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The 'Problem of de Gaulle': British Reactions to General de Gaulle's Veto of the UKApplication to Join the Common MarketAuthor(s): Richard DavisSource: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Oct., 1997), pp. 453-464Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/261110 .

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delegation in the talks with the 'Six', had been assured by Couve de Murville,the French Foreign Minister, that de Gaulle had 'neither the power nor theintention to veto UK membership of the EEC'.4 When the news came, there-fore, it was all the more of a shock. Despite this, the UK somehow had toreappraise its whole foreign policy in the light of this fundamental reverse.Partly through feelings of hurt national pride, the Cabinet's immediateresponse was to seek to bring the talks to an end in the most favourable way tothe UK. Any desperate attempt to save the negotiations was ruled out and thefait accompli imposed by the French, bringing months of prolonged andintense negotiations to an end, was accepted with varying degrees of reluc-tance, bitterness or relief by ministers.5 On 22 January the Prime Ministersummed up the general pessimism. While he accepted that the events of thepast days had been a 'serious setback to our Government's policies', andargued that they 'should not make light of the situation which would probablyconfront us', the only positive line he could propose in the short term was totry to save something from the events of the previous days by seeking to placethe blame squarely on the shoulders of the French. He concluded his unhappystatement to the Cabinet by saying that 'the failure of the negotiations and theharm to European relations which might result should be seen to be theresponsibility of the French government alone'.6 After months of arduousefforts to enter the Community, all that remained for the government wasto try to save its face as best it could and extract the little that could still besalvaged from the diplomatic debris.Not surprisingly, the British had few difficulties in portraying the French asthe guilty party. However understanding Chancellor Adenauer might havebeen towards de Gaulle's motives, opinions across Europe were shocked, notleast by the manner of the veto. As all concerned rightly asked, if the supposedfundamental incompatibility of the British and the European Community hadbeen the real reason for the French veto why had this not been made clear atthe very beginning? Considerable sympathy was expressed from the 'Five' atthe French treatment of the British, no matter how much they may have under-stood, or even agreed with, the fundamental arguments against Britain's entryinto the EEC. If the British could not achieve their diplomatic aim of enteringEurope they were at least determined to capitalize to the utmost on the diplo-matic front. Edward Heath, for example, told his Cabinet colleagues on 25January that the UK had a 'moral advantage ... derived from the fact that ifthe negotiations broke down now, the responsibility for their failure would beseen to lie clearly with the French Government'.7Similarly, inside the Foreign4 CAB 128/37 CC5 (63), 22 January 1963. Heath told the Cabinet on 10 January that therewas an improved atmosphere in the talks and that the other negotiators, with the exception of theFrench, 'were again earnestly seeking to reach a settlement on terms acceptable to the UK. Itwould therefore be to our advantage to try to maintain the momentum of the discussions', CAB128/37 CC3 (63).5 CAB 128/37 CC4 (63), 17 January 1963.6 CAB 128/37 CC5 (63), 22 January 1963.7 CAB 128/37 CC7 (63), 25 January 1963.

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Office Harold Caccia, the Permanent Under-Secretary,sought to put a braveface on the recent turn of events:

We can at least be grateful to him [de Gaulle] for choosing to sabotage the negotiations insuch a way as to take the blame squarely on himself, to shock his Community partners intorealisation of the dangerous path along which he proposed to lead them and to infuriatethem and the Americans by his methods and behaviour. If the negotiations had to fail, theycould not have failed in a manner more advantageous to us.8

Just how the veto was 'advantageous' to Britain is hard to see. Nevertheless,the British were by and large successful in arguing that, as one Foreign Officediplomat said, 'de Gaulle has in fact deceived us'9 and in using this to makelimited, short-term capital at the expense of the French.The inevitable consequence of de Gaulle's veto and the ensuing ill-feelingwas that relations between Paris and London reached a low point in the firstfew months of 1963. Few people in Britain, however, had any hesitation inaccepting this state of affairs. While there was no question in London of call-ing off practical Anglo-French discussions on projects such as the future super-sonic aircraft or the Channel tunnel, it was inconceivable that Anglo-Frenchrelations would emerge unscathed. A typical view came from Rumbold, theBritish Minister in Paris, two weeks after de Gaulle's famous press conference:

