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Peace efforts to resolve the Indonesia-Malaysia conflict (1963–1966) became an important agenda in Japan's Southeast Asia policy under Prime Minister (PM) Eisaku Satō. After a cautious start, the Satō government sought to create conditions for the Indonesians and Malaysians to end their armed confrontation (confrontation), which had become a source of destabilisation in Southeast Asia. Japan's peace efforts began under PM Hayato Ikeda (1960–1964), marking the first time after World War II that Tokyo became involved in attempts to mediate a conflict. These endeavours were carried out in a region where mixed feelings lingered towards Japan for its wartime occupation. This paper investigates the factors that shaped the Satō administration's engagement in efforts to resolve the confrontation and sheds light on how Japan's relations with the United States (US) influenced its peace-making role – an aspect on which little has been written in previous studies. The findings indicate that considerations related to Japanese relations with the US were an important driver, although not the only one, of the Satō administration's diplomatic initiatives to resolve the Indonesia-Malaysia armed confrontation. Furthermore, Japan's peace efforts contributed to the US policy in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 1930 was a turning point for Greek-Turkish relations. It was the year that the two neighbouring countries set the foundations for their close diplomatic cooperation that lasted throughout the 1930s. This paper seeks to explain the reasons why Greece decided to pursue such a policy. It is argued that Athens was eager to form a pro-status quo front with Ankara in order to deter the revisionist tendencies of powers in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (namely Bulgaria and Italy). This was a strategic choice on the part of Greece which explains why it was followed by all the Greek governments (irrespectively of their ideological and/or partisan association) from 1930 until the outbreak of the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946-1948) or Tokyo IMT is overlooked for its contributions to modern international criminal justice. Convened to hold Japanese leaders accountable for conspiring to commit aggression, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes during the Second World War, the IMTFE was both a groundbreaking judicial undertaking and a pioneering multilateral institution. This distinction makes it a unique vehicle for exploring the fundamental challenges of both international justice and organisation. Institutions like the IMTFE are usually viewed through broad geopolitical, legal, and ideological lenses. Although important, these approaches miss a singularly important dimension of multilateralism: the human contingencies that impact international bodies. Using unique participant sources, this article presents an intimate 'trial's-eye-view' of how working at the IMTFE affected the emotions, psychology, and temperament of its personnel. Participant responses on these very personal levels had profound consequences on the tribunal's proceedings, findings, and legacy. Other factors shaped justice in Tokyo, but the responses identified here were common, and their impact significant. Ultimately, this paper argues that people and their experiences-as much as anything-produced the outcome of justice in Tokyo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three Canadian High Commissioners—C.J. Burchell, Victor Odlum and T.C. Davis—served in Australia from 1939 to 1945. Political appointees all, the three men shared generally disparaging and patronising views of Australia and Australians. These views were the product, in part, of a less than close and sometimes acrimonious relationship between these two distant Dominions and Canadian condescension. But American diplomats and even many Australian elites also tended to view the Australians as friendly if uncomplicated people with few organisational or political skills. Unsurprisingly, such views did little to aid the development of close ties between Australia and Canada during the Second World War. They also engendered equally sharp comments about Canada and Canadians from Australian officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how policy-makers during the Second World War attempted to “learn the lessons” of history from the reparations settlement imposed after the First World War. It shows how these lessons were developed and articulated in the formulation of, in particular, American foreign policy, and also their consequences for foreign policy during and after the Second World War. The paper demonstrates the important role of European advisors in shaping American policy, thereby illustrating that not all American lessons of history were born in the USA. It also draws out how many of these lessons have found an echo in the historiography of German reparations that has emerged over the past fifty years. In both periods the issues of enforcement and compliance, the issues that concern us generally in this volume, dominated the debate between advisors and policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several decades, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 have been the subject of a fierce debate between orthodox and 'revisionist' historians. In so doing, however, historians have for the most part neglected to look more closely into questions of a primarily economic and organisational nature in investigating the contributing factors to the American decision-making process. Accordingly, this analysis explores systematically how in addition to the predominant need of avoiding further combat casualties, a speedy conclusion of the Pacific conflict was also deemed critical to a successful re-transition of United States war-time production to a thriving peace-time economy, as well as to a comprehensive rehabilitation of the war-shattered European continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with