the world may be more up to date and in tune with the times than our own’.18

Armed with a thumping majority in the 31 March 1966 election, Wilson allowed the idea of a second application to gain traction, but the condemnation of de Gaulle for his withdrawal from NATO’s military command queered the pitch. Paris perceived London’s condemnation as proof of American vassalage and an attempt to isolate France. Most importantly, Wilson implemented Stewart’s call for a cap on cross-channel cooperation. Over the next three years Britain severely rationed collaboration. The measure threw away bargaining chips: ‘we should not start any new bilateral military projects … we should continue existing projects on the understanding that we had secure break clauses … we should do nothing to help French nuclear capability … adopt an attitude of reserve towards bilateral meetings with the French unless these can be clearly shown to be to our advantage’. In force until June 1969 the guidelines stymied rapprochement, and compromised early entry into Europe.19

In early May 1966 ‘Tommy’ Balogh, the prime minister’s economic adviser, scouted French views. Over lunch in Paris a French economic policy trinity – Wormser, his deputy Jean Marie Brunet, and the assistant governor of the Bank of France Bernard Clappier, shared their take on a second bid. Far from imposing a veto in 1963 France simply concluded Britain was not yet ready to accept the Treaty of Rome: ‘once again it was for London to choose and decide’.20 No. 10 did nothing – no backchannel contacts, no special envoys.

Misperceptions on both sides of the channel were self-reinforcing. The French feared the worst. In late May Wormser summed up France’s stance. What mattered was ‘to know whether Britain will be able to accept the rules of the Rome Treaty and the arrangements concluded since 1963 … one no longer knows for sure whether it is a case of bringing the UK into the common market or, on the contrary, of bringing the Common Market into the Commonwealth and EFTA’. Britain, declared the policy czar, hoped ‘once again to scapegoat us and put us in the wrong before the negotiation has even opened … people are speculating in London on the difficulty the French government will have in “blocking” for a second time a British initiative. The NATO crisis in separating us from our allies facilitates a manoeuvre whose object is clearly to isolate us from the outset … unless the British make a serious mistake our isolation will increase in the course of negotiations’.21

Wormser’s pessimism deepened. In mid-June he saw no point in negotiations which ‘cannot lead to the British accepting our theses’. Community enlargement ‘must by definition lead to a free trade zone, probably global’. Britain had declared its political will to enter the Community ‘provided satisfactory conditions are obtained’. In other words, Britain was ‘not ready to accept the treaty arrangements … notably the CAP but asks for the rules to be changed’. The United States, which had lobbied heavily for British membership in 1963, wanted Britain in the Community. An American-backed Britain, concluded Wormser, posed a financial and political threat to France and its partners. As well as transferring British debts and deficits to the Community, Washington hoped that within a few years integration would regain a federalist path.22

Through May to June 1966 the cabinet mulled options – await de Gaulle’s departure before applying or outflank him through his partners. The cabinet committee on Europe handled much of the discussion. Ministers presented the curious spectacle of attempting to enter a locked room without asking for the key. Approaching the French ‘would strengthen the French position when our object is to weaken it. The French would be tempted to force the price up to a level which we could not afford to pay’. Significantly, Wilson’s summary of discussions ranked ‘Probing – especially President de Gaulle’ sixth in a list of eight options. The general’s withdrawal from NATO’s military command made him seem more than ever an enemy to be circumvented. Brown, deputy prime minister and head of the new department of economic affairs (DEA), emerged as a leading advocate of outflanking the general. Like Stewart, Brown viewed Germany, not France, as the key to Britain’s European policy. An Anglo–German partnership with ‘a truly European approach to security, defence and foreign policy arrangements … explicitly based on partnership with the US’, he suggested, might outflank de Gaulle by rallying the Five and ‘large sections of French opinion’. Wilson demurred: the United States ‘would not lift a finger to help in this exercise’.23