For some time to come relations between the French and British Governments are notgoing to be the same as they were before .... The French Government has deliberately andavowedly set itself out to frustrate one of the principal objectives of British policy ....French Ministers and high officials take the line that although we may be entering a diffi-cult phase it is important in the interests of both countries that we should not allow this factto interrupt routine exchanges, which are a reflection of the fundamental unity of interestsbetween the two countries and the familiarity and affection which really united them. Thequestion is whether they should be allowed to get away with this line.We should I suggest be completely hard-boiled about this and not allow either lingeringpro-French sentiment or newly aroused anti-French venom to contribute towards ourdecisions. We should be guided in each case by its merits, that is to say its merits to ourselves.If we get something out of a particular exchange or Anglo-French activity and more particu-larly if we get more out of it than the French do, then it would be absurd to break it off. Onthe other hand if there is an activity in which we are taking part which has as its primaryobject the provision of pleasure, satisfaction or advantage to the French not compensated byanything that we can get out of it, then there is a case for dropping it.?1

The first evidence of this cooling of Anglo-French relations was thediplomatic news propaganda war conducted between Paris and London asboth sides sought to win over opinion at home and abroad. The aim in the8 FO 371 169114, CF 1022/12. 'Motives for General de Gaulle's decision to sabotage theBrussels negotiations'.9 F0371 169122, CF 1051/7. Tomkins to Hadow, 1 February 1963. Heath told the SundayExpress that 'if there is one thing an Englishmancannot stand it is being diddled', Sunday Express,29 September 1963. Quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath. A Biography (London 1993), 134.10 FO 371 169122, CF 1051/3. Rumbold to Tomkins, 29 January 1963.

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Foreign Office was to counteract the 'disingenuous"' statements comingfrom de Gaulle; in Paris the British ambassador, Pierson Dixon, complainedvehemently of 'the lies and misrepresentations put out by official sources'which, he believed, were coming from the French Minister for Information,Peyrefitte, 'with the full authority of General de Gaulle'.'1 Nor were the Britishthemselves unwilling to attack de Gaulle.De Gaulle had never been widely appreciated among official circles inLondon. After 14 January many gave free rein to their views. The FrenchPresident's 'megalomania' was invoked inside the Foreign Office,'3 the Britishembassy in Paris told one Quai d'Orsay representative directly that the Britishwere not 'prepared to accept this kind of dictatorial treatment' recentlydisplayed by the French President,14while the ambassador drew a clear, ifunflattering, analogy between de Gaulle and Napoleon III.'1De Gaulle himselfcomplained to a group of French parliamentarians that Macmillan, whom, headded, 'I like very much', had had him 'compared by the British press toHitler' and that he had 'even been compared to Napoleon'.'6 Dixon, in one ofmany such despatches, reported on 16 May that de Gaulle and Couve deMurville were 'working themselves up into a state of particular hostilityagainst the British' and that de Gaulle had told the Swiss ambassador 'apropos of the Brussels negotiations: "Les anglais, je les aurai nus"'. Dixonconcluded by warning: 'We must remember, in everything we do that theFrench will seize any opportunity they can to do us damage. Indeed, scoringoff the British may temporarily have priority in Paris over scoring off theAmericans.'7 Evidently Anglo-French relations were not so solid as to be ableto survive unaffected by the events of January 1963.On more mature reflection, however, the British recognized the futility ofany openly anti-French or anti-de Gaulle campaign. Instead, as Macmillanrecommended in the aftermath of 14 January,diplomats and politicians begana review of Britain'sinternational position in the light of the breakdown of theefforts to enter the EEC.'1 Inescapably, these continually came back to thecentral stumbling block of de Gaulle. Recrimination against the French, ormore exactly against de Gaulle, was therefore only the tip of the iceberg ofwhat was, quite justifiably from the British perspective, described as 'theproblem of de Gaulle'.'9Once the anger at de Gaulle's veto had been, at least partially, spent, the11 FO 371 169114, CF 1022/4. Tomkins, 15 January 1963.12 FO 371 169114, CF 1022/9. Dixon to Foreign Office, 4 February 1963.13 FO 371 169114, CF 1022/15/G. 26 January 1963.14 FO 371 169114, CF 1022/15/G. Evelyn Shuckburgh to Hood, 20 February 1963.15 Dixon thought they shared the 'same love of play-acting on the world stage, with meanswhich are eventually proved to be miserably inadequate, though everyone is impressed by themwhile the successes last' (FO 371 169107. Annual review for France, 2 January 1963).16 FO 371 169114, CF 1022/10 (B). Dixon to Foreign Office, 6 February 1963.17 FO 371 169124, CF 1051/43. Dixon to Hood, 16 May 1963.18 CAB 128/37 CC5 (63), 22 January 1963.19 FO 371 169115, CF 1022/25. Rumbold to Hood, 27 March 1963.

