Britain and UN Peacekeeping: 1948-67

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Britain and UN Peacekeeping 1948–67 Neil Briscoe

About the author Neil Briscoe is UN Programme Manager in the Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department of the UK Department for International Development. For most of the period 1989–99 he worked for the UN Secretariat, first on peacekeeping and Security Council issues and then as a political officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. He has degrees from Cambridge, Yale and Oxford Universities, including a D.Phil. in International Relations.

Britain and UN Peacekeeping 1948–67

Neil Briscoe

© Neil Briscoe 2003 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 1–4039–1499–0 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Briscoe, Neil, 1964– Britain and UN peacekeeping, 1948–67/Neil Briscoe. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–1499–0 (cloth) 1. Peacekeeping – History – 20th century. 2. United Nations – Armed Forces – History – 20th century. 3. Great Britain – Foreign relations – 1945– I. Title: Britain and United Nations peacekeeping, 1948–67. II. Title. JZ6374.B75 2003 341.5'84—dc21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

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For Olivia

Contents Acknowledgements

x

1 Introduction The concept of peacekeeping Why this subject? Influences on British peacekeeping policy Sources Structure of the book

1 2 3 6 7 9

2 Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions British colonial experience Inter-war antecedents of peacekeeping Planning for peace Foreign and defence policy under Labour Military Staff Committee discussions Britain and Palestine The creation of the UN Truce Supervision Organisation The creation of the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan Proposals for a standing UN Guard Force The UN and British colonial policy under Labour Conclusion

11 12 14 16 21 23 26 27

3 The Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 Foreign and defence policy under the Conservatives The UN and British colonial policy under the Conservatives The Suez Crisis The creation and functions of UNEF The composition of UNEF Conditions for withdrawal of the Anglo-French troops Relations with the United States Conclusion

38 39 40 41 44 47 49 52 54

4 Conceptualizing and Delimiting Peacekeeping, 1957–60 British initiative for a permanent UN force British views on the United Nations Public and parliamentary views on a UN force

57 58 66 72

vii

30 33 34 35

viii Contents

US plan for a standby force US and UK intervention in Lebanon and Jordan Hammarskjöld’s study of the UNEF experience Conclusion

73 74 83 89

5 The UN Operation in the Congo, 1960–64 Britain and the United Nations in 1960 British decolonization and UN anti-colonialism British interests and the Congo Congolese independence and the creation of ONUC ONUC’s composition ONUC’s functions and deployment General Alexander Constitutional crisis Lumumba’s death and its aftermath Strengthening ONUC’s mandate Katanga Arms for ONUC Pressuring Katanga British perceptions of ONUC’s performance Conclusion

94 96 97 98 99 102 104 108 112 114 115 117 120 125 126 128

6 Strengthening Peacekeeping, 1961–64 British views on standing international forces British military intervention in Kuwait, July 1961 Anglo-US cooperation on peacekeeping British military views on strengthening peacekeeping Parliamentary and public views on peacekeeping Further Anglo-US collaboration Courting the Secretary-General’s Military Adviser Peacekeeping’s funding crisis Further intervention and neo-colonialism Conclusion

132 133 134 136 138 140 142 143 146 148 149

7 The Creation and Early Operation of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, 1964–67 Historical background and British interests in Cyprus Unilateral British peacekeeping The search for a non-UN peacekeeping force Activity at the United Nations and deterioration in Cyprus Resolution 186: the establishment of UNFICYP Command and composition of UNFICYP Planning UNFICYP

153 154 156 159 161 163 165 169

Contents ix

Composition finalized UNFICYP’s mandate Publication of UNFICYP’s terms of reference UNFICYP in operation, 1964–67 British experience of peacekeeping The semantics of peacekeeping Conclusion

171 172 177 179 184 186 188

8 Promoting and Defending Peacekeeping, 1964–67 Expanding British involvement in peacekeeping A Commonwealth standby contingent The constitutionality of peacekeeping Labour in power Foreign and defence policy under Labour British logistical support for peacekeeping Committee of 33 Peaceful settlement of disputes 1966: disillusion sets in Rhodesia 1967: British entrenchment on peacekeeping Withdrawal of UNEF Conclusion

194 195 197 198 202 203 205 208 210 212 214 218 219 224

9 Conclusions Reflections on the nature of peacekeeping British policy-makers British perceptions of the character of peacekeeping The uses of peacekeeping The management of peacekeeping The influence of UN operations on British policies The influence of British policies and actions on UN operations Britain’s response to the challenges posed by UN operations

226 226 230 230 231 232 234 235 235

Notes

238

Bibliography

276

Maps

284

Index

288

Acknowledgements I am very grateful to Professor Sir Adam Roberts of Oxford University for all his support and wisdom during the writing of the doctoral thesis on which this book is based. Sir Brian Urquhart and Major-General (Ret’d) Indar Jit Rikhye kindly shared their experiences of many of the events covered in the book. Frank Brenchley, Evan Fountain and Ted Johnson helped with insights from their own research on related topics. Research in the UN Archives would have been a far greater challenge without the cheerful assistance of Ril Guptil and Aurora Tangkeko. I am also grateful to the highly efficient staff of the Public Record Office, Mary Bone at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Robert McKay in the UN Cartographic Unit, Pernacca Sudhakaran of the UN Photo Library, as well as Luciana O’Flaherty and Daniel Bunyard at Palgrave Macmillan. The maps are reproduced by kind permission of the UN Cartographic Unit. I greatly appreciate the financial support provided by the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy’s Arts and Humanities Research Board for various periods of my research. Special thanks for all the encouragement go to Christine and Alex Briscoe, and to many friends within and outside the UN who have helped along the way, particularly Jean-Claude Aimé, Richard and Sara Bach, Professor Martin Ceadel, Jean-Marc Coicaud, Chris Coleman, Sir Marrack Goulding, David Malone, Joe Sills and Shashi Tharoor. The views expressed in the book are mine and not those of the UK Government. This book would not have been possible without the tireless support and constant good humour of my wife Olivia, to whom it is dedicated. NB

x

1 Introduction

This book examines British perceptions of, and policies towards, United Nations peacekeeping during the period in which it became established as an institution in international affairs. The choice of Britain is due to its significance as: a permanent member of the Security Council, with particular responsibilities for international peace and security; a major troop contributor to one operation during the period under review; and the state whose interests were most directly affected by early peacekeeping. The majority of those operations were launched to address conflicts which arose out of Britain’s reduction of international commitments and process of decolonization (Palestine and Kashmir), post-colonial spasms (Suez) or post-colonial commitments (Cyprus), or which were in countries within regions of particular interest to Britain (the Congo). The book aims to answer the following questions for the period 1948–67: How did British policy-makers perceive the character, uses and management of UN peacekeeping operations? And in what ways were British policies and actions influenced by, and influential on, those operations? Related to these are several sub-questions: In scaling down Britain’s overseas commitments, did politicians and civil servants grow to see UN operations as a viable alternative for maintaining stability in regions of importance to Britain? Was there a significant disjunction between their public and private views on UN peacekeeping and, if so, why? And when command and control problems arose, did policy-makers view these as arising from the nature of a multinational force or from the command structure? In analysing the relationship between Britain, as an interested and influential state, and UN peacekeeping operations, the study also seeks to offer some insights into the character and functions of early UN peacekeeping; these are addressed as they arise.

1

2

Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

The concept of peacekeeping The concept of peacekeeping must be clarified at the outset, since it has acquired a number of forms over time. All forms of peacekeeping are intended to facilitate a diplomatic peace-making process following a conflict, either by supporting a ceasefire to allow such a process to take hold or as a component of a negotiated settlement. In the classical sense used here, peacekeeping refers to a range of tasks carried out by UN military observers or troops in a largely permissive military environment, including verifying respect for a ceasefire, assisting in troop withdrawals, and providing a buffer between opposing forces. Other characteristics of classical peacekeeping operations are that their management is delegated to the Secretary-General by the Security Council or the General Assembly; they enjoy the consent of the parties; their contingents are usually contributed by countries located away from the region and possessing little or no political influence with the parties;1 and their military personnel are normally permitted to use force only in self-defence, rather than for more assertive purposes.2 Within the realm of classical peacekeeping, UN terminology has traditionally drawn a distinction between two levels of operations: observer missions and peacekeeping forces. Examples of each are discussed in later chapters. Observer missions are normally small in size, usually unarmed and less prominent than full-fledged peacekeeping forces. Their functions often include patrolling generally passive ceasefire lines, reporting on the occasional low-level violation, and showing the UN flag as a form of confidencebuilding. By contrast, peacekeeping forces typically number several thousand troops. They are armed, but usually only lightly, since they expect the cooperation of the parties. Compared to observer missions, peacekeeping forces are frequently deployed into militarily more volatile situations; their relatively greater size and strength can reflect an awareness by the international community of the danger of renewed conflict. The atmosphere surrounding their establishment tends to be more politically charged, both on the ground and at the United Nations. ‘Second-generation’ peacekeeping is not the subject of this book, since the concept is generally dated to the end of the Cold War, but a number of points made here are relevant to it. Second-generation operations add to the military component such functions as the provision of humanitarian aid, human rights monitoring, electoral assistance and institution-building. Their evolution reflects increasing acceptance that the prospects for lasting conflict resolution can be boosted by United Nations involvement in internal issues.3 However, in practice, a number of second-generation operations have taken place in unstable military situations with collapsing ceasefires. Much of the debate surrounding them has concerned the capacity of peacekeepers to operate in such environments.

Introduction 3

Why this subject? This book pursues a primarily historical approach, while also attempting to address a number of conceptual issues. The choice of subject is based on the following reasons. First, the creation of over fifty peacekeeping operations since the founding of the United Nations (including over forty since the end of the Cold War) signifies that peacekeeping has become an accepted mechanism for conflict resolution and is therefore a legitimate object of study in the field of international relations. Second, it is not possible to comprehend fully the international community’s embrace of post-Cold War peacekeeping, including the second-generation model, without knowing how it came to terms with classical peacekeeping. And third, our comprehension of any form of peacekeeping is incomplete without an understanding of the dynamics of its relationship with interested and influential states. This aspect has received little attention until now, and a study of Britain’s role in, and reaction to, UN operations during the formative period of peacekeeping can therefore offer useful insights. With regard to the first reason, peacekeeping has become broadly accepted as one of a range of approaches to managing conflict. Certainly, different states hold differing views as to its effectiveness, and those views can change depending on domestic political currents and the UN’s performance. Nevertheless, most states have no objection in principle to a UN operation being launched in the right circumstances. It is now common for at least a dozen UN operations to be deployed around the globe at any given time. The peacekeeping option has become so accepted that the creation of a new operation often does not make the news – even though all UN operations are paid for by the world’s tax payers. Indeed, the debate on whether peacekeeping is relevant to modern ethnic and civil conflicts essentially raises the question of whether peacekeeping should be used more sparingly: has involving the United Nations in efforts to terminate conflict become too instinctive, and should the Organization become engaged if it cannot make a constructive contribution? Such questions touch on issues at the heart of international relations. Peacekeeping raises profound questions, including if or when outside states should become involved in ending wars; whether some wars are more suitable for such treatment than others; whether international organizations have a role to play in such matters; and, if so, what that role should be. The second reason for examining this subject relates to the continuing relevance of classical peacekeeping and the insights we can still derive from it. Familiarity with classical operations has caused them to be downgraded by many modern commentators, who largely focus on the issues raised by second-generation operations and the UN’s growing experience with transitional administrations. This is understandable: appending such intrusive and normative functions as ‘nation-building’ or human rights monitoring to the military component raises profoundly important issues concerning

4

Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

the UN’s relationship to national sovereignty and its capacity to fulfil or impose the wishes of liberal-democratic developed states. Yet it is premature to conclude that nothing remains to be learnt from classical peacekeeping: (i) Much of the existing analysis of it is now somewhat dated, and there is scope for fresh research using recently available archives. The UN operations of the late 1950s and early 1960s inspired at that time a flurry of critical attention, but interest waned when the international community’s enthusiasm for new operations diminished.4 Thus, most accounts of early peacekeeping were written without the benefit of numerous confidential government papers which have only subsequently been declassified. In Great Britain all but the most sensitive cables and memoranda on the early operations have now been made available under the Thirty-Year Rule. As a result, analysis of classical peacekeeping can today draw on an unprecedented amount of material: it is now possible to probe much further than previously into the motives which governments and civil services had for supporting or obstructing particular operations. Some of the declassified papers, such as those pertaining to the controversial withdrawal from Egypt of the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) before the Arab–Israeli war in 1967, are relative newcomers to public scrutiny. (ii) The passage of time enhances our critical perspective on peacekeeping. The experience of the many UN operations launched since the end of the Cold War enables us to assess the thirteen launched during it with greater insight. Contemporary accounts of early peacekeeping tended to be written by those who generally supported the UN’s goals. They depicted the simple creation of a UN operation as a triumph of will over the hostile conditions of the Cold War and were characterized by a sense of relief that superpower confrontation had been avoided;5 this was often at the expense of considering broader issues, including under what conditions the UN contribution could extend beyond ‘freezing’ the conflict, how the United Nations could perform its duties better and, more fundamentally, whether peacekeeping was the right response to a given situation.6 (iii) The disjunction between ‘classical’ and ‘second-generation’ peacekeeping is far from complete. Some early operations, especially the one in the Congo (ONUC, 1960–64), functioned in volatile situations similar to those encountered in post-1989 operations. Moreover, several of the classical operations launched during the Cold War remain in place; new classical operations continue to be created;7 and there is no reason to expect that more will not be mounted in the future. Classical peacekeeping, or at least peacekeeping in a permissive environment, tends to be the default mode to which the United Nations retrenches when it encounters setbacks in more turbulent operations. This was the case following both ONUC and a number of difficult missions in the early 1990s.8

Introduction 5

(iv) The comparatively straightforward nature of classical peacekeeping permits conceptual parsimony and hence more focused analysis. This contrasts with second-generation peacekeeping. The more components an operation has, the more difficult it is to determine which are central to influencing a state’s perception of it. For example, a mandate which includes human rights monitoring may undermine the support of certain states for the whole operation – and strengthen that of others. In short, the greater our understanding of where states stand on the central component of most operations – the deployment of international forces – and what they expect of them, the better the chances that both classical and second-generation missions will succeed. Even the minimalist, classical version of peacekeeping has some normative and intrusive aspects, in that it reflects the view that conflicts should be terminated and that outside states should intervene to facilitate peace. Studying classical peacekeeping can therefore shed light on how states perceive both conflict and the means to end it. The third reason for this study, namely the value of examining national perspectives on peacekeeping, stems from the ad hoc nature of peacekeeping and the elaboration at the United Nations of the rules and principles which govern it. These have meant that most accounts have concentrated either on the running of individual operations at the field level, or on their management in New York. The latter has been divided into the legislative level (the Security Council and the General Assembly) and the executive level (the Secretariat). What has been largely missing is an analysis of the relationship between individual states and peacekeeping operations.9 Broadening the focus to include the national level can elucidate how far governments try to influence both the framing and the implementation of UN decisions on peacekeeping and how actions by UN operations resonate in national capitals. It can also reveal how states’ cumulative experience of individual operations can alter their receptivity to peacekeeping in general. Highlighting the dilemmas faced by decision-makers in this area can contribute to our understanding of how a state contends with an international organization and how it defines and pursues its national interests in that context. Moreover, bringing the national level more firmly into the picture helps reveal the nuanced identity of peacekeeping: a peacekeeping operation is regularly depicted as an inanimate device controlled by states, but examination of the dynamics of interaction between UN member states and peacekeeping operations shows that peacekeeping often becomes an ambiguous mixture of tool and independent actor.10 Peacekeeping can bite back, in ways and at times which surprise those states which consider themselves its masters. This book argues that British views on early peacekeeping reflected the tension caused by its dual identity as tool and actor.

6

Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

While the objectives of this account include shedding light on peacekeeping in general, some elements of Britain’s experience were unique and do not lead to conclusions applicable to other countries.11 However, that does not negate the value of piecing together British perspectives over an important period since the development of peacekeeping cannot be fully understood without knowledge of the role of key states, including Britain.

Influences on British peacekeeping policy To elucidate British perceptions of, and policies towards, peacekeeping requires reconstructing ministerial positions and the means by which the civil service generated guidance and enacted policy. In addition, it requires factoring in external influences, in particular those UN actions which required the government to take a position, but also bilateral relations with other interested countries, parliamentary pressures and public opinion regarding both the United Nations and the conflicts in question. The study treats peacekeeping as a largely discrete issue area within British foreign policy. This approach reflects the comparatively simple nature of classical peacekeeping operations. In contrast to multifunctional secondgeneration operations and UN interim administrations (which require close collaboration between different departments at the United Nations and in national governments), classical peacekeeping is operationally separate from other aspects of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Thus, a decision on whether Britain should support the operations discussed here fell largely to the Foreign Secretary (who in certain cases sought formal Cabinet approval). The Permanent British Mission to the UN in New York, the Foreign Office’s UN section and the relevant country desk officers took the lead in evaluating this question and in designing policy. Over time, peacekeeping came to be viewed as a generic tool adaptable to a range of situations. The Foreign Office then engaged in occasional reflection on how to enhance the planning and management of operations. These deliberations are also discussed in the book since they highlight assumptions which frequently remained unspoken in day-to-day policy on actual operations. Yet even despite the emerging norm that UN peacekeeping should at least be considered as an option for conflict management, in the formulation of mid- to long-term British foreign policy it was never accorded the consideration given to more predictable security topics such as policy towards NATO or on disarmament. Aside from the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence was occasionally involved in policy-making, notably with regard to the troop contingent in the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus (UNFICYP). The Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO) also played a significant role in the launch of the latter operation.

Introduction 7

The CRO and the Colonial Office were also tangentially involved with other operations. Six of the UN’s first eight peacekeeping operations were deployed in countries from which a residual colonial presence had been withdrawn within the previous four years; several of those countries joined the Commonwealth. The possibility that post-colonial conflicts might grow into regional conflagrations often threatened the remaining interests which Britain and other Western countries retained in newly independent states and their neighbours. Moreover, the power vacuum resulting from the withdrawal of colonial control was frequently considered by the West to pose a strategic risk, namely that the Soviet Union might seek to foment disorder and/or install a government sympathetic to Moscow. As decolonization proceeded and new states swelled the ranks of the General Assembly, criticism of the colonial powers became more strident. Britain was a main target and it fought a rearguard action to be allowed to proceed with its plans to decolonize at its own pace by criteria which, it considered, reflected commitment to the long-term viability and stability of the country in question. The study examines how British officials reconciled their irritation regarding such condemnation with the need to co-opt the United Nations into defending the country’s interests. In so doing, it highlights how an organization can evolve simultaneously in multiple directions of differing desirability for one of its members. Clearly, British peacekeeping policies did not develop in a vacuum and to understand fully the environment in which they were formulated requires gauging Britain’s role in the creation and management of UN operations. This includes examining the politics in the Security Council and General Assembly; the role of the Secretary-General and the Secretariat in influencing the design and interpretation of the operational mandates; and the command and control of UN operations on the ground. The states whose peacekeeping policies most regularly intersected with British positions were the United States and the USSR, and their influences are discussed where appropriate.

Sources The book draws on a wide range of sources: (i) unpublished primary material, including substantial archival research, private papers and interviews conducted both by the author and in the context of the Yale and Oxford UN history projects; (ii) published primary material, including official British and UN documents, as well as autobiographies and accounts by those involved in British policy-making and UN operations; and (iii) secondary material on peacekeeping, British foreign and defence policy and political history. Extensive research was conducted into the British government records held at the Public Record Office (PRO) in Kew.12 The bulk of these originated

8

Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

in the Foreign Office, but other departmental files consulted include those of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Cabinet minutes and supporting documents shed light on those occasions on which the Foreign Secretary sought the views of his ministerial colleagues on a peacekeeping issue. Minutes of Cabinet meetings are not recorded verbatim and are at least partially sanitized by the Cabinet Secretary, but it is often possible to discern the positions of individual Cabinet members. PRO papers are particularly valuable for comparing public and private positions adopted by government ministers and civil servants, including for highlighting the background to British statements in public meetings at the United Nations. Memoranda, and officials’ annotations on them, offer unvarnished insights into the information provided to, and decisions taken by, Ministers of the day, as well as into debates within the Foreign Office. Particular care is needed when gauging how much significance to attach to internal annotations or minutes, since certain officials actively cultivated an image of holding inflammatory private views at variance with the official line. Published Government positions on major issues usually emerge in the form of Parliamentary Command Papers (White Papers), of which several are relevant to this subject. Related debates and statements by Ministers in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, recorded in Hansard, represent the best source of public statements for comparison with their private positions.13 Other published primary sources used here include several collections of government records published under various projects, including British Documents on the End of Empire and Documents on British Policy Overseas.14 As for external influences on government policy outside Parliament, US documents are reproduced in the series Foreign Relations of the United States.15 These shed light on US–British communications on some peacekeeping operations, as well as on the perspective of Britain’s most important ally, and the United Nations’ most powerful member, on British policies and UN actions. British press articles from the time give a flavour of public opinion on events and issues treated in the book. As regards secondary material, there is a dearth of studies of British policies at the United Nations. The two most notable surveys are Geoffrey Goodwin’s Britain and the UN and The United Kingdom – The United Nations, edited by Erik Jensen and Thomas Fisher.16 Brian Urquhart’s chapter in the latter volume on ‘UN Peacekeeping: From Observers to the Peace Prize’ offers a useful account of Britain’s experience of peacekeeping during the Cold War. Rosalyn Higgins’ 1966 study of The Administration of UK Foreign Policy Through the UN17 surveys the parts of the British government bureaucracy dealing with UN issues at that time. Other secondary sources consulted on British foreign policy, peacekeeping and decolonization are cited in the footnotes and appear in the bibliography.

Introduction 9

For events at the United Nations, transcripts of public debates in the Security Council and the General Assembly are published verbatim by the United Nations.18 The period under review preceded the era of informal closed meetings of the Security Council, during which most negotiation now takes place; hence the relevant transcripts of Council debates still retain some spontaneity and convey a fair impression of conflicting positions. The politics in the Council and Assembly are also reflected in internal Secretariat memoranda, cables and other documents, of which a number are available in the UN Archives in New York. Papers covering Dag Hammarskjöld’s term as Secretary-General are held in the Royal Library in Stockholm. Transcripts of interviews with senior UN officials and key UN actors can be found in the Yale University UN Oral History Project and Oxford University’s UN Career Records Project. The author is particularly grateful for information provided in interviews and correspondence with Sir Brian Urquhart, and MajorGeneral (Ret’d.) Indar Jit Rikhye. Urquhart was for many years the most senior Briton in the Organization and was intimately involved with most UN peacekeeping operations during his 40-year UN career. Rikhye played a leading role in ONUC and served as Hammarskjöld’s Military Adviser before being appointed to head the International Peace Academy, the influential think tank on UN peacekeeping.19 Urquhart and Rikhye were able to shed light on British peacekeeping policy as seen from a UN perspective and, in Rikhye’s case, on British colonial military practices.

Structure of the book The next chapter sets the scene prior to the launch of the first full UN peacekeeping force in 1956: it assesses the significance of Britain’s involvement with pre-UN antecedents of peacekeeping,20 and its experience of the creation of the first two UN observer missions. The latter were both of strategic significance to the British and are still operational: the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO), which was set up to supervise the observance of the ceasefire following the 1948 Arab–Israeli war; and the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which was established in Kashmir in 1949 to oversee the ceasefire between the forces of India and Pakistan. Subsequent chapters deal with Britain’s relationship with each of three peacekeeping forces. These accounts focus primarily on those issues related to each operation which shed light on Britain’s perspective on peacekeeping generally.21 The three forces were launched within eight years of each other and posed a rapid learning challenge for British policy-makers. UNEF oversaw the withdrawal of British, French and Israeli troops from Egyptian territory following the Suez war in 1956 and served as a buffer between Israeli and Egyptian forces until 1967.22

10 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

ONUC performed various functions in the Congo from 1960 to 1964, including ensuring the withdrawal of Belgian forces following Congolese independence and subsequent disturbances, maintaining the territorial integrity and political independence of the Congo, and ejecting foreign mercenaries fighting in the civil war. This was a particularly controversial operation and, with 20,000 troops, the largest launched by the United Nations until the 1990s. ONUC departed significantly from classical peacekeeping and ventured into the territory of peace enforcement. Its actions were monitored closely in London, given the proximity of Katanga province to volatile Northern Rhodesia, a British colony. UNFICYP was established in Cyprus in 1964, at Britain’s request. Its original objective, and the one prevailing during the time frame of this study, was to contain fighting between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. After the Turkish invasion of Northern Cyprus in 1974 its tasks were expanded to include supervising the ceasefire and maintaining a buffer zone on the ceasefire line. Until the 1990s, it was the only UN force to which Britain made a significant military contribution. It is still in operation and has become part of the political landscape of Cyprus.23 These studies of individual peacekeeping forces are separated by chapters which largely concentrate on the evolution of thinking about peacekeeping by British policy-makers. This process was often surprisingly insulated from the frequently controversial events associated with ongoing operations. Several minor observer missions falling within the periods covered by these chapters are also discussed, as are British reactions to the UN’s decision to withdraw UNEF in May 1967. As discussed later in this book, that event can be viewed as the end of the formative phase of UN peacekeeping, and it marks the approximate end of the period for which declassified British documents on peacekeeping are presently available. The conclusion draws together the findings of the study and seeks to answer the questions posed in this introduction.

2 Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions

A journal article appended to the 1998 British Army publication on ‘Peace Support Operations’ suggests a reason why the first British Army manual on peacekeeping had appeared only ten years previously: With its long and wide experience of counter-insurgency (COIN in the colonies, and in support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland), the British Army probably considered these relatively benign PK operations manageable without specific doctrinal guidance.1 This chapter traces the heritage of such British experience from colonial times and sets the scene for the rest of the book. The first section, focusing on British colonial policing and other antecedents of peacekeeping, has several objectives. One is to highlight some similarities between such precursors and UN peacekeeping operations. The reason is to keep in perspective the extent to which UN operations were an innovation and to show that Britain, which had close acquaintance with many of those antecedents, had, as the quotation above suggests, previously encountered some of the issues thrown up by UN operations.2 A related objective is, conversely, to draw attention to certain key differences between the antecedents (including counter-insurgency operations and aid to the civil power) and UN operations; this leads to the hypothesis that some of Britain’s criticisms of UN operations derived from its misconceptions, based on its prior experience, of the precise nature of UN peacekeeping. The chapter then examines British involvement in designing the United Nations, including its security functions, during the Second World War. This process continued after the birth of the Organization in 1945 with the abortive efforts to implement Article 43 of the Charter, governing the provision of armed forces to the United Nations. Next, there is an assessment of Britain’s experience with the creation of the first two UN observer 11

12 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

missions, in Palestine and Kashmir. Both missions followed closely the withdrawal of British power and raised issues which were to reappear regularly in subsequent UN operations. Finally, the chapter examines British reactions to Secretary-General Trygve Lie’s attempts in 1948–49 to establish a UN Guard Force. The fate of his initiative reflected the member states’ ambivalence at that stage about giving the Secretary-General a significant role in the UN’s efforts to maintain international peace and security.

British colonial experience The practice of colonial or imperial policing which Britain had developed to maintain security within its empire was undoubtedly an important precursor of UN peacekeeping. It was not uncommon for native policemen from one colony to be dispatched for service in another: as outsiders they were less susceptible to partiality in keeping law and order. This, and their greater dependence on the colonial power, made them more reliable than local forces. For example, the police force in nineteenth-century Nigeria was occasionally used to protect British possessions and interests elsewhere in Africa. In 1873, 381 men of the Lagos Constabulary were sent to the Gold Coast to fight against the Ashanti alongside other colonial armed forces. Ten years later, a contingent from the same constabulary was loaned by Britain to another colonial power, Belgium, to assist in guarding caravans and trading stations in the Congo.3 Clearly, the concept of colonial policing differed in a number of ways from classical UN peacekeeping, including in the absence of accountability to an international body.4 However, both concepts incorporated the belief that outsiders might be more efficient and objective in managing disputes. They also resembled each other in their ad hoc nature. In colonial policing it was more practical and economical for Britain rapidly to assemble and deploy police wherever the need arose than to ensure that the law-enforcement capacity of each colony was sufficient to cope with any eventuality. As regards UN peacekeeping, UN member states have proved far more willing to countenance occasional forces put together for specific conflicts than a standing UN army. Another aspect of colonial rule foreshadowed principles and practices of UN peacekeeping. Britain’s method of managing much of its empire on a shoestring relied to a large extent on symbolism: British authority depended on the subject people’s acceptance that a small colonial presence symbolised British might and that any attempt to challenge the colonial regime would trigger a powerful response. Colonial officials were encouraged to tour their territories regularly and visibly to keep in touch with popular opinion.5 Such tours also helped preserve the illusion of an all-seeing authority. Similarly, unarmed UN observers, or lightly armed but outnumbered UN troops, have always relied heavily on the fact that they symbolize the combined authority of the UN’s membership. A routine task in a UN operation is to conduct visible patrols to show the flag and the enduring interest of the international

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 13

community. As recent UN experience has shown, if the symbolism weakens and the commitment of the international community is doubted, UN peacekeepers can lose their inviolability, especially in a volatile environment. Yet there were also significant differences between British colonial experience and UN peacekeeping. This is apparent from an internal Ministry of Defence handbook on ‘Imperial Policing and Duties in Aid of the Civil Power’. This stated, for example, that Once a request has been made for military assistance of any kind, the military commander, irrespective of his rank, is entirely responsible for the form which the action shall take and the amount of force used, though he will naturally be guided by the advice of civil authorities and the police.6 The granting of such extraordinary operational latitude to the commander no doubt reflected both an acceptance of the need for prompt action to prevent an incident escalating, strong confidence in the judgement and professionalism of even low-ranking soldiers, and presumably a certain willingness to tolerate mistakes and over-reactions. This last point is implied by the suggestion that more restraint was expected in operations within Britain, ‘The degree of force necessary and the methods of applying it will obviously differ very greatly as between the United Kingdom and places overseas.’ While acknowledging that ‘no more force shall be applied than the situation demands’ the handbook offered the breezy assurance that ‘Provided this is not lost sight of, and common sense is applied to the solution of any situation that may arise, neither in the United Kingdom nor overseas need the legal aspect confuse any commander.’ It was in the UN operations in the Congo and Cyprus, namely two cases where the force’s mandate was heavily related to a civil conflict, that the legacy of colonial policing and aid to the civil power interfered most with British perceptions of, and involvement with, the UN force. The extent to which the mandates of ONUC and UNFICYP permitted the use of force, and how robust that force could be, were highly contentious issues, as subsequent chapters of this book show. The handbook also urged that the commander understand the background to the unrest: Indeed, objective action will be impossible and orders to subordinates will lack clarity and crispness if the commander is not perfectly clear in his own mind as to what it is all about. The background may be economic or political; it may be racial or religious; or it may have its roots in a wave of misguided but excessive national feeling either by a majority or by an ardent dissident minority. The conviction that, so long as they were adequately informed, commanders could always issue clear and crisp orders was to pervade the thinking by some

14 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

British policy-makers about peacekeeping, even though no UN operation had an objective as comparatively straightforward as law-enforcement. A warning to commanders noted that ‘outrages by one side or another will sorely try their impartiality, but they must remain impartial’. To that extent, colonial policing resembled peacekeeping’s need to retain its efficacy by remaining above the fray. However, the handbook also predicted that: Differences of opinion between the civil authorities and the military commander as to the best line of action are likely to arise. The military commander must show due regard to the views of the civil authorities while not giving way if in his considered opinion such a course would be wrong; he must show firmness with tact. The troops … must have confidence in his forthrightness and determination. When the UN operation in the Congo was launched in 1960, a senior British commander fell out publicly with the civilian head of the operation over the best approach to quelling civil unrest.7 The British never fully came to terms with the role of civilians in the chain of command of UN operations. Strikingly, the handbook was not a product of the Victorian age of empire but was issued in 1949, or after the creation of the UN’s first two observer missions. The fact that such guidelines were still fully in force during the United Nations era highlights the challenge faced by the British in accepting that the UN’s modus operandi differed from colonial policing. This was to become a particular issue when Britain contributed troops to UNFICYP, including some with recent experience of military aid to the civil power in Cyprus.

Inter-war antecedents of peacekeeping Britain was involved in a number of antecedents of peacekeeping in the inter-war years, in some of which the League of Nations developed techniques which were subsequently adopted in UN operations. For example, in 1920, following a cessation of hostilities between Poland and Lithuania over disputed Lithuanian territory, the League called a plebiscite in Vilna (now Vilnius). The territory would be neutralized, with all territorial rights of the parties being reserved. The British, French, Spanish and Belgian Governments each undertook to provide troops to keep order in the area and guard the railway lines crossing it in order to prevent the transfer of armed forces or war matériel belonging to Poland or Lithuania. Subsequently, in order to give the force a more international and neutral character, other members of the League Council were approached to make military and logistical contributions. However, disagreements between the parties persisted and the plebiscite was ultimately cancelled.8 Had the

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 15

preparations come to fruition, many characteristics of the operation would have resembled those now associated with modern peacekeeping. The Greek–Bulgarian incident in 1925 was notable not only for the efficiency with which the League successfully resolved the dispute between the two countries, but also for the mechanism it established to ensure respect for their common boundary. Britain was involved both politically and on the ground. After a border incident on 22 October 1925 Greek forces invaded Bulgaria. On 26 October, the League Council requested a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all troops to their respective sides of the frontier. A five-person Commission of Enquiry was established by the League and headed by the British Ambassador to Spain. Its mandate was to establish responsibility for the incident, consider the question of reparations for the killing of several Greeks, and suggest ways to prevent a recurrence. It submitted a number of military recommendations to both parties, including establishing a one-kilometre buffer zone between their guard posts on either side of the border. The Commission also proposed that two neutral officers be dispatched to assist Greece and Bulgaria to reorganize their border guards, one assigned to each side. Two Swedish officers were appointed and their duties included mediating any border disputes which arose.9 A final antecedent, in which Britain once more played a prominent role, was the deployment of international military forces in the Saar region for the plebiscite in 1935. The Treaty of Versailles, which had set the approximate date for the plebiscite, had not specified the use of an international force. However, the volatile political situation in the region by 1934, with considerable pro-German agitation fostered by the Third Reich and the possibility of a Communist uprising, caused the international Governing Commission of the Saar to recommend the deployment of 2000–3000 ‘neutral’ soldiers to serve as an international police force. On 8 December the League Council invited Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden to take part.10 Britain contributed the largest contingent (1500 out of a final total of 3300 troops) and provided the Commander-in-Chief, General John Brind. The main purpose of the international force was to serve as a deterrent to possible disorder. It also guarded the ballot boxes during the voting on 13 January 1935, which resulted in an overwhelming vote in favour of incorporating the Saar into Germany. The Saar plebiscite enabled the League to mount its first and only full military operation. A contrast with classical UN peacekeeping was that the two strongest contingents were provided by permanent members of the League Council. The tension between the neutrality desirable in an operation launched by an international organization and the presence of troops contributed by powerful countries possessing a political interest in the situation was highlighted by General Brind. In an unpublished report produced at the end of the operation, he observed that the absence of serious disorder had been largely due to the moral influence of the force; he also noted that ‘it

16 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

was important to draw the force from countries which had no direct interest in the issue and to maintain a strictly neutral attitude at all times’.11 Thus, by the time the United Nations was born, many elements of peacekeeping had been either planned or actually tested in separate operations under the auspices of the League of Nations. It is striking how prominent a role Britain played in these antecedents of UN peacekeeping. Sir Alexander Cadogan, who served both as Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office from 1938 to 1946, as head of the British delegation to the Dumbarton Oaks preparatory conference, and as Britain’s first Ambassador to the United Nations, had directed the League of Nations section in the Foreign Office from 1923 to 1933. As such, he was intimately involved in the political discussions surrounding many of the antecedents of UN peacekeeping. Britain’s experience with these and with colonial policing must have been a factor in its largely unquestioning acceptance of some of the smaller observer missions launched by the United Nations. The inter-war period also saw efforts by France to link the creation of an international force with progress on disarmament, a theme with which Britain was to become involved in the United Nations. In February 1932 the French Government presented to the League’s Conference on Disarmament a proposal for an international police force, on permanent standby, to provide immediate assistance to any state which had been attacked. This proposal, and others like it, were rendered obsolete by the international rearmament of the 1930s.12 Given such plans and the League’s practical experience with military forces, it is surprising that the UN Charter did not include explicit provision for some sort of peacekeeping function. It was not such a leap of imagination from the proposals for maintaining law and order during the Vilna plebiscite or the deployment of the two neutral observers after the Greek–Bulgarian incident to classical UN peacekeeping in the shape of UNTSO or UNEF. This prompts the question of why the framers of the Charter concentrated on its ultimately unsuccessful collective security aspects rather than on less ambitious uses of military forces. Were they so confident of the deterrent effect of the Charter’s security measures that they saw no need for postconflict operations? Or was peacekeeping such a natural enterprise that there was no need to spell it out in the Charter?