The visit of French ministers on 6–8 July flopped. At a pre-departure press conference the French delegation reportedly treated Wilson ‘with scarcely veiled contempt’, playing down Brown’s zeal for the Community – he ‘does not speak for Britain’. Quai bios acknowledged Wilson as a smart tactician ‘who has displayed remarkable skill in dodging traps and in making others carry the heaviest responsibilities’. His ‘clumsy and self-effacing’ foreign secretary was a mediocrity: ‘without preconceived ideas in foreign policy he never risks himself beyond strict orthodoxy and the line decided by the Foreign Office who have found in him their most reliable spokesman’. Brown got more sympathetic profiling: son of a lorry driver, number two in party and government, ‘a highly coloured personality, courageous and dynamic, renowned for his impulsiveness and imprudent language’.24

The summit turned out ‘disastrous’. Wilson offered nothing, and caused offence by cancelling a session and skipping a dinner at the French embassy. There was no meeting of minds. Never short of panache the French delivered a lifemanship class. While the British team nursed voluminous folders, none of the French visitors had a sheet of paper in front of them. The latest economic indicators corroborated French insistence on the UK’s unreadiness for membership. A May–June seaman’s strike paralysed ports. Sharp raids on sterling detonated one of the worst sterling crises since 1945. Defence secretary Denis Healey’s untimely swipe at de Gaulle ‘as a bad ally in NATO and a bad partner in the Common Market’ clouded proceedings. Premier Pompidou was ‘annoyed’ by the cancellation of a meeting because of a Commons debate – and ‘understandably so’, conceded Wilson. UK ministers made no bones about their desire to enter Europe and discussions degenerated into arm wrestling over Community admission terms.25

‘Pompidou,’ complained Heath, ‘had come over here with an invitation in his pocket for a state visit of the Queen. But he was so disgusted with his reception by Wilson that the invitation was never extended. He and Couve de Murville returned to France convinced that Wilson does not mean business over joining the Common Market.’ Not so. The exchanges convinced the French that Wilson meant business. Terrier-like, the prime minister harried the French leaders – demanding assurances that France would not spring a veto because of the Anglo–American connection: ‘at the end of the day would we have to choose between the United States and Europe?’26

The ground had shifted since 1961–3 when the French queried Britain’s motives in applying for admission; now they emphasized economic infirmities. Declaring eligibility for membership ‘essentially economic’, Couve and Pompidou performed a goody-goody routine, emphasizing the tough fiscal measures France introduced in 1958 to prepare for Community entry. The talks began and ended in confrontation – Stewart admonished the French for recent nuclear tests in the Pacific in violation of the 1963 Moscow Limited Test Ban Treaty. Undaunted, the general kept a line open. A few days later at a Bastille Day reception he assured Reilly that the London discussions had helped, adding delphically, ‘It all depended on Britain’. In short, the general wanted real horse-trading.27

Why did the prime minister drive up to a closed gate? In early May 1966 the Paris embassy advised, ‘It is very unlikely that the French would be willing to start serious negotiations with us for a year at least’. The premier’s confidante, Marcia Williams (Lady Falkender) gave the same advice: ‘it is improbable that de Gaulle will let us in’. At the London talks in July Pompidou and Couve made it crystal clear they were prepared to use Britain’s economic troubles to block entry. A clean bill of financial and economic health, they told the press, was a prerequisite for membership. Pompidou reportedly said that devaluation would be necessary before entry. The remarks accelerated a run on the pound peaking in a mid-July sterling crisis. To be sure, hubris and over-confidence deluded the premier. Like Macmillan, Wilson cherished an inflated opinion of his charm and persuasive powers. More importantly, he had run out of viable alternatives.28

How had British policy-makers got themselves into such a bind over Europe? Properly prepared, the July meeting with French ministers might have turned out differently. Both sides blundered. It’s easy to spin alibis for the Labour government. Force nine gales pummelled ministers: sterling crisis, death throes of empire – Aden, Rhodesia, Malaysia – Indonesia emergencies. A paper-thin majority of four in the October 1964 election left little or no wiggle room. No. 10 had to deliver quickly on the home front in order to be ready for a second election. After thirteen years in the wilderness Labour’s call for a modernized ‘white heat’ technological Britain revived the millennial mood of 1945 among party faithful.

