Introduction

Between 1964 and 1976, there was increasing American interest in Northern Ireland. The outbreak of the ‘Troubles’ captured the imagination of the American media and support of Irish–American groups. In turn, the US government monitored developments and was lobbied by its own citizens, members of Congress and, delicately, the Irish government, to intervene in some fashion. Britain's membership of NATO, and the politics of the Cold War, ostensibly explain successive administrations’ reluctance to criticise the British government's handling of the Northern Ireland question or interject itself into the Anglo-Irish process to resolve the conflict. There were precedents, however, for the US to act in similar circumstances, or certainly not to assume a stance in favour of a NATO ally. The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations did not support France in its battle with the National Liberation Front in Algeria (1954–62) and Kennedy did not tolerate the Netherlands’ attempts to justify sovereignty in Western New Guinea on the claim that its people were not related to Indonesians.

During the 1960s and 1970s, tension and conflict were increasingly defining features of Anglo-American relations. John Dumbrell observes that the relationships between Lyndon Johnson and Harold Wilson, and Richard Nixon and Edward Heath, were problematised by various factors: cooler personal relations, the Vietnam War and reduced British defence spending. Institutional cooperation remained but Anglo-American relations were certainly more difficult. Similarly, Alan Dobson recognises that the 1960s and 1970s saw a more problematic Anglo-American relationship due to each country's ‘internal dynamics’ and ‘a broader based transition’ in Western economic policies. The Heath government (1970–4), in particular, was ‘rather barren for Anglo-American relations’, with entry into the EEC dominating British foreign policy at this time. British economic problems served as bookends for this period in transatlantic affairs, starting with the 1967 Sterling Crisis and ending with the bailout of the British economy by the International Monetary Fund in 1976. As Thomas Robb has identified, Anglo-American relations during the era of détente demand a more nuanced understanding, given American coercion of successive British governments. For instance, the Heath government was strongly urged to be more amenable to American interests during the infamous 1973 ‘Year of Europe’ and Wilson was under pressure to lessen reductions in British defence spending.