Planning for peace Wartime Allied declarations referring to the establishment of a new international organization began with the Atlantic Charter of 14 August 1941, in which Britain and the United States called for a ‘wider and permanent system of general security’.13 Within a year, formal British planning got under way, but almost from the beginning it proceeded on a dual track. An Economic and Reconstruction Department was established in the Foreign

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 17

Office in June 1942 and drew up various proposals. Gladwyn Jebb served as Chairman and was assisted by Charles Webster, professor of history at the London School of Economics.14 A first draft of their scheme, known as the ‘Four Power Plan’, was produced in September 1942; the title referred to the four main powers engaged in the project, Britain, the US, the USSR and, to a lesser extent, China (France, being under occupation, was not included). The plan was largely ignored by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Jebb and Webster soon began to despair of receiving guidance from him: ‘The fact was – as we were increasingly to discover – that Churchill was quite allergic to any proposals for post-war action which he had not himself engendered, or at least discussed personally with the President of the United States.’15 In 1943 Churchill himself produced a document called ‘Morning Thoughts’, proposing a world organization based on three regional councils. This was dismissed by Webster as resembling ‘the ideas of the more futile kind of international wallahs of the last twenty years’.16 A revised version of the Four Power Plan, renamed ‘The United Nations Plan for Organising Peace’, was placed before the Cabinet by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden on 16 January 1943. From the earliest sketches to the finished Charter there was never any suggestion but that Britain should continue to play a global role, and the United Nations Plan opened with the declaration that the first aim of British foreign policy should be ‘that we should continue to exercise the functions and to bear the responsibilities of a World Power’.17 In conformity with Roosevelt’s Four Policemen conception, the United Nations Plan envisaged the four major powers as assuming the responsibility for maintaining order. An international police force would be created, ‘which might at a later stage have a more formal international constitution, and which might also be given a wider field of usefulness in appropriate circumstances’.18 The assertion that Britain should play a global role was not based on ignorance of the gradual erosion of British power. On the contrary, Jebb later declared that: Throughout, hard-headed British self-interest was paramount … The international organization envisaged in the memoranda might halt Britain’s further decline; bolstered by the close association with the two superpowers, Britain might be able to retain its position as a world power.19 Meanwhile, Churchill continued to develop his own ideas, preferring to share them with foreign leaders rather than with his aides and advisers. The explanation for his emphasis on regionalism, namely that states would act only out of self-interest, was not dissimilar to Jebb’s outlook. Yet Eden and US Secretary of State Cordell Hull both favoured a global approach and the latter persuaded Roosevelt that a regional system might enable isolationist tendencies in the United States to reassert themselves and undermine efforts

18 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

for that country to play a global role. Moreover, the Dominions increasingly believed that regionalism would threaten the functioning of the Commonwealth. Churchill’s views were gradually marginalized.20 As planning progressed, a more focused attack on the Foreign Office’s proposals was launched by the Chiefs of Staff. Jebb, to his own surprise, had been appointed chairman of the otherwise military Post-Hostilities Planning Sub-Committee, a sub-committee of the Chiefs of Staff, which had prepared a paper intended to be the British contribution to the enforcement section of the future UN Charter. However, in February 1944 the Chiefs of Staff at first refused to approve the document, which was entitled ‘The Military Aspect of any Post-War Security Organization’. They took particular exception to the idea of a Military Staff Committee comprising military representatives of the great powers, which would be ultimately responsible for overseeing enforcement of the decisions of the world organization: They regarded this idea as moonshine. It was inconceivable in their view that the Russians would be associated with themselves and the American Chiefs of Staff in the way suggested. China, in any case, was a joke. The only possible solution was to perpetuate the combined C[hiefs] O[f] S[taff] into the period of the peace … In practice, any ‘incident’ which occurred in the Soviet sphere would be dealt with by the Soviets, and in the rest of the world it would be dealt with by the combined COS.21 Jebb argued that abandoning the Military Staff Committee meant abandoning the Four Power thesis altogether. The Foreign Office prevailed, although Jebb acknowledged that the Chiefs of Staff remained unconvinced: ‘as things turned out, it was obvious that we were at once too optimistic and too theoretical in our approach to the “security angle” of any world organization’.22 In July 1944, the Cabinet’s Armistice and Post-War Committee approved a memorandum containing the proposals which had been presented to the Chiefs of Staff in February. The creation of an international police force was excluded on the grounds that it ‘postulates a greater advance in international cooperation than states are yet prepared to make, as it implies the existence of a world state’.23 The memorandum retained the notion of a Military Staff Committee whose responsibilities would include deciding what proportion of the forces maintained by member states for service with the Organization would be required for a particular operation. To enhance the efficacy of those forces, it was envisaged that they should occasionally work together in peacetime and should make periodical displays of force ‘with the object of impressing would-be aggressors’.24 The memorandum highlighted a number of practical objections to a regional approach to security, including the strong likelihood that aggression by states on the boundaries of a region would inevitably involve the neighbouring region, causing problems of coordination. It also noted that the defence arrangements of some powers were based on air and sea power and did not lend themselves to regionalization.

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 19

At the Dumbarton Oaks conference, from August–October 1944, many of the British proposals were retained. The three main protagonists were Britain, the United States and the USSR, with China brought into the picture only towards the end of the conference. The United States suggested the conclusion of ‘special agreements’ on contingents to be made available to the Security Council, which became Article 43 of the Charter; and the Soviet Union proposed the formation of an international air force, which was watered down to the requirement in Article 45 that member states hold available national air force contingents for combined international enforcement action.25 Robert Hilderbrand’s detailed account of the conference notes that All postwar planners agreed that the League of Nations had failed to prevent World War II because of an inherent weakness – its lack of enforcement power. The League’s Covenant had given its Council only the authority to recommend armed action against an aggressor nation; it contained no provision that bound member states to make whatever military commitments might be necessary to preserve the peace.26 [emphasis added] Hilderbrand’s reconstruction of the debates at Dumbarton Oaks makes no reference to discussions on the post-conflict use of international forces. This confirms that those engaged in planning the United Nations had their sights set on more ambitious uses of military forces than the functions which would be typically assigned to classical UN peacekeeping operations: they concentrated on fixing an obvious flaw of the League rather than institutionalizing its lesser achievements in the security field, such as the mounting of the Saar force. In a variation of the axiom that generals prepare to fight the last war, they were apparently preparing to prevent another world war, focusing on combating major breaches of the peace rather than dealing with lower-level conflicts or post-conflict mechanisms for consolidating peace. In addition to some wrangling over the UN’s military capacity (for example, a Soviet proposal of permanent UN military bases around the world was rejected) the conference addressed structural and procedural issues, including the composition of the Security Council; the veto and the authority of the Council to discuss or act on threats to, or breaches of, the peace by great powers; and the ultimately rejected Soviet proposal that all Soviet Republics should be admitted as full members of the Organization.27 Attention was also paid to incorporating in the Charter measures for the peaceful settlement of disputes, with Cadogan highlighting this as another flaw of the League: its members ‘had promised not to settle their disputes by force; but had not promised always to settle their disputes; the result was to put the organization in the posture of habitually defending the status quo’.28 One significant addition to earlier plans was the Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories (Chapter XI). The British took credit for this and promoted it as ‘the first comprehensive statement of colonial policy to be included in an international instrument’. It constituted a pledge to

20 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

respect the rights of inhabitants of such territories, including to develop selfgovernment. With some foresight, the official British commentary on the Charter emphasized that the Declaration ‘does not empower the United Nations Organization to intervene in the application of these principles by the Powers concerned’.29 By taking the initiative in this way, Britain was able to circumscribe the limits of the UN’s involvement in non-self-governing territories. The administering power was required simply to transmit ‘regularly to the SecretaryGeneral for information purposes, subject to such limitation as security and constitutional considerations may require, statistical and other information of a technical nature …’30 This was hardly a gross imposition and suited Britain well for several years, until pressure began to build for administering powers to be more accountable. With the broad framework of the new Organization already established at Dumbarton Oaks, much of the work of the San Francisco Conference, from April–June 1945, focused on fine-tuning and gaining the support of the lesser powers. Eden headed the British delegation, and his speech at the beginning of the conference expounded a theme which was to recur regularly in British reactions to some of the UN’s activities, namely the relationship between security and justice: security is not itself a final end. It is indispensable if we are to make true freedom possible; not otherwise can we hope to realise a world in which justice for nations as well as for individuals can prevail.31 British policy-makers never really elaborated on their conception of justice and it tended to signify primarily what the British thought was right, or in their interests, in a given situation. In July 1945 Jebb analysed the outcome of the San Francisco Conference. He noted that the United Kingdom had ‘played a very great, perhaps even a preponderating part’ and could take credit for the inclusion of a number of articles of the Charter, including Articles 37 and 38, dealing with the pacific settlement of disputes, and Article 99, granting the Secretary-General the prerogative to bring threats to the peace to the attention of the Security Council. All in all, ‘it is indisputable that our major foreign political objectives have largely been secured by the constitution of the new World Organization’.32 Soon afterwards, a second memorandum by Jebb revealed anxiety that the diminishing will of the USSR to cooperate with the West, especially in Central and Southern Europe, might threaten the UN’s prospects even before it had come into being.33 He urged an early meeting of the General Staffs of the permanent members of the Security Council to discuss the method of work of the Military Staff Committee and the conclusion of the ‘special agreements’ under Article 43, on which ‘almost everything would depend’. Jebb then expounded his view of the United Nations as reflecting

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 21

the distribution of power in the world. He clearly viewed the United Nations in highly realist terms, with a heavy emphasis on power and interests: the World Organization, …, is undoubtedly based on the physical power of the major states … it will only work if they come to some broad agreement regarding mutual respect for their various interests … If such bargaining is to take place, it can only be on a basis of power … If it is clearly recognised that the whole functioning of the World Organization and the whole preservation of peace during the coming years depends in the first instance on a harmonising of the interests of the Three Great Powers then the first essential is for each of these three to know what it wants and what concessions it is in the last resort prepared to make.34 Despite disagreements over the mechanics of keeping the peace, there was general consensus among British policy-makers on the nature of the United Nations and the functions which it should have. The organization which emerged from San Francisco largely conformed to that view. It acknowledged the abiding role of sovereign states in international relations, and its structure was such as to recognize the continuing significance of power. Permanent membership of the Security Council symbolized the great-power status which politicians, civil servants, the military and the public believed was rightly Britain’s; and as Jebb, and no doubt others hoped, continued collaboration with the emergent superpowers on a basis of formal equality might help preserve Britain’s standing. In the security field, the veto enabled the major powers to place their national interests above international peace. On the other hand, at Dumbarton Oaks Britain had successfully opposed the Soviet request for the veto also to apply to pacific measures for the settlement of disputes under Chapter VI; this left scope for creative diplomatic approaches to preventing the outbreak of conflict. The United Nations had no standing army, air force or navy, and the Organization’s complete dependence on governments for resources ensured their control over any measures which it might take. Discussions on earmarking contingents for service with the United Nations had simply been referred to the Military Staff Committee, allowing the Chiefs of Staff considerable influence in the shaping of any form of post-war great-power military cooperation.

Foreign and defence policy under Labour Within months of its founding the United Nations came to reflect the growing polarization of the international system which signified the onset of the Cold War. Bloc politics entered the Organization’s proceedings, and it became marginalized from the central security issues of the day. The new British Government under Prime Minister Clement Attlee perceived the

22 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

evolving nature of the United Nations and made the best it could of the situation. By the time it left office, the broad characteristics of British relations with the Organization had been established and certain key principles in British responses to UN initiatives in the field of peace and security were becoming apparent. Labour took power on 25 July 1945, less than three months after the end of the war in Europe and one month after the signing of the UN Charter. The Government immediately faced enormous domestic and international challenges. During the war, Britain had accumulated debts of £3000 million and was now the world’s largest debtor nation; its civilian economy had been run down, with nine million people serving in the armed forces, civil defence or war-related industries; and valuable overseas markets had been lost. In August, the United States ended its Lend–Lease programme and Britain was compelled to seek a loan from it. Major economic crises were to follow at regular intervals during Labour’s time in office, especially the 1947 convertibility crisis and the 1949 devaluation crisis. The situation was exacerbated by the heavy domestic expenditure associated with the nationalization of selected industries and the introduction of the welfare state. Internationally, the country’s plight was at first partly concealed by the weakness of other states in Europe; Britain was still Europe’s leading military power and its forces were deployed throughout the world. Under Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, Labour’s foreign policy sought to safeguard Britain’s standing as a major world power despite its declining capabilities. Yet Bevin, whom Attlee allowed considerable latitude in the formulation of foreign policy, was realistic. Difficult decisions were taken by the Cabinet, including to retreat from imperial commitments in Jordan, Palestine, India, Burma and Ceylon. Attention was increasingly concentrated on Europe, where Bevin worked on the construction of a system of West European defence and on ensuring that the United States was tied into making it work. Judging by public statements, the new Government gave the impression that it planned to live up to the internationalist outlook on which the Labour Party had traditionally prided itself. Attlee, who had attended the San Francisco Conference, was enthusiastic about the United Nations and told a meeting of the UN Association in October 1945 that it is the firm intention of His Majesty’s Government to make the success of the United Nations the primary object of their foreign policy … The security of the British Empire and Commonwealth is bound up with the success of the United Nations. If we accept this fact we must base our policy upon it and get rid of outworn conceptions. The Charter is our first line of defence.35 Bevin, although supportive in public, was privately more cautious and considered it unrealistic to suppose that the United Nations would

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 23

immediately take over responsibility for a distracted world in the aftermath of the most destructive war in history.36 Until the United Nations had proved itself he did not intend to entrust British security to it and he was one of those behind the decision in January 1947 to pursue the development of a British atomic bomb.

Military Staff Committee discussions In 1946 the Military Staff Committee commenced discussions on the armed forces to be placed at the UN’s disposal. The deadlock into which the negotiations ran portended, on a smaller scale, the paralysis which would so frequently afflict the Organization as a whole. Despite the hostility with which the British Chiefs of Staff had greeted the idea of a Military Staff Committee, they were aware of the political significance of the establishment of a functioning system.37 The military representatives dispatched to New York therefore pursued their assignment with commitment. In February 1946 the Chiefs of Staff prepared a memorandum entitled ‘The Size and General Location of the Forces at the Disposal of the Security Council’. This stated that the British aim should be ‘to ensure that the agreements [on the size and nature of the forces] are both in the interests of international peace and compatible with our own legitimate interests’.38 The Chiefs of Staff listed their objectives: (a) We want the Security Council and the Military Staff Committee to be effective instruments for the maintenance of international peace. (b) We do not wish the aggregate size of the forces at the disposal of the Security Council to be so large that our contribution will appear insignificant. (c) We wish to avoid undertaking commitments which will place an undue strain on our manpower and economic resources. (d) We do not wish the commitment for the provision or operation of forces by the Security Council to be used by a Great Power as a pretext either for maintaining unnecessarily large forces or for using its forces to further its own interests. (e) We wish to discourage a regional approach to the problem of world security, although we accept that all Five Powers will not always be able to play an active part in any operations required. In addition, the Chiefs of Staff favoured placing the emphasis of Britain’s contribution on naval and air forces, in view of the many existing demands on its land forces. They made clear that the United Nations in its present form could not deal with a situation resulting from aggression by a great power. They also saw no need for international forces to be located permanently together in international bases.39 In short, they envisaged UN forces

24 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

being assembled on an ‘as required’ basis. The implication was that a more permanent arrangement would tie up manpower resources which could be better occupied elsewhere. Although the paper related to plans for common enforcement action, some of its arguments illuminate subsequent British views on peacekeeping. The position of the Chiefs of Staff on the impracticability of a standing collective security force is a case in point: Britain has always been wary about proposals to establish a permanent peacekeeping force. The practical considerations about the resources required were not the only factor: the issue raised the principle of how much latitude the Organization should be allowed in taking over traditionally national responsibilities. On the other hand, the concern to avoid demands on Britain’s already stretched land forces would make attractive the possibility of delegating peacekeeping functions to the United Nations in regions of importance to Britain. In May 1946, the British representatives on the Military Staff Committee reported back to London on the deadlock which had been reached in the Committee. They believed that the Russians wanted to preserve ‘their policy of national secrecy and isolationism’ and to minimize the amount of interaction between their armed forces and those of the West.40 Asked in June for his advice on how to coax the Russians to cooperate, the new Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, Sir Orme Sargent, did not rule out the possibility of sidelining them while the other four countries continued their work. He stressed that the Foreign Office attach real importance to the carrying out of Article 43 … [O]n political grounds it is important that the UNO should assume as soon as possible its full authority for keeping the peace of the world. He felt that the conclusion of Article 43 agreements would enable the West to expose Soviet obstructionism if the USSR vetoed collective actions; the bad publicity which this would arouse would probably force Moscow to back down, which in turn ‘might well serve as a serious deterrent to potential aggressors’.41 Sargent therefore apparently viewed a functioning Military Staff Committee as providing a useful tool with which to call the USSR’s bluff. The Chiefs of Staff accepted this reasoning, although they were not won round to the concept of a UN force: From the military point of view there is little practical value in the early establishment of a UN force. It might indeed prove an embarrassment. If, however, it is necessary for political reasons to hasten progress or to place responsibility for a deadlock on the Russians, then we think it might be desirable to force a vote on the general principles in the Security Council.42

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 25

The ‘general principles’ referred to by the Chiefs of Staff were supposed to govern the organization of UN armed forces; in 1947 the five delegations drew up 41 articles and agreed on 25 of them.43 These included broad issues such as the purpose of UN armed forces (the maintenance or restoration of international peace and security) and the principle that the permanent members of the Security Council should initially contribute the major portion of the forces. Many of the Soviet objections related to disagreement over the issue of equality of the strength and composition of the armed forces contributed by the permanent members: the USSR wanted each one to make identical contributions of land, sea and air forces. It rejected the Western view that permanent members should make the contribution most suitable for them and that this should be proportionate to their respective resources, an approach which the British termed ‘equality of sacrifice’.44 Apparently, the USSR feared that if the US provided a disproportionately high number of land forces these could be used against Soviet interests. Presumably for similar reasons, the USSR insisted that UN armed forces should return home no later than 90 days after their task had been completed.45 In early 1948 the talks finally reached a standstill.46 For a period, the Chiefs of Staff had been prepared, and apparently sincerely, to cooperate in drawing up plans for an international force, as long as it was an ad hoc, rather than a permanent one. However, the Committee never got as far as debating such central questions as command and control and financing.47 During this time, references in the annual British Defence White Papers to the prospective demands of Britain’s military responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council became ever more vague. The White Paper for 1946 noted that ‘as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, a special responsibility rests upon the United Kingdom in the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that Britain would have to conclude an agreement under Article 43 of the Charter.48 By 1948, reference to the United Nations was relegated to a section on ‘The Future’: ‘In the present situation, where the United Nations Organization is not yet able to enforce the peace, the best deterrent to war is tangible evidence of our intention and ability to withstand attack.’49 This hardly conformed to the UN’s aim of promoting disarmament, and the following year reliance on the Organization for any sort of security was written off as a lost cause: His Majesty’s Government have from the outset done everything in their power to promote this primary aim [the maintenance of international peace and security] of the United Nations and will continue to do so. The success realised has, however, proved a grievous disappointment and the establishment of collective security on a world-wide basis under the United Nations has not been achieved.50

26 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

Britain and Palestine Meanwhile, regional disputes could not wait for great-power consensus on the means of maintaining peace through the United Nations. The conflict in Palestine was the first prolonged security issue addressed by the General Assembly and the Security Council, and Britain was deeply involved. It had sought the Palestine mandate under the League of Nations in part because of its good location for defending the Suez Canal and hence ensuring maritime access from the Mediterranean to India, Australia and the Far East. Palestine’s strategic significance was increased by growing British dependence on Middle Eastern oil as well as by the perceived need to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining a foothold in the Middle East. Nevertheless, in September 1945 Attlee horrified the Chiefs of Staff by suggesting complete British withdrawal from the Middle East. He argued that because of the advent of the atomic bomb and aerial warfare the British Commonwealth and Empire is not a unit that can be defended by itself … [and] can only be defended by its membership of the United Nations Organization … If the new organization is a reality it does not matter who … controls the Suez Canal.51 Such thinking was finally ended by the threat of resignation by the Chiefs of Staff in 1946 and by the more conservative approach of Bevin, who, on entering office, had staked his reputation on solving the Palestine problem.52 Britain’s inability to come up with a political solution acceptable to the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine led to growing confrontations among all three, and British forces were regularly killed or wounded. In December 1946, the Cabinet was informed that 100 000 British troops were based in Palestine, with twelve battalions required simply to guard the railway.53 Two months later, the Government decided to pass the entire problem to the United Nations, although without yet renouncing British control. In April 1947, at Britain’s suggestion, the General Assembly held a special session and dispatched a special committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to the region to explore options for a political settlement between both communities. UNSCOP’s report offered a majority plan based on partition into Jewish and Arab states and a minority plan based on a federal state. Yet in September, while the Assembly was considering the report, Britain announced that it would completely withdraw from Palestine by May 1948. Bevin had persuaded his Cabinet colleagues that withdrawal would not only save British lives and resources but would also be less destructive to British interests in the Middle East than arousing ever greater resentment among the Arabs.54 There was consensus in the Cabinet that Britain should under no circumstances agree to enforce a solution to which the Arabs and the Jews had not agreed. That decision formed the basis of Britain’s

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 27

unwillingness to cooperate with the United Nations over a long-term settlement of the problem, particularly after the General Assembly adopted the partition plan over Arab objections on 29 November 1947.55 The British position on Palestine was highlighted in a Security Council debate on 24 February 1948. UNSCOP’s Chairman told the Council that the only means of implementing the Assembly’s plan for Palestine would be through the establishment of an effective non-Palestinian military force which could preserve law and order during the transition. Arthur Creech Jones, Secretary of State for the Colonies, insisted that Britain could not accept any responsibility which would involve the use of British troops to enforce a decision. While stressing that Britain ‘has made the United Nations the fundamental principle in its international policy’, he declared that ‘Public opinion in the United Kingdom … will acquiesce no longer in the use of United Kingdom forces and the squandering of British lives to impose a policy in Palestine which one or other of the parties is determined to resist.’56 International resentment grew as it became apparent that Britain was determined to abandon Palestine regardless of the consequences. A series of increasingly irritated messages was dispatched from US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Lovett to US Ambassador Lewis Douglas in London for onward transmission to Bevin.57 However, the British remained intransigent and were equally uncooperative on the ground. They did not permit the formation of the Arab and Jewish militias which the General Assembly had proposed to help keep order after the British withdrawal on 15 May, nor would they evacuate a seaport and hinterland which had been intended by UNSCOP to serve as an area for Jewish immigration. The annoyance felt by US officials was also shared by Secretary-General Trygve Lie who voiced his frustration to Cadogan and announced that he was sending an emissary to London to try to persuade the British to cooperate. Cadogan was somewhat sympathetic to Lie’s concerns, although he did not yield ground. Jebb dismissed what he termed Lie’s ‘moaning and groaning’ and thought it possible that the emissary ‘is acting as a salutary check on the Secretary-General, and is preventing him from major indiscretions such as a public statement under Article 99’.58

The creation of the UN Truce Supervision Organisation The declaration of the creation of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948 was followed by the outbreak of war between the Jews and the Arabs. When the Security Council convened on 17 May the United States submitted a draft resolution determining a breach of the peace ‘within the meaning of Article 39 of the Charter’, that is, under Chapter VII, and ordering a ceasefire.59 The following day, Britain submitted a redraft of the American resolution omitting any reference to Chapter VII, and thereby removing the obligation for all members of the United Nations to undertake any measures

28 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

laid down by the Council. Cadogan, who appeared to be playing for time while the bulk of the British troops were evacuated,60 adopted a highly legalistic approach, arguing that the absence of the adjective ‘international’ in Article 39’s reference to ‘any threat to the peace’ had been an oversight by the drafters of the Charter. He asserted that it was not clear whether Palestine was now one or two states: hence the British Government is doubtful whether there is a threat to international peace, or a breach of international peace … [M]y Government would like to see included in the resolution some provision of a thorough study of the present juridical status of Palestine.61 When both draft resolutions were put to the vote on 22 May, Britain’s was adopted. By 29 May, however, Britain was more forthcoming: it sponsored resolution 50 in which the Security Council called for a four-week ceasefire and decided that the UN Mediator and the Truce Commission (which the Council had established in early May) should be provided with ‘a sufficient number of military observers’ to ensure that the parties did not introduce fighting personnel or war matériel into the area.62 UNTSO was thereby born as a result of a British initiative to help control a situation which Britain wished to see resolved, but had been unable to manage itself. Britain had successfully transferred to the United Nations the responsibility for maintaining peace and had no intention of having any further enforcement role in Palestine. Aside from an apparent concern to stall action by the Council until the time was right for Britain, Cadogan’s speeches on the subject of using an international force stressed one theme, to which he returned forcefully in the Council on 29 May. His statement provides insight into Cadogan’s apparently genuine concerns about the risks of half-hearted collective action and the need to preserve the Organization’s credibility. Challenging those, particularly the Russians, who had accused Britain of not moving far enough or fast enough, he revealed a fundamental concern about the advisability of moving to Chapter VII measures with inadequate resources, a theme no less valid for peacekeeping after the Cold War: Are they prepared to promise the despatch of troops in the last resort to Palestine, because it might come to that? … I am afraid our experience is that with a safe hedge of armed force separating them, the parties are apt to cry defiance at each other even louder and more bitterly … If we embark now on Chapter VII, we start down a slope on which it would be very difficult to stop. Is everyone who advocates such action prepared to go on down to the bottom, or are some hoping to slide over the edge on the way down? I could imagine nothing more disastrous to the United

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 29

Nations than if that were to happen. Have we learned nothing from the half-backed and half-hearted sanctions against Mussolini? … Do not let us here and now bring about the situation where the United Nations will merely find itself substituted for the United Kingdom in Palestine.63 UNTSO began with military observers contributed by Belgium, France and the United States, the three countries represented on the Truce Commission; in addition, five Swedish officers were appointed to assist the UN Mediator, Folke Bernadotte. At Bernadotte’s request, Lie also made available fifty civilian guards recruited from the security staff at the United Nations in New York.64 The deployment of the observers aroused little comment from British officials, who were no doubt relieved to have resisted pressure for British forces to remain in Palestine. However, when the Soviet Union criticized the fact that the Mediator had himself decided the nationalities to be included, British officials were galvanized into rejecting any suggestion that Soviet observers might be allowed into UNTSO. On 7 June, the Soviet representative in the Security Council announced the USSR’s willingness to participate in the mission and argued that it was for the Council alone to determine the procedure for appointing observers. A draft resolution to that effect was rejected by the Council on 15 June.65 In fact, on 5 June the British Ambassador in Cairo, Sir Ronald Campbell, had reported back to London that Bernadotte had approached the Russians to provide military observers but had received only a vague response. The Americans had then warned Bernadotte that they would not furnish observers if the Russians did.66 On 7 June Campbell relayed a request from Bernadotte for six British officers to assist him in Egypt, where the UNTSO observers were assembling. Bevin was hesitant, and felt that to accede to the request would undermine the argument being employed in the Security Council that all assistance was to be drawn from the three states represented on the Truce Commission.67 Bevin was clearly also concerned to avoid Britain being drawn back into a situation from which it had just escaped. Although he did eventually agree to the request for the assistance of the officers, this was only when he had received confirmation that they would simply provide liaison between Bernadotte and the British officials in Cairo and would not serve on Bernadotte’s team or under the UNTSO Chief of Staff. He stressed that they were not to become involved in truce-related activities in Egypt, ‘This would cause serious difficulty in our relations with Egypt.’68 Similar calculations affected Bevin’s cautious response to a request from the Egyptian Prime Minister, again relayed through Campbell, that the Royal Navy control maritime access to Palestine, a proposal to which Bernadotte did not object. Bevin replied to Campbell that Britain could probably offer air reconnaissance over Palestine and, as practicable, naval patrols, but solely for collecting information which would be passed to Bernadotte. He

30 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

insisted that UNTSO observers should be on board at all times so that the British assistance could be presented purely as providing transportation for them.69 In August 1948, by which time Israel controlled much of the territory allotted to the Arabs under the partition plan, the number of UNTSO observers and auxiliary personnel was increased to nearly six hundred in order to oversee a new truce. In a memorandum of 24 August Bevin simply reported to the Cabinet that for six months after the Mediator had defined the boundaries ‘observers would be maintained on the frontier to ensure that the Security Council received early and impartial reports on any attempt or alleged attempt by either side to infringe the boundary’.70 The lack of concern which this information aroused in the Cabinet revealed that the British Government had no difficulty with the United Nations running its own small-scale military operation. UNTSO was proving highly satisfactory: Britain had been able to co-opt the United Nations into helping contain and control the conflict in Palestine, and had displayed diplomatic agility in avoiding a continuing military role for itself. The Russians had been outmanoeuvred and excluded from UNTSO and hence from raising their profile in the Middle East. All in all, Britain was unlikely to object in principle to the launching of the United Nations’ next observer mission, UNMOGIP, in Kashmir.

The creation of the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan By the time of Indian partition and the independence of India and Pakistan from Britain in August 1947, the Hindu maharaja ruling Kashmir had not decided whether his strongly Muslim province should be linked to India or Pakistan.71 In September 1947 a small-scale Muslim revolt in Poonch was supported by tribesmen from Pakistan, increasingly backed by the Pakistan army. When the maharaja signed an instrument of accession to India on 26 October, Indian troops were deployed to defend Srinagar. India brought the dispute to the Security Council on 1 January 1948. In the ensuing two weeks there was a flurry of communications between London and the British Mission in New York in a search to contain the conflict. The Foreign Office feared a full-scale invasion of Kashmir by Indian troops and doubted that a cease-fire call by the Security Council would be effective given the limited influence which Pakistan had over the Muslim tribesmen and local militias in Kashmir. The Foreign Office suggested that a small body of UN civilian representatives might assume on the Security Council’s behalf the responsibility for the law and order functions of whatever remained of the old Kashmir administration. A commission of three to five ‘persons of prestige’ could negotiate the arrangements for a plebiscite to decide whether Kashmir should belong to India or Pakistan.

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 31

This pioneering plan foreshadowed the interim administrations which the United Nations has run more recently in such places as Cambodia and East Timor. No less significant was the proposal of the ‘despatch to Kashmir of a neutral force of, say, brigade strength’.72 This suggestion came several months before the creation of UNTSO, considered the first official UN observer mission. Moreover, without any great fanfare, the Foreign Office had effectively proposed not an observer mission but a full peacekeeping force. The plan betrayed no sense that it was a particularly bold innovation. The Foreign Office identified as possible objections to the plan the time it would take the force to reach Kashmir and the difficulty of obtaining agreement in the Security Council on its composition.73 On 5 January Sir Terence Shone, the British High Commissioner in India, suggested that British troops would offer the best chance for success of the plan, and their knowledge of the terrain would enable the size of the force to be limited. However, he accepted that the Indians might not readily agree to the idea. Moreover, the Russians might insist on providing a contingent too. Shone favoured the Indian and Pakistan troops in Kashmir coming under the authority of the commander of the neutral force.74 On 9 January Cadogan fleshed out the idea of the international force and sought to relate it to the UN Charter: This neutral force might be placed at the disposal of the Security Council by a member or members of the United Nations either by ad hoc agreements under Article 43, or, conceivably, under Article 106, which provides for the concerting of measures by the permanent members of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security pending the completion of the Article 43 system.75 The British Chiefs of Staff did not react well to the proposal for a neutral military force. They predicted that such a force would require at least four months to establish itself and become operational, ‘Furthermore, it would be undesirable for a single member Nation to take military action in Kashmir as the precedent thus created could be used to our embarrassment.’ Finally, it was ‘important that any action taken by the Security Council should not prejudice our strategic requirements in India and Pakistan’.76 Cadogan accepted the difficulty of deploying a neutral military force, but ‘Even a small token force might make all the difference.’77 On 17 January the Council called on both India and Pakistan to show restraint.78 Three days later, in resolution 39, it created a three-member UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to investigate the situation and undertake mediation. In resolution 47 of 21 April the Council expanded the Commission to five members and instructed it to arrange for a plebiscite; the Commission was authorized to deploy observers in Kashmir. Thus, some of the British proposals had now been realized; however, the Council neither

32 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

appointed the commander of the observers itself, nor did it decide that he should take command of Indian and Pakistan troops stationed in Kashmir. Resolution 47, which was co-sponsored by Britain, was technically the origin of UNMOGIP, although it was not until 20 July that the Commission asked the Secretary-General to appoint personnel. In the meantime the United States approached Britain to see whether the latter would consider supplying a large part of the observers. Even though it was only ever envisaged that the observer group would be small, the Foreign Office considered that it would be practically impossible for the United Nations to mount it without British participation.79 UNMOGIP was not activated until a ceasefire had finally been concluded in January 1949, and Britain and the United States used the intervening period to ensure that the composition was acceptable to them. The United States learned that the Secretary-General intended to suggest that each Security Council member provide two observers.80 Britain and the United States opposed the possible inclusion of Russian and Czech observers and Cadogan was instructed to inform Lie that Britain objected to this idea.81 The reasons given officially were not Britain’s hostility to letting communists into such a delicate area, but rather ‘discipline, channels of command, and getting the observers to work as a team’.82 On 28 August the British crafted a formula which would exclude undesirable nationalities, namely that the observers should be contributed by countries which were both represented on the Commission (that is, Argentina, Belgium, Colombia, Czechoslovakia and the United States), and which had diplomatic representatives in New Delhi and Karachi. Conveniently for Britain, only the United States and Belgium met both conditions.83 However, as late as December the Commission had still not taken a final decision on the number or nationality of the observers; it was considering contributions from each of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, Belgium and a Latin American country. The Commission’s Secretariat assistant was asked to explore whether Britain would be willing to provide up to 15 observers out of a possible total of 40. The Chiefs of Staff still considered that ‘no other country could provide officers to act as observers who would be able to wield any authority in Kashmir’. However, they realized that if things went wrong, Britain could incur all the blame, and so they suggested that the deployment be conditional on both sides expressing their consent.84 In other words, the Chiefs of Staff stipulated the requirement for the consent of the parties, which would become a central principle of UN peacekeeping. Strikingly, however, Minister of State Philip Noel-Baker rejected this condition: I do not think we need make the supply of British observers conditional on their acceptance by India and Pakistan. They will be appointed by the Commission and derive their authority from it.85

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 33

Noel-Baker apparently did not give much thought to the practical difficulties of a small observer group trying to operate in the absence of the consent of the parties. Government Ministers decided not only that the War Office should consider providing officers, but also that the Admiralty and Air Ministry should too, five coming from each service. So far as possible the observers would be drawn from retired British officers.86 In the event, UNCIP accepted an Indian objection to observers from Britain or any other Commonwealth country.87 However, Britain resisted this and the Ministry of Defence continued its planning on the offchance that British observers would still be required.88 UNMOGIP’s first seven observers were deployed in January 1949, with the total growing to 20 the following month. Observers were contributed by Belgium, Canada, Mexico, Norway and the United States, although other Western states – but not Britain – contributed observers subsequently. It appears that, ultimately, Britain’s knowledge and experience of Kashmir was outweighed by its identity as the former colonial power with abiding interests in the region.

