Political Autobiography and the Art of the Plausible: R. A. Butler at the Foreign Office, 1938–1939
R. A. Butler has been one of the outstanding figures in twentieth-century British politics. After his death The Times described him as ‘the creator of the modern educational system, the key-figure in the revival of post-war Conservatism, arguably the most successful chancellor since the war and un-questionably a Home Secretary of reforming zeal’. His record of achievement was unequalled by his rivals in the contests for the party leadership in 1957 and in 1963, but on both occasions the leadership eluded him. How and why this happened was understandably of the greatest interest to those who reviewed Rab's memoirs, The art of the possible, which were published in 1971. These memoirs won unanimous praise for their literary excellence, but otherwise met with a rather mixed reception. Enoch Powell, one of Rab's supporters in 1963, described them as ‘a work of astonishing self-revelation [belonging] with the classic Confessions. Augustine and Rousseau were not more unsparing of themselves than Rab…’ The ‘large episodes’ of Rab's career, Powell went on, ‘are treated with a generous vision (including, it need not be added, a generosity to Rab) which leaves the reader with improved understanding and perspective’. Powell's comments were echoed by others on the Right, but the Left was more critical. Anthony Howard noted that ‘what tend…to get wholly left out are the mistakes and blunders’ – the now infamous Villacoublay meeting during the Suez crisis; and Rab's astonishing admission to the journalist George Gale during the 1964 campaign that the election was slipping Labour's way. Harold Wilson, who had offered Rab the mastership of Trinity, was perhaps the least charitable of all. He found The art of the possible disappointing because, he claimed, Rab underwrote the great occasions. Rab's reticence about Suez, however, upset Wilson less than the description of his tribulations at the hands of Labour MPs as government spokesman for the policy of non-intervention during the Spanish Civil War. Here was an issue which could excite the older soldiers of the British Left, and if Wilson was alone among Rab's reviewers in making more than passing reference to Rab's association with appeasement this was why.
New Perspectives on Appeasement: Some Implications for International Relations
Abstract Historical research since the opening of the British archives in the late 1960s has brought about a substantial revision of the image of appeasement that had generally been accepted after World War II. Yet the traditional image has scarcely been questioned in contemporary writing on international relations. This article examines some of the central themes in recent studies relating to appeasement: the “structural” approach, which offers a new overall interpretation; the economic, military, and intelligence “dimensions” of British foreign policy in the 1930s; and the breaking down of traditional stereotypes of the roles of Chamberlain and Churchill. This reappraisal has important implications for the discipline of international relations, its view of the origins of World War II, and theories of international structural change.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, A Commentary
Volume VI is the sixth substantive volume to be published in the series. It deals with the work of the First Committee at the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, namely the international seabed area. The volume thus embraces the deep seabed mining regime set out in Part XI of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea together with the 1994 Agreement on its implementation. Completion of this commentary was delayed first by the consultations and negotiations that commenced in 1990 and led to the 1994 Agreement and the entry into force of the Convention. It was further delayed until the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority approved the detailed mining regulations in 2000. Additional supplementary material can be found at UNCLOS 1982 Commentary: Supplementary Documents.