the publication of An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States in 1913, Charles Austin Beard gained fame and notoriety as a historian by writing about the power of money over politics and policy. In his analysis of American history, he did not make an exception for the Second World War or the Cold War. Those conflicts, too, had an economic subtext. Yet, in his two most famous books dealing with the dawn of the American Century, American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932–1940: A Study in Responsibilities (1946) and President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941: A Study in Appearances and Realities (1948), he focused narrowly on Roosevelt's foreign policy decisions. These books contributed to the impression that in his later years he had moved beyond the economic interpretation of history. A leading public intellectual, Beard also wrote numerous magazine articles about the motives behind America's interwar, wartime, and post-war foreign policy. His journalistic first draft of history crucially supplements the last books that he published and shows him to have retained the view that there is no politics without economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis revisits the State Department's initial handling of the infamous Belmonte-Wendler letter during May-September 1941. Previous scholarship has focused heavily on the decision by British intelligence to forge and then share that letter as a means to spur American entry into the Second World War, with little disagreement among scholars about this side of the story. In comparison, however, the understanding of the State Department's handling of the letter has become thoroughly muddled over time, with scholars regularly offering wildly inconsistent accounts, even despite only citing the same small handful of primary documents. Based on exhaustive archival research in records either overlooked by previous studies or since declassified, this assessment marshals a trove of fresh evidence to paint the most complete or accurate picture of who in the State Department knew the letter was a forgery, when and how they made this determination, and what they did to cover it up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When, in March 1940, two Jewish emigré physicists, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, composed a memorandum on the technical feasibility of an atomic weapon, few would have envisaged the significance of this six-page document. The technical blueprint for an atomic weapon, at the time assumed to be well beyond the realm of the possible, was to have a significant impact on the Anglo-American nuclear relationship, as it enabled British and American scientists to discuss at eye-level, the direction of nuclear weapons development, as it moved from theory to implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Soviet experience of the Second World War is not commonly associated with popular activism in foreign relations. Yet, throughout the war, the Stalinist regime actively engaged in soft power projects with its allies, one of which was a pen-friendship scheme involving thousands of ordinary individuals. This analysis examines Anglo-Soviet popular correspondence amongst young people and children as one of the earliest examples of 'citizen diplomacy'. It examines the function of international exchanges as instruments of both state policy and personal interaction, arguing that this penpalship was not mere propaganda manipulation. Undoubtedly brokered to achieve certain goals, it also had an element of spontaneity and sincerity, springing from a real popular feeling. Delving into the inner-workings of Soviet propaganda and diplomatic machinery, this article exlpores the significance, complexities, and limitations of the wartime epistolary exchange amongst the young. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the Tilea Affair of March 1939, a short-term event leading to the Second World War. Evidence regarding the impact of intervention of V.V. Tilea, Romanian minister in London, England on British foreign policy in March 1939; Conclusions.

This article explores the preparation made by the British government, primarily the Foreign Office, for the state visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the United States three months before the outbreak of the Second World War. It considers the dynamics of the relationship between the officials in Whitehall, the British ambassador in Washington, Sir Ronald Lindsay, the agenda of the Roosevelt administration and the role of the British royal family as ambassadors in their own right. Lindsay's role was also pivotal because he was a personal friend of the King and was also on much respected and influential figure in Washington. The article does not discuss the course of the state visit, although there is discussion of the literature that relates to it. However, it does reveal that securing a concrete alliance with the United States was not the priority of the British government in the summer of 1939; that the focus of the Foreign Office, in particular, was on the growing diplomatic crisis in Europe. Lastly, the article argues that in the months leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, the Foreign Office was confident in its own ability to lead the formulation of British foreign policy; that it was not eclipsed by Neville Chamberlain's very personal involvement in appeasing the fascist dictators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis explores the shifting definitions of what constituted a diplomat in post-Second World War Britain. Post-war women's liberation generated unique dilemmas for Foreign Office recruiters: whilst reluctant to employ women on equal terms with men, they nonetheless fell under pressure to demonstrate that Britain's self-styled international reputation as a vanquisher of Nazi tyranny and oppression applied to women's employment. Women were admitted to the Diplomatic Service in 1946 on the basis that arguments in favour of women