Crises and emergencies impacted decision-making but the decisive influences were personalities, misperceptions and Whitehall dysfunctionality. Fixated on world power, Wilson overlooked the power base under his nose – partnership with France and Germany. ‘We are a world power, or we are nothing’, the premier proclaimed in his first major speech. Eight months later the nation’s frontiers shifted to the Himalayas. Paris Match unfairly labelled him as ‘vigorously hostile to France’. More accurately, Wilson had little sympathy for France and West–Europeans, though there was a soft spot for Russians and east Europeans. By 1965 the premier had visited Russia twelve times since the war. A remark to Guardian editor Alistair Hetherington summed up his attitude to West–Europeans: ‘If we couldn’t dominate that lot, there wasn’t much to be said for us.’ Sporting a pipe, Gannex raincoat and cheeky chappie persona, the premier stood for slipperiness. Wilsonism became ‘a catch-all term for cunning, duplicity and even deceit’. Efforts to put a good face on everything, including devaluation, drew the comment that as the Titanic’s captain ‘he would … have tried to reassure passengers by telling them the ship had only stopped to take on ice’.29

The tactician at no point projected a sense of the nation’s role over the coming decades. His memoir The Labour Governments, 1964–1970 stood out ‘for its complete lack … of any analysis of basic national problems’. Home secretary Roy Jenkins observed, ‘I’d give anything for evidence that we have a long-term plan for any part of this Government’s policy’. A chronic time waster, the premier talked endlessly without coming to a decision, staying up late ‘gossiping obsessively with his “kitchen cabinet”’ and spending disproportionate amounts of personal time on Rhodesia and Vietnam. Wilson preferred golf to reflection – at No. 10 he fell asleep ‘within seconds of putting out the light’. There were no signs of the decline that marred the government of 1974–6 when he regularly tanked up on brandies before Prime Minister’s Questions. None the less, quasi paranoiac suspicions of colleagues, journalists and the BBC evoked Captain Queeg of The USS Caine.30

An independent-minded foreign secretary would have probed de Gaulle’s professions of goodwill. The musical chairs routine of three foreign secretaries in four years warped policy-making. Determined ‘to run’ the Foreign Office ‘through his menials’, Wilson selected two ‘donnish, quiet, acquiescent’ colleagues: Patrick Gordon Walker and Michael Stewart. Gordon Walker’s ideas included rethinking the US alliance, ‘good relations’ with France, and an effective FO planning unit as ‘part and parcel of policy-making – not separated’. After losing his parliamentary seat in October 1964 and failing to secure re-election, Gordon Walker gave way to Stewart in January 1965 – followed by rogue elephant George Brown.31

Stewart’s francophobia prevailed over Wilson’s more open-minded outlook. No. 10 had no policy unit to counter FO expertise. Stewart had gravitas, but little else – prompting the quip ‘once seen, never remembered’. Only the Queen and her corgis disturbed his equanimity. Europeanist officials treated him as their mouthpiece. Visiting the minister in ‘a huge mausoleum of a room’ – a colleague asked, ‘how can you get any new thoughts in here?’ Back came the reply, ‘Ah, the new thoughts come from the papers’ – in other words, from the mandarins. Resigned to fighting a rearguard action, Stewart believed ‘Britain was in the second rank but … we could enhance our influence by active participation in … international groupings’. A grating voice and lack of fluency put people off – so many pauses: ‘it was hard to know whether he had finished what he intended to say or was merely searching for words.’ One visitor found himself ‘in the position not only of forcing a conversation but of sustaining it’. An unexpected success in 1965 in facing down noisy students at a televised Oxford Union ‘teach-in’ on Vietnam proved short lived. On a return appearance in 1970 he could not get a hearing. Stewart’s Mrs Proudie-like spouse was ‘hostile to the Foreign Office in many ways … sending down little notes to the departments asking aggressive questions about all sorts of things’. She was blamed for the removal of a senior diplomat from the Paris embassy after the diplomat’s wife advised her to wear gloves at an official function.32

‘It was plain’, Stewart later asserted, ‘that de Gaulle would be reluctant to admit Britain … there was a school of thought which held that … the road to the EEC lay through Paris so we must first placate de Gaulle … It seemed to me that this would involve too much surrender to Gaullist views’. Not the most convincing of arguments – in the light of the 1963 veto, how could anyone doubt that ‘the road to the EEC lay through Paris’? And why should placating de Gaulle mean surrendering to his views? The minister had nothing more constructive to suggest than a declaration of intent to apply for membership followed by patience and pressure on France’s partners. The general was the bad guy. That a pact might benefit the wider interests of both countries as well as easing Britain into the Community escaped Stewart’s notice. The Paris summit of April 1965, he wrote in his memoirs, convinced him ‘that if the three most powerful nations of Western Europe – Britain, France, Germany – were all in the EEC … they would have to think … not of hegemony but of partnership’. Precisely, yet as foreign secretary he vetoed the idea.33