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Davis:The Problemf de Gaulle'

problem remained, with the UK continuing to operate in something of aninternational limbo. After many years of heartrending debate, the UK govern-ment had finally grasped the nettle and accepted a loosening of old imperialalliances, despite the nostalgia for the glorious imperial past of some die-hardConservatives. However, having decided to try and enter the CommonMarket, they found that at the last minute de Gaulle had pulled the carpetfrom under their feet.The British government, once it had picked itself up from this bruising fall,looked about to see what it should do next. In retrospect, the idea of main-taining, even strengthening, links with the Commonwealth and EFTAappeared tempting. Yet, even at the height of the crisis, both the governmentand the Foreign Office recognized that the UK's future could only lie in Europeand that the long-term aim, therefore, had to remain to adhere to the Treaty ofRome. The Foreign Office, after recommending that its own News Depart-ment should not mince its words in claiming that the UK had indeed beendeceived by de Gaulle (and predicting that 'the French will resent it bitterlyand will counter-attack us as meanly as only they know how') warned that:

I do not think that we should over-do this line or go on too long, because by doing so we willgive the impression in France and abroad that our lack of confidence in the French is suchthat further negotiations with them are not to be contemplated. Presumably we do not wishto create such an impression, since I imagine there is a possibility that before very long weshall be negotiating with them again.20

This impression was confirmed in the various Cabinet meetings immediatelyafter the veto. One unnamed minister, after again complaining of de Gaulle's'dictatorial attitude', went on to argue that 'nevertheless, we should notabandon our ultimate objective or embark on new policies which wouldappear to cast doubt on the genuine nature of our sustained attempt to enterthe European Community'.21At the end of the year, during a private meetingwith the French President, Dixon repeated the Foreign Secretary'sstatement toparliament on 15 November that while 'renewed negotiations for Britishmembership of the European Communities was not an issue at the presenttime ... we continued to believe that the interests of Britain and the West as awhole would best be served by a wider political and economic unity of Europein which we could all play a full part'. De Gaulle, diplomatically, did not rejectthis out of hand but concluded that it was for Britain 'to bide (its) time anddecide when the moment was ripe'.2220 FO 371 169122, CF 1051/7. Tomkins to Hadow, 1 February 1963. Macmillan recorded hisfeelings that, 'However bitter our feelings might be, we must not allow ourselves to be misled intostatements which would endanger the future', Macmillan, op. cit., 368.21 CAB 128/37 CC5 (63), 22 January 1963. In Brussels Heath told the other delegates: 'We inBritain are not going to turn our backs on the mainland of Europe or on the countries of theCommunity. We are part of Europe: by geography, tradition, history, culture and civilisation. Weshall continue to work with all our friends in Europe for the true unity and strength of this conti-nent', quoted in Campbell, op. cit., 131.22 FO 371 172078, RF 1051/18. Record of interview with President de Gaulle, 23 November1963.

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The conclusion having been reached that foreign policy aims remainedunchanged, it had to be recognized that de Gaulle continued to represent 'alarge obstacle on many of the roads we wish to travel'.23The most consistentwarnings of the danger de Gaulle posed to British interests came again fromthe British ambassador in Paris. A typical report came on 2 May when Dixon,still smarting from recent events, wrote to Caccia that

Generalde Gaulle'spurposesare not only inimicaltowardsourselvesbut nefariousanddangerous. n briefthe General'smainobjective s a preeminent ositionfor Franceon theEuropean ontinentand a prominent ole forFrance,which s thesamethingas a prominentroleforhimselfpersonally, n the worldstage ... In hisconceptionof Europe,which n hiseyes oughtto be an extensionof France, here s no placeat present orthe U.K.... Weareup againsta man whose policiesare divergent rom our own and at manypoints directlyinimical o them,and who in addition s actuatedbydeepcurrents f emotionof whichprideand vindictiveness re the mostdeep-seated.24