Proposals for a standing UN Guard Force By the spring of 1948 Lie and his advisers had concluded that there was little prospect of implementing Article 43 in the near future and they considered alternatives in the light of UNTSO’s experience in Palestine. In September 1948, eleven days after the assassination of Bernadotte, the Secretary-General proposed that the General Assembly establish a committee to discuss the formation of an internationally recruited UN guard force, to number several thousand.89 As an immediate measure, Lie suggested that he appoint, under his own authority, 800 guards, of whom 300 would constitute a permanent nucleus and 500 would be held in reserve in their own countries. The guards’ tasks would include protecting UN officials and property, as well as neutralized areas governed by truce arrangements. They would also supervise polling stations during plebiscites. The guards would wear distinctive uniforms and be equipped with defensive weapons for their personal use. The Soviet bloc opposed the idea, arguing that the only means by which the United Nations should be provided with forces lay in the conclusion of Article 43 agreements. The British also had mixed feelings about Lie’s proposals. They had consulted the Americans and they both agreed that ‘semi-military’ functions should be excluded. The United States had proposed simply boosting the 66 guards at UN Headquarters to 300 and not keeping a reserve. The British Chiefs of Staff had raised a theme which was often to appear in British discussions on the subject at the time, namely the concern about the risk of communist influence in the Guard Force since its members would be recruited as individuals.

34 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

However, the Cabinet concluded that although Lie’s proposals were overambitious and the details remained vague, it was difficult to oppose a suggestion that the UN should be able to protect its missions and personnel. Nevertheless, the Secretary-General should limit the duties of the force, which should number at most 300, to guarding persons and property in UN missions, ‘Wider plans, such as that for a reserve or for an eventual much larger force, should be laid aside until experience has been obtained of the working of a more modest scheme.’90 In the face of such doubts, which were widespread, Lie presented a modified plan comprising a Field Service of 300 personnel who would have primarily technical responsibilities and would usually be unarmed.91 Truce and plebiscite observation functions would be left to a Field Reserve Panel, whose members could be drawn from a proposed roster of 2000 names recommended by governments. The British remained dissatisfied with the notion of the Field Reserve Panel, deeming it ‘unworkable’: guarding truce objectives could have military implications, for which such a panel was inappropriate; the method of recruitment was unsatisfactory; and the relationship between the panel and the host authorities had been insufficiently clarified. However, on 22 November 1949 the General Assembly adopted resolutions taking note of the Secretary-General’s intention to set up a Field Service and asking him to maintain a list of persons for the UN Panel; the nominees should be qualified to assist UN missions in the functions of observation and supervision.92 Lie followed up on that request in June 1950, and asked Britain to provide the names of 50 suitable persons: Lie’s preference was for active soldiers of the rank of Major or Lieutenant-Colonel, aged between 30 and 45. After a year’s delay, the Cabinet agreed to the Secretary-General’s request on the conditions that: (1) the upper age limit be raised to 55; (2) no serving officers be nominated; and (3) the Secretary-General would have to refer to the British Government for the services of any particular member of the Panel (Lie had already assured the Government of this).93 In the end, Lie was succeeded by Hammarskjöld in 1953, before the Panel became operational, and the idea lapsed.

The UN and British colonial policy under Labour The Cabinet’s discussion of Lie’s plan revealed one concern which was to re-emerge in the future: ‘the creation of the proposed Guard Force might have embarrassing consequences in Trust territories’.94 The reason for this was explained as being that the territories were regularly visited by UN missions; if a UN guards contingent accompanied them it might cause difficulties with the local security force and might not be able to find accommodation during its stay. Such an explanation seems tenuous. That the real reason for such misgivings might have been the desire to circumscribe as far

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 35

as possible the UN’s capacity to interfere in British colonial affairs is suggested by the resentment which was already growing in Whitehall and among ministers at the UN’s activities in the trusteeship field. Less than two years after the UN had started to function, its potential for causing trouble had been considered sufficiently serious to be raised at a Colonial Office meeting of African Governors in November 1947. At the meeting the Colonial Office had circulated a paper on ‘The Colonies and International Organizations’ which illustrated the strategy which the British Government intended to pursue in colonial matters at the United Nations: The influence of the United Nations … cannot be regarded as likely to promote a smooth passage towards our declared aim of self-government. We must therefore resist such interference … Our policy should aim at making use of all that is constructive and beneficial in the United Nations Organization; at the same time we must lose no chance of demonstrating clearly that we are in practice successfully carrying out the aims of the Colonial Sections of the United Nations Charter, which are indeed modelled on long established British Colonial policy … The United Kingdom continues to carry great weight and influence in international meetings. At present we are obliged to rely more than ever before on experience, efficiency, and moral leadership. But in the emotional attitude of mind encountered in the United Nations, the fact of our being the leading colonial power is regarded to a large extent, and however unjustifiably, as almost a stigma. If therefore we appear to be shirking, in respect of our colonial territories, any of our legitimate obligations towards the United Nations, we may expect to see our present influence in international gatherings correspondingly diminished at a time when we most need it.95 The siege mentality was setting in. It is also striking how sensitized the Colonial Office already was to Britain’s diminishing influence in the world and in the United Nations; to its dependence on such intangible resources as efficiency and moral leadership to maintain its standing; and to the increasing need to exploit the benefits which could be derived from membership of the Organization. The section quoted reflects a theme which would reappear in British policy towards the United Nations in subsequent years: it highlighted the quandary faced by a declining power accustomed to the option of acting unilaterally but becoming aware that it must increasingly cooperate with other states if it is to protect its interests.

Conclusion Antecedents of peacekeeping showed that certain principles and practices associated with UN operations pre-dated the Organization; however, those

36 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

antecedents could also be misleading for policy-makers attempting to understand the nature of UN peacekeeping as it developed. Fundamentally, this tension arose from the broadening of international participation in the preservation of peace and the gradual erosion of the primary role hitherto enjoyed by the great powers. Colonial policing was a clear manifestation of great-power management of peace: for Britain, it was a highly practical and economical approach to long-distance conflict control by proxy. The creation of the League of Nations (and subsequently the United Nations) did not change the situation completely. The League Council’s requirement of unanimity to take action (and subsequently the right of veto accorded to the permanent members of the UN Security Council) confirmed that the interests of the major powers would still be protected: they would retain a central role in the management of peace and therefore in determining the objectives and design of international forces. However, the League Covenant and the UN Charter also legitimized the involvement of the broader international community in such issues. During the League’s existence the principle started to become established that the efficacy of international non-combatant forces could be increased if they excluded states lacking a direct interest in the situation – which would usually include at least one great power. Although this principle was articulated by a British commander, General Brind, it took time to permeate British thinking: rhetoric about Britain’s special expertise in peacekeeping, derived from its pre-UN experience, was particularly evident during the creation of UNMOGIP and was to endure for many years. It also suffused the 1949 British guidelines on imperial policing. That these were reissued at the same time as the UN was fashioning its more neutral observer missions was bound to blur the distinction between the two approaches to maintaining peace. The slowness of some British policy-makers to comprehend the evolving nature of UN missions was no doubt due in part to the silence of the UN Charter on the issue of using international forces for functions other than peace enforcement. The League’s experiences in the Saar and elsewhere were clearly known to those drafting the Charter, including both Cadogan and Jebb. However, the conception of the United Nations elaborated at Dumbarton Oaks and polished at San Francisco continued to emphasize deterrence and peace enforcement. This approach lasted into the bargaining in the Military Staff Committee over the strength of forces to be made available by the Permanent Five. A primary reason why peacekeeping did not merit a special mention in the Charter was that it was a far less significant issue than peace enforcement and could be understood as a continuation of past practice. The League had not required any special clause in its Covenant to permit it to mount the Saar force and, in the UN, peacekeeping could be considered as one of the undefined measures for conflict settlement envisaged under Chapters VI and VII of the Charter. The traditional celebration of peacekeeping as a creative victory

Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 37

for the UN over the hostile conditions of the Cold War is tempered by the knowledge of quite how far removed it was from the original, more ambitious, plans of those designing the Organization. In contrast to some of their Army colleagues, most civilian policy-makers were soon converted to the principle of excluding from UN operations contingents provided by interested parties. However, this did not entail an embrace of genuine neutrality: for example, one objective behind Bevin’s willingness to circumscribe British association with UNTSO was to be able to block Soviet involvement. Early UN peacekeeping was a remarkably proWestern animal: since there was not yet a bar on participation by all permanent members of the Security Council, the United States contributed observers to both UNTSO and UNMOGIP, and neither mission included military observers from East bloc countries. This helped safeguard British interests. Thus, the Cold War’s adverse impact on the United Nations’ relevance in the security field was not a disaster for Britain. In the years immediately following 1945, the USSR was outnumbered and on the defensive; in addition, the General Assembly was quiescent, with little of the overt hostility to British policies which would emerge as newly independent former colonies joined the Organization in the 1950s and 1960s. Both early observer missions served British purposes and were therefore supported by Ministers and officials. UNTSO enabled Britain to escape a political and military quagmire, and the British believed that it helped them preserve some of their standing in the Middle East; UNMOGIP reduced tensions between two key members of the Commonwealth. UNTSO also established a useful precedent, namely that it was the prerogative of the head of the operation (which would normally be the Secretary-General) to propose the contingents to be included. It was far easier to bring pressure to bear on an international civil servant to exclude undesirable nationalities than to battle things out in the Security Council. The early UN initiatives in the field of international security provide an impression of the bounds within which British Government would expect the Organization to act. Given Britain’s positive experience with UNTSO and UNMOGIP, there was no reason to expect that it would oppose similar operations in the future. The British never liked vague projects, and firmness over the Guard Force proposal had paid off: the Field Service might or might not be useful, but at least it would not cause too much trouble. Equally, the Secretary-General had been clearly shown the limits of his independence, both over that proposal and during the Palestine discussions. Yet, with the launching of the United Nations’ next major peacekeeping enterprise, Britain rapidly discovered the limits to its ability to set the rules.

3 The Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956

In 1956 the United Nations made a qualitative advance in its role in international security from dispatching small, unarmed observer missions to fielding a full-fledged armed force. Once again, Britain played a central role, but not one which was particularly to its credit. Its part in the abortive attempt to restore international control over the Suez Canal following Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal Company has been thoroughly analysed, as have the impact of the crisis on Britain’s standing in the world, and on its self-image as it came to terms with the fact that it could no longer act as a global policeman.1 However, less attention has been paid to British reactions to the mechanism devised to defuse the crisis, namely the UN Emergency Force (UNEF), and its effect on British perspectives on the United Nations in general. While UNEF was lauded throughout the world as signifying a revolution in the field of international organization, it stirred up decidedly mixed emotions in Britain: for some it augured well for multilateral cooperation, but for others it symbolized the country’s humiliation. The Suez affair occurred at a time of flux in international and British affairs. Internationally, the period was characterized by growing competition between the West and East blocs for support in the third world. The end of the Korean War in 1953 and Khrushchev’s ascendancy in the Soviet Union had ostensibly heralded a period of détente, but the Soviet policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’ meant simply that Moscow’s efforts to gain international influence would be conducted by primarily non-military means. Nowhere was this quest of greater concern to Britain, and to the United States, than in the Middle East. In Britain, half-hearted efforts by the Conservative Government of Winston Churchill (1951–55) to reduce national expenditure had failed to halt the decline in Britain’s relative world power, which continued under Churchill’s successor, Anthony Eden. Occasional diplomatic successes, including Britain’s role in the creation of the Western European Union in 1954, offered some consolation. However, at the United Nations the growing assertiveness of the General Assembly, especially on colonial issues, 38

Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 39

increased the Government’s sensitivity about scaling back Britain’s overseas commitments. This chapter focuses on the events of the few months from President Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal Company in July 1956 to the deployment of UNEF in December, following the attack on Egypt by Israeli, British and French forces in late October. The chapter begins with a brief survey of British foreign and colonial policy at the time, followed by an overview of the background to, and course of, the Suez crisis. The focus then turns to the British Government’s failed attempt to have British troops incorporated into UNEF, followed by its equally fruitless efforts to control UNEF’s composition and tasks. That struggle revealed much about British perceptions of the United Nations, and constituted a significant learning process for policy-makers. Once established, the UN force was quickly able to calm the situation in Egypt, and all of the major issues of relevance to this survey had been addressed by December 1956, the end-date of the chapter. Only over time, as subsequent chapters of this book reveal, did British policy-makers formulate considered positions on some of the matters which had required rapid decisions in the whirlwind of events during the crisis.

Foreign and defence policy under the Conservatives On taking office once more in 1951, Churchill was aware that British resources were increasingly overstretched; he therefore asked Eden, his Foreign Secretary, to examine how economies could be made in British military commitments overseas. Eden’s paper, produced in June 1952, started from an assumption that Britain’s foreign policy was determined by its responsibilities as a great power, its lack of economic self-sufficiency, the absence of a global security system and the communist threat. The paper was conservative and struck several themes which were to figure in Eden’s handling of the Suez crisis four years later. It revealed a conviction that Britain had an obligation to the West not to shed responsibilities without due preparation: ‘unless arrangements have been made for the burden to be transferred to friendly shoulders, the Russians would be only too ready to fill any vacuum created by a British withdrawal’. An indication of the fragile foundation of Britain’s power was the great significance which Eden attached to status: withdrawal from a major commitment would affect the international status of the United Kingdom … , it would undermine the cohesion of the Commonwealth and the special relationship of the United Kingdom with the United States and its European partners and other allies … [O]nce the prestige of a country has started to slide there is no knowing where it will stop … public admission of our inability to maintain these traditional possessions would cause a loss of prestige wholly out of proportion to the

40 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

saving in money obtained. It might precipitate a scramble by the numerous claimants to various parts of British territory. The overall conclusion of the paper was that ‘there are few ways to effect any reduction in our overseas commitments which would provide immediate relief to our economic difficulties’. However, in view of the fact that the British economy would be permanently strained by existing obligations, Eden recommended that the Government should concentrate on the construction of defence organizations for the Middle East and South-East Asia and persuade the United States ‘to assume the real burdens in such organizations, while retaining for ourselves as much political control – and hence prestige and world influence – as we can’.2 Clearly, in Eden’s view, the protection of colonial possessions required strategically located military alliances: there was no question of entrusting security to the United Nations. Eden’s unwillingness to propose more dramatic measures was matched by Churchill’s determination to preserve Britain’s great power status. In July 1954 Churchill persuaded the Cabinet that Britain must match the superpowers in the development of thermonuclear weapons, insisting that ‘we could not expect to maintain our influence as a world Power unless we possessed the most up-to-date nuclear weapons’.3 But although this had been intended to facilitate economies by allowing a reduction in the size of the standing army, defence spending remained high. When Eden succeeded Churchill in April 1955 the demands on the domestic economy were illustrated by rising prices and increasing wage claims. In 1956 Britain was spending 10 per cent of its GNP on defence and had 750 000 men and women under arms.4 That year’s Defence White Paper stated that, in view of the worsening balance of payments situation, ‘There is … a pressing need to limit defence expenditure to what truly is essential and to ensure that the best possible value is obtained for what is spent.’ The White Paper stressed the need to be prepared for limited wars; but the absence of a single reference to the United Nations confirmed that the Organization was considered irrelevant for addressing aggression.5 As Coral Bell observed in an article in 1955: ‘Britain was the driving-force behind NATO which, despite the ingenuity devoted to proving its perfect compatibility with the United Nations, was nevertheless a response to the incapacity of the United Nations to provide adequately for defence against Russia, and the reason why that incapacity does not matter and has therefore been allowed to continue.’6

The UN and British colonial policy under the Conservatives Another reason for giving the United Nations a wide berth in issues of importance was the increasingly strident criticism of Britain’s colonial policy which was issuing from the Organization. The British withdrawals from Palestine and India were followed by a lull in decolonization: no British

Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 41

colony became independent between 1948 and 1955, and in the decade after 1947 recruitment into the Colonial Office increased by 50 per cent. Compared with national expenditure on defence and social services, colonies were not seen as a significant drain on resources, and the economic implications of keeping or relinquishing them were relatively evenly matched.7 Britain met its responsibilities towards the United Nations in regard to its Trusteeship Territories, but suggestions that colonial powers should account to the Organization for the management of their colonies were rejected on the grounds that this ‘would inevitably, in the eyes of the colonial peoples, devalue the Crown as the symbol of ultimate authority to which allegiance is owing and from which protection flows, and thereby undermine the present and potential contribution of the Commonwealth to world stability’.8 During the period of the previous Labour Government, criticism by ministers and civil servants of the UN’s approach to decolonization had remained largely out of the public arena, finding outlets at such gatherings as the African Governors’ Conference. However, the Conservative Government was more combative on the subject, and Eden warned against premature decolonization when he addressed the General Assembly in November 1952: Either these lands can continue, with the help of countries like my own, their orderly progress towards self-government. Or they can be prematurely abandoned by us and exposed to anarchy or despotism, so that all liberal tendencies are smothered, perhaps for generations. There is no question in my mind as to which of these courses most closely fits the purpose of the Charter of the United Nations.9 Yet the anti-colonialists enjoyed increasing support from the Americans, who were growing more outspoken against British colonial policy. John Foster Dulles, who became US Secretary of State in 1953, was particularly candid in his opposition to European colonialism, which he felt undermined attempts to challenge Soviet imperialism.10 This stance, and perceived American ambitions, touched a raw British nerve with regard to the Middle East, where Britain felt ever more vulnerable. In February 1954 Minister of State Selwyn Lloyd informed the Cabinet that ‘There is on our side a very understandable suspicion that the Americans are out to take our place in the Middle East.’11 Three months later, Eden declared of the Americans: ‘They want to replace us in Egypt … They want to run the world.’12

The Suez Crisis Eden’s sensitivity over Egypt derived in part from his role in negotiating the treaty by which Britain agreed to withdraw its military presence from the Suez Canal Zone. This was signed in October 1954 and stipulated that the withdrawal should be completed within 20 months. It aroused considerable

42 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

opposition from the Conservative Suez Group, who saw it as undermining Britain’s standing as a colonial power and threatening its communications with the Far East. The situation in Egypt and the Middle East rapidly deteriorated. In October 1955 the new Foreign Secretary, Harold Macmillan, warned the Cabinet that Britain’s enemies in the Middle East, whom he identified as the Russians, the Egyptians and the Saudi Arabians, ‘may play on the indigenous forces of nationalism and cupidity in order to disrupt the commercial operation of our oil companies’.13 Egypt’s purchase of Czech arms and the sacking of British General John Glubb as head of the Jordanian Legion in March 1956, an action attributed to Nasser’s influence, added to Britain’s sense of threat. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company on 26 July 1956, with the professed aim of using Canal tolls to fund the Aswan High Dam Project, from which US Government financing had been withdrawn one week previously. The last British troops had left Egypt 43 days earlier, but the British Government retained almost half the shares of the Company; 78 per cent of the remaining shares were held by French investors. Britain and France led the campaign to force Nasser to reverse his action, at first by diplomatic means, but with increasing indications that they were prepared to use force. That Eden placed little faith in negotiations was evident in his warning to US President Eisenhower, on the day after the nationalization, that We should not allow ourselves to become involved in legal quibbles about the legal rights of the Egyptian Government to nationalize what is technically an Egyptian company, or in financial arguments about their capacity to pay the compensation which they have offered … My colleagues and I are convinced that we must be ready, in the last resort, to use force to bring Nasser to his senses … I have this morning instructed our Chiefs of Staff to prepare a military plan accordingly.14 Clearly, the Government could not move immediately to military action without going through the motions of seeking a diplomatic solution. At the London Conference, convened on 16 August as a result of an initiative by Britain and the United States, 18 out of the 22 countries identified as principal users of the Canal agreed on proposals for a settlement. These were presented to, but rejected by, Nasser in early September. The British Government hesitated over whether to bring the issue to the Security Council. Selwyn Lloyd, now Foreign Secretary, acknowledged that this might hinder the planned military assault, but warned Eden that moderate opinion in Britain and abroad would be outraged if there were no prior gesture towards the United Nations.15 The Conservative Party Chairman, Oliver Poole, agreed, although he qualified this by noting that many Conservative Party workers ‘consider the United Nations as a useless body

Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 43

from which no constructive solution can come’.16 On 5 September Eisenhower, whose re-election campaign was well under way, rejected the use of force against Egypt completely and unconditionally, to the consternation of the British and the French.17 On 26 September, the UN Security Council met to discuss Anglo-French and Egyptian charges that the situation created respectively by the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company and by the Anglo-French military buildup in the Eastern Mediterranean threatened international peace and security. Private talks between the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Britain and France took place under the good offices of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.18 Six principles for managing the Canal, which included insulation of its operation from the politics of any country, were agreed to by the three Foreign Ministers and endorsed by the Security Council in resolution 118 of 13 October. However, Eden announced that military measures would continue and that the use of force, although a last resort, could not be excluded. At the United Nations, Hammarskjöld continued to negotiate in good faith and persuaded the Egyptians to make important concessions.19 British Minister of State Anthony Nutting, who resigned over the British actions in the crisis, subsequently maintained that the plans which Hammarskjöld had been developing would have given Britain all it needed, while at the same time being designed to appeal to the Egyptians.20 Ministerial talks were due to resume on 29 October, but were precluded by the Israeli invasion of the Sinai peninsula that day.21 On 30 October Israel accepted, but Egypt rejected, an Anglo-French ultimatum that they cease hostilities and withdraw their forces ten miles from the Canal; Israeli troops were by that stage nowhere near the Canal and were thus at liberty to continue advancing. Britain and France vetoed US and Soviet Security Council resolutions calling on Israel to withdraw its forces behind the armistice lines.22 Under Operation Musketeer Revise, AngloFrench forces began an air and naval attack on Port Said on 31 October. That day, the Security Council referred the issue to the General Assembly under the ‘Uniting for Peace’ procedure and the Assembly convened an Emergency Session on 1 November.23 The five days required for seaborne British and French troops to reach Egypt from Malta allowed domestic and international opposition to mount rapidly. In Britain, the Labour Party was deeply hostile: it had not ruled out force as a last resort, but had insisted that this should be authorized by the United Nations, a suggestion dismissed by Lloyd as ‘utterly unrealistic’.24 Much of the press was critical of Eden’s actions, but opinion polls suggested that public opinion was fairly evenly divided.25 A striking opponent of Anglo-French actions was Lord Mountbatten, First Sea Lord. On 2 November, after the bombing had started and the Navy flotilla was still en route for Egypt, he appealed privately to Eden ‘to accept the resolution of the overwhelming majority of the United Nations to cease

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military operations … [I] beg you to turn back the assault convoy before it is too late, as I feel that the actual landing of troops can only spread the war with untold misery and world-wide repercussions.’ Eden turned down the appeal and Mountbatten warned Viscount Hailsham, First Lord of the Admiralty, that civilian casualties could not be avoided and that it fell mainly to the Navy to inflict them, a task Mountbatten found ‘repugnant’.26 Internationally, the Eisenhower Administration made clear its opposition to the military action, including by allowing the Sixth Fleet to delay the Anglo-French naval force and by refusing to authorize a loan from the IMF to counteract pressure on the pound. On 2 November, Lloyd warned the Cabinet that if the Government made no concession to the US Administration, oil sanctions might be imposed against Britain. With blunt realism, Lloyd suggested that ‘Britain might then be compelled to occupy Kuwait and Qatar’, the only suppliers of oil which were not members of the United Nations.27 The Soviet Union, itself embroiled in suppressing dissent in Hungary, attempted to make political capital out of the situation and warned that the conflict could grow into a third World War.28 On 5 November, Israel informed the Secretary-General that it agreed unconditionally to cease fire. However, the same day, British and French troops landed and occupied one-third of the Canal Zone. On 6 November, under severe US pressure, Britain called a ceasefire, and France had no option but to go along with it. Several explanations were put forward by the British Government for what it described as the ‘police action’, a euphemism presumably intended to give the operation law-enforcement overtones and to recall the American use of the term during the Korean War. The first justification cited was to separate the combatants and protect the operation of the Canal, but this was contradicted by the British and French vetoes of the two Security Council resolutions calling for Israeli withdrawal.29 Eden also asserted that the British and French forces would contain the conflict by discouraging Syrian and Jordanian intervention,30 and he emphasized the threat of Russian interference in the Middle East if no action was taken.31

The creation and functions of UNEF The reason cited for the first justification, namely to separate the combatants, was that the United Nations would have been unable to take the measures necessary to end the fighting promptly. While this might have been true, the speed of the Anglo-French intervention simply precluded any attempt to follow the measures laid out in the Charter to end conflict, including imposing sanctions and enforcing peace.32 However, since the UN’s political divisions and military inexperience would almost certainly have caused it to fail in such tasks, it was perhaps a blessing in disguise for the Organization that Britain and France strode into the fray. The UN’s

Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 45

responsibilities were made simpler by the existence of a ceasefire before it became involved. Once UNEF had been created, rivalry arose over who had first conceived it. For some time prior to the crisis, proposals had been made to strengthen UNTSO so as to reduce militia raids into Israel from neighbouring states, especially Egypt. For example, in response to a question in the House of Commons on 12 December 1955, Eden appeared to suggest that Britain might contribute military observers to UNTSO, something which the British Government had been so keen to avoid only seven years previously: ‘we have made it plain several times – not only to General Burns [Chief of Staff of UNTSO and later the first commander of UNEF] but also to the SecretaryGeneral – over the last year and a half that if it is thought desirable to increase their numbers we are quite ready to make our contribution’.33 In January 1956, Lloyd suggested to Hammarskjöld a plan for a buffer zone between Israel and its Arab neighbours, to be occupied by an international patrol.34 Even though Lloyd seemed in fact to be proposing a cordon sanitaire along all of Israel’s borders the scale of the force which he envisaged was closer to that of UNEF than Eden’s proposal. The other contender in the rivalry to claim paternity of UNEF was Canadian Foreign Minister Lester Pearson, who had lost out to Hammarskjöld in the contest to succeed Trygve Lie as Secretary-General, and who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to establish UNEF. Pearson told the Canadian House of Commons that in February 1956 he had first suggested through diplomatic channels in London and elsewhere that a force be created, but that he had been discouraged by the lack of response.35 However, in his memoirs, Pearson acknowledged that Lloyd had proposed in spring 1956 that it might be necessary to put some kind of UN force into the area to keep the lid from blowing off. The idea was not novel and had received a considerable circulation over the years as a talking point. Only in acceptance would it become unique.36 On balance, therefore, it appears that Britain deserved primary credit for conceiving the force, as well as virtually full credit for creating the circumstances in which UNEF became necessary. On 1 November Eden told the House of Commons that we best avoid great wars by taking even physical action to stop small ones. Everybody knows that the United Nations is not in a position to do that. We and the French have the forces available … The first and urgent task is to separate these combatants and to stabilise the position … If the United Nations were then willing to take over the physical task of maintaining peace in that area, no one would be better pleased than we.37

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The British Ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Pierson Dixon, echoed Eden’s words during a General Assembly debate the same day.38 This approach resonated with the British public. Oliver Poole told Eden that ‘if the Government can establish that our forces are the advance guard of the first UNO police force, all waverers will be solidly behind us’.39 However, UNEF was never to match British expectations. A chronological account reveals the process by which the force evolved, in British eyes, from a potential tool for pursuing Anglo-French objectives to a symbol of Britain’s humiliation at the hands of the United Nations. As it took shape, the efforts by Eden and Lloyd to put a brave face on the situation and portray UNEF as a welcome, or even intended, outcome of Anglo-French actions became more strained. On 3 November, Lloyd assigned ambitious objectives to the force, telling the House of Commons that If the United Nations decide[s] to constitute that force … it must also decide that that force should remain in the Middle East until there has been a peace settlement between the Arab States and Israel … the United Nations force should stay there until satisfactory arrangements have been agreed in regard to the Suez Canal. In addition to this enlargement of the force’s prospective tasks, Lloyd enunciated a theme which was to recur as the Anglo-French position became increasingly untenable, namely that their action had been designed in part to force the United Nations to achieve its full potential: ‘If … the United Nations equips itself and organises itself so that it is in a position to act quickly in similar circumstances, … we shall have done a very good job for the peace of the world.’40 British troops were still sailing towards Egypt when, in a broadcast that evening, Eden expressed the similar hope that ‘the outcome will be not only peace in the Middle East, but a strengthened United Nations – one with power to act as well as to talk, a real force for peace in the world’.41 Labour Leader Hugh Gaitskell replied that in violating the UN Charter ‘we have betrayed all that Britain has stood for in world affairs’,42 and Aneurin Bevan, Labour spokesman on foreign affairs, poured ridicule on the suggestion that the aim was to strengthen the United Nations: ‘It is, of course, exactly the same claim which might have been made, if they had thought about it in time, by Mussolini and Hitler, that they made war on the world in order to call the United Nations into being.’43 The seed of UNEF lay in General Assembly resolution 998 (ES-1) of 4 November, proposed by Canada. That resolution requested the SecretaryGeneral to submit to the Assembly ‘a plan for the setting up, with the consent of the nations concerned, of an emergency international United Nations Force to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities’.

Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 47

The following day, the Secretary-General submitted his first report. This was immediately endorsed by the Assembly which, in resolution 1000, established a United Nations Command for the force; appointed General Burns as Chief of the Command; authorized him to recruit from UNTSO a limited number of officers from countries which were not permanent members of the Security Council and, in consultation with the Secretary-General, to recruit other officers; and invited the Secretary-General to take the necessary administrative measures. Under resolution 1002, of 7 November, the Secretary-General was also asked to report to the Assembly on the withdrawal of Israeli, British and French forces from Egyptian territory. The sizeable role granted to the Secretary-General set a powerful precedent for the future, but it is striking that in launching the first UN peacekeeping force, the UN members considered it their prerogative both to appoint a specific Force Commander and to give him formal instructions. This vestige of the Charter’s vision of the primary role of the member states in directing UN forces lapsed in subsequent UN operations.44 In their public declarations on UNEF British Government leaders were gradually painting themselves into a corner from which they could not escape without humiliation when the limitations of the force’s functions became clear. The resentment which this caused was a major factor in the bitterness which came to permeate private comments by certain British politicians and bureaucrats on the United Nations in the period after the crisis. In New York there was less room for British bravado and the weakness of the Government’s position in making demands of UNEF rapidly became apparent. The Anglo-French ceasefire on 6 November increased the pressure for UNEF to be deployed rapidly to stabilize the situation. In a major climbdown Britain informed Hammarskjöld that the ceasefire was conditional simply on UNEF being competent to secure and supervise the attainment of the objectives assigned by the General Assembly.45 Yet, while abandoning efforts to link a ceasefire with their other goals, British policy-makers still believed that they could place conditions on the withdrawal of British troops from Egyptian territory.

The composition of UNEF A particularly thorny issue in British–UN relations was the composition of the force. Pearson had originally thought that UNEF would incorporate the Anglo-French troops, but the United States pointed out that this would be taken as legitimizing their action.46 On 4 November, Hammarskjöld came up with the solution of excluding from UNEF troops from all permanent members of the Security Council. Thus, what came to be viewed as one of the central principles of classical peacekeeping evolved as a simple response to the particular circumstances of the crisis.

