A preliminary version of this article was published as a Working Paper for ARENA in April 1996. The views and conclusions are to some extent deduced from my thesis submitted for the candidatus philologiae degree at the University of Trondheim, spring 1995: Kristian Steinnes, ‘Outside Europe's Magic Circle. Macmillan og den britiske regjeringa – den første søknaden om medlemskap i EEC i 1961’ (University of Trondheim, 1995).

I wish to thank professor Svein Dahl and associate professor Gudmund Stang at the Department of History at the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim for critical reading and helpful suggestions for improvements; thanks to grants from ARENA under the Norwegian Research Council. I would also like to acknowledge the research group working with European history at the Department of History at the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

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² The phrase ‘integration’ in this article is used in a relatively narrow sense and implies supranational characteristics (see next footnote).

³ The application for membership of the Communities (EEC, ECSC and Euratom), which was submitted with reference to Article 237 of the Treaty of Rome, required full liabilities as indicated under the Treaty. The application meant subjection to the concept of supranationality which implied, in contrast with intergovernmental, derogation of sovereignty in restricted areas to a supranational authority. Alternatively, associate membership (with reference to Article 238), would have required interdependent obligations short of membership. The term intergovernmentalism, often applied as an alternative to integration and supranationality, implies co-operation between independent states. Integration versus interdependence are terms often applied to respective supranational (federal) and intergovernmental (confederal) characteristics.

⁴ In November 1955 the British government withdrew its representative (a civil servant) from the Spaak Committee which was established at Messina and subsequently met between July 1955 and March 1956. The British government was by then not in a position to accept the founding principles of a supranational structure and a common market.

⁵ In voluminous economic studies the phenomenon often is labelled as Britain's relative decline. For a discussion of the economic literature see Alford, B. W. E., British Economic Performance 1945–1975 (London: Macmillan, 1988).Google Scholar

⁶ Kaiser, Wolfram ‘To join, or not to join: the “Appeasement” policy of Britain's first EEC application’, in Brivati, Brian and Jones, Harriet, eds., From Reconstruction to Integration. Britain and Europe since 1945 (London: Leicester University Press, 1993), 152.Google Scholar

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¹⁰ Young, , Britain and European Unity, 182.Google Scholar

¹¹ George, Stephen, Britain and European Integration since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 44, 63.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid., 43.

¹³ Moon, Jeremy, European Integration in British Politics 1950–1963: A Study of Issue Change (Aldershot: Gower, 1985), 36.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Urwin, Derek W., The Community of Europe. A History of European Integration since 1945 (London: Longman Group Limited, 1991), 117–20.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Milward, Alan S., The European Rescue of the Nation State (London: Routledge, 1992), xi.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid., 3.

¹⁷ Ibid., 433.

¹⁸ Ibid., 433.

¹⁹ Sampson, Anthony, Macmillan: A Study in Ambiguity (London: The Penguin Press, 1967), 209.Google Scholar

²⁰ West Europe and Canada, FRUS, 1033.

²¹ Several actors – such as lower level departments, parts of the civil service, committees, and foreign leaders – have not been exhaustively analysed.

²² Thatcher, Margaret, The Path to Power (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), 118.Google Scholar

²³ 27 May 1960, CAB 134/1819, Cabinet Papers, Public Record Office, London.

²⁴ 27 May 1960, CAB 134/1819, 3. Home replaced Lloyd as Foreign Secretary in the cabinet reshuffle in July 1960. Lloyd was moved to the Treasury.

²⁵ 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, Prime Minister's Paper, Public Record Office, London.

²⁶ 9 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11//3325, 2–3, 9 and 28. See also Clark, Ian, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship. Britain's Deterrent and America, 1957–1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 303.Google Scholar

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²⁸ 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 3.

²⁹ Macmillan, Harold, Pointing the Way. 1959–1961 (London: Macmillan, 1972), 312Google Scholar (italicisation added.)

³⁰ This study, as others, offers documentation on the considerable danger of a French veto. Cf. for example Kaiser, ‘to join, or not to join’, 152–3; Lie, ‘A Gulliver among Lilliputians’, 145–8.

³¹ 19 Oct. 1960, PREM 11/3131.

³² (no exact date), PREM 11/3325.

³³ (no exact date), PREM 11/3325.

³⁴ 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 7.

³⁵ 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 7.

³⁶ 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 8.

³⁷ 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 14.

³⁸ 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, 12.

³⁹ 22 Feb. 1961, PREM 11/3345, 1 and 3.

⁴⁰ 22 Feb. 1961, PREM 11/3345, 3.

⁴¹ 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, 18.

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⁴⁶ 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 9.

⁴⁷ 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 9.