By October he had come to the conclusion that de Gaulle was 'a thoroughlydangerous man; that he and his policies will get worse as time goes on'.25Thisfundamental Anglo-French opposition led Dixon and others in the ForeignOffice to the view that 'the battle for the leadership of Europe has opened'.6In part the 'battle' turned around the nature of the Europe that everyonerecognized would emerge from the outcome of the debate then under way.One Foreign Office Counsellor minuted at the end of January:

Generalde Gaulle'spoliciesandhis attitudes owardsBritishmembership f the EECrepre-sent a majorchallenge o the WesternAllianceandnotably o Britainand to his partnersnthe Common Market.Thereis a clear conflict betweenhis view of Europeand the viewwhich we sharewith therestof NATO,andwe intend o do our bestto ensure hathisviewis defeatedandthat our own prevails.27The Lord Privy Seal, Edward Heath, shared these views. Calling for a 'positivepolicy after Brussels', he went on to say that 'our negative purpose mustclearly be to prevent the consolidation, still more the extension, of de Gaulle'sEurope'.28Nor were the British at odds with de Gaulle exclusively over the UK's entryinto the EEC. Dixon again warned that 'the list of major issues on which he[de Gaulle] stands in opposition to the Americans and ourselves is impressive .. . . On more peripheral subjects too General de Gaulle seems certain to con-23 FO 371 169116, CF 1022/42. Dixon to ForeignOffice,11 July1963.24 FO 371 169124, CF1041/22/63.Dixon to Caccia,2 May 1963.25 FO 371 172070, F 1022/6/1022.Dixon to ForeignOffice,7 October1963. In the autumn,theForeignOfficenotedanimprovementnthe'frigid' elationswith Paris hathadcharacterizedthe earlierpartof the year,butconcluded hat 'fullcooperations impossible o longas the aimsof Frenchpolicyare so different rom ourown',FO 371 172077, RF1051/10.Hood minute,23October1963.26 FO 371 169107, CF 1011/1.Dixonto ForeignOffice,19January1963.27 FO 371 169122, CF1051/10.Tomkinsminute,31 January 963.28 PREM11 4220. Heathtelegramo embassies broad,6 February 963.

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tinue to adopt a policy of his own which will be tiresome', and he concludedthat 'there is no way of moving him away from systematic obstruction on themajor issues'.29Diplomats in the Paris embassy and at the Foreign Office hadlong been reporting that de Gaulle's ambition was to lead an independentEuropean block separate from the 'Anglo-Saxons'. Britain, they maintained,must do all it could to counteract these Gaullist designs if it was to have anyhope of successfully pursuing either its European or its wider east-west policyaims.

This diplomatic and political conflict with de Gaulle was undertaken onseveral distinct levels. As far as de Gaulle and the Frenchgovernment itself wasconcerned, little hope was held out. Although only three French ministers(Couve de Murville, Peyrefitte and Pisani) were identified by the British asanglophobes,30 t was recognized that there was little sympathy with the Britishdesire to enter the European Community even among those ministers andofficials who were more favourably inclined towards the UK. Besides, it wasaccepted that de Gaulle was entirely the master in Paris and he clearlyremained determined to keep Britain out, at least for the immediate future.The first tactic towards Paris, therefore, was to sit tight and await the daywhen de Gaulle would disappear from the political scene. Dixon, for example,advised at the beginning of 1963 that, given that the opposition to de Gaulleinside France would inevitably triumph sooner or later, it was

... unnecessary ... for the allies of France to modify their long-term aims in order to accom-modate them to the peculiar opinions of this one man. We must not allow ourselves to bemesmerised by him .... He is an inconvenience but not an insuperable obstacle even in theshort term.31