Edging towards a second bid, ministers fought shy of the 800-pound gorilla. Why the reluctance to seduce the general? True, having imposed a cap on cooperation the government had nothing to offer, but the cap was removable. De Gaulle and President Nasser of Egypt topped the FO hit list. Officials held fast to the image of a hostile and treacherous general. Cosying up to France, it was feared, would blight Britain’s reputation with EFTA partners and a supposedly friendly Community Five. Diplomats had scores to settle over the Schuman Plan, Messina and the 1963 veto. Many believed Schuman had deliberately sought to exclude Britain from the ECSC. The French, for their part, feared an attempt to take over and dilute the new thriving Community. But the general was not intransigent. He stayed friendly and made important overtures, despite Wilson’s lack of interest in a deal.

‘French planning, skill and ruthlessness’, warned Con O’Neill, ambassador to the European Communities, had put her in a dominant position within the EEC and there was little to be done for the moment. By the mid-1960s a squad of evangelizing Europeanists dedicated to achieving Community membership nudged FO policymaking, notably John Barnes, Michael Butler, Patrick Hancock, and John Robinson. None had any time for France. Butler was particularly pushy. At a crucial UK delegation strategy review in Brussels in July 1962 Butler, then first secretary at the Paris embassy, intervened vigorously –clearly disagreeing with the uncertainty about French attitudes expressed by his ambassador Pierson Dixon. Accused of Francophobia in the Soames affair of February 1969 officials confessed ‘Degaullophobia’, claiming for it a ‘respectable ancestry’ from the Second World War. They resented the 1963 veto and loss of European leadership. The hexagon’s surging GDP rubbed salt into the wounds.34

Gallic gamesmanship stoked suspicions.35 Wary of entrapment, policy-makers dismissed seemingly mixed signals. From Paris Reilly pooh-poohed junior minister Jean de Broglie’s ‘favourable noises’ about Britain’s renewed interest in entry: ‘It looks to me as if there may have been a decision that Ministers should use vaguely encouraging language in public, while in private much is made of the obstacles to British entry’. The brief prepared for Brown as incoming foreign secretary in August 1966 summed up FO attitudes. ‘France is at present de Gaulle … de Gaulle’s policy … is anti-American and by extension “anti-Anglo-Saxon” … Within the [Western] alliance confident Anglo-French collaboration is highly desirable but at present is not feasible’. At the Congress of the European Movement in the Hague in November 1968 Heath declared there could be no Europe without France. As soon as he sat down his secretary was ‘set upon by one of the Foreign Secretary’s aides in a towering passion. He honestly believed that we had let the side down.’

To isolate de Gaulle, Europeanists looked to his partners, the ‘Friendly Five’ – Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Luxemburg. But the Five would not gang up against France, despite every encouragement. Survival of the fledgling Community mattered more to them than British membership. FO mandarins blamed the general for duplicitously spinning out talks on Britain’s 1961 application while blocking closer integration within the Community. Both Butler and Robinson waged an anti-Gaullist crusade, ‘relishing confrontations with the Quai d’Orsay’. Butler as first secretary at the Paris embassy in 1961–5 secretly acquired transcripts of the general’s conversations with visiting leaders and circulated them within the diplomatic community. ‘It was great fun’, he recalled, ‘because the General didn’t hesitate to say completely conflicting things to two visiting Prime Ministers or Foreign Ministers on two successive days … it was this activity … that caused him in 1964 to get Couve to try and get rid of me’.36

Changing foreign secretaries in midstream envenomed policy-making. Brown, who succeeded Stewart as foreign secretary from August 1966, shared Wilson’s assumptions. The general would not risk exercising a veto twice, and the Five would push him into opening the door. A gaffe-prone foreign secretary – by his own admission unsuitable for diplomacy – clashed with a prime minister who also wanted to play foreign secretary. Alcohol and a tug of war with Downing Street discredited Brown and undermined the country’s credibility. A whirlwind twenty-month incumbency unfolded like a tragic comedy. A high-octane temperament plus alcohol brought tantrums, abuse, sulks and resignation threats. Subordinates never knew what to expect – a pat on the back or a kick in the pants. Interviewed after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Brown claimed the President for a close personal friend. ‘Pissed as a coot’, commented one viewer.