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However, once again Eden had set himself up for a fall. Addressing the House of Commons on 3 November he preserved the illusion that the impending creation of UNEF was the calculated result of British actions: ‘we should naturally not expect to be excluded from it. We should want to be a part of it.’47 The following day, Lloyd circulated to the Cabinet’s Egypt Committee a note in which he stated that: The Secretary-General’s view that British and French forces should be excluded from any international force could not be accepted … A possible course, however, would be to notify the United Nations that … the Anglo-French forces … would be regarded as advance elements of the international force or trustees on its behalf …48 On 5 November, in the House of Commons, Lloyd explained Britain’s abstention on the vote establishing UNEF on the grounds that we could not vote for a proposition which excluded detachments of the forces of the permanent members of the Security Council from this international force … there has to be some reality about the situation. One has to consider the people who are able effectively to contribute those forces.49 However, President Eisenhower, who exploited Eden’s desperation to visit Washington to present a united US–UK front, insisted in a telegram that ‘it is vital no excuse be given for Soviet participation in UN force, therefore all big Five should be excluded from force as UN proposes’.50 The Egypt Committee reached the inevitable conclusion that ‘it would be unwise to risk further alienation of United States opinion by continuing to oppose the concept of a force restricted to the smaller Powers’. The Committee tried to make the best of the situation, comforting itself with the idea that ‘an international force constituted by the Great Powers might prove no less dangerous in the end, especially as it might provide the Soviet Union with a foothold in the Middle East which she could exploit to suit her own needs’.51 This position, reached under duress, marked British acquiescence in a further downgrading of the great-power control of UN forces foreseen in the Charter. In UNTSO and UNMOGIP Britain had been content for its interests to be represented by its greatpower allies, the United States and France. Now, lesser partners would have to play that role. On 9 November, Britain’s impotence was evident when Dixon reported to Lloyd his astonishment at information Hammarskjöld had given him on the progress in establishing UNEF’s logistics: I was of course aware that there was a general tendency in the United Nations to believe that all the arrangements for the international force

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should be made without consulting us, on the grounds that we had no moral right to expect to be consulted. But as an administrator he must know that this was not only childish but dangerous … I believe that a forthright personal message from yourself to the new pope would be timely, bringing out the simple point that logistics are difficult enough in themselves without the additional complications of high moral principles.52 After accepting that British troops would be excluded from UNEF, British Ministers stepped up efforts to ensure at least that the Commonwealth was represented among the troop-contributors. Recent events had placed considerable strain on Commonwealth relations: Australia, and to a lesser extent, New Zealand, had stood by Britain, but Indian Minister without Portfolio Krishna Menon had been a particular irritant in the General Assembly debates. On 6 November Canadian Prime Minister Louis St Laurent warned Eden of a split in the Commonwealth if he did not accept the plan for UNEF.53 Canada and India were among the first countries Hammarskjöld consulted about contributing troops to UNEF. Nasser argued against a contribution from Canada on the grounds of its close relationship to Britain. Hammarskjöld himself rejected an offer of troops from New Zealand because they were ‘too pro-British’.54 On 16 November Home told Lloyd, who was now in New York, that: ‘It would obviously be of great advantage to us to have a Pakistani contingent in the International Force.’55 Home suspected that Menon was using his influence to prevent the inclusion of troops from Pakistan. Eden then contacted Lloyd, who was becoming increasingly beleaguered, and about whose seeming inability to influence events the Cabinet was growing more concerned. The Prime Minister was alarmed to have seen indications in the press that Canada and Pakistan would be debarred from contributing contingents: ‘Can this be true? It would be quite intolerable.’56 Hammarskjöld himself insisted to Nasser that Canada should be included, but Lloyd failed to win any satisfaction over the inclusion of Pakistan, and was scathing about the other contingents: ‘I am afraid that physical acquaintance with the Canal Zone and the Sinai peninsula may diminish the enthusiasm of these new crusaders.’57

Conditions for withdrawal of the Anglo-French troops On 13 November, the Cabinet discussed press reports that the Egyptians were likely both to argue that UNEF should be deployed on the Israel–Egypt armistice line rather than along the Canal and to have the power to decide when the force should be withdrawn. The Cabinet concluded that: ‘The Foreign Secretary would presumably make it clear to Mr. Hammarskjöld that we should be unable to accept any agreement with the Egyptians which

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included such conditions as these.’58 However, Lloyd reported that the whole project for an international Force on satisfactory lines is very much in the melting pot. I feel that the Afro-Asians are more and more beginning to realise that it would constitute a victory for us. Therefore, they will exert all pressures to have the composition of the Force unsatisfactory to us, to limit its functions and to subject it to Egyptian authority.59 Lloyd warned Hammarskjöld that ‘we would not go unless we were satisfied … I said that there was a lot to be settled with Nasser before we pulled out.’60 However, the Secretary-General ignored such threats and his pointed message on 14 November highlighted the weakness of Britain’s position: The demand of the General Assembly to France, United Kingdom and Israel for withdrawal is of course the basic fact. It is unqualified and does not leave any margin for conditions, such as reference to specific terms under which the United Nations force is set up.61 By the following day, Britain was forced to accept the limits of its leverage over the situation. Until then, it had insisted that the Anglo-French troops would not be withdrawn until UNEF was fully deployed and operational; the justification cited was that early withdrawal would leave a vacuum allowing room for Soviet interference, but it was clear that the British Government still intended UNEF’s creation to appear as the result of a calculated policy, for which the Anglo-French invasion had laid the ground. This procrastination had provoked opposition, especially from the US Administration, which clearly believed that Britain held a poor position from which to bargain. Lloyd reported that he had told US Ambassador Lodge that if the United States were to take the lead in trying to get us out before the International Force had been properly constituted with appropriate functions the result would be disastrous … I put the vacuum argument to him again and again, I said that if the United States had not led the hunt against us in the United Nations I believed we would have had a brilliant success and that Nasser by now would have gone. I do not think he relished that argument.62 On 15 November, Eden conceded that Britain would agree to a withdrawal phased in relation to: (a) the arrival of UN forces; (b) arrangements for clearing the Canal; and (c) arrangements for reaching an agreement on the operation of the Canal.63 It was then that the short-sighted British attempts publicly to associate UNEF with fulfillment of all the professed objectives of the Anglo-French forces came back to haunt the Government. The Egypt

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Committee debated the increasingly evident limits of UNEF’s functions: Government supporters had little confidence that the machinery of the United Nations would achieve a satisfactory settlement of the problems which had arisen. They had expected that the international force would be fully equipped as a fighting force with armour and aircraft, and they would be reluctant to envisage it simply as a token indication that the United Nations had assumed responsibility in the area.64 The Cabinet noted evidence that the majority of the British population shared the Government’s view on the conditions for a full withdrawal of the Anglo-French forces.65 For the Government, therefore, UNEF was bound up with its public credibility, and the importance of not seeming to be dictated to by the UN grew. However, on 19 November Lloyd sent a worried cable from New York: On the functions of the force I am not at all happy as to what public opinion in Britain will say of it … it cannot be disputed that there is no clear and precise agreement that the functions of the international force shall bear any relation to the clearance of the Canal, an agreement for the operation of the Canal or a Palestine settlement. Hammarskjöld has promised to try to work out a new form of words for his report which will make it more palatable for us.66 By 20 November, 700 UN troops had arrived in Egypt and were being deployed to the Suez Canal area to take over from the Anglo-French units occupying Port Said. At this point, the focus of attention narrowed to achieving British objectives vis-à-vis the Canal. When British forces discovered 100 000 tons of oil at Port Said, of which 20 000 belonged to the Admiralty, Hailsham declared that it could be transported to Britain and would reduce the urgency of opening the Canal. This ‘would give us a certain amount of additional room for manoeuvre in negotiating the terms on which we would agree to the withdrawal of the Anglo-French force’.67 Yet by that time, Hammarskjöld, who had visited Cairo from 16 to 18 November, had already signed a memorandum with Nasser stating that UNEF would have no function in Port Said and the Canal area after the Anglo-French withdrawal. When Hammarskjöld returned to New York he agreed to a request from Lloyd and French Foreign Minister Pineau not to publish the memorandum, thereby limiting the embarrassment to their Governments.68 Hammarskjöld’s agreement with Nasser had defeated Britain’s attempts to ensure UNEF’s long-term stationing in the Canal Zone, and Eden and Lloyd now turned their attention to trying to run the operation to clear the Canal of scuttled Egyptian ships. Since the main aim of the Suez expedition had

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purportedly been to ensure the continued operation of the Canal, they had a stake in seeing it reopened as soon as possible. Eleven Anglo-French salvage ships conducted limited clearance operations in Port Said harbour, but Egypt refused further activities by British and French crews, despite Lloyd’s offer to Hammarskjöld that British ships could fly the UN flag and their crews wear civilian clothes.69 Eden acquiesced with bad grace in UN management of the Canal clearance operation. George Ivan Smith, a UN official who assisted Hammarskjöld, recalled that the British Prime Minister ‘fought tooth and nail against every action that Hammarskjöld took to send away British or French ships that didn’t have a clearly defined functional use in salvage operations’.70 Eden particularly resisted UN efforts to remove the ‘Striker’, which Smith described as ‘a communications vessel for breaking United Nations codes’.71 Thirty-two UN vessels succeeded in clearing the Canal by 25 March 1957. Memoirs and documents recording the British negotiations over the creation of UNEF reveal remarkably little consultation with France. France had been taken by surprise by Britain’s decision to halt hostilities, and Britain’s occupation of all key command posts in the joint force had prevented French troops from continuing the occupation of the Canal Zone unilaterally, as Pineau had suggested to Prime Minister Mollet.72 Yet once the fighting was over, France proved more cooperative than Britain with the United Nations. US Ambassador Lodge reported to the State Department that Pineau was willing to let General Burns decide the question of withdrawal of all Anglo-French forces: The French have come up with a very good face-saver and the British have put themselves in the wrong by not accepting it. This makes clear that their basic motivation is their own political status at home.73

Relations with the United States The US Administration, while ultimately willing to help Britain, was in no particular hurry to let it escape a situation which had embarrassed Eisenhower on the eve of the Presidential election. An indication of the tenor of Anglo-US relations during the crisis lay in Dixon’s report to the Foreign Office on 9 November that ‘the United States delegation continue to ignore us’.74 Lloyd complained to US Ambassador Aldrich that ‘while we did not expect the State Department to accept our view, we believed that we had stopped a world war’.75 On 21 November, Britain finally, and grudgingly, agreed to withdraw an infantry battalion from Port Said as an indication of its intentions, and accepted to pull out other units as UNEF became effective.76 Yet the bitterness with which this was accepted was evident when the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, warned US

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Ambassador Aldrich that ‘if events showed that the deployment of the United Nations force in Egypt was merely a dodge to induce us to withdraw and that after our departure no serious effort was made to discharge the tasks imposed on the United Nations force by the Assembly, a very serious and critical situation would obviously arise’. Kirkpatrick declared that his advice would be that Britain should leave the United Nations: ‘If we reached the conclusion that it was impossible to defend the interests of the free West from within the United Nations, we should have to do our best outside it.’77 The United States found itself drawn into the jostling for power which broke out when Eden suffered a collapse and announced that he was leaving London to recuperate in Jamaica. Rab Butler, who stood in for the Prime Minister, passed messages to Washington via Aldrich in the apparent belief that he was the primary British contact for dealings with the United States on the subject of UNEF. However, Chancellor of the Exchequer Macmillan, who on 12 November had told Aldrich that Lloyd was ‘too young and inexperienced’ for his position under the present circumstances, also sought to ingratiate himself with Eisenhower.78 He promised Aldrich that the first action after Eden’s departure would be a withdrawal of British troops from Egypt: ‘If you can give us a fig leaf to cover our nakedness I believe we can get a majority of the Cabinet to vote for such withdrawal without requiring conditions in connection with location of United Nations forces and methods of re-opening and operating [the] Canal.’ Aldrich noted that ‘Macmillan is desperately anxious to see the President at earliest possible opportunity.’79 With apparent amusement, Lodge reported from the United Nations that Lloyd gave vent to quite an explosion about being asked to give up the British right to decide on what terms they would get out. He said he would rather go down fighting than have these questions be decided by a ‘UN General’. He felt sure that in England they would ‘go right through the roof’ and he felt like going right through the roof himself.80 On 23 November a telegram dispatched from the State Department to various US diplomatic missions revealed that Eden’s fears that the US was usurping Britain’s position applied not just to its standing in the Middle East but, more importantly, to the moral high ground which Britain believed it had occupied and which had been a source of the prestige to which Eden attached such importance in British foreign policy: We have considered it unwise pending understanding re: withdrawal UK and French forces to make any move which would indicate that we are giving extraordinary support to British and French while they fail comply UN resolutions; nor do we wish lose influence which our adherence to principle in this problem has engendered.81

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On 3 December, in the House of Commons, Lloyd announced the withdrawal of British and French troops.82 UNEF contingents moved in to replace them in the Canal Zone before following the Israeli troops as they withdrew through the Sinai back to the armistice line. On 14 December, when Eden returned from Jamaica to the political debris caused by recent events, he was upbeat to the last, highlighting UNEF’s creation as one of the accomplishments of the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt: The formation of a United Nations force could be the turning point in the history of the United Nations. Does anyone suppose that there would have been a United Nations force but for British and French action? Of course not.83 The last of the British troops were withdrawn from Port Said eight days later and on 10 January 1957 Eden resigned. He was replaced by Macmillan. Israel completed its withdrawal from Egyptian territory in March 1957, at which point UNEF moved into Gaza, thereby constituting a buffer between Israel and Egypt along their common border. The UN Force steadily stabilized the situation and its primary function became monitoring the ceasefire. It largely remained out of the news until its withdrawal shortly before the 1967 Middle East War.

Conclusion UNEF turned the Charter’s conception of an international force on its head. The five permanent members of the Security Council, to whom, through the Military Staff Committee, the Charter assigned the primary responsibility for directing UN forces, found themselves excluded in favour of contingents from small countries under the operational command of the SecretaryGeneral, a former bureaucrat from a neutral nation who possessed no prior military experience. For Britain, a country with a proud military tradition which professed to set store by careful adherence to international law and which believed in the enlightened application of power in international affairs, this was a challenge. Yet the British Government was in a weak position to object: it had been caught attempting to resolve an international disagreement by force of arms, a discredited approach which the United Nations had been established to replace. UNEF appeared as the modern, and morally superior, alternative to the outdated method of dispute settlement which had been attempted by two declining imperial powers. British reactions to the creation of UNEF were therefore closely bound up with the crisis which gave birth to it, especially for the small group of individuals who were most directly involved with British policy during the autumn of 1956. For Eden, Lloyd, Dixon and Kirkpatrick, UNEF’s evolution symbolized Britain’s inability to retrieve the situation created by the assault

Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 55

on Egypt. Although one of UNEF’s primary functions was to help Britain and France retreat from their blunder with some dignity, Eden and Lloyd made that task far harder: they set out demanding conditions for the force, and their approach was to avoid backing down any further than necessary. It was inevitable that UNEF would not live up to their unrealistic expectations: the force’s mandate did not include guaranteeing the international operation of the Suez Canal, nor did it achieve the other goals which the British had envisaged, including assisting a settlement of the Palestine question. Moreover, not only had Nasser not been ousted, he had gained greatly enhanced prestige among developing countries and acquired the right to influence UNEF’s functions and the duration of its stay. Britain’s impotence in the crisis was summarized succinctly by Dixon: ‘It really was an extraordinary situation in which we were quite incompetent to influence the course of events.’84 The events described in this chapter set the scene for much of the rest of this book. Papers in the Public Record Office do not reveal whether other Cabinet members held a more positive view of UNEF than Eden and Lloyd, but from the fact that the Government under Prime Minister Macmillan supported subsequent UN operations it can be deduced that the Suez experience did not turn the Conservatives irrevocably against UN peacekeeping. As for other Foreign Office officials, the next chapter recounts how UNEF’s significance as an innovative approach to conflict management percolated through their thinking. With the benefit both of perspective, and of being readmitted to policymaking, they were able to consider ways of building on the UNEF experience. On the military side, Mountbatten’s discomfort at the Suez invasion evolved into strong interest in the development of the UN’s peacekeeping capacity.85 UNEF also enjoyed broad public support and transformed UN peacekeeping into a public issue requiring careful management by the Government. As for the United Nations, Anglo-French actions resulted in a significant expansion of the Organization’s capacity in the security field. The fact that UNEF had been established by the General Assembly set an important precedent, and one which, at this stage, was unwelcome to Britain. Now, even the sphere of the United Nations’ activities over which Britain had been determined to retain control, namely the management of military forces, had become the property of the general UN membership, with no special privileges reserved for the Big Five. Moreover, the Secretary-General henceforth enjoyed undreamt-of latitude, further weakening states’ control over UN activities; his competence encouraged UN members faced with difficult international problems simply to ‘leave it to Dag’. Once more, therefore, Britain had unexpectedly contributed to the further development of what was to become one of the UN’s most successful activities, its peacekeeping function. Yet the manoeuvrings of the key British policy-makers ensured that no one gave Britain credit for doing so. They had argued strenuously against what were to become central tenets of

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peacekeeping operations. By demanding that British troops be incorporated into UNEF they had opposed the notion of neutrality and the exclusion of states possessing an interest in the conflict. They had also challenged the right of the host state to be consulted over the functions and area of deployment of the force. In addition, they had not accepted that that Government should be entitled to decide when the force should be withdrawn from its territory: they did not want UNEF to be neutral and did not care about Egypt’s sovereign rights. In short, their failure to understand, or to accept, the nature of peacekeeping contributes to the impression that Britain’s day as an authoritative voice in the United Nations was drawing rapidly to a close. The Organization was coming of age and, from now on, Britain would have to work harder to exercise influence there.

4 Conceptualizing and Delimiting Peacekeeping, 1957–60

The three and a half years between the launch of UNEF and that of the UN’s next major peacekeeping force, the operation in the Congo (ONUC), constituted a remarkably fertile period in the evolution of international and British perspectives on peacekeeping. The UN’s experiment in Egypt generated strong responses around the world from both advocates and opponents of a greater role for the Organization in security issues. In Britain, a bemused Conservative Government under the new Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, had to come to terms with widespread public enthusiasm for the UN’s innovative response to the Suez affair. In contrast to the relatively unnoticed UN observer missions in Palestine and Kashmir, UNEF had transformed peacekeeping into public property: the Government could not afford to ignore public opinion on the subject, and was regularly obliged to respond to questions from Members of Parliament eager to place peacekeeping on a firmer footing. As for the civil service, its readmission to this area of policy-making after its virtual exclusion during the Suez crisis encouraged officials to show their true colours with regard to the United Nations. The period of taking stock of the new advance in the UN’s prestige and influence was soon succeeded by one of conceptualization, as efforts were made to ensure that the lessons of UNEF were not forgotten. Both Lester Pearson and Hammarskjöld tackled this subject, with the latter codifying principles which were to become central to peacekeeping for the next thirty years. Once the British Government had regained its composure, it contemplated how to build on the UNEF experience. However, the limits to how far the Government trusted the United Nations to ensure security in regions of strategic importance became apparent in 1958 when Britain fully backed US intervention in Lebanon and deployed 2000 of its own troops in Jordan, both actions being outside a UN framework.

57

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British initiative for a permanent UN force With an alacrity born of a desire for urgent damage limitation after the Suez crisis – and possibly to remind politicians of their existence – within three weeks of the ceasefire, Foreign Office officials began to examine what good might come of the UNEF experience. On 29 November, Dalton Murray, head of the UN Department, suggested a British initiative ‘towards the establishment of a force permanently at the disposal of the United Nations’. One of his arguments in favour of such an action was that it would ‘go a long way to help us to recover our position in the United Nations’.1 Within two weeks, his department had prepared a memorandum entitled ‘Establishment of a Permanent United Nations Force’.2 In the course of the next six months, this trial balloon was passed around the Foreign Office and other departments in Whitehall. Yet, it revealed a limited grasp of the nature of UNEF and left some important questions unanswered. These factors led both to confusion as to the precise nature of what the Foreign Office envisaged and to greater hostility in some quarters than was necessary. The memorandum precipitated the articulation of views on the United Nations and peacekeeping which usually remained latent, thereby providing numerous insights into how civil servants perceived both the United Nations and the desirability and feasibility of formalizing peacekeeping. The memorandum, dated 14 December, was forwarded by Murray to senior Foreign Office officials with an explanatory covering note dated 20 December. The plan was founded on two main beliefs: first, the improbability that, given their opposing interests in most conflicts, the Permanent Members of the Security Council would ever all agree to launch a force as contemplated under Chapter VII of the Charter; and, second, that relying on ad hoc peacekeeping forces could mean that ‘The house might well have burnt down, and a determined aggressor achieved his objectives, before the fire brigade arrived.’ The essence of the plan, Murray explained, was to pursue proposals embodied in the 1950 ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution ‘in somewhat different form’. In addition to permitting the General Assembly to recommend actions in the sphere of international security when the Security Council was deadlocked, that resolution suggested that UN member states maintain military units rapidly available for UN service.3 In terms of troop contributions, the memorandum proposed that the General Assembly should ask member states to earmark contingents in their national armed forces which would be permanently available to the United Nations ‘for police action’. A committee of representatives of those states which had voted for the resolution would decide the composition and command structure of the force. Locating the authority in the General Assembly was intended to bypass the Soviet veto in the Security Council. Murray acknowledged that this

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tactic could scare off non-aligned countries which were currently contributing contingents to UNEF and that it would therefore ‘clash with the general Western policy of trying to make the United Nations work, possibly to the extent of driving the Soviet bloc out of the United Nations’. However, he thought that these risks might not apply to a UN force which excluded contingents from the ‘Great Powers’.4 The memorandum acknowledged another risk, namely that unless there were adequate safeguards … the United Kingdom (and other Western colonial powers) might find the existence of a United Nations standing force something of a nuisance. If it had such a force at its disposal the Assembly might, for example, recommend its use in a colonial territory ‘to maintain or restore international peace and security’. The Assembly has been notoriously unwilling to honour the provisions of Article 2 (7) of the Charter and has constantly sought to intervene in matters of domestic jurisdiction.5 However, the memorandum was curiously untroubled by this threat, which was to be regularly cited by those opposed to strengthening UN peacekeeping. Furthermore, the memorandum noted that while a force recommended by the General Assembly would have to get Britain’s consent to enter one of its colonies, refusing this would hardly make our position any less embarrassing. Against this, however, is the consideration that in certain circumstances it is conceivable that the United Kingdom … might welcome a United Nations force in one of its territories.6 Conceptually, the memorandum had several flaws. Most basically, it never clearly identified the purposes and nature of the force it was proposing. The description of the force as having to deal with ‘a determined aggressor’ implied that it should be capable of peace enforcement. This reading is confirmed by the plan’s call to devise ways of making quickly available ‘at least the basic elements of an effective striking force’ [emphasis added].7 However, the plan also suggested that UNEF could be used ‘as a foundation or model’ and that its administrative machinery could be retained ‘for its speedy re-activation’.8 Even making allowances for the fact that the plan had been drawn up while UNEF was still settling into its tasks, there was a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, peace enforcement and, on the other, UNEF’s highly circumscribed functions and the prohibition on its using force except in self-defence. The recipients of the memorandum were being asked to react to a plan which suggested giving the United Nations a force portrayed both as capable of altering the military and political dynamics of a conflict and as designed simply to freeze the dispute

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while attempts were made to resolve it through diplomacy. None of the recipients sought clarification, and each therefore responded to his own interpretation, which differed from department to department. The plan could be challenged on other grounds also. For example, if a force comprising contingents from smaller countries proved to be acceptable to the Russians, why bypass the Security Council? If it were not acceptable, then regularly circumventing the Soviet veto would indeed force the USSR out of the Organization. Destroying the United Nations and risking military confrontation with Moscow was hardly in British interests.9 Moreover, by favouring a role for the General Assembly, the memorandum was out of line with the determination among Ministers and senior officials to block the UN’s potential to interfere in issues touching on British interests. Most seriously, the memorandum failed to define the precise meaning of a permanent force, which caused confusion both in the civil service and outside it, giving misplaced hope to those who inclined towards notions of world government and causing legitimate concern to those who feared that an underoccupied UN army would meddle where it was not wanted. At that time, the concept of a permanent UN force was understood in two ways. First, it signified a force which could be rapidly constituted on the basis of existing agreements between the United Nations and individual member states; this would rely on the availability of formally earmarked contingents. This conception was envisaged under the ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution and has been regularly promoted by subsequent Secretaries-General; nowadays, it is usually referred to as a standby force. The second interpretation was far more ambitious, and entailed the maintenance in one or more bases of a UN force as a standing army, equipped and ready for immediate deployment. The UN Department’s memorandum thoroughly muddied the waters, speaking both of earmarked units permanently or promptly available to the United Nations and of a standing force. The general tenor of the memorandum and the fact that it did not address such issues as permanent bases or the vast expense which a standing force would entail indicate that Murray and his colleagues had a standby force in mind. However, the use of the words permanent and standing was bound to lead to misunderstandings. The memorandum aroused a range of reactions within the Foreign Office. The Deputy Under-Secretary of State, Patrick Dean, interpreted the proposed force as having preventive functions, and stressed the need to begin modestly in places where the prospects of success are not too unfavourable. As UNEF is already in Egypt, the first place for an experiment of this type is clearly in the area of Sinai and on the borders of Israel and the Arab States. If it proves reasonably successful there, it can be extended to other trouble areas.10 Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, who had been Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs since 1953 and was one of the very few Foreign Office

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officials to have been directly involved in policy-making during the Suez crisis,11 had patently not been won round to the United Nations by that experience. He declared that the proposal will foster the illusion that we can rely on the United Nations to see that truth and justice prevail … It seems to me unlikely that in any future international dispute … the United Nations can be relied on to take a strong line on behalf of justice … I should have thought that the best service we could render to the British people is to begin gently to explain to them the facts of life and, in particular, how imprudent it is to place confidence in the United Nations.12 Despite this hostility and the flaws in the memorandum, Selwyn Lloyd, whom Macmillan had retained as Foreign Secretary, agreed to other departments being consulted, and in mid-January 1957 Dean circulated the plan throughout relevant parts of Whitehall. Dean’s cover letter opened by recalling Eden’s disingenuous comment on 17 November 1956 that ‘If the result of our action [in Suez] is to equip the United Nations with effective means to enforce its resolutions then we shall be well rewarded.’ It then incorporated many of the points in the memorandum, while also implying that peacekeeping had value as a political football, ‘if satisfactory arrangements for the establishment of a United Nations force were frustrated because of opposition by the Soviet bloc, there should be considerable advantage in showing the Russians up as the consistent opponents of all efforts to make the United Nations more effective’. Dean’s letter also introduced some more pragmatic considerations, in particular issues of military efficacy. He noted that there was a need to consider whether the force, even if the United Kingdom were not a troop contributor, would be in the best interests of this country from the services’ point-ofview. Other points in the military sphere … are how and where, with a force made up of contingents each normally stationed on national territory, a command structure might be set up and staffed, how transport might be earmarked and so on.13 Reactions to the proposal in Whitehall were mixed. The most outspoken, and most colourful, opposition came from Sir Hilton Poynton, Deputy Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office. His response illustrates the deep schism between those British officials who believed that the United Nations could be co-opted to promote British interests and those for whom it constituted a threat: We have been plagued by United Nations attempts to interfere in our dependent territories even without its having a ‘fire brigade’ at its

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disposal, and its possession of one would almost certainly increase the danger of interference … . The United Nations’ belief that colonies are an international ‘free for all’ is widely and emotionally held and we must not add fuel to this fire. Poynton appeared to believe that the proposal was for a standing UN force, and warned that ‘if a Police Force is in being members will want to use it, and their “humanitarian” appeals that it should be sent to trouble spots will be made without any regard to the provisions in the Charter about domestic jurisdiction’. Consequently, the initiative’s goal of generating good will in the United Nations could backfire: It is always unwise to go on a crusade if you are armed only with a boomerang … [W]e might all too easily be faced with a UN force on our boundaries with humiliating terms of reference, which we could only avoid by taking drastic action in the UN to stop its despatch. That said, Poynton did concede that in situations with a genuine international aspect, ‘[I]t is just conceivable that … we might be prepared to accept intervention by a United Nations Force … in resisting armed invasion of British colonial territory.’ Thereby, he was reacting to a conception of the UN Force as operating in an ongoing conflict, which diverged from the UNEF model. Summing up, Poynton declared that we are opposed to anything which increases the United Nations’ ability to interfere with us: so long as it shows itself to be irresponsible, anticolonial and anti-UK, to give it a gun to play with is to invite having it turned on us.14 This response was far more explicit than the reservations which had been voiced in the Cabinet about Trygve Lie’s 1948 Guard Force proposal. Poynton appears to have assumed that a permanent force would have considerable power to interfere. Commenting on his views, Edward Johnson remarks that Poynton either overlooked or ignored the fact that any UN force either would be subject to a permanent member veto in the Security Council or, if established by the General Assembly, would require the consent of the host state to be deployed.15 However, Poynton would have had grounds for doubting the wisdom of relying on the constraints of the Charter. The Colonial Office regularly had to fight efforts to make colonial powers accountable to the General Assembly, despite the British belief that this was prohibited by the bar on interference in domestic affairs under Article 2(7). Moreover, the ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution, which had facilitated UNEF’s creation, had shown that the Charter was not immune to

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undesirable modification. Poynton may have preferred simply not to run the risk of a repetition. The response from the Commonwealth Relations Office was less alarmist, but still equivocal. It reported that India and Pakistan would judge the proposal for a permanent force in the light of the current state of the Kashmir dispute; at present, India would consider it ‘another proPakistan move’. However, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would probably favour the proposal.16 In keeping with its perennial concern to keep UN expenditure low, the Treasury’s reply was not enthusiastic, and it pointed out that the estimates for the cost of UNEF had already proved optimistic.17 While less emotional than Poynton’s response, the reply from Moore Crosthwaite, British Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, raised a number of serious objections.18 He wondered whether, if the force excluded troops from the permanent members of the Security Council and was under the command of the General Assembly, it would be sufficiently under our control not to be a potential danger for us? And would the proposal to establish such a Force be popular enough that our prestige would be increased by sponsoring it? He also suspected that the Russians would denounce it as ‘collective imperialism’. Not for the last time, this response from the UK Mission in New York revealed that it was more closely in tune than the UN Department in London with the thinking on peacekeeping at the United Nations. To some extent this was inevitable given the fact that the Mission’s members dealt daily with members of the Secretariat and other delegations. However, it is surprising that the Foreign Office department which was responsible for following UN affairs was adrift at all, and risked skewing the perspectives on the United Nations of Ministers and other civil servants in London. Crosthwaite raised questions which had seemingly not occurred to Murray, and which hamper to this day the UN’s efforts to accelerate the deployment of peacekeeping operations. He pointed out that even though UN member states might earmark units, they would surely reserve the right to decide at the time whether those units should be used in any specific operation. Furthermore, The logistics and planning of a Force with such elusive components would clearly be a nightmare, and … it seems to us likely that its mobilisation in any given case would take just about as long as the mobilisation of UNEF. In addition, Crosthwaite touched on the issue of the force’s impartiality, and mentioned criticism of UNEF. He explained that the fact that a force

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authorized by the General Assembly could only operate with the consent or at the request of the host government meant that the Force inevitably tends to become subject to influence by, or even the agent of, this government, rather than the independent guardian of the peace. We have already had a taste of this in the deference which the United Nations has felt obliged to pay to Egypt in questions involving the use of UNEF. This was a serious charge, and cut to the heart of one of the central tenets of peacekeeping, namely that UN operations should not take sides. Crosthwaite did not elaborate, and his comment must be viewed in the light of the particular circumstances of UNEF’s creation and the pique which some officials continued to feel at the UN’s role in the Suez affair. Most likely, Crosthwaite was referring to Hammarskjöld’s scrupulous attention to retaining Egypt’s cooperation in the deployment of UNEF and the clearing of the Suez Canal. However, the choice of words suggested that there was something ‘inevitable’ about the United Nations taking sides, as if this had been a recurrent theme in Britain’s experience of the various UN missions: this contradicted its apparent satisfaction with UNTSO and UNMOGIP. Whatever the reason, Crosthwaite’s criticism revealed profound doubts about the UN’s trustworthiness. Moreover, as he copied his letter to all the relevant departments, this judgement on the United Nations from a colleague stationed on the front line must have influenced the manner in which a broad range of British officials viewed peacekeeping. Crosthwaite seconded Poynton’s concerns about the risk of an underoccupied ‘police force’, observing that there was a good deal to be said for not having an instrument ready at hand, which might be misused, and, in cases where such a Force might seem useful to us, for trying to put through an ad hoc arrangement which we could hope to influence.19 One of the more receptive responses to the idea for a permanent UN force came from the Ministry of Defence. The Permanent Secretary, Sir Richard Powell, first dispensed with the imprecise formulations of Murray’s paper: ‘there would be no prospect of raising such a force at all unless its functions were strictly limited to those of an international police force’ comparable to UNEF. He asserted that, by contrast, for the force to be capable of effective military action would require that it be kept permanently together, trained as a fighting unit and ‘stiffened’ by troops provided by the major military powers. The latter, he pointed out, were unlikely to accept a force with such functions. However, Powell did accept the feasibility of ‘an international constabulary, relying principally … on the prestige of the United Nations to enable it

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to carry out its functions’. This could be composed of earmarked national units and would require a unified command and adequate administrative and logistical support. Powell did not see any serious objection to the great powers earmarking some units of their armed forces for an international force of this kind, but he accepted that it might be preferable to draw instead on contingents from smaller countries. Yet if the United Kingdom were to make any units available they would have to be found from existing resources. Powell even suggested where they could be found: land units from the central reserve in the United Kingdom or from Germany; air units from the United Kingdom; and naval units from those kept in British waters or the Mediterranean and earmarked for use in NATO.20 This relatively positive reaction from the Ministry of Defence could be explained by ‘other preoccupations’ on which Powell blamed his delay in replying. It is not hard to identify what these might have been. That spring, in response to a serious British economic crisis following the Suez affair, Minister of Defence Duncan Sandys had instituted deep cuts in defence expenditure, which included reducing the armed services from 690 000 to 375 000 by the end of 1962.21 These cuts were embodied in his April 1957 White Paper, ‘Defence: Outline of Future Policy’, which also dealt with technological changes and the need to rely on a nuclear deterrent against aggression.22 A preparatory paper had noted that the implications of the cuts included the fact that it would no longer be possible for the United Kingdom to engage without allies in large-scale limited war with balanced forces.23 It thus recognized the increased future need for burden-sharing. It did not mention the United Nations in this regard, but it is not far-fetched to conclude that the Ministry of Defence would sanction greater use of UN peacekeeping as a means to preserve stability where British forces no longer could. As for not ruling out British participation, this might be attributed to a wish to prove the military’s value at a time when it felt under siege by the politicians. On 17 May 1957, Murray summed up the results of the consultation: it would be difficult to proceed with the creation of even a standby force modelled on UNEF because of Soviet and Indian opposition (with the latter likely to influence other non-aligned countries). Moreover, granting the General Assembly the authority to set it up would run counter to the British policy ‘to reassert the primacy of the Security Council over issues of international peace and security, such as might require the use of such a Force, and as far as possible to keep such issues away from the Assembly’. Despite this negative conclusion, Ivor Pink, Superintending Under-Secretary in charge of the UN Department (who had earlier declared the idea to be ‘a sickly child’), saw little point in going back on the Government’s current line that a permanent force at the UN’s disposal was ‘basically sound and that we hope something may be built on the foundations of the UN Emergency Force’.24 It was left to Selwyn Lloyd to articulate an ulterior motive, quoted by Pink on 17 June, namely that ‘we should give every outward appearance of support

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on the subject of a United Nations Permanent Force while leaving it to others to raise the difficulties and incur the odium of doing so’.25

British views on the United Nations The mixed responses to the UN Department’s initiative to place peacekeeping on a firmer footing must be seen in the context of a strong current running against strengthening the United Nations among senior Foreign Office officials and Lloyd. This current was partly rooted in the belief that the United Nations had overstepped a number of important boundaries during the Suez crisis and that the status quo ante should be restored. Other factors were anxiety over the diminution of Western influence over the Organization and a traditional concern to preserve constitutionality. A number of Foreign Office documents illustrate the ambivalence which British civil servants felt towards the United Nations. While some of these are not explicitly related to peacekeeping, they merit consideration in order to understand the context in which Britain reacted to the UN’s peacekeeping efforts which, in the next few years, saw significant growth. In the immediate aftermath of Suez, an effort was undertaken to convince the United States to downgrade the role of the United Nations in its foreign policy. The strategy, taken up with relish by Ivor Pink, focused on the March 1957 conference in Bermuda between Macmillan and US President Eisenhower. Pink, a highly acerbic senior official, regularly recorded his limitless dislike of the United Nations, and urged his colleagues to ‘recognise the United Nations for what it is and teach the public to realise that its weaknesses outweigh its merits’.26 The Foreign Office’s News Department was instructed to prepare ‘efforts … to enlighten the public about the real nature and limitations of the United Nations’.27 Pink had several influential allies, notably Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick and Sir Pierson Dixon. On internal memoranda, all three had a habit of generalizing about the Organization and damning it outright when they disliked certain of its actions.28 Dixon asserted that before the Suez crisis, the public had failed to grasp that the United Nations was ‘being transformed by growing anti-colonial influence into an organization deeply inimical to our interests’.29 Kirkpatrick, who retired as Permanent Under-Secretary in early 1957, carried the crusade to the public in an article in The Sunday Times entitled ‘Must the UN Collapse?’.30 He made the questionable claim that in the 100 years after 1815 there had been less fighting and less loss of life under the Concert of Europe and its power politics than there has been in the last 10 years under the aegis of the United Nations. There were also fewer broken treaties, fewer repudiated engagements and greater consideration for the rights of others.

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He then declared that A society in which the police exist only to protect the malefactor from the wrath of his victims is not likely to be a law-abiding society. Similarly, a United Nations which is concerned only to prevent the use of force, but which has neither the will nor the capacity to cause truth and justice to prevail, constitutes a positive incitement to lawlessness and injustice.31 Professing concern for Hammarskjöld’s workload, Kirkpatrick observed that it was all too easy for states to pass problems to the United Nations and its Secretary-General, ‘That unfortunate official is thus elevated to a sort of Papacy, an office for which he is not fitted and for which the Charter makes no provision.’32 Summing up, Kirkpatrick urged that the United Kingdom and its friends should bring UN members to address, ‘the task of exorcising injustice. Unless they do so, it is clear that this institution on which so many people have placed their hopes is destined to collapse.’ Murray, who was generally more measured in his opinions on the United Nations, nevertheless noted that the article ‘corresponds closely to the view held in the Foreign Office’.33 It is odd that Kirkpatrick, seemingly a proponent of power politics, should lay such stress on ‘truth and justice’, but the claim that the United Nations had turned its back on those principles was a recurrent theme in this and other assessments of where the Organization had gone astray. Neither term was ever defined, presumably deliberately, since their vagueness left a more sinister impression of what the United Nations might be up to. Implicitly, the criticism was aimed at such UN inconsistencies as its failure to take firm action against the Soviet invasion of Hungary while demanding an end to the Suez operation, and its increasingly strong anti-colonial sentiments which, in British eyes, risked granting premature independence to countries inadequately prepared for it. It apparently never occurred to Kirkpatrick that other UN members, especially those recently emancipated from colonial rule, might have different conceptions of justice. For his part, Pink prepared an analysis of trends in the United Nations which served as a background paper for the discussion on the Organization at the Bermuda conference. Entitled The United Nations: A Stocktaking, it was a blunt assessment of the direction in which the Organization was evolving.34 Pulling no punches, it opened with the observation that the United Nations had inherited from the League of Nations the principle of sovereign equality of states, or ‘one country, one vote’, which was ‘based on one of President Wilson’s less fortunate obiter dicta’. The composition of the United Nations was ‘infinitely less favourable to the interests of Western Europe than the composition of the League: unfortunately, it is far more representative of the world we live in’. Pink included statistics to illustrate the extent

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to which the growing membership of the United Nations threatened Western influence there. The memorandum then claimed that ‘when the Charter was drawn up, its authors realised that the General Assembly would be an irresponsible body – though they can hardly have realised just how irresponsible it would become once so many small States achieved independence’. After relating how important it was to retrieve the treatment of peace and security issues from the General Assembly and return them to the Security Council, the memorandum made one of its most trenchant criticisms of the United Nations, and one which still resonates in discussions of peacekeeping today: One fundamental weakness of the United Nations, which is insufficiently realised, is that under the Charter its functions are primarily peacepreserving, rather than law-upholding. It is even arguable, on a strict reading of the Charter, that the United Nations must enforce peace even if it means perpetrating an injustice or conniving at illegality … . The result is that small countries can, within fairly wide limits, break the law with impunity, in the knowledge that any attempt to reply with the use of force will be condemned as a breach of the peace … . It is not putting it too high to say that under the United Nations system a State can break every rule of international law and behave as badly as it likes with complete impunity if it will only avoid the one unforgivable sin of invading its neighbour’s territory; and that per contra a State can be completely in the right morally and legally and yet lay itself open to the severest condemnation, penalties and sanctions if it crosses its borders in any organised and deliberate way.35 It should be borne in mind that this was not the ranting of an underoccupied civil servant in the margin of a departmental memorandum, but was the work of an Assistant Under-Secretary of State, was printed as a formal document for ‘Foreign Office and Whitehall Distribution’, and formed part of the briefing material for a major Anglo-US summit. It both reflected the fact that the recent actions had seriously rattled senior Foreign Office officials and, on a broader plane, betrayed the bunker mentality which accompanied the waning of British world influence. The petulant tone of the memorandum and the earnestness with which Pink plotted the calculus of Britain’s decline suggest that the objective fact of Britain’s loss of power was accompanied by the loss of a Great-Power mind-set among some of its civil servants. One effect of this change of mentality was to cause them to lash out at the United Nations as if it were responsible for, rather than reflected, the dynamics of global political change.