Such wishful thinking that in the not too distant future the obstacle wouldsimply disappear from the scene had been consistently argued by Dixon, whohad long been reporting from Paris that the General's career was 'on thedownward curve', a view which he continued to express throughout 1963.32He even managed to gain some comfort from the fact, as he saw it, that while29 FO 371 169116, CF 1022/42. Dixon to Foreign Office, 11 July 1963.30 Dixon believed that Peyrefitte 'has always hated us', although he thought the rest of theFrench government 'so far as sentiment goes quite favourably disposed towards us', FO 371169122, CF 1051/15. Dixon to Home, 25 February 1963. Three months later, Dixon added thatCouve de Murville 'deeply resented having all his arguments demolished by the Lord Privy Seal[Heath] at the final meeting in Brussels on January 29, and being made to look a fool or a knavein front of so many other people .... At any rate, the Lord Privy Seal is now his bete noire ....Couve, moreover, starts from a position of prejudice against us, the product of his personal char-acter and tastes', FO 371 169124, CF 1051/43. Dixon to Hood, 16 May 1963.31 FO 371 169107, CF 1011/1. Dixon to Foreign Office, 3 January 1963.32 FO 371 169116, CF 1022/42. Dixon to Foreign Office, 11 July 1963; FO 371 169124, CF1041/22/63. Dixon to Caccia, 2 May 1963. Macmillan looked to 'the younger men of France[who] were earnest supporters of the European movement. In the years before us we must rely onthese forces', Macmillan, op. cit., 371. In almost exactly the same terms de Gaulle thought that anew generation of British leaders would, one day, lead the UK into Europe.

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'the General is still extremely popular among the "broad masses", this popu-larity ... does not extend very widely among the notables or the professionalclasses and the IQ of the average Gaullist supporter is several points lowerthan that of the average opponent'.33Yet the British went further than passively waiting to see the back of deGaulle. Refusing to sit back and accept the new situation in which they nowfound themselves, ministers and diplomats agreed to take the diplomatic battleto the French, working to undermine de Gaulle both on the international sceneand among his own countrymen. On the diplomatic level, the British were inno mood to allow Anglo-French relations to return to normal or, as they sawit, to let de Gaulle off the hook on which they believed he had hung himself asa result of his uncompromising stance. The Foreign Secretary and leadingdiplomats agreed that internationally the best solution was to 'bypass theFrench', even to work towards 'isolating de Gaulle'.34The Prime Minister him-self called for 'an attitude of reserve on all matters of high policy'35 n relationswith Paris. As for de Gaulle's position inside France, efforts were to be made towin over wider French opinion by 'appealing to them over the heads of thepresent French Government'.36More than this, the British had few scruples indefending the objective of seeing de Gaulle removed from power. Private diplo-matic recommendations that active measures be taken to hasten the momentof his departure were not dismissed out of hand. Edward Heath, for one, wastempted by the prospect of working, if only behind the scenes, towards hisdownfall. He wrote in February 1963:

While we must in fact fight the General I suggest that we should try not to do so too openlybecause our ultimate object must be to persuade him to change his mind or the French tothrow him out.37

These different threads of the British diplomatic battle plan were drawntogether by Dixon in May. Again arguing against allowing the French veto tobring British diplomacy to a standstill, he went on in his analysis to link diplo-matic moves with the domestic French political situation in the hope that theisolation of de Gaulle would benefit British interests both internationally andinside France:33 FO 371 169107, CF 1011/1. Dixon to Foreign Office, annual review for France. Dixon hadthe reputation of being particularlywell informed as to the General's views and appreciated by theFrench President. Dixon himself wrote at the end of his diplomatic career: 'I have always liked deGaulle and enjoyed my dealings with him, however unproductive the political outcome may havebeen', Diary, 25 January 1965, PiersDixon, Double Diploma. The Life of Sir Pierson Dixon, Donand Diplomat (London 1968), 312. The Foreign Office records for 1963, however, show a ratherless flattering appraisal of the French leader.34 FO 371 169116, CF 1022/42. Dixon to Foreign Office, 11 July 1963; FO 371 169124, CF1051/41. Caccia note of 6 May 1963.35 PREM 11/4235 and FO 371 169123, CF 1051/32. PM's personal minute, 11 March 1963.36 FO 371 169122, CF 1051/10. Tomkins minute, 31 January 1963.37 PREM 11 4220. Heath telegram to embassies abroad, 6 February 1963.

