Case study of an Ambassador: David Bruce and the American Embassy in London, 1961-69

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This project will analyse the work and importance of the US Ambassador in London to relations between the United Kingdom and the United States, looking at the experience of the American embassy in London, under David Bruce, during the 1960s. It will both focus on his day-to-day diplomatic duties and draw out the significance of these for the broader study of international history. Combining in-depth historical research with a grasp of the intellectual debates in diplomatic studies, it will investigate the relevance of the resident embassy to the conduct of modern diplomacy. Whereas media coverage of the so-called 'special relationship' focuses on the high-level, personal dealings between Presidents and Prime Ministers, this project will look lower down, at the exchanges on a day-to-day, official level - the 'inner workings' of the relationship. In so doing, it touches on a wide range of topics, including political and economic issues, but also trade promotion, consular work and public relations, military and intelligence co-operation. Furthermore, in contrast to most other academic studies of ambassadorships, which tend to concentrate on bilateral political relations, this project will focus and reflect upon the ambassador's everyday work as a diplomat. It will look at how he established personal contacts with the British government, the extent to which he interacted with Parliament, the media and the general public, his promotion of friendly relations with London, his political reporting and policy advice back to his own government in Washington and his engagement with his fellow ambassadors through the diplomatic corps. But it will also look at the London embassy in general, at how it was managed by the Ambassador, the role played by key officials like the Deputy Chief of Mission, the work of State Department staff in such areas as political and economic reporting, and the significance of staff from others agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Information Agency and the defence services. In so doing, it addresses some of the major debates about embassies and ambassadors in the diplomatic studies literature, including that of the 'death of the embassy' in the twentieth century - that is, the idea that embassies and ambassadors were becoming redundant in the 1960s and 1970s due to swifter direct communications between states, the advent of jet transport and the growth of the media (which could report political events around the world 'instantly'). The research asks how important the Ambassador was compared to other methods of contact between the two governments, such as summit and foreign ministers meetings, the work of the United Kingdom's embassy in Washington and links via international organisations, like the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The proposed monograph will show that, however reduced the centrality of ambassadors to high-level discussions, they were still a vital factor in diplomatic relations at this time, not least between the major powers. As well as published works, the project will be based on archival research in the United States and United Kingdom, private papers collections, oral history projects and the remarkably full diaries left behind by David Bruce himself. Using memoirs and biographies of other ambassadors, it will draw comparisons with the work of Bruce and the London embassy, to try to ascertain how far they were unique and to what extent they fitted a pattern of experience. The project will result in a number of conference papers as well as the publication in 2014 of a 90,000-word monograph by the prestigious American publishing group, Continuum, in their 'Key Studies in Diplomacy' series, edited by Lorna Lloyd. Given the nature of the topic, the outputs will be of interest not only to a wide range of academics and students - in History, international relations and American Studies - but also to professionals in diplomacy.