diplomats complemented and even enhanced Foreign Office attempts to model itself as a bastion of equal opportunity, fairness, and, later, 'meritocracy'. This analysis explores internal Foreign Office debates about the employment of women diplomats after the Second World War, but it also makes a related argument about the value of 'organisation history' and what a study of Foreign Office culture can reveal about the society in which is operated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myron Taylor, President Franklin Roosevelt's personal representative to Pope Pius XII, carried out a difficult and ultimately futile mission during the Second World War: to persuade the Allies to spare Rome and the Vatican from aerial bombardment. Taylor was a Cornell law graduate and prominent industrial leader, enjoying Roosevelt's confidence and well respected by Vatican officials, including Eugenio Pacelli, whom he had met before the latter assumed his position as pope. Yet Taylor's attempts to prevent the bombing of Rome ran counter to prevailing military strategy and ideas about the legality, morality, and efficacy of targeting civilians. Taylor nevertheless pressed his ideas on American and British leaders, offering alternatives like declaring Rome an 'open city' and targeting hydroelectric plants instead of cities to disrupt the Italian war effort. He conveyed the pope's entreaties, often including thinly veiled threats to rouse worldwide Catholic opinion against the Allies were Rome harmed. This analysis tells the story of a failed but historically important effort to preserve Rome and its citizens from aerial destruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When established in 1951, the West German Foreign Office resembled its pre-1945 Berlin Ministry predecessor in many ways. Notably, about 45 percent of Bonn’s diplomats came from the old service. Such continuities raised concerns about a restoration of old diplomatic traditions and attitudes. However, significant changes in German diplomacy—its West German variant—soon became evident, not least in terms of diplomatic style and methods. This analysis explores how the Foreign Office’s staff adopted, promoted, or rejected such changes. It assesses institutional processes of transformation and examines why diplomats were willing to “re-learn” diplomacy after the Second World War. Likewise evaluated are the problems and limits of re-orientation. By focussing on (dis)continuities within the Foreign Service in the 1950s and 1960s, the analysis contributes to the general field of research on processes of transition in West Germany after the end of the Third Reich. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of Chinese involvement in Allied relations during the Second World War tend to focus on the Cairo Conference of November 1943 and see it as the high point for China’s wartime diplomacy. This analysis argues that the Moscow Foreign Ministers’ Conference, held just prior to Cairo in late October-early November, was more important for the achievement of China’s longer-term interests. The participation at Moscow of Cordell Hull, the American secretary of state, was unique as the State Department was absent from almost all the Allied wartime summits. President Franklin Roosevelt liked to conduct his diplomacy personally. In Moscow, however, Hull represented the United States, and his patience and persistence led to the inclusion of China in the Four Nation Declaration that resulted from the meeting. That, in turn, meant that China was eventually included as a permanent member of the eventual United Nations Security Council and seen as a post-war Great Power. It was a more significant outcome than those resulting from the Cairo Conference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis allows readers to confront for themselves the 27 September 1945 meeting between the Shōwa Emperor and General Douglas MacArthur, as recently documented by Japan’s Imperial Household Agency. It also introduces readers to a long-standing debate amongst Japanese scholars that has received no attention in English-language literature. The debate centres on the question as to whether the emperor offered at this meeting to take responsibility for the war fought in his name. This analysis offers its own conclusions and suggests that the emperor in all probability offered to take responsibility for the war. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This analysis traces the evolution of the denazification programme in American-occupied Germany from 1945–1948. At the close of the Second World War, high-level American policy-makers proclaimed their determination to drive all Nazis out of power. However, the realities of denazification differed from American officials’ goals; additionally, their objectives in Germany dramatically changed over time. Monitoring German public opinion about the occupation, and keeping public opinion positive, proved of central importance to Military Government officials. They actively promoted denazification in an attempt to bolster German attitudes toward the programme. Using Office of Military Government of the United States documents, this analysis examines the decision to wind down the American denazification programme and shows that the decision came in April 1947 because of negative German public opinion. In place of denazification, American Military Government officials recommended increasing emphasis on reorientation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the United States became a world Power, journalist and intellectual Walter Lippmann feared that it would become its own worst enemy. During and after the Second World War, he tried to steer the country towards coherent statecraft, to define the national interest and the limits of power, and give geopolitical expression to the role of the United States as the core of an Atlantic strategic system. But in response to world war, the Truman Doctrine, and the Korean War, he became pessimistic about the country's ability to conduct strategy effectively. In