A feisty Europeanist with a will of his own, Brown seemed indifferent to a Franco–British deal. Rather than sweet-talking de Gaulle, Brown preferred the spouses of French ministers and diplomats – inviting Madame Couve to sleep with him; putting his hand on the knee of Claude Pompidou, and asking for her phone number. Quick as a flash, Martine de Courcel responded to an improper suggestion, ‘That’s the first time that’s been said to me with the soup’. The foreign secretary treated his staff like dirt. Returning late to Britain’s Brussels embassy Brown asked for a fire and a large whisky and soda:

Roddie [Sir Roderick Barclay, ambassador] got up and … poured George a whisky and soda. George said, ‘Fire, I want a fire.’ The Ambassador said, ‘I’m terribly sorry Secretary of State, but it’s getting on for midnight, all the servants have gone …’ ‘Where’s your wife?’ asked George.’ Well, she’s in bed as she normally is at this time’. ‘Get her up’.37

One of the few prepared to bawl out Brown was his private secretary, Donald Maitland. The diminutive 5ft 4 Scot riposted during one row, ‘You do not imagine. Foreign Secretary, that a person of my stature has got where he is today by kow-towing to bullies?’.

More damaging than the bullying, clowning and bibulousness was the FO–No. 10 vendetta that triggered the foreign secretary’s resignation in March 1968. The premier’s letter acknowledging Brown’s resignation went through seventeen drafts. No. 10 systematically undermined the foreign secretary: accessing secret papers before he saw them; using junior FO minister Lord Chalfont as an ‘unofficial minder’ – privy to information withheld from the foreign secretary; enlisting Washington’s help in educating Brown on the need for a continuing British presence east of Suez. Suspicions of these shenanigans may explain Brown’s extreme rudeness to his junior minister and to French foreign minister Couve. The foreign secretary summoned Chalfont to his side, saying loudly, ‘Here you speak this man’s silly language. What’s he on about?’ Chalfont duly interpreted. Couve got up and said, icily, in English, ‘That was a most interesting conversation. Thank you very much’. To which Brown riposted, ‘Oh! The bugger, he speaks English all the time’.38

Whitehall dysfunctionality compounded the ministerial shortcomings. Huge and difficult jigsaw puzzles were in vogue. A visitor to Sandringham found the Queen doing ‘an enormous, incredibly difficult jigsaw’. Making sense of the international jigsaw overstretched policy-makers. No. 10 and the FO had little grasp of Community culture. Stewart understood the Luxembourg Compromise of January 1966 ending the ‘empty chair crisis’ to mean individual members had a right of veto in the event of a majority vote in conflict with perceived national interests. It was, in fact, an agreement to disagree – eighteen years later Britain was voted down trying to exercise the Compromise as a veto.39

The misunderstanding pointed up the need for a thorough overhaul of the machine. Labour’s reforms of government overheated a rickety engine. Wilson acknowledged that the introduction of a Prices and Incomes Board and Department of Economic Affairs ‘involved fundamental changes in the Government machinery such as we have not seen in peacetime in the past generation’. ‘I thought the whole discussion amateurish’, noted an adviser at a conference chaired by the prime minister in December 1964; ‘It showed up very clearly the difficulty of conducting a technical argument without prepared papers by experts and in a meeting at which Ministers were largely out of their depth’.40 Skimping on reflection undermined coherence. The decisions to withdraw from east of Suez and to apply to the EEC were taken separately. Excess paper clogged up the system. The prime minister contributed hugely to the paper mountain. Officials bemoaned hasty and superficial scrutiny of issues. Defeatism ruled. After the devaluation of November 1967 a mandarin likened the atmosphere in the Treasury to the French general staff’s headquarters at Sedan in 1870, ‘so pervasive was the … defeatism’.41