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By going ahead without regardto the French we shall achieve two purposes. First we shall dothe things themselves which ex hypothes we want to do. And secondly we shall furtherisolate General de Gaulle. By doing the latter we shall contribute to his eventual downfall.We can hardly be so presumptuous as to put it among the objectives of our foreign policy tobring about the downfall of General de Gaulle. But at least we can include among thoseobjectives the creation of conditions which will facilitate it.38

However, whatever hopes British politicians or diplomats may have held, theUK could do little more than sit back and wait, unable to go beyond certainaccepted limits in openly undermining de Gaulle's standing among the Frenchpeople.If the auspices for direct action towards France to convince the General toease his opposition to the UK's entry into the Common Market were not good,rather more optimism was expressed that he might eventually give way topressure brought to bear from other quarters. It was in this direction that theUK government looked to find a way out of the diplomatic impasse in which itfound itself.The starting-point for this policy was a determination to stand up to deGaulle and, no matter how serious the setbacks of January had been, to refuseto abandon the diplomatic field to the French. As one British diplomat franklyinformed the Quai d'Orsay: 'France would find that we were still there inEurope. Whether de Gaulle liked it or not, we and the other Europeans wouldsee to it that Europe was built on democracy and on consent'.39To this end theBritish had some limited success in capitalizing on the sympathy felt for theirposition among the 'Five', even if it was accepted that mere sympathy wouldbe of limited value diplomatically. Attempts were made, however, to transformthis into something more concrete. On 29 January, for example, Heathsuggested to the Cabinet that Britain should explore with the 'Five' 'the possi-bility of promoting some new European initiative, preferably of a political ormilitary nature and linked with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, whichmight strengthen our own position in Europe and serve as a counterpoise tothe ambitions of the French Government'.40The eventuality was even raised ofthe 'Five' going so far as to split with France and to move towards a newEuropean organization with the British. The Cabinet minutes for December1963 record the extraordinary, and highly improbable, suggestion that

... if the French Government failed to reach agreement with the Federal Government onagricultural policy, they might withdraw from the EEC. We should be preparedin that event,to try to devise some means of associating the other 5 members of the Community with our-selves and our partners in the EFTA.4'

38 FO 371 169124, CF 1041/22/63. Dixon to Caccia, 2 May 1963.39 FO 371 169114, CF 1022/15/G. Evelyn Shuckburghto Hood, 20 February 1963. Conversa-tion with Claude Lebel.40 CAB 128/37 CC 8 (63), 29 January 1963.41 CAB 128/38 CM 12 (63), 12 December 1963.

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The hopes that either,as the Prime Minister said, the 'Frenchcan be smokedout by the Americans and by the 5',42 or that the other members of theCommon Market might force de Gaulle to change course were inevitablyshown to be unjustifiably optimistic. The 'Five' remained firmly anchored inthe French-dominated Community, no matter how much some membersopenly condemned de Gaulle. Most important of all, the Franco-Germanpartnership remained unbroken, with Adenauer going off to Paris to sign theFranco-German Treaty only days after de Gaulle's veto. The objective ofundermining France's position at the head of Europe, a Europe in whichBritish and American influence was to be limited, remained, therefore, essen-tially unrealizable.The British government had no effective answer to de Gaulle's veto. While ithad some success in saving its face and in presenting itself as the victim ofFrench deceit, the underlying position remained unaltered. It certainly wonsympathy in the 'Five' and the United States, and even among certain officialsand sections of the community in France, but this was never going to cut verymuch ice with de Gaulle. Never one openly to question his own decisions, hereaffirmed to everyone in the months following his veto that he had indeedbeen vindicated by events.43The UK was effectively outplayed by the FrenchPresident who, from the comfortable height of his established place inside theEuropean Community, had little difficulty in holding off the British and, as hesaw it, 'Anglo-Saxon', challenge to France's position at the head of theCommon Market. Worse than this, de Gaulle's veto left the UK governmentdiplomatically stranded. The hopes expressed in London immediately after 14January that 'if we play our cards right, the person who suffers most from thispress conference will be de Gaulle himself'44were not fulfilled. As late as July,Dixon still hoped that the diplomatic battle could be won against the French.'On the whole', he wrote:

he [de Gaulle] has very few good cards .... Each lie that he or his spokesmen tell will makeit easier to expose subsequent French ruses. We may therefore be able to make slow progresstowards our goals despite his efforts to confine us to our own half of the ground.45

In fact, Britain held few cards while de Gaulle had all the trumps. Moreover,the UK, excluded from the key European organizations, had few arenas inwhich to play those cards it held. Its only viable alternative was to make thebest of a difficult situation and, as the Prime Minister advised, to adopt 'an