⁴⁸ 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 7–8.

⁴⁹ 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 8.

⁵⁰ 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244 (meeting at 3.15 p.m.), 1.

⁵¹ 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244 (meeting at 3.15 p.m.), 1.

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⁵⁴ 28 Apr. 1961, PREM 11/3328 and PREM 11/3319, 3.

⁵⁵ 28 Apr. 1961, PREM 11/3328 (Annex III), 2.

⁵⁶ The answer from President Kennedy on 22 May confirmed, as did his talks with de Gaulle on 31 May, that he did not find British membership of the common market important enough to override other considerations vis-à-vis de Gaulle's nuclear ambitions or to secure Britain's, and allegedly American, long-term interests. 22 May 1961, PREM 11/3319, 2; West Europe and Canada, FRUS, 23–5, 314. The American policy on whether to concede nuclear information to France had been settled by the National Security Council and then approved by the President on 21 Apr. 1961; West Europe and Canada, FRUS, 289 and 656.

⁵⁷ Kaiser, , ‘To join, or not to join’, 153.Google Scholar

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⁶⁰ 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 7; 22 Feb. 1961, PREM 11/3345, 1. They seem not to have been aware of the increasing gulf between the Russians and the Chinese, which led to an official breach in 1962. See for example how Khrushchev, considered this development, Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little Brown and Company (Inc.), 1970).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Perry, Keith, Britain and the European Community (London: Heinemann, 1984), 7.Google Scholar

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⁶⁵ Milward, , The European Rescue, 425.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ 9 May 1961, CAB 134/1821, 1.

⁶⁷ 17 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, 4.

⁶⁸ Ibid., 4.

⁶⁹ 17 May 1961, CAB 134/1821, 1.

⁷⁰ Ibid., 1; 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/244, 2; and 16 March 1961, PREM 11/3326.

⁷¹ Cf. footnote 23.

⁷² 28 June 1960, CAB 134/1853, 1–3.

⁷³ See for example 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 8; and (no exact date), FO 371/158 160, 2.

⁷⁴ 28 June 1960, CAB 134/1853, 2–3.

⁷⁵ 14 July 1961, T 236/6323, Treasury Papers, Public Record Office, London.

⁷⁶ Jean Chauvel in conversation with Deputy Under-Secretary of State, Sir Patrick Reilly. 21 July 1961, FO 371/158 179.

⁷⁷ 29 July 1961, PREM 11/3559.

⁷⁸ 25 Apr. 1961, CAB 134/1854.

⁷⁹ 9 May 1961, CAB 134/1821, 1.

⁸⁰ Cf. the ‘London Agreement’ in June 1961 which said that the EFTA would be maintained until satisfactory arrangements had been made to meet the various legitimate interests of all its members, and made it a precondition for any acceptable solution that all EFTA states could participate from the same date in an integrated European market. See for example 31 July 1961, Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, 645 House of Commons Debates, col. 931; and Lie, ‘A Gulliver among Lilliputians’, 156–66.

⁸¹ 16 June 1961, FO 371/158 271.

⁸² Home, Alistair, Macmillan 1957–1986. Volume II of the Official Biography (London: Macmillan, 1989), 257.Google Scholar

⁸³ 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, 8.

⁸⁴ Ibid., 8–9.

⁸⁵ Ibid., 8.

⁸⁶ 28 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 2.

⁸⁷ Ibid., 2–3.

⁸⁸ Ibid., 6–9.

⁸⁹ Clark, , ‘Nuclear Diplomacy’, 297–309.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ It was inevitable that, in accordance with the report of the Secretary to the Cabinet, American assessments and Clark's study, the FRG would follow suit in order not to concede a dominating position in Europe to France. 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 4; and Clark, , ‘Nuclear Diplomacy’, 299.Google Scholar

⁹¹ 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 4.

⁹² Ibid., 3.

⁹³ 24 May 1961, FO 371/158 270, 1–5.

⁹⁴ 25 July 1961, T 236/6554.

⁹⁵ 2 June 1961, FO 371/158 270.

⁹⁶ Ibid.

⁹⁷ 6 June 1961, FO 371/158 275, 1. See also equal considerations in the EEAC on 19 July 1961, CAB 134/1821, 5–6.

⁹⁸ 6 June 1961, FO 371/158 275.

⁹⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰⁰ 19 July 1961, CAB 134/1821.

¹⁰¹ Ibid., 5.

¹⁰² Ibid., 5–6.

¹⁰³ Kaiser, , ‘To join, or not to join’, 154.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Lie, , ‘A Gulliver among Lilliputians’, 147.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁶ Kissinger, , Diplomacy, 595–6.Google Scholar