Wilson, Callaghan and the management of Anglo-American relations, 1974-1976.

The Conservative Heath government dropped the term special relationship from the vernacular of Anglo-American relations. Britain's usefulness to the US was in question, too, epitomised in the April 1975 Wall Street Journal headline of 'Goodbye Great Britain'. Yet the succeeding Wilson and Callaghan Labour governments were determined to revive Anglo-American relations. This article argues they achieved more to this end than hitherto acknowledged through how they managed Anglo-American relations. Particular attention is drawn to resetting the tone of relations, strategies of engagement of American officials to control fallout from British retrenchment and a discursive modernisation of the special relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]