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

本项目将分析美国驻伦敦大使对联合王国和美国之间关系的工作和重要性，考察大卫·布鲁斯领导下的美国驻伦敦大使馆在20世纪60年代的经验。它将把重点放在他的日常外交职责上，并指出这些职责对更广泛的国际历史研究的意义。它将结合深入的历史研究和对外交研究中的智力辩论的把握，调查常驻大使馆与现代外交行为的相关性。尽管媒体对所谓的“特殊关系”的报道主要集中在总统和总理之间的高层私人往来上，但这个项目将着眼于日常官方层面上的交流--两国关系的“内部运作”。在这样做的过程中，它触及了广泛的主题，包括政治和经济问题，但也包括贸易促进、领事工作和公共关系、军事和情报合作。此外，与大多数其他关于大使职位的学术研究倾向于集中于双边政治关系不同，这个项目将关注并反思大使作为外交官的日常工作。它将考察他如何与英国政府建立个人联系，他与议会、媒体和公众互动的程度，他促进与伦敦的友好关系，他向华盛顿自己的政府提交的政治报告和政策建议，以及他通过外交使团与其他大使的接触。但它也将审查伦敦大使馆的一般情况，大使是如何管理它的，特派团副团长等主要官员发挥的作用，国务院工作人员在政治和经济报告等领域的工作，以及中央情报局、美国新闻局和国防部门等其他机构工作人员的重要性。通过这样做，它解决了外交研究文献中关于大使馆和大使的一些主要辩论，包括20世纪大使馆的死亡--即大使馆和大使在20世纪60年代和70年代变得多余的想法，因为国家之间更快的直接沟通、喷气式运输的出现和媒体的增长(可以“即时”报道世界各地的政治事件)。这项研究询问大使与两国政府之间的其他联系方式相比有多重要，例如峰会和外长会议，英国驻华盛顿大使馆的工作，以及通过联合国和北大西洋公约组织等国际组织的联系。拟议的专著将表明，尽管大使在高级别讨论中的中心地位降低了，但他们仍然是此时外交关系中的一个重要因素，尤其是在大国之间。除了出版的作品，该项目还将基于美国和英国的档案研究、私人文件收藏、口述历史项目和大卫·布鲁斯本人留下的令人惊叹的完整日记。利用回忆录和其他大使的传记，它将与布鲁斯和伦敦大使馆的工作进行比较，试图确定他们在多大程度上是独一无二的，在多大程度上符合一种经验模式。该项目将产生一些会议论文，并在2014年出版由著名的美国出版集团Continuum出版的一本9万字的专著，这是由劳娜·劳埃德编辑的《外交中的关键研究》系列文章。鉴于这一主题的性质，这些成果不仅会引起广泛的学者和学生--历史、国际关系和美国研究--的兴趣，而且还会引起外交专业人士的兴趣。

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.