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However, the memorandum was refreshingly honest about the impact of Britain’s recent behaviour on its standing at the United Nations: Our recent troubles over the Suez affair have seriously weakened our position in the United Nations, which was based not so much on our material power as on our reputation for wisdom, honesty, fair dealing and restraint. We may hope to regain the ground we have lost, but it will take time to re-establish our position. Meanwhile we must, in our own interests, continue to cooperate with the United Nations and do what we can to see that it operates efficiently.36 The immediate objectives were to re-establish close Anglo-US cooperation ‘and thus resume our position as one of the Powers who in effect run the United Nations’ [emphasis added]. Despite Pink’s belief, reflected in his ‘thus’, that improved Anglo-US relations would restore Britain’s control over the United Nations, it soon became clear that this was wishful thinking. Suez not only encouraged the United States to act more assertively and independently in the Middle East, it also discouraged it from being seen to fraternize too closely with the United Kingdom at the United Nations, especially on colonial issues. The memorandum then turned to the role of the Secretary-General, observing that [a]s a result of the events of last November, far too much power has passed into the hands of the Secretary-General. Our objective must be, together with the Americans, to make it plain to Mr. Hammarskjöld that he and his assistants are welcome as partners, but not as masters, of our enterprise.37 Again, this sentiment was out of touch with the widespread atmosphere of relief engendered among other states, including the United States, precisely by the fact that Hammarskjöld had acquired the power to settle problems and that governments could now ‘leave it to Dag’. Prior to the Bermuda conference Pink’s paper was adapted into a less inflammatory brief entitled ‘Future Utilization of the United Nations to Meet the Needs of the West’. This lamented the increased power which the General Assembly had acquired under the ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution and the growing role of the Secretary-General, which had also changed ‘to the disadvantage of the West’. The brief observed that, especially on issues affecting the Middle East, the Assembly was increasingly inclined simply to adopt resolutions and ask the Secretary-General to secure their implementation by the powers concerned: The Secretary-General has thus become an arbiter in such matters, subject to such advice as he chooses to take … Thus, far from being able to

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pull the levers which direct the United Nations, we do not always know how they are being pulled by others.38 The brief argued that the Security Council should recover its position as the UN organ charged with dealing with international peace and security; that no further use should be made of the ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution unless the West could be assured of the support of the ‘uncommitted states’; and that the Secretary-General’s role should return ‘to normal’: He would, of course, continue to be consulted and could, in certain circumstances, be charged with special functions where this seemed desirable. But he would not be called upon to interpret, arbitrate or negotiate. Pink’s influence was particularly in evidence in such assertions as ‘[T]he interests of justice are being sacrificed for “peace” at all costs’, and in the appraisal of the public perception of the United Nations, an appraisal which bore simply no relation to reality: The United Nations in its present form is an organization which Western public opinion regards as quite untrustworthy. If Governments continue to work with it and, indeed, under it, we may risk a general revulsion against all that it stands for and a strong impetus towards isolation.39 With this brief in their luggage Macmillan’s delegation set off for Bermuda, where the British had proposed as the provisional agenda title for the discussion of the UN ‘Getting the United Nations Back on the Rails’. In the event, the Americans proved far less receptive than hoped and, commenting subsequently on the brief, Sir Paul Gore-Booth, Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, reported that US Secretary of State Dulles had acquired ‘a little local virtue at our expense by some opportune leakage’. He was referring to an article in the News Chronicle of 25 March 1957 which reported that Dulles had ‘rejected a British move to persuade the US to rely less on the United Nations … and argued that the General Assembly was not a body to be feared’.40 Gore-Booth, who had apparently not been consulted during the drafting of the memorandum, was one of several calmer voices to be heard after the summit, pointing out that it is no use trying to induce in the American mind a basic mistrust of the United Nations at this date. The UN is almost a sacred American institution, being on American soil, and any attempt to suggest that it is basically unsatisfactory or unreliable can only be regarded by Americans with suspicion for the present.41

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Sir Frederick Hoyer Millar, Permanent Under-Secretary of State, added that it had never really been the British intention to disabuse the Americans of some of their rather exaggerated ideas about the United Nations. It was common ground at Bermuda … that the UN, though far from ideal, was something with which our Governments had to live. During the trip, Hoyer Millar had visited Hammarskjöld in New York and he reassured his colleagues that the latter ‘quite realises the danger of the Secretariat-General [sic] becoming too powerful, or assuming duties beyond those originally contemplated’.42 The Bermuda conference helped restore relations between the United States and Britain after the Suez affair and ensured that they at least understood each other’s positions on a number of issues. However, Britain’s attempt to win the United States round to its thinking on the United Nations patently failed; it must have struck the Americans as odd that Britain was warning of the danger posed by the Organization so soon after the United Nations had helped to extricate it from the Suez fiasco. Finally, one of the most insightful comments on the changing nature of the United Nations and Britain’s approach to it appeared in the report of a discussion which Gore-Booth held with a group of journalists. The latter had ‘a restless feeling’ that the British were too defensive at the United Nations and were disposed to treat it ‘still too much as a diplomatic rather than a political operation, whereas it is in fact both, and especially the latter’. GoreBooth concluded that ‘We should therefore perhaps attach more importance to the exercise of political (and even demagogic) techniques.’43 Pink reacted to the first criticism with a typically revealing turn of phrase, minuting that ‘it is a little unfair to describe a man with his back to the wall facing a pack of Afro-Asian jackals as “too readily accepting a defensive role” ’. However, he agreed with the second comment, adding that he had been giving thought to ‘importing suitable orators’ to bolster the UN delegation at the United Nations, but had concluded that ‘Continuity in debate is really essential and we must rely on such oratorical talent as the Minister concerned or Sir P. Dixon may have.’44 Yet neither Pink, nor other officials over whose desks the note passed, reacted to the distinction between politics and diplomacy. Politics was clearly not just a question of oratory. From the perspective of many of the countries which were being admitted to the United Nations at this time, and to whose actions the United Kingdom so vocally objected, the Organization was the only international forum in which they could make a political impact. Moreover, their Foreign Services were in their infancy and tended to be headed by veterans of the political struggle for liberation. Therefore, political tactics such as lobbying, grandstanding and public point scoring were perhaps

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inevitable, and were bound to irritate old-school British diplomats. The instinctive British response was to attempt to downgrade the United Nations rather than come to terms with the changed atmosphere.

Public and parliamentary views on a UN force Meanwhile, numerous British politicians were agitating to strengthen the United Nations and develop peacekeeping. Their efforts reflected public opinion: in one poll, 61 per cent of the public thought that the UN should have its own permanent armed force with British troops to enforce UN decisions (with 70 per cent of ‘upper- to upper-middle-class respondents’ holding this view).45 The Federal Union Commission, which was chaired by Lord Pakenham, included political and military figures such as James Callaghan and Captain Basil Liddell Hart. In the spring of 1957 it produced a pamphlet on A Permanent United Nations Force, which met with a relatively positive response in the Foreign Office.46 The proposals fell into three categories: (1) a light force like UNEF, with up to 20 000 men and unable to undertake offensive operations; (2) a medium force with sufficient strength for military operations, but not against great powers; and (3) a heavy force, which would enable the United Nations to be a global policeman. Only the first version was seriously promoted by the Commission and given detailed consideration by the Foreign Office. The main characteristics of the light force were: its dependence on the consent of the host government to be deployed; the creation of a Military Council of military and civilian appointees proposed by the SecretaryGeneral and elected by the Security Council and General Assembly, to direct the force’s operations; recruitment on an individual basis, although the report accepted that for the time being it might be necessary to rely on national contingents; and the use of force only in self-defence or ‘to deal with attacks on such a small scale that a national government could plausibly claim that it had neither sponsored nor connived at them’. The project foresaw what in the 1990s was to become known as preventive deployment, namely the interposition of an international force between national armed forces before hostilities erupt, and it also suggested that the force might be used for electoral supervision and disarmament verification. The Commission calculated that 10 000 men should be sufficient to cope with a single emergency, and it believed that such a force would not have to deal with more than two emergencies at the same time.47 As a standing army, the force would require one or at most two bases, on territory owned or administered by the United Nations. The Force would be funded by member states on a quota system comparable to that used for UN Specialized Agencies. The authors of the report attempted to take into account the concern of such countries as the USSR that the force could become a tool of the West by ensuring that the Security Council could veto its use. However, even with this provision, Murray considered it very unlikely that Moscow would agree to the idea.48

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The plan received considerable Parliamentary support, and was reported to have the backing of at least 100 MPs and 30 members of the House of Lords.49 However, when it was raised in the House of Commons on 27 May 1957, Selwyn Lloyd reacted unfavourably, arguing that it might be premature and would be more likely to cause the disruption of UNEF.50 He made the same points in a meeting on 2 July with a deputation headed by Lord Pakenham. Lloyd argued that even if the Russians agreed to such a force, they would veto all its activities and ‘there was no point in spending $30 million per year on a force vetoed into inertia’.51

US plan for a standby force It was not only in Britain that UNEF had fired the imagination of policymakers, parliamentarians and the public. In July, Joseph Sisco, officer-incharge of the US State Department’s office of UN Political Affairs, informed Charles Wiggin of the British Embassy in Washington that the Administration was contemplating the possibility of a small, permanent ‘patrol’ or ‘observation force’, deriving its status from Chapter VI of the Charter, as an adjunct to ‘pacific settlement procedures’.52 Once again, it was unclear whether ‘permanent’ meant standing or standby. Lloyd instructed that British officials should take a ‘fairly positive line’. Ronald Scrivener, Assistant in the UN Department, drafted an encouraging response, but toned it down when Moore Crosthwaite of the UK Mission in New York expressed doubt that the requirement of host government consent for the stationing of a force would ‘long remain a waterproof dyke’. In sovereignty disputes Crosthwaite foresaw a scenario in which the Assembly would decide to override at least one of the governments which claimed sovereignty.53 Thus, by this stage, following the decision not to advance its own initiative, the Foreign Office role was limited to reacting to such proposals as others might put forward. Ironically, what caused some of the steam to be taken out of international support for a permanent force was not, as Lloyd had predicted, others incurring the odium of pointing out the difficulties, but President Eisenhower’s embrace of the idea the following year. On 13 August 1958, he told the Assembly of his support for a ‘standby UN peace force’.54 On 26 August, Harold Beeley, who had now succeeded Crosthwaite as British Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, recorded that the timing of this endorsement, coming during a debate on the Middle East, might have ‘led some of the Arabs to suspect the idea as aimed principally at their sovereignty’. He reported that Arthur Lall, India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, had spoken of India’s opposition to creating ‘a kind of chameleon-like force capable of changing its colour or character’. Furthermore, a number of smaller countries feared that such a force could involve them in considerable expense. Beeley related that ‘The example of UNEF, which continues to swallow up

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almost as much money as it did when the need for it was much more obvious than now, is not encouraging to these doubters.’ He noted ‘the growing belief among the drafters of resolutions that even the most non-committal reference to the idea of a permanent force would meet a dangerous amount of opposition’.55

US and UK intervention in Lebanon and Jordan Eisenhower had expressed his support for a standby UN force in the middle of an emergency General Assembly debate to discuss the situation in the Middle East. The background to this was the coordinated intervention by the United States and the United Kingdom in Lebanon and Jordan respectively. This brief, but significant, episode placed in perspective both countries’ professions of support for strengthening the United Nations and implied that the Anglo-French sidelining of the Organization over Suez had not been such an aberration after all. At the root of the crisis lay continued Western fears that President Nasser of Egypt, with Soviet backing, would take over the Middle East. In February 1958, Egypt and Syria combined to form the United Arab Republic (UAR), prompting pro-Western Jordan and Iraq to form a federation, the Arab Union, two weeks later. In April, a political crisis arose in Lebanon, when President Camille Chamoun backed an amendment to the constitution which would give him a second term. In May, the Lebanese Foreign Minister accused the UAR of interfering in Lebanon’s internal affairs, and the US Sixth Fleet moved into the Eastern Mediterranean. Lloyd and Macmillan were, in the former’s words, ‘absolutely convinced that if the West loses the Lebanon the consequences will be disastrous’.56 On 11 June, the Security Council adopted a resolution authorizing the Secretary-General to send an Observation Group to Lebanon (UNOGIL) to verify allegations of infiltration and arms supplies from the UAR.57 Hammarskjöld appointed a three-man team to evaluate reports by UN military observers; by 16 June, 100 observers were in Lebanon.58 With the situation still confused, Eisenhower informed Chamoun that if a real crisis arose, the United States would provide military assistance; he did not make this conditional on prior Security Council approval or even discussion.59 Hammarskjöld set off for Beirut to oversee the start of the operation, and stopped in London en route. There, he held a private meeting with Lloyd who assured him that ‘any idea which had been current in some American quarters that Britain was longing to go into the Lebanon with the US to prove how right we had been over Suez, and how wrong the US had been, was nonsense’.60 Nevertheless, after visiting Lebanon, Hammarskjöld told a UN official in Amman that he had precisely that impression.61 In fact, the British were divided on whether to allow UNOGIL a chance to prove itself or whether to declare it ineffective as soon as possible and clear

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the way for intervention. Dixon was coming to the view that the observer mission should be transformed into a sizeable and effective UN force to prevent infiltration. Lloyd agreed, but stressed that the first step should come from the Lebanese.62 The British had been told by General Burns, the commander of UNEF, that as many as 5000 military observers might be needed for UNOGIL to be effective. However, Hammarskjöld did not consider it feasible to raise a large force from small countries, not least because he feared that it would have to fight its way through rebel-held areas simply to reach the borders.63 A telegram from Dixon to the Foreign Office laid out two options, the first of which would entail asking the General Assembly to authorize the dispatch of a peacekeeping force. He asserted that the United States and Britain could contribute contingents on the grounds that the agreement of the UAR would not be required, thereby leading to a ‘Korea-type operation’. Alternatively, they could take action under Article 51 of the Charter to support Lebanese efforts at self-defence and then seek post facto Security Council approval, ‘including perhaps the dispatch of contingents from other countries and the use of the United Nations flag’. However, the risk of the latter option was that it could seem ‘very high-minded’ since the United Nations was already engaged. Dixon’s conclusion was that for the time being pressure should be maintained on the Secretary-General to make the most of the authority he had been given, and the Lebanese Government should be seen to be cooperating with the UN observers, ‘we should not encourage them, anyway at this stage, to take the line that observation is useless and that the situation can only be saved by the dispatch of fighting troops’. Moreover, Dixon warned his colleagues in London that ‘we may come up against the Secretary-General. I should expect him to be reluctant to see reports come in which would seem to call for armed intervention’.64 However, Lloyd had other ideas: It would be extremely helpful if … some report could have been received from the United Nations observers, saying that there was chaos in the Lebanon … . The Lebanese Government ought to wish for this. We should then have to try for a resolution proposing the despatch of a UNEF to which United States and United Kingdom would promise to supply contingents. If the Russians vetoed [this], we would proceed to despatch our forces.65 Despite Lloyd’s protestations to the contrary during his meeting with Hammarskjöld, it is hard not to conclude that he was spoiling for a fight with Nasser. British and US forces were placed on stand-by, under the codename Operation Bluebat, to respond to a Lebanese request for intervention.66 However, when it came, the British break with the United Nations was attributable not solely to British pugnaciousness but also to genuine flaws

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in the design and implementation of UNOGIL’s mandate. With regard to UNOGIL’s practical shortcomings, on 3 July the British Embassy reported that the UN observers had so far been able to achieve very little. The reasons are many: they do not speak Arabic, they have no right of search, they are unable to distinguish between a Lebanese peasant and a Syrian infiltrator, and they have so far not been able to operate at night, although they shortly intend to do so … they have been unable to penetrate to the Syrian frontier in all those districts where infiltration is most probably in progress, and … they have received very little understanding or cooperation from the Lebanese authorities who have from the outset made no secret of the fact that they do not consider an Observer Force a solution to their present problems.67 Since UNOGIL’s only official interlocutor on the Lebanese side was the Government, until mid-July it was unable to patrol the large portion of the Lebanese–Syrian border which was controlled by rebels. Dixon regretted the ‘extreme interpretation of self-defence’ which the Group used: while the observers could return fire if shot at, they were not authorized to break through a roadblock established by rebel forces.68 A more robust approach was hardly feasible given UNOGIL’s very limited size, but it was salutary for the British to learn that the principle of the non-use of force prohibited using force in defence of the mandate. The implication that UNOGIL was not up to the job was in part due to the confusing wording of its mandate. According to Resolution 128, the purpose of the Observation Group was to ‘ensure that there is no illegal infiltration of personnel or supply of arms or other matériel across the Lebanese borders’. As Macmillan pointed out to Lloyd, the word ‘ensure’ had far more assertive connotations than that implied by an ‘observation’ group.69 The British were supported by the United States in challenging UNOGIL’s interpretation of its responsibilities. Dixon and a US representative (Barco) undertook a joint démarche to argue to Hammarskjöld that the observers’ task surely was to relate current infringements to continuing rebel operations, and what had gone before. Unless some such broad interpretation were adopted, the observer group might find itself reduced to the absurd position of merely reporting such information as the rebels permitted them to obtain at a few limited points on the frontier.70 At issue was the notion of neutrality.71 UN Under Secretary Ralph Bunche responded that the observers must not appear to be taking sides with the government against the opposition. This caused Barco to draw a distinction between a constitutional opposition and one acting illegally with illegal support from the UAR.72 However, neither he nor Dixon pointed

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out that UNOGIL really had no role vis-à-vis the domestic opposition in Lebanon, legal or not. The mandate focused on an inter-state dispute (which had enabled the Security Council to intervene in the first place), namely to protect Lebanon from infiltration from the UAR. Yet the UN’s interpretation of its neutrality extended to a domestic non-state actor within Lebanon. It was to take neutrality to an extreme when the Secretariat refused to apply any yardstick of political legitimacy to contending parties. This was not an encouraging situation for the government of a colonial power like Britain, which relied on acceptance of its greater claim to legitimacy to be able to restrain independence movements in its colonies and to keep the United Nations out. In his reports back to London, Dixon criticized Hammarskjöld’s ‘notorious penchant for the Egyptians’ (with which Dulles agreed).73 Dixon’s disdain for the Secretary-General was shared by his political superiors. When Hammarskjöld told the British that he would ask Nasser to discontinue his pressure on Lebanon, he floated the possibility of seeking the imposition of economic sanctions against the UAR and declaring it as the aggressor in the event that Nasser did not comply. This prompted Macmillan to write to Lloyd: ‘This seems queer, considering how wet Hammarskjöld is in general.’74 However, Hammarskjöld did not pursue this idea, and Dixon became more scathing. On 9 July, he commented to Sir William Hayter, Deputy Under-Secretary of State, that the UN effort in Lebanon was being converted into a contest between the UN observers and the Lebanese Government, with the Secretary-General and President Chamoun as protagonists, ‘Things have come to a pretty pass when the Secretary-General of the UN is found addressing stern remonstrances to the Head of the State which the UN is supposed to be helping.’ Dixon’s letter also reveals the significance of the issue for Hammarskjöld and the standing of the United Nations, which over time has been forgotten: At the back of it all of course there is the realisation in the Secretariat that this is Hammarskjöld’s greatest test: if things work out as he hopes in the form of a political compromise, it will be his greatest triumph, and the thought of failure can hardly be contemplated.75 The Middle East crisis came a year and a half after the creation of UNEF had helped the UN’s star rise so high. A report by Hammarskjöld on that experience was due with the General Assembly in two months’ time, and he was no doubt concerned that his careful vision of how to build on the first full peacekeeping operation should not be undermined by renewed Western adventurism in the Middle East. UNOGIL’s flawed mandate and the obstacles it was encountering on the ground left Britain and the United States room either to continue supporting

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the operation, while calling for greater efficacy, or, at a time of their choosing, to declare it ineffective and take action under Article 51. Lloyd barely allowed the observers time to start their work before calling them to account, instructing the British Ambassador in Washington to discuss their failings with Dulles. Lloyd complained that [n]either they nor the Secretary-General seem really to believe that there is a serious task to be done … . If the United Nations with the generous mandate which it has been given … cannot preserve the independence of a small country like the Lebanon, … what use is the Organization?76 UNOGIL’s first report on its activities on 3 July 1958 spelled out the difficulties the operation faced. These included the fact that the Lebanese Government controlled only 18 out of 324 kilometres of the frontier and UNOGIL’s inability to verify whether armed men which it had observed had infiltrated from outside.77 The press reported that the US and British Governments were not satisfied with this account. In Britain, the Daily Mail published a front-page interview with the Lebanese President, entitled ‘Chamoun Lashes Dag’, in which he claimed that Hammarskjöld and the UN observers had ‘given the go-ahead signal to the United Arab Republic to take over the whole of the Middle East without fear of any objection by the United Nations’. Chamoun declared that while the UN observers were ‘acting like tourists’, Lebanese information suggested that up to 30 per cent of the 10–12 000 rebels were Egyptians, Syrians or Palestinians and that they had received up to 36 000 weapons from the UAR.78 The campaign to discredit UNOGIL provoked a heated personal letter to Lloyd from Hammarskjöld, who had regularly complained that Lebanon was not providing the United Nations with any evidence of such charges. He first pointed out that since UNOGIL had been established under Chapter VI he could not authorize it to use force to penetrate to the border or to break into places from where it was excluded. He added that since UNOGIL’s mandate spoke of ‘observing’ rather than ‘investigating’ it could not examine past activities, as the British wanted. Hammarskjöld then recounted that during a visit to Cairo he had obtained a firm personal commitment from Nasser that the UAR would desist both from collusion with the Lebanese rebels and from radio propaganda issued by the station ‘Voice of the Arabs’. Finally, the Secretary-General vented his irritation at widespread complaints in the press, ‘which cannot always be its own inventions’, about UNOGIL’s efficacy: It is also rather unjustified when parts of the press, both in the Middle East and in the West, accuse me of … preparing ‘a Middle Eastern Münich’, disregarding the facts, and what not. I did not expect anything better in view of the far more grotesque theories which developed during

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the Suez crisis, when I was considered to be fooled by, if not the stooge of, Nasser, but I think that the outcome … should have led the papers to the conclusion that they might all the time have been wrong. However, what does it matter. The straight line often looks crooked to those who have departed from it.79 British relations with the United Nations continued to deteriorate. Lloyd maintained that Britain was not eager to become involved in Lebanon but he became more critical of the UNOGIL observers, ‘I cannot … help regretting that they should be giving the public impression that what they do not see is not happening and that there has been, and is, no serious outside intervention. Clearly they can scarcely yet be in a position to reach such a dogmatic conclusion.’80 An editorial in The Times quoted Lloyd to the effect that UNOGIL observers were reluctant to report that convoys were moving into Lebanon from Syria because they believed that to do so could disturb the chances of an internal settlement: an observer group has the job of reporting promptly what it sees … Surely the information was passed to Mr. Hammarskjöld? Why then was the commission allowed to hold on when its first duty was to make it public?81 A few days later, The Times reported a response from a UN spokesman that there was ‘no basis for the allegation that the group has withheld any report on their findings for political reasons’.82 In the middle of this series of charges and denials, on 14 July the proWestern regime in Iraq was overthrown and the British Embassy in Baghdad was ransacked. These events, and especially the suspicion that Nasser was behind them, galvanized the United States and Britain to respond positively to requests by President Chamoun and King Hussein to intervene in Lebanon and Jordan respectively. Eisenhower recorded that when he informed Macmillan of the US decision to intervene in Lebanon, the latter was ‘completely in accord with my decision, almost eager’.83 However, despite both the enthusiastic part which Britain had taken in laying the ground with its criticisms of UNOGIL, the active military role which had been foreseen for it under Operation Bluebat, and the fact that President Chamoun’s appeal for support was equally addressed to Britain as to the United States, Eisenhower opposed British involvement in the landing. In his memoirs he justifies this on the grounds that the United States had sufficient troops to act alone and that the United Kingdom should retain a reserve in Cyprus ‘for purposes beyond the limits of the Middle East resolution’.84 Yet, at a time when the United States was carving out a central role for itself in the Middle East it would have done itself no favours by associating too closely with one of the architects of the Suez débâcle, the last major Western intervention in the region.

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On 15 July, US Ambassador Lodge informed Hammarskjöld that the United States would intervene in Lebanon that day, and the Security Council met to discuss the developments. Lodge reported that the United States was responding to an appeal for assistance from President Chamoun, and was acting in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. He added that US forces were being instructed to cooperate with UNOGIL, but Hammarskjöld authorized the senior Secretariat official working with the Observation Group to issue a forthright press statement stressing that UNOGIL alone is in Lebanon in pursuance of the mandate contained in the Security Council resolution of 11 June 1958 … There is therefore no basis for establishing any contact or working relationship, formal or informal, between UNOGIL and any non-Lebanese sources in Lebanon, beyond what may be strictly required for the independent fulfilment of its mandate … 85 Against the odds, the United Nations was still trying to preserve its independence and credibility. The British were not put out by not being included in the expedition to Lebanon since their attention had turned rapidly to Jordan. On 16 July, King Hussein requested British military support within the framework of the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty; like Chamoun, he also approached the Americans, but they agreed only to provide any necessary logistical support to the British.86 King Hussein’s appeal had greater urgency than Chamoun’s since the Jordanians expected the UAR to attempt a coup the following day, focussing on Amman, the West Bank and the Jordanian–Syrian border.87 On 17 and 18 July, under Operation Fortitude, Britain flew 2000 paratroops from Cyprus to Amman with the immediate objective of securing the airfield and protecting King Hussein and the Jordanian Government. Macmillan made clear to Dulles that Britain’s action in Jordan was founded on an earlier US pledge of its full moral support at the United Nations and elsewhere, as well as on logistical support.88 On 17 July, in the Security Council, Lloyd explained the background to the intervention. He gave an assurance that the British action would be brought to an end as soon as the Council took measures to protect the lawful Government of Jordan. He added that Britain had been motivated by ‘a sense of responsibility and a desire to see truly peaceful and stable conditions in the world’.89 Only when British troops were already deployed did policy-makers begin to consider the next steps. It rapidly became clear that the British intervention in Jordan was not a mirror image of the US action in Lebanon. In the latter case, a UN military presence – albeit a resentful one – was already on the ground and, with appropriate cajoling, it could play a role in the US exit strategy. However, Britain appeared not to have given thought to any such

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strategy and, after being harangued over UNOGIL’s performance, Hammarskjöld was in no particular hurry to help. Lloyd soon began to agitate for UN troops to take over from the British contingent. Hammarskjöld demurred, and Dixon was inclined to agree: Hammarskjöld has asked us not to propose a UNEF for Jordan, and I think … it would be somewhat absurd to propose this device when the maintenance of UNEF in Gaza is giving rise to financial and other problems, and when a further development of the United Nations operation is already under way for the Lebanon.90 This appeal fell on stony ground in London and Dixon was told that we do not think we should be discouraged by Hammarskjöld’s statement to you that he cannot be expected to go on producing one UNEF after another. If he cannot, so much the worse for the United Nations, but not necessarily so much the worse for us. There would therefore be no objection to our resolution inviting the Security Council to replace our troops in Jordan by some United Nations force.91 The Foreign Office accepted that such a Security Council resolution would be vetoed by the USSR, but the exercise would display Britain’s willingness to end its intervention and would set the scene for the ensuing Emergency Session of the General Assembly. In the course of the next week, the contest of wills between Britain and the Secretary-General began to subside. The latter proposed strengthening UNTSO to afford some protection to Jordan’s border with Syria, but the British rejected this as inadequate and argued that they would need ‘more than an observer group on the lines of the one in Lebanon’. Meanwhile, they were feeling increasing misgivings about the predicament of their troops, telling the Americans that unless the contingent were reinforced, there was ‘a real danger of a successful coup taking place under our very noses’. That would mean either a humiliating withdrawal of the British contingent or its involvement in a civil war.92 Hammarskjöld now proposed building up UNTSO on the West Bank to enable the Jordanian army to be more effective elsewhere. Beeley warned from New York that ‘the Secretary-General evidently does not envisage any early withdrawal of our forces’. Moreover, indications were that the Secretary-General’s opposition to a UN force in Jordan was likely to be shared by the Scandinavians, Canadians and others. British demands were then scaled down and the Mission in New York was told that the British Government would accept ‘unarmed patrols or even … an observer corps on the lines of UNOGIL’, if Hammarskjöld thought that they could control the frontier. 93

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This tense situation was made worse when it emerged that the British, who had for so long prided themselves on their understanding of the Middle East, had misread King Hussein. They and the United Nations started hearing that the Jordanians opposed a UN force in Jordan, and that observers on the Syrian border would be useless.94 The Jordanians hoped for British and US agreement to train two new military battalions;95 the British Government’s current predicament meant that the Jordanians had now acquired a little leverage. As it became clear that the Iraqi coup had not been directly inspired by Nasser, the United States began to lay the ground for its withdrawal from Lebanon. Alarm continued to grow in London that UNOGIL could be expanded to cover the US departure, while the British were left stranded in Jordan. Dixon was urged to make Hammarskjöld concentrate on the Jordanian problem, ‘We must at all costs avoid the United Nations settling the Lebanese question and leaving us out on a limb in Jordan.’ The British objective remained a substantial United Nations presence in Jordan to hold the position for the time being and to enable our troops to withdraw … It may help to keep [Hammarskjöld] up to the mark to hint that we cannot contemplate staying in Jordan very long … The sooner … the United Nations umbrella is unfurled over Jordan the better for all concerned.96 The British and Hammarskjöld now worked, in Lloyd’s words, ‘to create something which will fill the vacuum which the departure of British troops would otherwise leave’.97 It was less than four weeks since Macmillan had told Eisenhower that ‘Now that we [the US and Britain] have started on this difficult road, I do not see how we can withdraw until we have somehow restored stability and strength, in at least some areas of the Middle East.’98 The Emergency Session of the General Assembly had given Hammarskjöld new responsibilities in Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East,99 and he developed the idea of ‘representative offices’ in Amman and other capitals. He appointed Piero Spinelli as his special representative in Amman with a view to promoting good-neighbourliness among the countries of the region and spotting early signs of subversion by the UAR. On 1 October King Hussein announced that the withdrawal of the British troops would commence three weeks later.100 Britain completed its ‘scuttle from Jordan’ on 2 November. In Lebanon, the former opposition leader, General Shehab, replaced President Chamoun, and the political crisis subsided. As a prelude to US withdrawal, UNOGIL was expanded, ostensibly to enable it better to carry out its existing mission.101 All US troops had left by 25 October. On 24 November it was announced that UNOGIL would begin its withdrawal immediately. As a letter from the British Embassy in Beirut explained, the

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Lebanese and UNOGIL personnel believed that the Observation Group had ‘long outlived what little usefulness it may once have had’. Admirers of the United Nations had been ‘shocked at the ineffectiveness of the Group as a whole and the shamelessly tendentious reporting of its leaders’. The final British epitaph for UNOGIL, which was terminated on 9 December, was that ‘It is now looked upon as a slightly embarrassing relic of a period better forgotten.’102 The episodes in Lebanon and Jordan proved that UN peacekeeping remained very much a bit player in the preservation of international peace and security. Criticized and then sidelined in Lebanon, and rejected in Jordan, peacekeeping was patently at the mercy of political currents ranging from Great Power machinations to the scepticism and sensitivities of small states. In January 1959, Macmillan told Parliament that ‘There must be occasions when action, if it is to be effective, must be immediate.’103 He did not repeat the vague hopes expressed at the time of Suez that a strengthened United Nations would be better able to deal with such situations in future, as Eisenhower had now done with his proposal for a standby peace force. The implication was that Britain reserved its right to act outside the UN framework. Britain’s insistence that a force be assembled to cover its withdrawal from Jordan showed that it continued to view peacekeeping as an optional tool for the use of major member states. Its rough treatment of UNOGIL created a new image of peacekeeping, that of an obstacle to effective international action to maintain peace. In retrospect, UNOGIL was not the right device for defusing the tensions between the UAR and Lebanon; however, instead of acknowledging that the Council had made a mistake in giving it an ambiguous mandate and insufficient resources, British policy-makers chose to discredit it publicly. Offering the United Nations little opportunity either to prove, or to improve, itself, they accused it of partiality. This had the potential to cause long-term damage to the institution of peacekeeping, and it set the scene for the violent disagreements between Britain and the United Nations over the forthcoming operation in the Congo.