the prophetic tradition, he believed that a fatal symbiosis between America's growing strength and domestic politics led it towards crisis. Though at times ahistorical, Lippmann's concept of strategy deserves attention for its dialogue between power and identity, for its questioning of “ends” as well as means, and for its focus on the danger of self-defeating behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using archival evidence from Britain and France, and published primary and secondary literature, this article offers a reassessment of Britain’s role in Cambodia during liberation duties following World War II. Britain’s actions in the removal of the Son Ngoc Thanh nationalist government and the Cambodian–Siamese border dispute are analysed, revealing both a more complex and detailed British involvement in Cambodian affairs than has previously been stated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have variously queried the existence of the Anglo-American “special relationship,” consigned it to history as “special no more,” or demanded that Britain choose between its European and American relationships. These critiques have become increasingly prevalent since the Cold War. Yet the current British government, like many before it, continues to portray a choice between America and Europe as a “false choice,” and the “special relationship” has arguably deepened in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. This article contends that international diplomatic history can contribute much to understanding the “Lazarus-like” quality of the “special relationship.” Specifically it argues that a number of critical continuities in post–World War II British foreign policy survived the end of the Cold War and have since contributed heavily to the determination of the British foreign policymaking elite to maintain the “special relationship” at the same time that Britain pursues a leadership role within Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II, official definitions of the requirements of United States national security were extended beyond the defense of the western hemisphere to include preventing any single power dominating Eurasia. This article challenges the commonly expressed view that this change was due to a belief that a strategy of continental defense would no longer suffice to protect the physical safety of the United States. The focus is on the period between Munich and Pearl Harbor when U.S policy moved away from the principle of non-involvement embodied in the neutrality legislation of 1935–37. The role in this process of the argument that America’s own safety was dependent upon the European balance of power, particularly because of the dangers posed by the development of aviation and the possible suborning of Latin America, is critically examined. It is argued that the broader conception of America’s security requirements reflected both a consciousness of the unique power of the United States to determine the outcome of the war and an implicit belief that the values and interests for which the nation should be prepared to fight extended beyond physical security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the war in Europe wound down and the long, bloody summer of 1945 stretched on in the Pacific, the British Government began to consider the role of its armed forces in the closing stages of the Pacific War and how that role could be best constructed to advance Britain’s post-war political aims. This article is an attempt to explain the often convoluted internal negotiations that led to Britain’s offer at the Potsdam Conference of three to five divisions plus tactical air forces to the invasion of mainland Japan, to delineate the actual and planned contributions of the British armed forces to the final phases of operations against the Home Islands of Japan and immediately adjacent areas, and to assess the impact of these contributions on Anglo-American relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain why the British pushed for a role in Pacific operations during the Second World War when it faced other strategic priorities in Southeast Asia, as well as a powerful American military that maintained tight control over operational decision-making. Although several quarters in Whitehall, including the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had doubts about the necessity of a Pacific strategy, there were sensible reasons behind pursuing such a course. It would illustrate to an "anti-imperialist" America that Britain was not only interested in recovering its colonial possessions but also prepared to fight the Japanese on their homeland. More importantly, taking part in the main operations would allow the British to claim a voice at the peace table while helping to encourage the Americans to cement their close working relationship with Britain in the postwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers sales of British arms in the prelude to the Second World War which had political as well as commercial motivations. As a preliminary attempt to examine the neglected area of defence and rearmament, this article focuses on government policy and attributes with regard to the sale of arms abroad, notably to European countries. According to the author the decision by British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's government in 1935 to begin an extensive rearmament programme was hound to make increasingly heavy demands on Great Britain's armaments industry.

Examines U.S. and British postwar policy toward the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain. Infuence of anti-fascism after World War II; Views on the alignment of Franco with the West; Conclusion.

Focuses on economist J. M. Keynes' vision of a world in which every country would be able to pursue its own New Deal and on the origins of the postwar international monetary order. His views on the Anglo-American partnership in the Second World War; Contribution of Keynes to economics; Information on the wartime international economic policy.