By mid-1966 Wilson appeared ready to seek the nation’s future in Europe rather than on the Himalayas. Why and when did he settle on a bid? The premier’s opportunism makes it much easier to answer the why than the when. Amid cabinet and party dissension over Europe, Wilson moved crabwise towards an entry bid. Labour’s March 1966 election victory and the mid-July sterling crisis are frequently cited as decision dates. Attempting to establish a specific ‘conversion’ date misses the point – Wilson the opportunist never regarded the decision as final. The Community’s ‘empty chair crisis’ of 1965–6 and France’s departure from NATO’s command structure in March 1966 nudged him along. De Gaulle’s success in resisting a supranational Europe calmed concerns that joining would endanger sovereignty. London perceived France’s exit from NATO military command as preluding full withdrawal. Both events suggested that, once inside the Community, Britain, it seemed, would have ample leverage to wrest the initiative from France.

The premier’s prevarication – part personality, part sticking plaster to keep cabinet and party together, curbed the selling of membership, at home and abroad. As late as November 1966 the cabinet secretary confessed ‘he really didn’t know where the P.M. stood on Europe’. ‘Collapsing alternatives’ impelled Wilson, not a Damascene conversion. A Micawber-like premier pinned hopes on a European dynamo. A rapidly contracting menu forced membership upfront as a fix for economy and society. From late 1965 several streams pumped up interest in Europe. Labour’s scepticism towards European integration sprang from faith in an independent world role. Retreat from power forced reassessment. Prospects appeared bleak – disappointing economic performance, exclusion from a fast growing economic bloc, Commonwealth in tatters and a prime minister looking more and more like ‘head prefect to Lyndon B. Johnson’s headmaster’. Crucially, by the early summer of 1966 ministers knew they could not deliver on the promise that the National Plan would produce a 25 per cent increase in output for 1964–70. The bad news increased the attraction of a second bid that would demonstrate commitment to growth and deprive the Conservative opposition of the European ball. Brown argued that ‘a vigorous and speeded up policy towards Europe could provide the means by which we might work our way out of this box’ – slow economic growth and lack of room to manoeuvre internationally and at home.42

Economic arguments carried the day – the high growth rate of the Six would repower a faltering economy. By mid-1966 the inevitability of devaluation tightened Europe’s pull. Linking devaluation to entry terms would de-fang it. Forecasts that mandatory sanctions against Rhodesia would hurt the British economy brought agreement that ‘an attempt to enter Europe would give a boost to economic morale’. Electoral considerations weighed. Surging pro-Europe polls indicated that if Labour hesitated the Conservatives would play the Europe card at the next election. Industry and Whitehall canvassed Europe aggressively. Paradoxically, the economic case for joining made entry problematical. An economy and currency on the skids stiffened French opposition to entry while releasing a crude Francophobia. Chancellor James Callaghan talked of ‘a wicked French plot to bring down the dollar by bringing down the pound first and making France the financial capital of the world’.43

Did Uncle Sam strong-arm Wilson into a second bid? Historian David M. McCourt asserts American influence determined the timing of Wilson’s second bid.44 Washington of course wanted Britain in Europe, but there was no bullying. Wilson, like Macmillan, realized that staying out threatened the special relationship, but the main driver was the UK economy and the urgency of regaining momentum. Anxieties about the Community’s impact on the Anglo–American alliance influenced choices. Whitehall feared that Germany’s economic muscle within a burgeoning Community would jeopardize the transatlantic partnership. Joining would confirm Britain as America’s European portal; staying out might tempt Washington to favour West Germany. ‘The United States was paying increasing regard to West Germany’, Brown alerted colleagues. Without British entry, ‘West Germany’s influence on the United States would more or less replace our own’. The assumption that going into Europe would preserve the relationship went unchallenged.45

President Kennedy’s cheerleading for Macmillan enabled de Gaulle to denounce Britain as America’s Trojan Horse. After the 1963 veto Washington adopted a ‘softly softly’ approach. The Vietnam War increasingly pulled the United States away from Europe. The fluidity of American policy towards Europe in mid-decade offered British leaders enough wiggle room had they opted for London–Paris rapprochement. American diplomacy became more engaged after Wilson decided to apply, but did not directly influence decisions in the spring and summer of 1966.