Hammarskjöld’s study of the UNEF experience Hammarskjöld soon engaged in a less destructive deflation of hopes that UNEF had foreshadowed a qualitative change in the measures which the international community was prepared to take to counter or pre-empt international aggression. He had been under pressure since UNEF’s creation to articulate a vision of how the United Nations could build on that experience to establish a rapid and more automatic mechanism for future such situations. However, several key countries, notably the USSR and India, remained publicly hostile to more ambitious schemes.104

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In his October 1958 report, ‘Summary Study of the Experience Derived from the Establishment and Operation of the United Nations Emergency Force’, Hammarskjöld produced a meticulous account of the creation, composition and functions of UNEF.105 The previous chapter in this book outlined the central principles according to which the Force was established and operated, which Hammarskjöld reiterated in the study. These included the non-use of force except in self-defence and the exclusion of contingents from permanent members of the Security Council and other countries which had a special interest in the conflict. Another principle which Hammarskjöld raised was that of neutrality, which had caused the United Nations problems in Lebanon. Hammarskjöld related that UNEF ‘has functioned under a clear-cut mandate which has entirely detached it from involvement in any internal or local problems, and also has enabled it to maintain its neutrality in relation to international political issues’.106 Hammarskjöld did not draw a distinction between neutrality and impartiality, nor has the United Nations attempted a formal definition of either term. Neutrality might be defined as a state in which a third party has no position with regard to the respective positions of either party to a dispute. Impartiality refers more to behaviour, namely that the third party treats both parties to the dispute even-handedly on the basis of one or more guidelines or principles. A UN mandate can be neutral, that is, it can call equally on both parties to cease fire, disengage, disarm, and so on, regardless of which is the victim and which the aggressor. A UN force is expected to implement such a mandate impartially, for example, by condemning whichever party violates a ceasefire. However, a mandate can also be, for want of a better word, non-neutral: it can privilege one party over the other, irrespective of the relative justice of either’s position. It is more challenging for a UN operation to apply impartially a non-neutral mandate, since such a mandate is explicitly directed against one party. On this reading, UNEF’s mandate was a mixture: the task of overseeing the withdrawal of foreign forces from Egyptian soil was non-neutral (albeit aimed at restoring international law), whereas the task of monitoring the ceasefire along the Egyptian–Israeli border was neutral. UNEF implemented this latter part of its mandate impartially, reporting cease-fire violations by either party. By contrast, UNOGIL’s mandate was explicitly non-neutral, namely, it was to report infiltration into Lebanon by rebels, but not infiltration into the UAR by Lebanese forces. The British and the Americans objected to UNOGIL’s efforts to implement this non-neutral mandate impartially, that is, by treating the legitimate Lebanese Government and the illegitimate rebels even-handedly.107 Hammarskjöld also used the occasion of the report to make clear the limited options which the United Nations had faced during the events in

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the Middle East in the summer of 1958: the more recent experiences in Lebanon and Jordan serve only to emphasize the uniqueness of the UNEF setting … Neither in Lebanon nor in Jordan would it have been possible to interpose a United Nations force between conflicting parties.108 This was one of the few instances which noted the distinction between observer missions, such as UNOGIL, and peacekeeping forces, on which the study exclusively focused. As a result, this key text was silent on certain points which have since become part of peacekeeping practice, notably the fact that, by contrast to peacekeeping forces, observers are usually unarmed. Following the list of problems encountered by UNEF and the description of its characteristics, Hammarskjöld concluded by recommending general stand-by arrangements for UN operations, rather than a standing force. To this end, he proposed establishing contacts ‘in a stand-by context’ with interested governments, with the aim of being prepared for requests arising ‘from future decisions by the Assembly on a force or a similar arrangement to deal with a specific case’.109 Surprisingly, Hammarskjöld neglected to mention the Security Council in this formulation, although elsewhere in the report he was careful to include it as a possible authorizing body for an operation. While it would be for the Assembly to decide on establishing a standing or standby force, it still remained in the realm of possibility that the Council would not be deadlocked if called on to create ‘a similar arrangement to deal with a specific case’. Whether or not this lapse was due to poor drafting or a subconscious belief that the Council was rendered impotent by Great Power politics, the vagueness did not endear the report to the British, as discussed below. Hammarskjöld then outlined a number of elements which should be replicated in future operations. These included a small military staff to advise him: in the case of UNEF this had comprised one Military Adviser and three assistants, reinforced at the beginning by an ‘informal military advisory committee’, namely, a group of military representatives from troop-contributing countries. Hammarskjöld also proposed an Advisory Committee of diplomatic representatives under his chairmanship. He declared that for UNEF this arrangement had been highly useful. However, the possibility that this was primarily to keep the General Assembly on board, as well as to give the SecretaryGeneral’s decisions greater authority, is suggested by Hammarskjöld’s careful demarcation of the Committee’s responsibilities: Extensive operations with serious political implications … require close collaboration [of the Secretary-General] with authorized representatives of the General Assembly. However, it would be undesirable for this collaboration to be given such a form as to lead to divided responsibilities

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or to diminished efficiency in the operation. The method … in the case of UNEF seems the most appropriate [whereby] … ultimate decisions rest with the Secretary-General, as the executive in charge of carrying out the operation.110 Hammarskjöld recommended that the Advisory Committees, like contingents in UN peacekeeping operations, should exclude representatives of the Permanent Five and other states with particular interests in the conflict. Hammarskjöld’s overarching conclusion was in tune with British thinking: [M]ore far-reaching and firm arrangements – as, for example, the maintenance of a nucleus United Nations force of the type generally envisaged – would be without great practical value and certainly would not warrant the substantial sacrifices involved.111 This conclusion engendered relief among British policy-makers, who could now cite it when seeking to rebut the more ambitious proposals for a permanent UN force. Murray believed that the report, and a draft US resolution endorsing it, were broadly in line with the Government’s position. He observed that it was necessary to take into account the possibility of a standby force being used ‘in a manner unwelcome to HMG … but I assume that the advantages to be gained by supporting the Secretary-General’s ideas along with the Americans outweigh any potential disadvantages – e.g., a resolution that a United Nations force might be employed in Cyprus’.112 It was agreed to send the report for rapid consideration by the Cabinet Steering Committee on International Organizations, thereby obtaining the reactions of the Treasury, Ministry of Defence, Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office. The joint response was contained in a paper sent to the delegation in New York.113 The conclusion, headed ‘Attitude of Her Majesty’s Government’, was that the Secretary-General’s report should be welcomed since the principles and rules he had laid out make sense and accord closely with the views we had reached independently … We should not however be under any illusion that the proposed arrangements are going to make a great deal of difference in practice. UNEFs or UNOGILs will be created or not, according to circumstances, as in the past, whether the Secretary-General’s proposals are implemented or not. But the proposals are attractive so far as they go, as evidence of a general desire to see ‘something permanent’ emerge from … the experience gained from UNEF. The task of opposition and criticism can be left, with advantage, to the Soviet bloc.114 It is a small step from agreeing to support the proposed arrangements while observing that they would make little difference, to supporting them

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because they would make little difference. This prompts the question of how far Hammarskjöld would have had to go before the British decided to disagree. On the basis of their reactions to peacekeeping operations in practice and to the codification of their rules and principles in Hammarskjöld’s report, the conclusion must be not far: British policy-makers had a restrictive view of peacekeeping, minimalist by comparison to that of some other governments. At this time, with careful control, peacekeeping was evolving as Britain wanted it to. The fact that policy-makers accepted that ‘UNEFs and UNOGILs’ would continue to be created signified an important recognition that peacekeeping was here to stay: the primary objective was to ensure that it developed in a way which was acceptable to Britain. In terms of contributing troops or participating in the Advisory Committees, the brief instructed that Britain should ‘gracefully’ accept that it and other permanent members of the Security Council should be excluded. The Steering Committee was satisfied that Hammarskjöld’s conception enabled Britain to prevent the dispatch of a force to a dependent territory if this was against the British Government’s wishes, either through a veto in the Security Council or simply by refusing its consent. Moreover, the brief acknowledged the potential for co-opting the United Nations to defend Britain’s interests, ‘circumstances may arise in which limited United Nations intervention in or on the frontiers of a British or British-protected territory, subject always to our approval, may serve our purposes’.115 The Committee also welcomed as satisfactory Hammarskjöld’s emphasis on the position that the United Nations could not in any sense become a party to internal conflicts or intervene to influence the political balance in a country. To a greater extent than Hammarskjöld’s report, the Steering Committee’s brief highlighted the political fragility of peacekeeping. It noted that since peacekeeping was based essentially on the principles of host government consent and respect for national sovereignty, ‘any attempt to employ it as a means of bringing pressure on a nation or group of nations could well have the effect of discrediting it permanently’.116 Summing up, the brief highlighted the ‘severe limitations’ of the SecretaryGeneral’s plan, a phrase which was not meant disapprovingly. The brief concurred with Hammarskjöld’s view that peacekeeping operations were ‘instruments of efforts at mediation and conciliation’, that is, they were tools employed as part of a larger political strategy rather than independent actors: To approve the development of arrangements for a stand-by United Nations force is an important step forward, in that the activation of such a force and its deployment in connexion with a dispute can help to produce the conditions in which conciliation procedures can go forward, and settlements be negotiated. But … the reduction of international tension depends primarily upon the acceptance of a new and conciliatory approach to international problems.117

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The instructions to the British Mission at the United Nations were to support the Secretary-General’s initiative and aim for a constructive resolution, sponsored preferably by a group of the smaller powers. The delegation was told that it should bear in mind the considerable interest in this subject in the House of Commons and should avoid giving any impression that the Government had not supported the Secretary-General’s plan as far as feasible. The British diplomats should take an enthusiastic line in the corridors, while leaving it to the smaller powers to lead the chorus and while not neglecting opportunities to turn Soviet opposition to advantage.118 The Secretariat pursued a cautious approach to avoid arousing the antagonism of countries, such as the USSR, which continued to have reservations about placing peacekeeping on a stronger foundation. The British and the United States agreed to Hammarskjöld’s request not to debate it in the General Assembly so as to avoid provoking a dispute.119 After a pause, Hammarskjöld decided to consult most of the countries contributing to UNEF about their willingness to take the conclusions of his report into account in their military planning.120 In light of this news, and now that the report had laid to rest the worst of the British fears about allowing the United Nations too much leeway, Lloyd instructed UK High Commissioners to seek the views of Commonwealth Governments about a UN force. In particular, they were asked to obtain reactions to the establishment of a small military planning staff at UN Headquarters ‘to consider logistic and transport problems’. It was emphasized that ‘in trouble-free times’ this would be the only expense for the United Nations. The High Commissioners were encouraged to convey Britain’s interest in this issue.121 This exercise seems to have been launched not only to reinforce the desired image of British enthusiasm for strengthening peacekeeping but also out of a genuine wish to take the temperature of Commonwealth countries on this issue. The responses revealed how much the Commonwealth had evolved away from a bloc on which Britain could rely on important issues in the United Nations. Canada remained enthusiastic and had already earmarked a battalion for use by the United Nations.122 Australia found the idea of a permanent UN force ‘acceptable in principle’.123 New Zealand was critical of the ‘precariously conditional’ nature of the Secretary-General’s proposals and favoured relying on ad hoc arrangements until the time was right for an attempt to set up a standby UN force. South Africa, no doubt out of concern over the UN’s meddling potential, was opposed to a permanent force and favoured winding up UNEF on grounds of its expense. Among the newer members of the Commonwealth, India doubted that any sensible proposals for a UN force would emerge so long as the Cold War raged, and it did not wish ‘to incur unnecessary odium by sending its soldiers into countries where they are not wanted’.124 Pakistan, predictably, in view of its determination to increase international pressure on India over Kashmir, favoured

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the establishment of such a force. Ceylon did not consider the time ripe for one. Ghana was prepared to contribute a contingent on an ad hoc basis, but favoured neither a standing nor a stand-by force and opposed a general staff at UN Headquarters.125 Malaya had reservations about a standby force and, under Indian or other influence, was considered likely to become completely opposed.126 The results of this sounding of Commonwealth governments were therefore anything but a firm endorsement of Hammarskjöld’s plan. While carried out at the level of officials rather than Ministers, it is also striking that the newer Commonwealth members felt no compunction about expressing opposition to a project which Britain ostensibly supported, and their reactions suggest that the British tactic of expressing enthusiasm in the corridors at the United Nations was either falling on deaf ears or revealed an overestimation of Britain’s influence among its former colonies. It was, of course, unlikely that the value of peacekeeping to Britain for maintaining stability in areas where it retained post-colonial interests would be equally appreciated by all of those ex-colonies. Nor should it have been surprising that some shared Britain’s fear of having an operation deployed against their own interests, especially since they, unlike Britain, lacked the option of vetoing it if it was proposed in the Security Council.

Conclusion Where did the developments of the late 1950s leave peacekeeping and British perceptions of it? In terms of peacekeeping’s practical evolution, UNOGIL was not a happy experience for the United Nations and provided a classic example of how an ill-designed and poorly executed mandate can rapidly lead to the discrediting of a UN operation. UNOGIL’s efficacy was undermined by its need to rely on the cooperation of the anti-government rebels it was supposed to be observing. The awkward structure of a locally stationed troika, which was intended to analyse the observers’ reports but which also assumed a political role, was never replicated. UNOGIL’s story negated the notion that an observer mission was more straightforward and less controversial than a peacekeeping force. The weakness of UNOGIL made it easier for the United States and the United Kingdom to sideline it as they prepared to act against the perceived threat from the UAR. However, what was also apparent from the episodes in Lebanon and Jordan was that the major powers were not the only ones who could turn against peacekeeping. President Chamoun rapidly tired of UNOGIL when the prospect of US military intervention grew. King Hussein was no more satisfied than Chamoun with the option of a UN operation and grew alarmed when it became clear that the United Kingdom might cut and run without helping Jordan strengthen its own military resources. Peacekeeping was fine if a conflict was in remission – both Jordan and

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Lebanon had hosted UNTSO for the past ten years – but if the situation grew turbulent, those under threat looked elsewhere. Fortunately for Hammarskjöld, he was soon able to divert attention from the UN’s tribulations in Lebanon to his seminal text on peacekeeping, the UNEF study. In fact, few of the points in it were new. For example, the notion of neutrality was hardly a revelation in the field of third-party mediation, nor was it even an innovation to translate this to a military setting: the observer missions launched by the League and previously by the United Nations had all relied on the interposition of comparatively disinterested troops or police between combatants. However, Hammarskjöld’s UNEF study did not claim to be a new departure or a precise template for future operations. It derived its significance from its careful enumeration of the principles which governed UNEF and its detailed account of the practical arrangements required to launch and maintain a peacekeeping force. It was the most methodical and encyclopaedic exposition on this subject to date. Furthermore, it carefully fenced off the more optimistic hopes for a standing army and paved the way instead for states to earmark contingents for a standby force. The UNEF study was also a defining moment for the Secretary-General’s authority. Hammarskjöld single-handedly delineated the scope and direction of peacekeeping, both in terms of the characteristics of classical peacekeeping and the limits to institutionalizing it. Despite the British assertion that further UNEFs and UNOGILs would be created regardless of the Secretary-General, it is clear that Hammarskjöld had extraordinary control over the evolution of peacekeeping. Britain ultimately accepted that. It undoubtedly helped that Hammarskjöld, while ambitious with regard to his own role in managing peacekeeping operations, was finely attuned to what influential Western states would tolerate. His study did not make proposals which were anathema to them and they dutifully agreed not to debate it in the General Assembly. It passed without modification into doctrine. British policy-makers were pragmatic and they did not like abstractions or unnecessary expense. They were therefore unwilling to imagine a standing peacekeeping force being created to address as-yet-unknown crises. They would continue to tolerate ad hoc peacekeeping operations, and they accepted that Britain would not contribute troops or participate in advisory committees. However, this exclusion necessitated an assurance that the United Nations could still be prevented from interfering in British dependent territories. The option of the veto in the Security Council and Hammarskjöld’s emphasis on the consent of the host government helped in this regard. A vague belief that UN operations might even be put to good use for Britain helped assuage remaining qualms. However, a serious concern, which rose to the surface from time to time, was whether Hammarskjöld’s commitment to peace outweighed other principles, in particular the need to uphold the law. Although the British did not express it

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as such, the issue was whether Hammarskjöld’s pacifism was so strong that he was determined to preserve peace at any price. The closest indication that this might be the case lay in Dixon’s allegation that Hammarskjöld would not confirm infiltration from the UAR into Lebanon for fear of precipitating Western intervention. The case of UNOGIL highlights the danger of making broad generalizations about Britain’s position towards peacekeeping. The Observation Group was deployed to help stabilize a region of strategic significance to Britain and could therefore have been expected to enjoy British support. However, UNOGIL’s experience showed that such backing could not be taken for granted: not only did the acceptability of a peacekeeping operation depend on exactly how well it protected the interests at stake, but it could also be affected by ulterior political motives. British policy-makers devoted effort to challenging and undermining UNOGIL because they were keen to launch Operation Bluebat even before the Iraqi coup heightened concerns about creeping Nasserite subversion. The reason for the British strategy was never explicit in the Foreign Office papers, although a former diplomat who dealt with the issue suggests that Britain’s primary goal was to restore its relationship with the United States after the Suez affair.127 Additional objectives could have been to prove to the United States that Britain had been right about Nasser all along; to send a direct message to Nasser not to destabilize the region; and to demonstrate to the world the strength of the rebuilt Anglo-US relationship. What was clear was that UNOGIL’s weakness was not the main issue: Britain never called for the Observation Group to be reinforced or given a more assertive mandate to enable it better to fulfil its original objective of verifying that there was no infiltration from the UAR. As for the situation in Jordan, it was clear that the primary impetus behind British pressure for a UN operation there was the need to extricate British troops, with concern about Jordanian stability being only secondary. The relatively benign reception which Britain gave Hammarskjöld’s UNEF report showed up another aspect of British policy towards peacekeeping. This was the disparity between the often-critical reactions of policy-makers to the performance of individual UN operations and their receptivity to ideas to improve the instrument of peacekeeping for the future. The fact that their irritation with UNOGIL did not lead them to reject Hammarskjöld’s attempt to place peacekeeping on a firmer conceptual footing could be interpreted in two ways. Either British policy-makers viewed his efforts as unimportant and considered that they had nothing to lose by going along with them; after all, it was still the member states, not the SecretaryGeneral, which authorized, and decided on the broad mandate of, each operation. Alternatively, for all the annoyance caused by successive operations, most British policy-makers retained a residual faith in the value of peacekeeping as an institution and remained committed to making it work

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properly and in accordance with agreed principles. Moreover, Hammarskjöld’s cautious delimiting of peacekeeping, and especially his views on neutrality, coincided with Britain’s enduring determination to prevent the United Nations from meddling in internal affairs: in short, Hammarskjöld’s peacekeeping model was pleasingly unintrusive. As time went on, the balance tipped towards the second interpretation, as subsequent chapters of this book relate. Not only did the events and debates of this period show that British views on peacekeeping depended on the case at hand, they also highlighted the fact that there was no unified British perspective, even among those most directly involved in policy-making. Opinions in London on peacekeeping and the United Nations, and the vehemence with which they were expressed, varied significantly. The junior officials who populated the UN Department tended to be more idealistic.128 However, among their senior Foreign Office colleagues there was a spectrum of opinion. Some, such as Paul Gore-Booth and Frederick Hoyer Millar, were disposed towards the United Nations, but the latitude given to Ivor Pink reflected significant hostility to the direction in which the Organization was evolving. In contrast, the members of the UK Mission to the United Nations were generally more realistic and less emotional, although Dixon made little effort to hide his impatience with the Organization. The need for firm safeguards over the use of peacekeeping was emphasized by the growing power of the non-aligned countries. The British were displeased by the transformation of the United Nations from a forum which they had believed to be a venue for civilized diplomacy – perhaps because in its early years it had easily yielded their way – to one of parliamentary politics. Some concluded that problems originated with the United Nations rather than with the state of world politics. Yet, despite this, there was acceptance that Britain would have to learn to live with the United Nations, especially after the abortive attempt to weaken US support for the Organization. Other Government departments had little opportunity to voice their views on the United Nations in general, but their positions on placing peacekeeping on a more permanent footing ranged from positive (the Ministry of Defence) through ambivalent (the Commonwealth Relations Office) to cautious (the Treasury) and strongly opposed (the Colonial Office). Had the Foreign Office not decided that there was little to be gained from Murray’s initiative, it is unclear how it would have reconciled these views to produce a coherent policy. As for British perspectives outside the immediate policy-making circle, little heed was paid by the Government to the world federalists in Parliament, and rather than tailoring British policy to the positive public opinion of the United Nations, an educational campaign was contemplated to show the public the error of its ways. On the issue of Lebanon this approach was aided by critical newspaper columnists, whom Hammarskjöld suspected of

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receiving official backing. The conclusion is that the final word on peacekeeping policy resided with the Government of the day, specifically the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. With regard to the impact of British policies and actions on peacekeeping, strident British criticism of UNOGIL clearly annoyed Hammarskjöld and illustrated that peacekeeping, for all its depiction as neutral, could easily become politicized. Hammarskjöld reacted to the British jibes but did not feel obliged to alter UNOGIL’s rather discredited modus operandi. Nevertheless, the tensions over Lebanon and Jordan illustrated once again that actions associated with Britain regularly provided a laboratory in which peacekeeping was tested. Peacekeeping’s greatest challenge during the Cold War was soon to follow, and Britain was once more closely involved.

5 The UN Operation in the Congo, 1960–64

If, after the ruminations and codification of the late 1950s, policy-makers at the UN or in Britain believed that they had the measure of peacekeeping, they were soon to be disillusioned. Two years after Hammarskjöld had published his careful distillation of the UNEF experience, events in the heart of Africa shook his rules and principles to the core. At the time, the unprecedented size and combustibility of the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC)1 threatened to lift it off any scale for assessing the evolution of peacekeeping. Only three decades later, as the United Nations grappled with comparably costly and treacherous operations in Somalia and Bosnia, could a category be identified into which ONUC fell, that of a large-scale multifunctional operation deployed into an ongoing civil war. In many respects, even before firstgeneration peacekeeping had become fully established, ONUC represented the first second-generation operation: while up to 20 000 troops laboured to stabilize the security situation, including through the occasional use of peace enforcement, around 2000 civilians provided humanitarian relief, as well as assistance with reconstruction and institution-building. On the face of it, the UN’s intervention in the Congo should have caused British policy-makers to breathe a sigh of relief. The fifth peacekeeping operation launched by the United Nations, ONUC was the first associated with someone else’s colonial baggage.2 This time, Belgium found itself in the spotlight, for its colonial misrule, for its precipitate granting of Congolese independence, and for its clumsy post-independence attempt to reassert military control. Yet, despite both Britain’s relative lack of direct interests in the Congo and the fact that it did not make a significant military contribution to ONUC, it soon found itself playing a highly visible role both in the crisis and in efforts to influence the operation’s evolution. ONUC resonated within the British establishment more violently than any other UN peacekeeping operation before or since: to date it is the only one whose actions have threatened to bring down a British Government. 94

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The Cabinet discussed it frequently and the Prime Minister took a personal role in policy-making. The Government had to tailor its Congo policy to take domestic factors into account: on the one hand, commercial interests and their vocal Conservative Party backers and, on the other, opposition allegations that the Government was undermining the UN’s efforts. Aspects of the crisis often appeared in Parliamentary debates, fuelled by intense and partisan media coverage. ONUC’s four-year duration allowed politicians and officials ample time to reflect on, and debate, the character and management of the operation. In contrast to ONUC’s predecessors, political problems did not recede once the operation had been launched: for much of its life, almost every action it took, or did not take, had heavy political implications both within the Congo and internationally. Moreover, to a greater extent than in Lebanon, in the Congo the United Nations had to deal with a fragile and often fractured host government, forcing the Secretariat to revisit regularly the prohibition on interference in domestic affairs. For these reasons, the politics of the crisis and ONUC’s peacekeeping activities are harder to separate than in previous operations. However, in conformity with the approach of the rest of this book, the primary focus of this chapter is Britain’s relationship to the peacekeeping aspects of the operation.3 Different phases raised different issues concerning the UN’s capacity to adapt to its shifting responsibilities, especially in an environment which was at best only semi-permissive. After setting the scene with a brief review of Britain’s position at the United Nations and its relationship with the Congo by 1960, this chapter pursues a chronological approach to events and ONUC’s activities. The crisis followed a number of twists and turns, the most important of which were the Congo’s independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960, followed in July by the eruption of violence, the re-entry of Belgian troops and the deployment of ONUC. The year from September 1960 to September 1961 was characterized by a constitutional crisis following attempts by President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Lumumba to dismiss each other. In September 1961, the UN’s attention turned to the province of Katanga, which had tried to secede in July 1960 but whose struggle for independence was rejected by the Central Government and most UN member states. The attempted secession was ended in February 1963, but only after several bouts of fighting between ONUC and Katangese militia. After a period in which the Congolese Government was consolidated, ONUC was finally withdrawn in June 1964. In following this chronological approach, the chapter focuses on selected episodes, including Secretary-General Hammarskjöld’s choice of countries to provide contingents, the controversial activities of the British General, Henry Alexander, at the outset of the operation, and the highly contentious supply of British weapons to ONUC. These episodes provide particularly instructive insights into general peacekeeping issues and lend themselves to broader conclusions about British policy towards peacekeeping.

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Britain and the United Nations in 1960 The Congo crisis dawned within months of the Conservatives’ re-election to government in October 1959 and before the shine was taken off Macmillan’s premiership by domestic economic difficulties and problems in his foreign and defence policies. The latter included the struggle with the Americans to maintain an independent British nuclear deterrent and French President de Gaulle’s veto, in January 1963, of Britain’s application to join the European Economic Community. The calling up of army reserves during the simultaneous Kuwait and Berlin crises of 1961 confirmed that Britain still had a conventional military role to play in disparate regions of the world, challenging earlier assertions that technological advances could radically transform the need for traditional military force projection. Selwyn Lloyd remained Foreign Secretary until July 1960, when he was replaced by Lord Home, who had been Commonwealth Secretary since 1955. As Home did not renounce his peerage until 1963, the Government’s foreign affairs spokesman in the House of Commons was Edward Heath, the Lord Privy Seal. Within days of Lloyd’s departure, Sir Pierson Dixon was succeeded at the United Nations by Sir Patrick Dean, but Dixon played an important role during ONUC’s formative phase. On 9 August 1960 he sent his valedictory dispatch to London. Despite what he termed the ‘bewildering variety of change’ at the United Nations during his six years there, he was generally upbeat about the Organization and Britain’s relationship with it. He appeared to have accepted the changed nature of diplomacy at the United Nations, relishing the Organization’s ‘great utility as a public forum where we can wage the propaganda battle and support our general world policies’. In view of the ongoing East–West competition, he placed faith in Hammarskjöld’s personal abilities: the most realistic way of utilising the United Nations for peacekeeping will lie through the Secretary-General in operations like those he is successfully conducting in Palestine, the Congo and Laos. It might of course not be possible to do this if Mr. Hammarskjöld, with his unique qualities and prestige, disappeared from the scene.4 As for Hammarskjöld’s own perspective on the UN’s prospects, his efforts to establish a legitimate role for the Secretariat and himself were beginning to pay dividends. In January 1960 he concluded a six-week, twentyfour-country tour of Africa, including the Congo. With the rapid emancipation of large sections of the continent, he saw a huge need, and huge opportunities, for UN development assistance. He was also persuaded of the necessity to insulate the continent from Cold War competition, and that summer he expounded his image of the United Nations as

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a vacuum-filler: preventive diplomacy … is of special significance in cases where the original conflict may be said either to be the result of, or to imply risks for, the creation of a power vacuum between the main blocs … The ways in which a vacuum can be filled by the United Nations … differ from case to case, but they have this in common: temporarily, and pending the filling of a vacuum by normal means, the United Nations enters the picture on the basis of its non-commitment to any power bloc, so as to provide to the extent possible a guarantee in relation to all parties against initiatives from others.5 This image was central to Hammarskjöld’s conception of ONUC’s role in deterring external intervention in the Congo conflict. However, his aim of insulating the crisis from bloc politics related to the West and East blocs rather than to the embryonic non-aligned bloc.6 Some of the SecretaryGeneral’s greatest challenges in the Congo were caused by the relatively unrestrained involvement of major members of this last group.

British decolonization and UN anti-colonialism Decolonization was very much a live issue for Britain and the United Nations at this time. Macmillan’s ‘Winds of Change’ speech in Capetown in February 1960 produced positive publicity for British efforts in this area, and Dixon attributed Britain’s ‘excellent standing’ at the United Nations in part to ‘our patent sincerity in working for the self-government and independence of our African possessions’. However, he warned that [t]he beams of anti-colonialism will soon be turned on our remaining positions … Our task will be the more difficult because of the increase of African member states and the unmanageability of the votes. Moreover, he commented on the tension in US policy between supporting its traditional allies, including Britain, and its instinctive sympathy with anti-colonialists, ‘The Americans are often able to manoeuvre in a way which enables them to ride both horns of this dilemma.’7 In the Colonial Office, the ever-vigilant Sir Hilton Poynton sent various colonial governors a lengthy appraisal of the current situation at the United Nations.8 With the impending admission of eighteen new members, all but one of them African, he predicted that the West would now rarely be able to raise the necessary third of General Assembly votes to block resolutions on colonial issues. Moreover, the Afro-Asian bloc would become more hardline, compelling India, their hitherto comparatively moderate leader, to follow that shift in order to retain its leadership. Poynton warned that the

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Security Council’s condemnation of the killing of unarmed protesters in Sharpeville in South Africa in March 1960 and the mood in the General Assembly as a whole could increase the risk of UN intervention in a British colonial territory if disturbances occurred there, ‘Our ability to prevent intervention now depends more than ever on our general reputation and standing in the UN.’9 Poynton’s forebodings were timely. On 14 December 1960 the General Assembly fired a strong broadside against colonialism with its ‘Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’.10 This proclaimed that ‘Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence’ and called for ‘immediate steps’ to be taken to grant independence to all dependent territories. Even though this declaration flew in the face of Britain’s arguments for controlled progress in decolonization, the opprobrium attached to opposing such UN action meant that Britain (with other colonial powers and the United States) only abstained on the declaration, rather than voting against it. The following year the General Assembly established a committee (known since 1962 as the Committee of 24) to oversee implementation of the resolution. So, as the Congo crisis began, Britain was unclear how far it could depend on the United States, found itself in the uncomfortable company of unreconstructed colonial powers such as Portugal, faced growing radicalization in the General Assembly, and did not know exactly where it stood with the Commonwealth. Aside from India’s distancing itself from Britain, Ghana was manoeuvring to become the authentic voice of pan-African consciousness and was to play, from Britain’s perspective, a disruptive role in the Congo crisis.

British interests and the Congo Despite widespread allegations that British policy during the Congo crisis was driven by economic concerns, British investments there were not great. A number of mining companies with British investors were linked with the Belgian-controlled ‘Union Minière’, which was heavily involved in Katanga, and with the Tanganyika Concessions company, which was also present there. The Chairman of the latter was a former Conservative junior minister, Captain Charles Waterhouse, who was an energetic lobbyist for Katanga.11 A few large multinational companies with British links, including Unilever, British-American Tobacco, and Shell, had capital investments in the Congo. Annual British exports to that country had been in the order of £10 million before independence. However, in 1962, the Treasury estimated that the total British stake in the Congo was only £30 million, or just over three times Britain’s annual contribution to ONUC.12

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What was indisputable was that the Congo found itself in Britain’s colonial backyard. Its neighbours included former and current British dependent territories: Sudan (independent in 1956), Tanganyika (1961), Uganda (1962) and Northern Rhodesia (independent, as Zambia, in 1964). It was the last of these which proved the greatest liability since it shared a border with mineral-rich Katanga, which provided half of the Congo’s revenues. Moreover, as one of the two constituent parts of the Central African Federation (Nyasaland being the other), it was led by the combative white supremacist Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the Federation. Macmillan was particularly alarmed at the Congo’s potential to ignite a larger war: Ever since the breakdown of the Summit in Paris, I have felt uneasy about the summer of 1960. It has a terrible similarity to 1914. Now the Congo may play the role of Serbia. Except for the terror of the nuclear power on both sides, we might easily slide into the 1914 situation. (Diary entry, 4.8.1960)13

Congolese independence and the creation of ONUC The immediate fuse to the Congo crisis was lit in January 1960, when Belgium agreed at a conference of Congolese leaders to grant independence on 30 June of that year, leaving very little time for any preparation.14 On 23 June, the Congolese Parliament elected Joseph Kasavubu as President and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister.15 On the day before independence Belgium and the Congo signed a treaty (which was not ratified) whereby Belgium would retain military bases in Kamina and Kitona, and its 1400 troops could be called out by the Congolese Government to assist in maintaining order. Despite calls for Africanization of the Congolese army, known as the Force publique, its entire officer corps remained Belgian. On 5 July, the garrison in the capital, Leopoldville, mutinied, and disturbances spread. Lumumba both dismissed the Belgian officers commanding the Force publique, which he renamed the Armèe nationale congolaise (ANC),16 and refused to request assistance from the Belgian troops in the two bases. On 10 July, at the suggestion of Ralph Bunche (who had attended the independence ceremony and remained in the Congo until the end of August) and US Ambassador Claire Timberlake, the Congolese Government requested that the Secretary-General provide UN technical assistance in reorganizing the administration and security forces. Hammarskjöld planned to avoid convening the Security Council and risking a veto by arranging to send military advisers under the guise of technical assistance.17 However, the situation rapidly deteriorated: on 11 July Belgium ordered its troops back into the Congo, against the wishes of the latter’s Government, to restore law

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and order and protect Belgian and other foreign nationals. The same day, Moïse Tshombé, President of Katanga, proclaimed that province’s independence.18 With Belgium’s intervention the crisis was internationalized, and on 12 July Kasavubu and Lumumba sent a telegram to Hammarskjöld stating that Belgium’s ‘aggression’ was a threat to international peace and requesting UN military assistance to respond to it. In the British Foreign Office the diplomatic gears were now fully engaged. As it became clear that Hammarskjöld would convene the Security Council to discuss the situation, Dixon was instructed to caution him discreetly ‘that in the present unpredictable situation there would be a risk that the text of a resolution, which could hardly avoid having political implications on such matters as Congo unity, could tie his hands in an embarrassing way’.19 The implication was clear: Britain wished to reserve its position on the unity of the Congo. This apparently overrode the traditional British opposition to letting the Secretary-General operate without formal guidance from the Security Council. Throughout the crisis, the section of the Foreign Office responsible for handling British policy on all aspects, including on issues related to the United Nations and ONUC, was the African Department, rather than the UN Department. Accordingly, a new group of officials grappled with peacekeeping issues. From the start, Basil Boothby, the head of the African Department, took to the task with enthusiasm.20 In response to press reports that the United Nations was considering transferring to the Congo some of its 5000 UNEF troops, he wrote that ‘It … seems desirable that we should follow up this idea because of the expansion of the concept of an international force which it implies.’21 On 13 July, Kasavubu and Lumumba sent another telegram, spelling out that they expected a force of contingents from ‘neutral’ countries and warning that if the United Nations did not respond quickly they would approach the non-aligned states directly.22 President Nkrumah of Ghana publicly urged Hammarskjöld to accept the immediate deployment of Ghanaian troops. The same day, the Security Council convened at Hammarskjöld’s request, the first time a Secretary-General had exercised this right under Article 99 of the Charter.23 Hammarskjöld recommended the dispatch of a peacekeeping operation and stated that it would function in accordance with the principles he had set out in his report on the UNEF experience. In resolution 143 of 14 July, the Council called on Belgium to withdraw its troops from the Congo, and authorized the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Congolese Government, to provide the latter with the necessary military assistance ‘until, through the efforts of the Congolese Government with the technical assistance of the United Nations, the national security forces may be able, in the opinion of the Government, to meet fully their tasks’. Both the United States and the USSR voted for the resolution, in accordance with what Herbert Nicholas termed ‘[t]he now classic rules of super-power

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diplomacy’, that is, a tacit agreement that neither side should gain control of the territory, but that the conflict should be contained.24 Britain, France and China abstained. Britain’s explanation for its abstention was consistent with its position during the Suez crisis, namely that the withdrawal of the Belgian troops should occur only when ONUC was capable of replacing them.25 Through its abstention, Britain showed colonial solidarity with Belgium; the British Government’s inability to shake off charges of colonialist motives in its Congo policy can be dated to this first vote, despite subsequent efforts to distance itself from the Belgians. In another echo of British and French action during UNEF’s creation, Belgium attempted, unsuccessfully, to have its troops operate in collaboration with the UN force.26 ONUC was the last UN operation launched without a specified authorization period. This deprived Council members of the leverage over the host government which they have enjoyed in subsequent operations, namely the options of reconsidering their support or adjusting the objectives of the operation when the mandate comes up for renewal every six or twelve months; a permanent member has particular influence since it can threaten to veto the extension if it is dissatisfied. In contrast, resolution 143 gave unusual power to the Congolese Government, which had already been throwing its weight around by threatening to turn elsewhere for military support.27 Even though the Congo was still not a member of the Organization, by giving its Government the prerogative to decide when its national security forces could cope alone, the resolution constituted an open-ended commitment by the United Nations to provide military support. Despite the UNOGIL experience and the incomparably greater challenges in the Congo, British policy-makers unquestioningly accepted the idea that a UN force was the right response to the situation. On the day that ONUC was voted into existence, Macmillan told the House of Commons that ‘We feel that by far the best way of helping the situation is the United Nations method.’28 As the crisis grew rapidly more complex it was to pose a severe challenge to Hammarskjöld’s original conception of ONUC. To a greater extent than had been the case with UNOGIL, the UNEF precedent proved to be a false friend. Certainly, the association with the carefully controlled and successful UNEF would reassure member states facing a confused situation requiring urgent action. However, it was by no means clear how far the principles of neutrality and non-interference in internal affairs could be applied to the Congo situation. They would have been appropriate if, like UNEF, ONUC had been tasked with overseeing the withdrawal of the foreign force. Yet the first paragraph of resolution 143 simply called on Belgium to withdraw its troops, and gave the United Nations no responsibility in this regard. ONUC’s primary task was to provide the Congolese Government with ‘such military assistance as may be necessary’ until the Congolese national security forces could fulfil their tasks. This formulation was vague in the

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extreme: it did not provide answers to such questions as whether ONUC was itself to assume the functions of a national security force and whether it should offer military assistance beyond traditional security functions, for example, to prevent secessionist moves by individual provinces. What was clear was that ONUC was to assist the Government: the resolution referred to no other party, nor did it assign ONUC any sort of intermediary role. There was, therefore, no correlation with UNEF’s neutrality, and ONUC would face, on a far greater scale than UNOGIL, the issues of whether and how to deal with numerous other actors possessing varying degrees of legitimacy and authority. It was inevitable that ONUC would have to show flexibility in performing its functions, thereby laying it open to accusations of taking sides. Furthermore, being deployed over a territory the size of Western Europe, the force would be physically far more vulnerable than one stationed in a defined buffer zone. In a lawless and disintegrating country it was naïve to assume that ONUC could, like UNEF, limit the use of force to self-defence and still maintain order.