42 PREM 11/4235 and FO 371 169123, CF 1051/32. PM's personal minute, 11 March 1963.43 De Gaulle told Dixon in November that 'he knew that the breakdown of the CommonMarket negotiations had been a blow and he was sorry about it. But the more he thought about itthe more he was sure that the negotiations could not have been brought to a successful conclusion.There were too many difficult problems still outstanding', FO 371 172078, RF 1051/18. Recordof an interview with President de Gaulle. Dixon to Foreign Office, 23 November 1963.44 FO 371 169114, CF 1022/4. Tomkins, 15 January 1963. Caccia added, 'Let us hope so'.45 FO 371 169116, CF 1022/42. Dixon to Foreign Office, 11 July 1963.

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attitude of "waiting and see"'.46At best this amounted to no more than dither-ing, at worst it was a lame acceptance of its exclusion from Europe, at least forthe foreseeable future.Yet the fundamental policy conclusions remained unaltered: the UK shouldcontinue to seek to reach some agreement with the EEC with the aim of oneday signing the Treaty of Rome; other international organizations, either oldor new, were non-starters in the diplomatic battle they were fighting against deGaulle's vision of Europe, and the idea of a loose association which would linkthe UK to the EEC but give it no lever over policy decisions was rejected by theBritish themselves.47In the short term there was some limited justification for Dixon's opinionthat it was in fact the French who were in a 'mess ... as a result of the famouspress conference'.48Any sense of satisfaction felt in London, however, can onlyhave been short-lived. As de Gaulle had hoped, and as Macmillan had feared,European construction continued to proceed along the lines laid out by Paris.The other members of the Community put the unpleasantness of the events ofJanuary 1963 behind them and stuck by both the Community and, howeverreluctantly, to French leadership. The storm brought on by the press con-ference of 14 January blew over, the Franco-Germanrapprochement remainedsolid and, as both London and Paris had foreseen, the 'Five' were unwilling, orunable, to force any change in French foreign policy. De Gaulle had hisEuropean problems even with only a Europe of Six, but without the UK,French leadership of Europe remained unchallenged.The French veto left a vacuum at the very heart of Britishforeign policy. Theaim remained to join the EEC eventually but there was no idea of how thiscould be achieved, given de Gaulle's implacable hostility. The British openlysought to isolate the French; in fact it was the British themselves who were,and who have by and large remained, isolated in Europe; they sought tocounteract de Gaulle's vision of Europe but had insufficient means of doing so.The UK, which had always been reluctant to be at the heart of Europe, andwhich had always felt more comfortable on the periphery,was quite unable toinfluence the outcome of the debate on Europe then under way. Excluded fromthe high table in Europe, Britain was powerless to alter the direction Europewas taking under the leadership of those who were truly at the heart ofEurope, both geographically and psychologically. Whether this direction wasthat of the Gaullist anti-American model, or the Federalist model favoured46 FO 371 169123, CF 1051/32. PM's personal minute, 11 March 1963.47 Heath warned the Cabinet in January that 'we must expect that the French Governmentmight seek to revive the concept of a limited economic association between the United Kingdomand the Community. It was unlikely, however, that any such suggestion would be found to beworth consideration on merits; and it would also revive earlier suspicions that we had no interestin promoting greater political unity in Europe but were seeking only our own commercial advan-tage. Moreover, economic association would not enable us to take any part in the shaping of theCommunity's policies; and we should be wary of being enticed into so weak a position', CAB128/37, CCS (63), 22 January 1963.48 FO 371 169122, CF 1051/5. Dixon to Foreign Office, 19 January 1963.

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elsewhere in the 'Six', there was little comfort for Britain. By the time the UKeventually entered Europe ten years later,the EEC had furtherdeveloped alonglines unfavourable to Britain's interests and in ways contrary to London'svision of a Europe based on free trade, open to the rest of the world andfirmly linked to the Atlantic partnership. In this way, the earlier fundamentalerror of not joining the European bandwagon at the outset was only exacer-bated by the French veto of 1963. In many ways, Britain's relations with therest of Europe are still suffering from these past failures.

Richard Davisis a Maitre de Conferences at the Universite Charles de Gaulle (LilleIII), France, where he teaches nineteenth- and twentieth-centuryBritish history. He is currently writing a book on Britain, de Gaulleand the Common Market.

Problem of de Gaulle

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