He connects British efforts to establish a free trade area (FTA) around the EEC in 1956, and Britain’s application to join the EEC under certain conditions in 1961–3, with a further story of Britain’s efforts to sustain nuclear independence. 88) Britain’s attempt to reconcile itself with the European Community. Mangold then recounts ‘the second act in the Macmillan-de Gaulle drama’ (p. In short, Macmillan was out of step with the realities of Britain’s declining power position, and faced a rude shock when he became premier after Eden’s resignation. As for Suez, Macmillan failed to anticipate American anger at the Anglo-French invasion. Macmillan was initially amongst those who misjudged the significance of Messina, in part because of his latent fear of German domination of the continent. The latter event was essential in de Gaulle’s return to power in France, but the previous two feature mainly as scene-setters for Mangold’s subsequent narrative. Part three begins with a brief treatment of the 1955 Messina conference, the 1956 Suez crisis, and the 1958 Algerian crisis. Thereafter, Macmillan helped to convince Churchill and Roosevelt to recognise the FCNL, making it an effective provisional government, with de Gaulle as its prime minister. This incident deepened Macmillan and de Gaulle’s relationship, moving Macmillan to venture to de Gaulle that their acquaintance might be called ‘friendship’, a sentiment de Gaulle reciprocated (p. A junior player amongst some heavyweight politicians, he assisted in resolving the crisis of June 1943, helping to persuade de Gaulle against breaking with the French generals. The Americans wanted General Giraud to lead a new French authority, but Macmillan was instrumental in persuading President Roosevelt, as well as Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to accept de Gaulle as a potential leader. At this time, de Gaulle was leader of the Fighting French in exile in London. Macmillan was appointed resident minister in Algiers in 1943 after the victory of the Allied forces in Operation Torch. In part two, Mangold charts the roles of Macmillan and de Gaulle during the extremely difficult negotiations to establish the French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL) in North Africa during the war. De Gaulle sought to impose his will on events Macmillan hoped to manipulate and to influence indirectly. Both de Gaulle and Macmillan, Mangold notes, had a tendency to depression, and both had contemplated suicide, but the differences in their characters were more striking. Macmillan’s wife, more suited to the role of leader’s spouse than de Gaulle’s, conducted a life-long affair with Macmillan’s friend Robert Boothby. By contrast, Macmillan’s American-born mother dominated him through his education at Summerfields, Eton, and Oxford. His youngest child, Anne, had Downs Syndrome, but de Gaulle was devoted to her. De Gaulle fathered three children in an unremarkable marriage. At military school, the young de Gaulle was noted for his unwillingness to take subordination, as well as his arrogance. De Gaulle’s mother was devoutly religious, his father a minor aristocrat who instilled in his children tales of France’s greatness. Born in the 1890s, there were little obvious similarities in their upbringings. The first part of the book is an account of Macmillan and de Gaulle’s early lives. Macmillan, Mangold concludes, was not only outwitted, but also outclassed by the general, whose hatred of all things American meant that he could never countenance Macmillan’s promotion of Anglo-American ties. Macmillan assisted de Gaulle’s position in North Africa during the war, but when Macmillan needed France’s favour to implement Britain’s entry to the EEC in 1963, de Gaulle responded with a veto. De Gaulle and Macmillan were wartime allies, the former the obstinate, visionary leader of the Free French, the latter the outwardly able but inwardly anxious resident minister in Algiers. The premise of the book is one of honour not repaid. Mangold draws on French and British government documents and published documents from the United States, as well as on the private papers of several British ministers and officials, and those of the French diplomat Olivier Wormser. Peter Mangold provides here a witty account of the relationship between two statesmen who at the apogee of their careers were respectively British prime minister and president of the French Fifth Republic.
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