ONUC’s composition In accordance with the UNEF principles, Hammarskjöld ruled out military units contributed by the permanent members of the Security Council.29 They, including Britain, accepted this. In the Foreign Office, Sir Frederick Hoyer Millar, Permanent Under-Secretary of State, reflected that From the point of view of efficiency it would probably be much the best if the foreign personnel could be either British or French officers with African experience. But apart from the obvious objections to having British personnel actively involved in this operation, we do not want to do anything which might give the Russians an excuse to claim that they too should become actively concerned in the operation.30 Lloyd agreed, citing the need to avoid both external political interference and ‘offence to African nationalism’. However, What I would not favour is the plan being limited to independent African countries, that would let in Guineans and I suppose Egyptians, and give another boost to pan-Africanism. It should be a balanced United Nations effort, i.e., black, yellow, brown and white. Finally, if it were acceptable to the Congo and Belgian Governments, there would obviously be much practical advantage in including Belgian officers … 31 While Lloyd’s views on the retention of Belgian officers were clearly unrealistic and his reasons for excluding certain countries subjective, his emphasis on a balanced UN effort was in line with the UNEF conception, and

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indeed with Hammarskjöld’s own published description of ONUC’s composition.32 Yet, while there was no disagreement over keeping contingents from the Council’s permanent members out of ONUC, selecting which countries to put in was more problematic. Hammarskjöld was sensitive to the desire among African leaders to run their own affairs, and he agreed that they should be allowed an opportunity to prove themselves: international assistance … should … in the first instance be given by [the Congo’s] sister African nations, as an act of African solidarity. However, this natural reliance on regional solidarity for the solution of a problem of this kind should be qualified by an element of universality natural – and indeed essential – to any United Nations operation.33 In his concern to promote African solidarity, Hammarskjöld modified his own dictum that contingents should not be contributed by countries with special interests in the situation. He had never defined how he understood ‘special interests’, but it was likely that Ghana, with its aspirations of panAfrican leadership, and communist-led Guinea would have ambitions beyond restoring stability to the Congo.34 One could argue, but Hammarskjöld did not, that the issue of ‘special interests’ does not apply in a situation where the mandate directs the UN force to work with only one party, so long as the contingents are acceptable to that party: for example, the Congolese Government had already accepted Ghana’s offer of a contingent and, in the absence of another party whom the Secretary-General could consult, the issue of neutrality arguably became moot. However, Hammarskjöld was still patently concerned to keep politics out of ONUC. The timing of the Congo crisis coincided with the acceleration of the anticolonial struggle, and the country’s plight came to symbolize the efforts of remaining colonies to throw off colonial ties. ONUC therefore had emotional significance for newly independent states and many former colonies within the non-aligned movement. Other African troop-contributors to ONUC from the beginning were Ethiopia, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia and the UAR. Initially, the only non-African troop contributors were India, Ireland and Sweden. Hammarskjöld appointed Swedish General Carl von Horn, who had been Chief of Staff of UNTSO for the previous three years, as ONUC’s ‘Supreme Commander’. The timing of the Congo crisis coincided with the acceleration of the anticolonial struggle, and the country’s plight came to symbolize the efforts of remaining colonies to throw off colonial ties. ONUC therefore had emotional significance for newly independent states and many former colonies within the non-aligned movement. In addition, participation in ONUC, as in other operations, was particularly appealing to small states wishing to enhance their international profile. Thus, even before Nigeria had gained

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independence from Britain, its leader, Abubakar Balewa, pleaded for his country to take part.35 This was potentially embarrassing for Britain, which controlled Nigeria’s international relations, since it could expose it to charges of intervention in the Congo by a back door. Nigeria’s case was further complicated by the fact that its army was commanded by British officers. Considerable political sensitivity was attached to Western officers commanding African contingents, both for the countries in question and for the United Nations.36 This coloured Hammarskjöld’s reaction when Dixon put to him Nigeria’s request to participate. At first, Hammarskjöld believed that the idea was ‘definitely attractive’. After a moment’s thought, however, he asked whether a Nigerian contingent would have British officers, pointing out that in the case of a country not yet independent, they would have a rather different significance from those attached to the Ghanaian Force.37 The British did not press the point, and Hammarskjöld maintained his position. It was only in November 1960, one month after Nigeria’s independence, that a Nigerian contingent (still including British officers) joined ONUC.

ONUC’s functions and deployment By 18 July, only four days after the authorizing resolution, over 4000 UN troops had arrived in the Congo, and Lloyd sent Hammarskjöld his congratulations and admiration for what had been achieved so far.38 The same day, the Secretary-General submitted his first report to the Security Council. In it he elaborated on ONUC’s nature and functions: it may be considered as serving as an arm of the Government for the maintenance of order and protection of life – tasks which naturally belong to the national authorities and which will pass to such authorities as soon as, in the view of the Government, they are sufficiently firmly established … [T]he Force is … necessarily under the exclusive command of the United Nations … [It] is thus not under the orders of the Government nor can it … be permitted to become a party to any internal conflict.39 This formulation spelled out that the provision of ‘such military assistance as may be necessary’ actually gave ONUC the lead role in maintaining order and protecting life. However, it still left considerable room for confusion since it failed to explain how ONUC could maintain order while remaining aloof from internal conflicts. In a Cabinet meeting on 19 July, Lloyd reported the risk of Soviet intervention in the Congo and then summarized the two main objectives of

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British policy towards ONUC: to ensure that all aid to the Congo was channelled through the United Nations, but that the United Nations forces did not intervene in the Katanga as long as law and order were maintained there. It would be in our interests if the United Nations could play some mediatory role in achieving a settlement between the Congo Republican Government and the Katanga Government which preserved the provincial rights of Katanga and safeguarded Western interests in that area.40 In short, British policy at this point was to keep the Soviet Union out of the Congo and the United Nations out of Katanga. Britain did not believe that the USSR would land troops in the Congo but it suspected that the Russians would exploit any instability to provide assistance and ‘technicians’ and thereby to establish political influence.41 When the Cabinet’s agreed policy was communicated to the delegation in New York, an additional objective was added, namely ‘to see that the Central Congolese Government troops do not attempt forcibly to intervene in the Katanga’, something which fell outside any interpretation of ONUC’s formal responsibilities.42 This determination to keep UN and Central Government troops out of Katanga could be considered as de facto support for Katangese independence, namely by seeking to hold back those who opposed it. However, British policy-makers repeatedly maintained that they were motivated simply by a desire to prevent upheaval in Katanga, a plausible explanation given British interests there and the probable knock-on effect of any instability for Northern Rhodesia. To counter rumours that Britain favoured the break-up of the Congo, Lloyd soon went on record in the House of Commons to the effect that ‘the Congo should remain a unified State because of the wealth of the Katanga and the importance it has to the rest of the Congo’.43 Despite numerous subsequent allegations, there is no evidence in the written record to suggest that the British Government ever changed its position to one of clear support for Katangese independence. By the beginning of August, all Belgian troops had been withdrawn from the whole of the Congo except Katanga and the two bases. Contrary to British policy, Hammarskjöld now became convinced that it was time for UN troops to enter Katanga. However, Bunche received a rough reception when he travelled there to make preparations, and Tshombé, the province’s President, let it be known that any UN attempt to enter Katanga would be opposed.44 On 5 August, Bunche recommended to Hammarskjöld that the planned operation be stopped, and Hammarskjöld reported to the Security Council that UN entry into Katanga could be achieved only by force.45 It was now that Hammarskjöld’s choice of African troop-contributors began to backfire. The Presidents of Ghana and Guinea warned him that unless ONUC took more robust action to resolve the crisis surrounding Katanga’s

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secession, they would withdraw their contingents from ONUC and place them directly at the disposal of the Congolese Government.46 In resolution 146 of 9 August, the Security Council called on Belgium to withdraw its troops from Katanga, reaffirmed that ONUC would not be used to influence the outcome of any internal conflict, and called for ONUC’s entry into Katanga. France and Italy abstained, but Britain backed the resolution, having first obtained Hammarskjöld’s confirmation that he would bear in mind the need to maintain law and order.47 On 27 July, Lloyd had been dismissed, as Macmillan replaced a third of his Cabinet to shore up his party’s domestic support. At the beginning, Lloyd’s successor, Lord Home, seemed willing to give Hammarskjöld and ONUC the benefit of the doubt. With an eye on Ghanaian and Guinean manoeuvring, he stressed to the Cabinet on 8 August that ‘In order to avoid the danger that other African States might intervene unilaterally, perhaps with the aid of air transport provided by the Soviet Union, it was most important that the United Nations should retain control of the situation.’48 The regularity with which the British Cabinet debated its position on ONUC highlights the fact that, in contrast to its more stable predecessors, this operation had been deployed into a particularly unpredictable situation. ONUC faced frequent challenges and British policy-makers never allowed themselves to be lulled into complacency. On 12 August, Hammarskjöld led the first unit into Katanga. Tshombé had agreed not to resist, so long as ONUC did not become a spearhead for intervention by the Central Government. Lumumba realized that UN action without his Government’s participation would leave the secession issue unresolved. When Hammarskjöld refused to let any Congolese Government representatives accompany the ONUC contingent in its entry into Katanga, Lumumba ceased to cooperate with the United Nations. The Security Council met on 21 and 22 August and, in a belated attempt to enhance the legitimacy of UN decisions, Hammarskjöld proposed creating an Advisory Committee comprising those states contributing troops to ONUC. Despite Hammarskjöld’s rupture with Lumumba, by the beginning of September the Belgian troops had withdrawn from Katanga, ONUC’s military contingents were operating throughout the Congo, and its civilian component was providing humanitarian and technical assistance. Throughout July and August, Foreign Office officials expressed genuine satisfaction with both the UN’s performance and ONUC’s significance for the institution of peacekeeping. Dixon was supportive, although realistic concerning the wider applicability of the ONUC model: The Congo action, if it proves successful, will no doubt serve as a precedent in the event of future trouble of the same kind. Even if we have to pay heavily for the expense of such massive United Nations operations, the price is cheaper than the price of war. We should, however, be clear

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as to the relatively limited scope for international operations of this kind. It will only … be possible to visualise them in cases where great power interests are not acutely involved … we could apply the Congo precedent to a breakdown of government in some other African state not directly linked to one of the great powers; we could not apply it to Hungary.49 As he settled into his new job, Home retained an open mind. On 30 August, after asking Dean to obtain more information on Hammarskjöld’s plans for ONUC he stressed that there should not be any suggestion that Her Majesty’s Government is dissatisfied with Mr. Hammarskjöld or suspicious about his intentions. Quite the contrary. He has done astonishingly well.50 Prophetically, Home commented in the same telegram on ONUC’s mandate under resolution 143 to assist the Congolese Government, and the injunction in resolution 146 that it should not ‘in any way intervene in or be used to influence the outcome of any internal conflict, constitutional or otherwise’: The effects of this contradiction are bound to be felt even more acutely than hitherto if fighting breaks out in the Katanga. It is important that we should know what instructions the Secretary-General intends to issue to the United Nations force in these circumstances. Whether he wishes it or not, the force seems bound to become involved, unless they deliberately refrain from any role at all, in which case presumably it would soon become necessary for them to withdraw. This would be most undesirable.51 Home’s comments are significant for several reasons. First, he acknowledged that a UN peacekeeping force was attempting to operate under a contradictory mandate. While this is almost routine nowadays, it was still uncommon at the time; indeed, Britain considered one of its roles to be ensuring some conceptual clarity in the UN’s activities, or at least its resolutions.52 Neither Home’s telegram nor other sources reveal whether British policy-makers had realized this contradiction as early as the adoption of resolution 146 three weeks earlier, on 9 August. If so, it would have been unusually reckless of them to accept that a peacekeeping force could operate under a mandate which could give rise to possibly unwelcome interpretations, especially on the issue of intervention in internal affairs. Second, not only did Home not propose seeking clarity on this issue within the Security Council, but he accepted that the Secretary-General should take the lead in deciding how to interpret the mandate: Britain would not try to steer him towards its own favoured policy before he formulated his instructions but would wait until after he had drawn them up

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before acting. This underlined once more Britain’s acceptance of the Secretary-General’s leading role in directing peacekeeping, even in circumstances as turbulent as those prevailing in the Congo. Third, Home accepted that ONUC could play a role, and he actually wanted it to, if combat broke out between contending parties in Katanga. This would set a major precedent for a UN operation: it would move it towards peace enforcement; it would expose its troops to a new level of danger; and it would leave no doubt about whether the Organization was intervening in internal affairs. Britain’s long-standing position that the United Nations should respect Article 2(7) on non-intervention in domestic matters would be undermined, making it far harder to oppose on principle future UN efforts to meddle in Britain’s dependent territories. In addition, Britain supported the unprecedented civilian administrative, economic and financial component of the operation, although Home noted that this, on paper, at least, seems to aim at doing Lumumba’s work for him. This may be politically wise but it would be a new departure in United Nations practice, which is bound to come under public scrutiny.53 Harold Beeley, the British deputy representative in New York, therefore asked Hammarskjöld about the effect of the UN’s administrative and financial aid on the political situation in the Congo. The Secretary-General replied that he was making every effort to channel this aid in such a way as to build up the confidence and prestige of the appropriate members of the Cabinet … He had not signed any agreements with Lumumba, and insisted, as appropriate, on dealing with the President, the Foreign Minister, or the Minister in charge of the relevant department.54 It might be argued that Hammarskjöld was selecting these interlocutors solely on the basis of their respective responsibilities, but there seems little doubt that his exclusion of Lumumba was politically, and possibly personally, motivated, given their falling out over the issue of ONUC’s entry into Katanga. If so, this contradicted the Secretary-General’s emphasis on nonintervention in internal affairs, and constituted the politicization of UN assistance. However, since this approach conformed to British policy towards Lumumba, it attracted no comment from Beeley or the Foreign Office.

General Alexander In formulating its policy towards ONUC, Britain had to pay particular attention to the sensibilities of the newer members of the Commonwealth, since it relied on them to protect its vestigial interests in their territories.

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One requiring particularly careful handling was Ghana.55 As soon as it became apparent that the United Nations would launch an operation in the Congo, President Nkrumah was determined that a Ghanaian contingent would be the first on the ground. Accordingly, he sent his Chief of Staff, Major-General Henry Alexander, to Leopoldville to make preparations. Ghana was one of the independent troop-contributing states which had still not ‘Africanized’ the officer corps of its armed forces, and Alexander was on secondment from the British Army. However, Hammarskjöld did not object to Alexander’s involvement, presumably because he viewed it as Ghana’s prerogative as an independent state to retain Westerners in its armed forces. Moreover, if Nkrumah, the embodiment of African consciousness, accepted this, it was hardly for Hammarskjöld to raise difficulties. However, within weeks, Nkrumah’s decision to send Alexander to the Congo came to haunt the Secretariat. Alexander’s views on ONUC are significant for offering a contemporary perspective by a senior British officer on the philosophy and performance of a UN peacekeeping force. There is no evidence to suggest that Britain ever used Alexander to influence ONUC’s operation; his account of his experience, African Tightrope,56 portrays him as well-meaning towards the United Nations and determined to keep his distance from the British. However, it took him some time to comprehend ONUC’s international character: shortly after arriving, he lamented to the UK High Command in London that ‘One basic trouble is [that the] United Nations regard everyone given to operations as servants of the United Nations not (repeat not) servants of the donating nation.’57 Alexander arrived in Leopoldville on 14 July, three days before ONUC’s ‘Supreme Commander’, General von Horn. Alexander did not command the Ghanaian contingent, nor did he have a formal role within the UN structure, but in the first few days of the operation Bunche made use of him in planning ONUC and asked him to oversee the deployment of the Ethiopian contingent in Stanleyville. Alexander rapidly concluded that the UN’s first priority was to disarm the mutinous ANC as a prelude to training it. In his book he explained that the objective was simply to place the weapons in safe keeping, for use when needed.58 He embarked on the project and, with two Ghanaian officers, ‘completely disarmed the Force publique in Leopoldville’.59 However, what to a military officer appeared a practical solution (and von Horn agreed with Alexander’s approach60) was considered by UN officials to infringe on Congolese sovereignty. Furthermore, when the UN’s relations soon soured with Lumumba, the latter fixed on the weapons collection as proof of a hidden UN political agenda. The ensuing altercation between Bunche and Alexander revealed a disjunction between the military and civilian perspectives on peacekeeping, a classic peacekeeping dilemma summarized by Hoskyns, ‘Bunche was convinced that the military situation would only be solved when there was a proper political settlement; Alexander, on the other hand, believed that if law and order could be

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restored, the political situation would solve itself.’61 In August, ONUC returned the arms to the ANC. Alexander was critical of several aspects of the UN operation, including the fact that, at the beginning, UN Headquarters in New York failed to appreciate the differences between the problems in the Congo and truce supervision functions which the United Nations was performing elsewhere, ‘There appeared to be no form of military planning cell in the … Secretariat which could plan and produce the type of military force required to bring peace to a country … reduced to chaos overnight.’62 Alexander believed that the Secretariat had underestimated both the size of the Congo and the number of troops the operation would require. He was especially critical of the lack of clear military directives, complaining that many UN officers ‘imagined that the mere presence of blue-helmeted soldiers would restore law and order’.63 In short, the main blame for the troubles faced by ONUC contingents must rest upon the United Nations’ military command who singularly failed to give any proper direction to the commanders, very seldom visited the detachments and in fact gave little guidance to the young, inexperienced leaders carrying out one of the most difficult operations which any soldier could conceive … Had the orders to the United Nations troops been framed by somebody with military experience and not written as political documents, things might have been different.64 Judging from an article written subsequently by Brian Urquhart, the civilian leadership seemed resigned to the impossibility of translating a political mandate into a clear set of orders on which the UN’s military contingents could confidently act. Sympathizing with the plight of ONUC’s soldiers, he spoke of their obligation ‘to comply with political directives which must inevitably be incomprehensible to the soldier on the spot’.65 In terms which have been echoed regularly by subsequent UN military commanders, Alexander lamented the failure by the UN Secretariat to delegate responsibility to the officers on the ground: From the start, the commanders of both civil and military operations in the Congo suffered from excessive control by New York. Scarcely any move could be made without a telephone call to the United Nations Secretariat, though conditions in the Congo changed hourly. Provided always that the commanders appointed are of sufficient calibre, more trust must be placed in them to do the right thing at the right time.66 Alexander suggested to Bunche that the Supreme Commander be made responsible for political and logistical issues, while an Executive Commander should be appointed to take charge of the conduct of military operations. In addition, a military adviser should be made available to the

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Congolese Government. Alexander had little confidence in von Horn and saw himself in either of the two latter posts.67 News of this caused consternation in the Foreign Office, which feared that it would lead to the USSR claiming that Britain was intervening indirectly in the Congo and depicting Alexander as a British agent. These concerns were put to him ‘forcefully’ and no more was heard of the proposals.68 Ironically, given Alexander’s belief in the need to disarm the ANC, relations between him and Bunche came rapidly and publicly to a head after the Secretariat concluded that the Ghanaian contingent had not intervened sufficiently robustly when some Canadian civilians had been manhandled by ANC soldiers. The dispute highlighted the conceptual gulf between the civilian leadership of ONUC and at least one military officer responsible for implementing it. President Nkrumah circulated as a Security Council document an exchange of notes between him and Hammarskjöld on the incident, including a report to Nkrumah by Alexander. The latter complained that The blame for this situation developing lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the United Nations Commanders who have been quite unprepared to exercise any military authority at all, thus putting Ghanaian and other United Nations troops in an impossible position.69 This provoked an angry and personal response from Bunche, which was also circulated as an official Security Council document. He declared that the UN Command’s orders on the use of force by ONUC were ‘very clear’, namely that ‘on no account are weapons to be used unless in cases of great and sudden emergency and for the purpose of self-defence’. He did not define the notion of ‘great and sudden emergency’, which was an expansion on Hammarskjöld’s original conception. Bunche, who was evidently under strain, then laid into Alexander: It appears that he considers a ‘shoot only in self-defence’ policy as weakness … General Alexander, a good fighting man, I understand, takes a fighting man’s approach to the United Nations Force. It may be that he finds it difficult to comprehend the nature of an international peace force, or of the policy of restraint and co-operation with the Government of the country which must govern the activities of such a force. Fortunately for [ONUC’s] success, as with UNEF, there are some good fighting men with it who do not have this difficulty … [ONUC] is in the Congo as a friend and partner, not as an army of occupation. It has studiously avoided any suggestion of replacing in any way the former colonial administration.70 The last sentence is revealing, since it may well have been the case that Alexander, through his long experience with the British Army, identified

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UN peacekeeping in the Congo too closely with colonial policing. The forthright manner in which he set about disarming the ANC, while heavily outnumbered, resembled the confidence of a colonial administrator whose power lay in his intangible association with a superior authority. It also revealed a failure to understand that ONUC’s mandate was to be exercised in a sovereign country. In terms of British policy towards peacekeeping, the Alexander episode is most instructive for the fact that it revealed the extent to which British policymakers were sensitized to Hammarskjöld’s conception of the force and the risks of the slightest appearance of great-power interference. Despite the considerable value which officials must have attached to informed opinion on the political and security situation in the Congo, they did not view Alexander as a potential source of intelligence, but rather as a political liability.

Constitutional crisis Dramatic events at the beginning of September 1960 precipitated year-long constitutional turmoil and uncertainty for ONUC. On 5 September, President Kasavubu dismissed Prime Minister Lumumba for reasons including accepting Soviet bilateral assistance, provoking anarchy, and complicity in the killing by the ANC of civilians in Kasai province; Kasavubu appointed Joseph Iléo to replace him.71 Lumumba refused to accept Kasavubu’s decision and in turn claimed to dismiss him. Andrew Cordier, who was temporarily replacing Bunche until the arrival of the Secretary-General’s new Special Representative, Rajeshwar Dayal (of India), decided to close the major airports in order to prevent Congolese troop movements into Leopoldville on board fifteen aircraft which the USSR had put at Lumumba’s disposal. On 6 September Cordier also ordered the closure of the radio station in Leopoldville, from where Lumumba had made four inflammatory broadcasts since the previous day. By these actions, which had Hammarskjöld’s acquiescence, the United Nations resolved de facto the dilemma of its contradictory mandate: maintaining order outweighed the prohibition on involvement in the Congo’s internal affairs. Hammarskjöld confirmed to Beeley on 6 September that he had delegated authority to his representatives in the Congo and had authorized them to ‘intervene’ to maintain law and order.72 The news that such an important operation was now being steered by unelected Secretariat and military officials over whom the member states had even less control than over Hammarskjöld apparently did not provoke a reaction in the Foreign Office. This suggested once more that, at least for now, the British placed an extraordinary degree of trust in Hammarskjöld, especially when his actions coincided with their political objectives. Even though ONUC’s actions were aimed at maintaining order, and were portrayed as being impartial, their greater impact on Lumumba than on Kasavubu undermined any effort to preserve neutrality.73 Beeley reported

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that Hammarskjöld ‘considers that the United Nations must safeguard itself so far as possible against the possibility that Lumumba may emerge as the victor’. Beeley also highlighted Hammarskjöld’s belief that he had stretched his authority ‘to the utmost limit’.74 In London, The Times summed up the UN’s new posture, ‘There, then, the United Nations stands, ostensibly in the middle as always, but leaning perceptibly in one direction.’75 When the Security Council convened to discuss the situation, Hammarskjöld emphasized the vacuum of authority which the United Nations had had to confront in the Congo following the mutual dismissals: ‘there was nobody, really nobody whom [the UN representatives] could consult without prejudging the constitutional issue.’76 It was in this meeting that Hammarskjöld reported on actions with ‘the characteristics of the crime of genocide’ being committed by the ANC against the Baluba tribe.77 The Secretary-General posed the question: ‘Should it be supposed that the duty of the United Nations to observe strict neutrality in the domestic conflicts and to assist the Central Government means that the United Nations cannot take action in such cases?’78 He did not receive an answer in the Security Council, but Urquhart quotes from an unpublished cable sent at this time by Hammarskjöld to Cordier in which the SecretaryGeneral decreed that ‘Prohibition against intervention in internal conflicts cannot be considered to apply to senseless slaughter of civilians or fighting arising from tribal hostilities.’79 Hammarskjöld discussed the issue with the Congo Advisory Committee and urged the Congolese Foreign Minister to rein in the ANC.80 Most importantly, the Secretary-General authorized the interposition of ONUC troops, using force if necessary, to stop the massacre.81 Dayal’s first report, three weeks later, confirmed that ONUC, ‘thinly deployed in the area, and circumscribed by its mandate, used its best efforts to safeguard lives, [and] to prevent massacre and genocide … ’82 So, two short years after his report on the UNEF experience, Hammarskjöld ordered ONUC to disregard what had seemed central tenets of peacekeeping, the prohibitions on intervention in internal affairs and the non-use of force except in self-defence. The attempt to prevent further massacres reveals that Hammarskjöld was prepared to break his own rules for the sake of a higher moral cause and thereby challenges the assertion that his conception of peacekeeping, at least as he implemented it in practice, was amoral.83 On 13 September 1960, the emergency measures imposed by Cordier were lifted, but the next day Colonel Joseph Mobutu, the Chief of Staff of the ANC, launched a coup and installed a regime run by a Council of Commissioners supporting Kasavubu. ONUC continued to recognize the latter as Head of State, but agreed to protect Lumumba.84 In an effort to contain the spreading violence, it set another precedent for a function of peacekeeping usually associated with more recent operations, namely in creating ‘protected areas’ where civilians could seek safety, as well as ‘neutral zones’ which were intended to prevent tribal conflict.85

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The General Assembly’s regular session that autumn was one of the stormiest in the UN’s history, with Khrushchev both banging his shoe and assaulting the independence of the Secretariat. One of the most notable speeches was by Nkrumah, who persevered with his efforts to establish Ghanaian prominence in the Afro-Asian group. Ominously, he expressed his embarrassment that the Ghanaian contingent had been called on to implement the UN’s policies in the Congo. He also dealt succinctly with Hammarskjöld’s conception of neutrality: the United Nations need not go to the assistance of any country which invites its intervention, but … once it has done so, it owes an obligation to … that country not to interfere in such a way as to prevent the legitimate Government … from fulfilling its mandate. In other words, it is impossible for the United Nations at one and the same time to preserve law and order and to be neutral between the legal authorities and the law breakers. That is, unfortunately, exactly what the United Nations has attempted to do in the case of the Congo.86 From Leopoldville, Ian Scott, the outspoken British Ambassador, sent a stream of critical reports about UN activities and personalities, and by midNovember Dean and Home were increasingly turning against the SecretaryGeneral, ONUC and the United Nations as a whole.87 On 23 November, Dean wrote to Hoyer Millar that In many ways Hammarskjöld and his team are not as satisfactory from our point of view as they might be … Circumstances … could arise in which our future participation in the UN might become open to very serious doubt on the ground that we stand to lose so much and gain so little … Another Congo situation could precipitate this question, especially if it were one … where the process of vilification, pressure and blackmail upon some of our allies might be so damaging to the Western cause … that we might feel it better to leave the UN altogether.88 Home minuted on the letter that he agreed with every word, and sent it to Macmillan.

Lumumba’s death and its aftermath On the night of 27/28 November Lumumba left his house and was arrested by the ANC. On 17 January 1961, he was moved to Leopoldville. Four weeks later the news emerged that he had been killed, precipitating the decision by the Soviet bloc to withdraw its recognition of Hammarskjöld as SecretaryGeneral.

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The crisis also exacerbated relations between the Secretariat and other member states. At the Casablanca conference in January 1961, leaders of the assembled African states announced their support for the Lumumbist regime of Antoine Gizenga which had been established in Stanleyville.89 More significantly for ONUC, some of its troop contributors (Morocco, Guinea, Egypt, and later Indonesia and Sudan) decided to withdraw their contingents. For the first time, a UN operation was facing disintegration because its political stance was not to the taste of some of its troop-contributors. Dean wrote of the ‘incipient decline in effectiveness of the United Nations operation: e.g., withdrawal of units from the force [and] falling morale’.90 The rapid deterioration in ONUC’s cohesion and capabilities so alarmed US Secretary of State Rusk that he floated with the United Kingdom the possibility of intervening directly, if requested to by Hammarskjöld or Kasavubu. He surmised that this might happen if troop-contributors such as Ghana and Morocco defied the United Nations, or if the USSR intervened. Rusk enquired what land and air forces Britain had in the region of the Congo. The Foreign Office’s response was deeply non-committal, focusing instead on the possible consequences of ‘action by white troops in an independent African country’. These included the difficulty of installing a viable ‘Western puppet’ leader, driving Ghana out of the Commonwealth, placing considerable strain on relations with India and Nigeria, and destroying ‘the tenuous ties of trust on which we must rely if we are ever to find a solution to our multi-racial problem in Central Africa’. If it became a question of opposing not African forces but Soviet ‘volunteers’, ‘the political difficulties would obviously be less, though the military difficulties might be greater’.91 Although these scenarios never came to pass, the weakness and unravelling of a UN peacekeeping operation had brought the United States and, more reluctantly, Britain to the stage where they were seriously discussing going into combat against renegade UN contingents or even Soviet forces.

Strengthening ONUC’s mandate On 21 February, after a lengthy debate, the Security Council made the first significant change in ONUC’s mandate. In resolution 161, the Council referred to the death of Lumumba and two colleagues, and urged that the United Nations ‘take immediately all appropriate measures to prevent the occurrence of civil war in the Congo, including arrangements for ceasefires, the halting of military operations, the prevention of clashes, and the use of force, if necessary, in the last resort’. It also called for the immediate evacuation from the Congo of mercenaries and other foreign military personnel. Britain voted for the resolution, but was deeply ambivalent about the powers it gave ONUC. Dean stressed that the British interpreted the phrase ‘and the use of force, if necessary, in the last resort’ to mean that ‘force will only be used by the United Nations to prevent a clash between hostile

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Congolese troops. There can be no question of empowering the United Nations to use its forces to impose a political settlement’.92 The latter sentence is consistent with Britain’s policy of shielding Katanga from the greater instability prevailing elsewhere in the Congo. However, this is overshadowed by the significance of the first sentence, which is remarkable not for the restriction Dean sought to place on the use of force but for the scope for its use which Britain now accepted. In permitting ONUC to use force to halt military operations the Security Council was granting authorization for peace enforcement. That Britain agreed to this was surprising, given its misgivings about the competence of ONUC’s command and the reliability of its troops. However, more momentous was its acquiescence in the use of force to prevent clashes, a formula which created an awkward hybrid of peace enforcement and preventive deployment. This permitted ONUC a dangerous degree of latitude in its interpretation: using force to end clashes would have been clear, but authorizing it to prevent them placed on the UN’s military and civilian leaders the responsibility – or the freedom – to decide when a clash might be likely to erupt and hence to use force pre-emptively. In a Cabinet meeting the same day, Home acknowledged that the resolution ‘would leave a difficult discretion to the United Nations commander, and might open the way to pressures for the use of force in support of particular political factions’.93 Yet he seemed unperturbed by the unprecedented expansion of the power of a peacekeeping operation. British policy-makers were at a loss as to how to proceed in the Congo and what to do with ONUC. The following month Dean wrote to Hoyer Millar that we are advancing steadily into a bog with no apparent way out … the UN cannot take over the Congo and run it … So we have to leave it to the Congolese to settle things themselves. But the very interposition of the UN makes that almost impossible … It is true that the presence of the UN in the Congo is still valuable in order to prevent chaos or the Communists building up a bridgehead. But on the other hand, although we avowedly support the UN effort, we really do not want it to succeed too well; so that it just drags on from situation to situation.94 Dean’s comments echoed British sentiments towards UNOGIL, namely that the very presence of a UN operation was a hindrance to a decisive settlement of the conflict. In Lebanon, Britain had wanted the freedom to launch a Western intervention. As for the Congo, Dean thought that a case could be made for having the United Nations pull out and leaving the Congolese to settle things themselves, presumably by fighting it out: There would be much to be said for this if the UN could hold the ring … by sealing the frontiers and airports to prevent any outside interference. But this would probably be impossible to achieve.95

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By April, ONUC’s strength was back up to 18 000, and it began to take firmer action, including using force to end an offensive by mercenary-led Katangese gendarmerie against opponents of Tshombé. However, the UN force also took casualties: at the end of April, according to the United Nations, 44 Ghanaian peacekeepers, including two British officers, were killed by ANC forces.96 Yet despite such incidents, and British ambivalence about ONUC’s mandate, on balance Home remained supportive of the United Nations. As the Organization’s financial crisis grew – caused by the refusal of the Soviet bloc to contribute to UNEF’s and ONUC’s costs, and of France to contribute to ONUC’s – the Foreign Secretary told the Cabinet that ‘the United Kingdom has a strong interest not only in helping to keep the United Nations in being but in ensuring that it retains its capacity to act in defence of peace and security as it has done in the Congo’.97 Throughout this period the Government was able to rely on the support – albeit not overwhelming – of its backbenchers. In February and March, the Conservative Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee (1922 Committee) held two meetings on UK policy in the United Nations, concluding that the United Kingdom should continue to support the Organization on negative rather than positive grounds: i.e., that if there was little immediate advantage in staying in, there was slightly greater disadvantage in staying out … We had … no option but to defend our interests in what had become an arena of the Cold War.98

Katanga From the time of Katanga’s unilateral declaration of independence in July 1960, the question of its relationship with the rump Congo placed a greater strain than any other issue on British–UN relations during ONUC’s existence. The UN’s pursuit of mercenaries fighting for the Katangese forces caused particular tension. The Secretariat’s decision in May 1961 to use Malayan Special Forces to drive out or arrest one group created alarm in the Foreign Office. Over half of the fifty mercenaries, including the commander, were British nationals, and the Malayan contingent also included British officers. The British Embassy in Leopoldville learned of the attack from the Malayan liaison officer to ONUC, Major Furney, who was also British. Home accepted that ONUC’s plan was in line with resolution 146, but described the potential ramifications if the mercenaries resisted arrest, fearing that an attack by a Commonwealth contingent on British mercenaries would subject Her Majesty’s Government to the most bitter and damaging criticism and might easily … call into question the whole

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basis of United Kingdom support for [ONUC], which … Her Majesty’s Government are most anxious to see succeed.99 The operation was only partially successful, apparently because of a leak to the Katangese gendarmerie, regarding which both Major Furney and the British Embassy came under suspicion. The incident had implications for future British–ONUC relations, as one of the Embassy staff wrote to the Foreign Office: The point which now concerns me is whether we should accept what appears to be the Secretary-General’s view that UN intentions should be kept secret from us … , treating us as potential antagonists.100 A second incident confirmed that the United Nations was to some extent hampered in taking operational decisions by the presence of British officers within ONUC contingents. On 2 May, General Indar Rikhye, Hammarskjöld’s Military Adviser in the Congo, advised the Secretary-General against using the Nigerian brigade in North Katanga. Rikhye doubted ‘the role of the British officers in this contingent, who would find themselves in the embarrassing position of opposing their close allies, the Belgians’.101 These two episodes illustrate once more that, for all its apparent lack of interests in the Congo, Britain exercised both direct and indirect influence over ONUC’s operation. British officials would soon be implicated in more of ONUC’s tribulations in Katanga. The rounding up of mercenaries was undertaken in earnest in two operations, codenamed Rumpunch and Morthor, in August and September 1961. The details are related by Hoskyns and James, as well as in To Katanga and Back, by one of the main protagonists, Conor Cruise O’Brien.102 O’Brien, whom Hammarskjöld had plucked from the Irish Foreign Service to serve as his representative in Katanga, was the most vocal of many critics who alleged that British actions had undermined ONUC’s chances of success. Despite the expulsion of 100 mercenaries with little resistance, Rumpunch was called off at the end of its first day (28 August) in light of assurances by Tshombé and the Belgian Consul that they would oversee the departure of the remaining mercenaries. However, this failed to occur, leaving ONUC with a half-finished task and facing determined opposition. O’Brien then directed Operation Morthor, a bloody and prolonged attempt to complete the job, which began on 13 September and lasted for almost a week. ONUC encountered grave resistance, during which Tshombé escaped to the Northern Rhodesian border. Before leaving Elisabethville he stopped for an hour at the home of British Consul Denzil Dunnett, who subsequently maintained that they had only drunk coffee and not discussed politics, an assertion backed up by the Foreign Office. O’Brien treats this with scepticism in his book, and Arthur Gavshon relates that O’Brien informed UN

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Headquarters that the British had encouraged Tshombé to fight on.103 That evening, O’Brien announced that the secession of Katanga was at an end. These events stirred up controversy both over whether the United Nations had exceeded its mandate and over the extent to which Hammarskjöld, who was en route to the Congo, had been in the picture. Aside from the immediate crisis, Macmillan’s reaction revealed graver implications for British perceptions of the competence and accountability of a UN operation. He acknowledged that the task faced by ONUC’s civilian representatives ‘would have tried even the most eminent of the great Indian or colonial governors or administrators’. However, Hammarskjöld has either blundered, or his agents have acted without his authority … On Monday he tells Sir Patrick Dean that he will not use force. On Tuesday or Wednesday, full-scale operations begin.104 Whatever the cause, Macmillan’s inference was clear: it had been wrong to trust Hammarskjöld’s word. Britain now took a decisive step. Immediately after the Secretary-General arrived in Leopoldville, he agreed to receive Derek Riches who, that month, had replaced Ian Scott as British Ambassador to the Congo. Riches had been instructed by Home to tell Hammarskjöld that first reports suggested that the crisis had been provoked by ONUC. Riches was to seek the Secretary-General’s explanation of recent events and to warn him ‘with all the emphasis at [Riches’] command’ that on Hammarskjöld’s answers would depend the future of British support for ONUC.105 Gavshon, whose detailed account of Hammarskjöld’s final days is based on close access to both the Secretary-General and his entourage, relates that Riches demanded that Hammarskjöld either provide an acceptable explanation or ensure a swift end to the fighting.106 Regardless of how accurately Riches carried out his instructions, his comments were reported to be a British ultimatum to the Secretary-General. Gavshon depicts this encounter as having a great impact on Hammarskjöld’s thinking: he feared losing the support of another great power, in addition to the USSR and France. Moreover, he did not want to jeopardize the logistical support which Britain continued to provide in the form of transportation for the Ghanaian, Malayan and Nigerian contingents. Britain’s growing alarm at ONUC’s actions helps explain its opposition to the UN’s request for permission for Ethiopian jet fighters to overfly two British colonies, Kenya and Uganda (and to refuel in the latter), en route for the Congo, where they would attempt to deal with a Katangese aircraft which had been wreaking havoc on ONUC forces. Britain first refused permission: the reason given publicly was fear of escalating the war, but Home justified it privately on grounds of British public opinion and the Government’s belief that ONUC’s action in Katanga ‘is unwarranted as to both motive and scale’.107 Lord Lansdowne, a British Parliamentary

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Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whom Macmillan had sent to Leopoldville, conveyed the response to Hammarskjöld. After the SecretaryGeneral explained that the jets were needed not for offensive purposes but to defend the UN’s positions, Lansdowne recommended to London that approval be granted.108 Two days later the British agreed. However, this was after Hammarskjöld’s death in an air crash on 17 September while flying to a meeting with Tshombé, which had been organized by Lansdowne. For Britain the crash was a public relations disaster. India and Ghana were especially outspoken in accusing it of complicity in Hammarskjöld’s death, and Nehru was quoted as declaring that ‘Never, even during Suez, have Britain’s hands been so bloodstained as they are now.’109 The Ghanaian Times charged that Britain was responsible for Hammarskjöld’s ‘murder’, by means of either the ‘jet fighters of the Katanga–Britain–Rhodesia conspiracy or explosives planted in the plane by British officials in Leopoldville’.110 The New York Times quoted a British official arguing that ‘If it is imperialist to try to halt fighting before it gets out of hand, then we’re imperialist.’111 The Foreign Office felt compelled to issue a statement to the effect that Britain had always supported the UN’s efforts to establish a united Congolese state, ‘In our view, however, this unity, to be lasting, must be brought about by peaceful constitutional methods, and not by intimidation or violence.’112 On 20 September, the United Nations signed a ceasefire with Tshombé.

Arms for ONUC Only two months went by before the British Government once more found itself put on the spot by the United Nations. The issue arose after the Security Council had adopted, on 24 November 1961, another resolution strongly deprecating both Katanga’s secessionist activity and attacks on UN forces. The resolution authorized the Acting Secretary-General, U Thant, ‘to take vigorous action, including the use of a requisite measure of force, if necessary’, to apprehend and deport foreign military and paramilitary personnel.113 ONUC now resolved to halt air attacks by Katangese jet fighters, this time with bombs dropped from British-built Canberra aircraft made available by India.114 The United Nations asked the British Government to supply twenty-four 1000-pound bombs, and sought to reassure it that they would be used only against aircraft on the ground or air bases. The Cabinet discussed the request on 14 November and was divided over how to respond. One line of argument was that Britain should oppose any further attempt by the United Nations to interfere in the Congo’s internal affairs; an opposing argument was that there could be no political future for an independent Katanga and that Britain should follow through on its original support for ONUC in order to prevent communist infiltration of the Central

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Government. Domestic political concerns were also considered, namely the opposition which the Government would face if it agreed to the request. With some wishful thinking, the Cabinet attempted to duck a decision by asking the Minister of Aviation to ascertain whether there would be any technical difficulties in providing the bombs for the Indian aircraft.115 The issue rumbled on for a couple more weeks, and the Cabinet asked Home, as well as Commonwealth Secretary Duncan Sandys, to consider whether the United Kingdom and India could agree to a common line against bombing on the grounds that this could enlarge the area of conflict.116 At this time, it appeared that British tolerance of the use of force by the United Nations was nearing its limit. Britain had abstained on resolution 169, which ratcheted up the UN’s ability to intervene and which Home considered ‘dangerous’: it directed the Secretary-General to pay particular attention to Katanga and to set about extracting mercenaries by force. We thought this would lead to a bloody and prolonged fight, and would discredit the United Nations.117 British unhappiness about developments was further heightened when O’Brien, who had been recalled to the Irish Foreign Service at the beginning of December, tendered his resignation to be able to tell his side of the story. This he did in detail, condemning what he later termed ‘a pattern of political interference by the British Government in support of Tshombé against the United Nations’.118 The ‘bombs for ONUC’ crisis broke in early December. On 5 December, fighting erupted between ONUC and Katangese forces around Elisabethville. Two days later, U Thant repeated the request for the bombs, and the British Cabinet consented the same day to supply them. Commonwealth loyalties played a role in the decision: Home told the Cabinet that contingents from several Commonwealth countries were among the ONUC troops which were in ‘extreme danger’ in Katanga.119 The Cabinet made its agreement conditional on a written assurance that the bombs would be used only against ‘pirate’ aircraft or airfields from which they were operating. Even this conditional consent provoked a furore in Britain, especially among those Conservative MPs who supported Katanga’s secession.120 What made things worse was that while U Thant accepted the condition, he expressed surprise at it since ‘most of the Katangan air force had already been put out of action … and [ONUC] would have liked to use the bombs to attack bridges, roads and fuel dumps’.121 On 9 December, Home articulated to Dean a principled explanation of why Britain had acceded to the request only with great reluctance. After repeating his regular threat that ‘what is at stake is our support for the United Nations effort in the Congo’, he explained that the

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reasons for the British position were: 1. That it is not the job of the United Nations to make war on peoples it has come to help. 2. The Congo is an area the size of India and the Katanga the size of France. Even if it was right it would be impossible to conquer it and hold it down. 3. That there is little control by the United Nations Headquarters of their men on the spot who get caught up in the emotional side of African politics and use the United Nations forces for political ends. … Please tell U Thant that he really must not ask us or anyone else for bombs. They must surely be able to get on without them. My own anxiety is that the United Nations will get completely bogged down and find itself in a state of siege for years, surrounded by sabotage and guerrilla war. We could not support such a campaign and must do all we can to see it doesn’t happen.122 From this it would appear that the Government had already changed its mind and would not provide the bombs. However, officially at least, the agreement still stood. In alarmist terms, Heath reported to the Cabinet on 11 December that Linner had told a Swedish newspaper that ONUC’s longterm aim was to force a political solution on the Katangese by smashing the political leadership and its military strength. Linner had also reportedly stated that UN officials had carte blanche for the conduct of military operations; U Thant, under British pressure, had repudiated those statements. During the ensuing Cabinet discussion, the members realized that if the decision to supply the bombs was retracted, the Government would be accused of yielding to pressure from the Katanga lobby.123 Macmillan was relieved by the indiscreet comments attributed to Linner, since this made it easier for Britain to delay authorizing the release of the bombs, even while maintaining the agreement to provide them. Heath announced this delay to the House of Commons on 11 December, citing reports that ONUC was attacking ‘non-military objectives’.124 However, this only stirred up the stormy debate in the House of Commons on 14 December: the Government was condemned both by some Conservatives for agreeing to the request in the first place and by the Labour Opposition, notably foreign affairs spokesman Harold Wilson, for then withdrawing its agreement and hindering the UN’s achievement of its objectives.125 Prior to the debate, Macmillan feared that the controversy might lead to the collapse of his Government. During the debate, it emerged that the Government had asked U Thant to arrange an immediate ceasefire, confirmation that Britain had finally drawn the line on ONUC’s use of force. In any case, a week later Tshombé agreed to respect the Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.

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The Government won the debate, but Macmillan recorded in his diary the pervasive impact of events in the Congo on the Conservative Party: anxiety about United Nations performance in the Congo had spread to the whole centre of the Party. Nor do I blame them. For U Thant … has gone on relentlessly (or, rather, allowed the United Nations military command in the Congo to go on) with an attack on Elisabethville, regardless of civilian lives or material danger. They do not seem to realise that if they ‘win’ the battle, they will be in the same position as Britain and other Colonial Powers have often had to face – they will be forced to ‘take over’ and administer Katanga.126 Macmillan’s criticisms also reveal a belief that the United Nations was getting out of its depth as it slid towards asserting neo-colonial control over Katanga. The image of Britain as elder statesman and seasoned colonial ruler attempting to take the novice United Nations in hand reappeared a few weeks later when Home asked Dean to request a meeting with U Thant and ‘talk to him like a father’ about the situation in the Congo.127 In a rare instance of a British policy-maker criticizing the United Nations publicly, Home released his irritation with the Organization’s general performance in a speech to the Berwick-on-Tweed branch of the UN Association on 28 December 1961. He criticized the UN’s resolutions on colonialism, spoke of a crisis of confidence in the Organization, and asked whether the United Nations as originally conceived had had its day.128 Home’s speech attracted much attention, and provoked sufficient consternation among UN supporters that he agreed to explain himself in a second speech to the UN Association, this time to its General Council, in July 1962. Ahead of his appearance the Foreign Office sent British missions overseas a guidance telegram complaining that in press reports of the original speech ‘the criticisms were stressed and positive aspects ignored’. Recipients of the telegram were urged to ensure that foreign Governments understood that ‘We intend to stay in [the UN] and make our case; we shall not walk out in a huff.’ Her Majesty’s Government unswervingly support the United Nations Charter and the United Nations Organization. The main purposes of the Charter – peace and peaceful change – coincide with British interests and policy … [Yet,] the United Nations will only be able to develop into an international law enforcement agency if it builds a reputation for scrupulous adherence to its own Charter and for fair dealing for all nations. No country … will be prepared to disband its own national forces and entrust its safety to an organization which is governed by emotion and manifestly prejudiced.129

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In fact, in his second speech Home was largely unrepentant. After observing that ‘great numbers’ of Britons ‘look upon the United Nations as a great ideal almost beyond criticism’, he repeated his support for the Organization, but did not back down far on his warnings. He stressed that ‘racialism’ and ‘aggressive nationalism’ could kill the United Nations and appealed for the General Assembly to exercise ‘discretion, tolerance and responsibility’.130 Throughout this period, the Government faced a barrage of criticism in the press from right- and left-wing politicians and their supporters. Newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph served as mouthpieces for the UN’s British opponents, while The Observer published O’Brien’s and its own sharp criticisms of British policy. A leading article of 10 December was particularly trenchant: The real trouble is that the Government, while trying to put the brake on UN action, has had no alternative policy to offer. It has allowed itself to be bullied by the Katanga lobby and that powerful group of Conservative MPs who have never accepted the wind of change in Africa.131 Although the issue of the thousand-pound bombs had been settled, the United Nations continued to require and request armaments from Britain. The Government now found itself caught between, on the one hand, its natural reluctance to fuel the military exploits of a UN force which it deemed to be poorly commanded and undisciplined and, on the other hand, accusations that it was undermining ONUC’s prospects of victory. As Boothby minuted on 14 December, ‘We are already under heavy fire in the United Nations for our allegedly half-hearted support of the UN in the Congo.’132 So it came to be that Foreign Office diplomats found themselves taking decisions on which military hardware should be made available to the United Nations. Thus, on one request, Sir Roger Stevens noted that ‘I am not sure that H.E. [high explosive] mortar shells are for “personal defence.” ’ A week later, Boothby, who seemed to be caught up in the feverish atmosphere of arming ONUC to keep peace in New York, proposed that since Britain was already supplying ammunition and high-explosive mortar bombs, it seemed illogical to deny the United Nations ‘relatively harmless’ smoke bombs.133 Home agreed, but pleaded ‘cannot we do something to keep these things out of the press?’134 His fears were well-founded and the British newspapers soon reported the details. The Commonwealth Relations Office also became involved, warning that British reluctance to provide replacement engines for the Indian Canberra aircraft would be a ‘gift to those in the Indian camp who are at this moment pressing their Government to agree to the purchase of Russian MiG fighters’.135 Thus, arming the UN operation became part of a larger objective of preventing Soviet influence over the armed services of a Commonwealth country. Home’s fears of renewed UN enthusiasm for resolving the Katanga issue by force were realized in October 1962 when ONUC’s military command contemplated acquiring napalm bombs to deal with Katangese aircraft

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stored underground. Enquiries by the British Mission in New York ascertained that the idea had aroused ‘no enthusiasm at all’ among senior Secretariat officials. The latter predicted ‘a tremendous amount of criticism of the United Nations if [ONUC] started employing such inhumane weapons which … most people regard as purely anti-personnel and indeed as weapons of terror’.136 Such a request can only have reinforced the British perception that, even after two years, ONUC’s military command lacked both a sense of responsibility and political judgement.

Pressuring Katanga As the dust settled on the violence of late 1961, a protracted debate commenced over how best to bring Tshombé into line.137 The Secretariat’s attention began to turn more closely to the complicity of Northern Rhodesia in sustaining Katanga’s efforts to remain independent. U Thant asked that UN observers be allowed to supervise movement across the border between them. Although Britain transmitted the request, it claimed to have little leverage over Prime Minister Welensky of the Central African Federation, who rejected it. However, Home hoped that Welensky could be persuaded to invite the Secretary-General to visit Northern Rhodesia to satisfy himself that cross-border movement was already under control.138 When U Thant visited London in July Home suggested that Tshombé and the Central Government be offered economic assistance as an inducement to settle their differences: ‘The United Nations operation should increasingly be converted into a long-term economic plan designed to restore the economy of the Congo … to pay is better than war.’139 U Thant agreed that the United Nations should seek to transform its effort into one of economic and technical assistance. Home explained to the Cabinet the need for an early settlement so that ONUC could be honourably concluded. If the present stalemate cannot be broken, there is a great risk that before long … the United Nations will decide to fight because if it does not go for a quick win, it would be forced by financial weakness to withdraw.140 In August, U Thant, with US support, produced a ‘Plan of National Reconciliation’, which provided for a federal system of government, division of revenues between the central and provincial governments, integration of military and gendarme units into a national army, and other measures. The US Administration sought support for imposing economic sanctions if Tshombé did not cooperate.141 The plan was accepted by Congolese Prime Minister Adoula and Tshombé, but the latter failed to take any action to implement it.142 Britain argued that sanctions might result in further fighting and destruction and questioned their legal justification. Material considerations also played a role, although these were not publicized: at a

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Cabinet meeting on 3 August, Home argued that Britain should oppose sanctions if only because of the damage they would cause Britain’s commercial interests.143 The Cabinet resolved that if sanctions were imposed against Katanga, Britain would not cooperate, but nor would it exploit the situation by increasing its purchases of Katangese copper. Britain would reject any request to participate in measures aimed at physically blocking the passage of exports from Katanga.144 In November, U Thant asked UN member states to exert economic pressure on Katanga, especially by stopping its export of copper and cobalt. Britain was saved from having to comply when ONUC responded forcefully to an attack by Katangese soldiers, thereby establishing its freedom of movement throughout Katanga. At the beginning of January 1963, Britain was tipped off over a final push by ONUC in less than reassuring terms: Bunche had admitted to the Belgian Ambassador in New York ‘that United Nations military leaders in the Congo are deliberately disobeying orders and that a major showdown must now be expected’.145 This duly occurred, and it produced widespread press reports of excessive violence by ONUC troops. On 14 January 1963, Tshombé ended the secession of Katanga. In June, the General Assembly decided to scale ONUC down, but it consented to Adoula’s request to retain several thousand troops in the Congo for one more year.146 When these were withdrawn the United Nations continued its programme of technical assistance. ONUC’s 450strong Nigerian police contingent remained to provide some security for the 1800 UN officials working in the programme.147

British perceptions of ONUC’s performance Throughout ONUC’s duration, British misgivings about the tasks it was assigned were regularly reinforced by doubts both about whether it had the capacity to fulfil them and whether its personnel were of a sufficiently high calibre to be trusted to make the best of interpreting and implementing the mandate. Several of the key British players produced verdicts on these and other aspects of ONUC’s performance. Macmillan gave a detailed assessment of ONUC’s personnel. Of the civilian staff he considered that ‘some of them were fine characters, others were little better than adventurers; still worse, a few seemed to be working in the Communist interest’.148 As for the military contingents, The United Nations army consists (with the exception of the Swedes, who have not fought anybody for two hundred years, and of the Irish, who will fight anybody) of a queer lot. The chances of being a survivor if you are wounded in this war are said to be slender. You are likely to be killed … either by the backward races of Congolese or by the advance guard of civilisation represented in the United Nations army. Yesterday, an

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Ethiopian soldier shot a Swiss banker in Elisabethville with a bazooka. No one knows why, and no one cares. But even Swiss bankers ought to have some rights.149 Disregarding Macmillan’s usual dry wit, several themes emerge from this description which are echoed in other British judgements on ONUC’s performance. First, it is clear that the Prime Minister now viewed ONUC as a fighting, rather than a peacekeeping, force. Second, he doubted the ability of at least some of ONUC’s contingents to take on this more robust role, in which military competence and self-restraint acquired added importance.150 Third, the Prime Minister had concluded that there was no accountability within ONUC and that no one questioned the excesses attributed to its troops.151 Dean was critical of the United Nations and urged caution in future peacekeeping operations: the Congo operation was beyond the capacity of the United Nations and the main conclusion which we should draw from this experience is that we must … see that the United Nations does not get involved in further peacekeeping operations without adequate arrangements for controlling them and limiting their scope.152 Home’s conclusions were mixed. In the House of Lords in 1963 he made three constructive recommendations for future peacekeeping operations: (1) at the authorizing level, directives issued by the Security Council should be unambiguous; (2) action by the United Nations must never be partisan (Home did not identify whether this referred to the mandate or its implementation); and (3) ‘the chain of command of the United Nations must convey orders which are made with precision and carried out from the Secretary-General down to the lowest officer on the ground’. Home did not conclude that peacekeeping had had its day, nor did he even rule out placing it on a more permanent footing: ‘if the United Nations is ever going to create an international police force, then the directorate of such a force must be clearly seen, by all the countries subscribing to it, to be objective and impartial; otherwise we shall never make any headway at all.’153 However, in his memoirs Home was more negative about the UN’s record and prospects: ‘The United Nations might one distant day be the ultimate guarantor of peace, but so far had been unable to provide security for anyone, nor was it likely to do so in the foreseeable future.’154 From a military perspective, General Alexander made some practical recommendations for improving peacekeeping, namely: at UN Headquarters, a military planning cell with a proper intelligence system; adequate equipment for UN contingents; clear orders; self-sufficiency of contingents, including in ground communications and transportation; and fixed tours of duty to maintain morale of the soldiers.155

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Finally, in July 1964, as the last of the UN’s troops departed the Congo, Michael Rose, the new British Ambassador in Leopoldville, produced a detailed and balanced British verdict on ONUC. He praised the technical work carried out by ONUC’s civilian component, which had prevented the Congo from foundering completely. However, he believed that ONUC’s military operations had been hampered by the fact that they had never had a clear-cut objective. Rose considered that ONUC had operated an effective system for maintaining law and order during the tenure of Robert Gardiner, the Ghanaian in charge of ONUC from February 1962 to May 1963. Rose quoted Gardiner’s own description of his strategy, namely: the classic British colonial technique of keeping small forces in potential trouble spots to deter would-be trouble-makers … Gardiner regarded all the United Nations operations, including the advance by the Indian brigade in January 1963, which finally toppled Tshombé, as merely an extension of this method of maintaining law and order.156 Gardiner’s strategy, as recounted by Rose, provides concrete testimony by a practitioner that peacekeeping’s lineage, at least in its incarnation in the Congo, could be traced back to British colonial policing. In contrast, Rose was critical of the UN’s military efforts in Katanga in 1961, ‘The political direction was inept and the operations themselves were botched.’ However, he placed in context the casualties caused by ONUC, which were ‘infinitesimal compared with the losses inflicted by the Congolese on each other’. Rose summed up the UN’s operation in Katanga as ‘necessary, if distasteful’.157 Rose reserved most of his criticism for the UN’s failure to train the Congolese to govern themselves. As for General Alexander’s plan to disarm the ANC, Rose felt that subsequent events had vindicated Alexander, and believed that Adoula agreed. In summary, Rose argued that the United Nations had had little choice but to assume the role of a colonial power in the Congo: the United Nations were driven by the ineluctable compulsion of events into an ever deeper involvement in the internal affairs of the Congo until in the end they had no alternative but to accept the final responsibility for the maintenance of law and order and the suppression of rebellion, if necessary by force.158

Conclusion Although peacekeeping lost its innocence in the Congo, it survived the ONUC experience. One reason why such a bloody and disorderly

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undertaking did not lead to a terminal discrediting of UN operations was that, ultimately, it contributed to the accomplishment of important objectives. Belgium’s unilateral intervention was reversed, the civil conflict was contained within Congolese borders, and the country was held intact, with the main wealth-producing region, Katanga, restrained from seceding. In addition, ONUC’s civilian wing was quietly successful in creating a rudimentary national infrastructure in what would now be called a failed state.159 In one respect ONUC was a victim of its own initial success: it had been deployed so promptly after trouble broke out that the only point of comparison was the relative stability which had prevailed during the period of Belgian rule. As a result, the United Nations was held disproportionately responsible for the subsequent turmoil. Vested interests kept ONUC going. For Hammarskjöld, the credibility of peacekeeping, his ambitions for a UN role in Africa, and his personal prestige were at stake. U Thant inherited an operation which was already in over its head but in which so much had already been invested that he clearly resolved to see it through to some sort of conclusion. Yet even had U Thant wished to cut the UN’s losses immediately, there were too many other players involved who saw no plausible alternative to keeping ONUC in place. The United States toyed briefly with the idea of intervening directly if the UN operation disintegrated, and became the driving force behind the approach which finally won out, namely squeezing Tshombé into reaching an accommodation with the Central Government. The USSR and France did not like ONUC, but they had insufficient leverage to end it so long as others were prepared to stave off UN bankruptcy. Despite the dissatisfaction of some key members, in the absence of a better strategy, the Afro-Asian countries would not have allowed an operation designed to save one of their number simply to collapse. The United Kingdom’s primary objectives were the same as Hammarskjöld’s, namely to contain the conflict and prevent it from destabilizing the region. Britain’s traditional desire to maintain law and order became a recurrent theme in its dealings with the Secretariat. Once ONUC became embroiled in the civil conflict, Britain came to view the operation itself as posing the greatest threat of destabilization. Britain’s approach then degenerated into a series of efforts to contain the consequences of the latest decision or action by ONUC. In other words, Britain opted for reactive damage limitation rather than proactive policy-making. This reactive approach certainly did not signify a lack of interest: the conflict had considerable domestic ramifications and was handled at the highest level of government, particularly by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. When things went well for ONUC, the public and private views of British policy-makers coincided: at the beginning, Macmillan, Lloyd and Home were unusually positive about the Secretariat’s efforts to launch the operation quickly, and they said so publicly. In a manner similar to its response

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to UNEF, even when the Government was privately dissatisfied with ONUC, it remained largely stoical about the force in public. O’Brien became a whipping-boy, receiving a full blast of British displeasure over Operation Morthor, as he recounts in his book. Home, in his Berwick-on-Tweed speech, expressed dissatisfaction with many aspects of the United Nations, but not explicitly with ONUC. Since several of the major troop-contributors were Commonwealth members, such British reticence was good politics. It fell to General Alexander to voice public criticism of the incompetence of ONUC’s leadership. This focused on the flaws in the command and control, which became especially dangerous in a situation of active combat. Bunche’s outburst in response to such criticisms only confirmed the absence of internal cohesion in the operation. Ultimately, however, Britain did not wield much constructive influence, either over events or over ONUC’s evolution. This was evident in the UN’s determination to continue prosecuting the war in Katanga and U Thant’s unwillingness to be deflected from imposing sanctions, both despite British opposition. The presence of British officers in Commonwealth contingents complicated individual operations by ONUC, but was of no lasting significance. On the other hand, Britain was perceived as having the potential to be obstructive through such factors as its commercial interests in Katanga, its association with Welensky, its control of much of East African airspace, and the activities of British mercenaries. The British Government was regularly accused of exercising that negative influence to undermine the United Nations, and its inability to rebut such charges illustrated its comparative impotence. ONUC set several important precedents in areas which Britain had carefully ring-fenced until then, notably in its use of force in situations other than strict self-defence and in intervening in internal affairs. Britain maintained its opposition to ONUC imposing a political solution in Katanga by force. However, there was never any real prospect of Home following through on what was apparently his only alternative policy, namely to terminate British support for the United Nations – not least because of the uproar it would cause in Britain. The Government therefore acquiesced in ONUC’s actions. It helped that Hammarskjöld was known to be sympathetic to the West and that U Thant, if not actively pro-Western, at least intended to bring ONUC to an end as soon as possible. Given the alternative of Soviet meddling and the collapse of the Congo, the British seem to have viewed the UN’s expanded power as the lesser of two evils. In terms of the evolution of peacekeeping, ONUC marked a qualitative increase in the scope of a UN operation. However, the pace of events meant that the Secretariat’s efforts to match ONUC’s military capacity to its tasks were rushed and controversial. The same applied to the doctrinal underpinning of the operation: ONUC found itself functioning in a civil war, and engaging in occasional peace enforcement, while relying on ad hoc

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adaptations to a modus operandi founded on UNEF’s task of monitoring an inter-state ceasefire. Moreover, by launching ONUC with an open-ended mandate the member states had deprived themselves of any real control. Yet the operation also made pioneering efforts to establish protected areas for civilians and to prevent genocide; the fact that these have long been overlooked highlights the weak institutional memory of the United Nations. It would not have been unexpected for a government which felt misgivings about the United Nations generally and which had had a near-death experience at the hands of a UN operation to renounce peacekeeping altogether. However, Britain appeared to draw very few clear conclusions from ONUC, apart from the need to give UN operations unambiguous mandates and enhance the chain of command. Indeed, despite the chaos in the Congo, during ONUC’s lifetime the British Government backed the deployment of: (1) the UN Security Force in West Irian (1962–63), which came even closer than ONUC to neo-colonialism by helping the UN Temporary Executive Authority run West Irian; (2) the UN observation mission in Yemen (1963–64), deployed in another area of strategic interest to Britain; and (3) most strikingly, the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus (March 1964–), to which, moreover, Britain also contributed a contingent. Quite how little adverse impact the Congo experience had on official British thinking about peacekeeping at this time is examined in the next chapter.

6 Strengthening Peacekeeping, 1961–64

Hammarskjöld’s death in 1961, the Congo quagmire and the UN’s concomitant financial crisis placed the Organization’s efforts to improve the conceptual and practical foundations of peacekeeping in cold storage. U Thant did not display his predecessor’s drive to strengthen the intellectual underpinning of the UN’s work, and the deaths of 250 peacekeepers and international staff in the Congo constituted a profoundly chastening experience for the Secretariat. However, in Britain, while events in the Congo certainly made life more difficult for proponents of peacekeeping, there remained a residual faith in the value of UN operations. Even during ONUC’s bloodiest period in December 1961, when the Government vacillated over supplying bombs to the United Nations, the Labour Opposition still felt able to accuse it of failing to give the Organization the tools to do the job. Moreover, as had happened in the aftermath of the Suez crisis, officials in the Foreign Office and elsewhere in Whitehall soon resumed pondering how to fix peacekeeping. This chapter examines the ongoing development of thinking on peacekeeping among British policy-makers at this time, and the surprisingly measured conclusions they drew from the UN’s woes in the Congo. This process can be viewed as a continuation of policy-makers’ first real consideration, in 1957, of peacekeeping as an integral function of the United Nations. The chapter looks at the practical contributions of civil servants, often made with little, if any, Ministerial input. It also studies the impact of the personal interest in peacekeeping of senior British military figures. The account thereby highlights the fact that policy does not always result from Cabinet debates and Ministerial decisions but can emerge out of the actions of lowerlevel players acting on the belief that a practice is worthwhile. British efforts to strengthen peacekeeping did not occur in isolation and must be viewed in the light of other aspects of the country’s foreign affairs at the time, including its position in the changing political climate inside 132

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and outside the United Nations. The turbulent relations between the superpowers and their allies not only produced the 1961 Berlin crisis, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and, more positively, the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, but also contributed to the growing sense of identity of the nonaligned movement. Hammarskjöld and U Thant encouraged the latter’s belief that smaller countries could play a distinctive role in the United Nations and that their views on peacekeeping and other issues should not be ignored by more powerful players, including Britain. Of equal importance for understanding Britain’s position on UN peacekeeping in this period are the several military interventions which it conducted outside a UN framework. In particular, the 1961 intervention in Kuwait highlighted the fact that strengthening peacekeeping did not necessarily entail supporting a role for the United Nations in every crisis. The account ends before the launch, in March 1964, of the UN operation in Cyprus (UNFICYP), which is treated in the next chapter.

British views on standing international forces In April 1961, Edward Hale of the Foreign Office’s UN Department took stock of efforts to create a force ‘permanently available, on immediate call’ by the United Nations.1 By this, he apparently meant a standing force, and he sought to distinguish it from ‘a force permanently at the disposal of the United Nations, on the model of [UNEF]’, which signified a standby force. Even this rather opaque distinction was abandoned in the analysis, and Hale followed the Foreign Office’s habit of using the term ‘permanent force’ to refer to both varieties. Hale concluded that little had changed since the canvassing of other Whitehall departments and Commonwealth countries in 1957. He assumed that the General Assembly would retain the right to launch UN operations and observed that the expansion of the UN’s membership entailed a risk of increased pressure on Britain and other colonial powers to accept a force in a dependent territory. He considered that unless recent positive remarks by US officials on peacekeeping yielded ‘any startling proposals’, the best approach would be to maintain the current line of supporting a ‘permanent’ force in principle, while pointing out the practical difficulties. Hale’s conclusion reflected the Foreign Office’s current focus on UN peacekeeping at the structural or ‘macro’ level. This included the legislative authority for creating operations (namely, whether they should be authorized exclusively by the Security Council or whether the General Assembly could continue to play a role) and the relative permanence of a force (that is, standing, standby or completely ad hoc). However, ONUC’s performance at this time showed that there were also many micro-level measures which could be taken to strengthen the management and quality of peacekeeping,

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and British officials were soon to concentrate on these. First, however, came another quick-fire British gesture in the Middle East.

British military intervention in Kuwait, July 1961 Since the 1957 Defence White Paper,2 the Government had been striving to reduce defence expenditure, leading to a growing divergence between Britain’s overseas responsibilities and its ability to protect them. It might therefore be expected that policy-makers would have explored every opportunity for burden-sharing in preventing or controlling conflict in areas where Britain retained interests. However, as events in Kuwait in the summer of 1961 were to show, the situation was more nuanced. Certainly, the Government was deeply hesitant, and largely unable, to take on additional prolonged military obligations abroad. Yet short-lived expeditions could serve valuable domestic and international purposes if British forces could be extricated and returned to normal service quickly. The experience of finding its troops almost marooned in Jordan in 1958 had apparently not deterred the Government from embarking on similar unilateral missions. Through an Exchange of Notes on 19 June 1961 Britain and Kuwait replaced their 1899 Treaty, according to which Kuwait had been obliged to seek British approval before receiving ‘representatives of other Powers’. The 1961 Notes emphasized Kuwait’s independence but confirmed Britain’s readiness to assist it, if so requested.3 At that time, Kuwait provided 38 per cent of British oil imports.4 Within days, this commitment was put to the test when the Iraqi leader, General Kassem, declared that Kuwait was an integral part of Iraq. On 29 June Britain received indications that Iraq was preparing to send troops and tanks to Basra, thirty miles from the Kuwaiti border.5 The Ruler of Kuwait, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sabah, requested military support from Britain and Saudi Arabia. The latter sent a token 100 paratroops to Kuwait, but Britain dispatched a much larger force of soldiers, warships and aircraft. Within ten days, there were 6000 British troops in Kuwait.6 After the successful deterrence of an Iraqi invasion (although Iraq subsequently denied any such intention), some commentators viewed the British operation as ‘finally burying the Suez episode’.7 On the other hand, precisely because no concrete Iraqi action had materialized, suspicions arose that the operation had been designed to test the efficacy of the strategic reserve, the rapid deployment capacity deriving from the Sandys vision of cost-effective defence.8 It is true that the Government wanted a clear run at the operation, confirmed by Britain’s careful managing of the timing of Kuwait’s appeal to the Security Council.9 Foreign Secretary Home told US Secretary of State Rusk on 29 June that ‘we would not wish an approach to the Security Council to prevent us from taking the necessary precautionary action in Kuwait’.10 Kuwait finally approached the Council on 1 July, after the first British troops had landed. This allowed the operation to go ahead and

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precluded accusations that Britain had bypassed the Council after the latter had become seized of the issue. Yet avoiding diplomatic complications and testing the strategic reserve concept were not the only reasons why some policy-makers wanted to exclude the United Nations. On 2 July the Foreign Office raised with the Mission in New York the possibility that a UN force might be proposed to ‘take over our responsibility for assisting the Ruler’.11 Such a force could have political, military and financial advantages; it was presumably for these reasons that Home raised the option in the Cabinet the following day.12 However, in a message to New York the Foreign Office was doubtful whether a UN force would be effective: Moreover, if it meant that the Ruler of Kuwait and, encouraged by his example, the other Rulers in the Persian Gulf area, were no longer dependent on us for their defence, the ultimate implications for the United Kingdom in terms of access to oil, including the financial basis on which we can obtain it, and the investment of the [sterling] balances of the Ruler of Kuwait and later perhaps other Rulers, might be very serious. As you know, we have not been willing to contemplate so far a standing United Nations presence at Buraimi because of these long-term implications for our Persian Gulf policy as a whole.13 Once again, therefore, British interests in the Middle East caused at least some British policy-makers to question, or attempt to restrict, a peacekeeping role for the United Nations.14 As in Suez in 1956 and in Lebanon and Jordan in 1958, professed British doubts about the UN’s efficacy were a smokescreen for other objectives. Each case reflected British efforts to control the independence of Middle Eastern states. In 1956, despite being an independent, sovereign state, Egypt was deemed unfit to operate the Suez Canal, UN-sponsored negotiations were rejected and military action was launched to ‘protect’ the Canal; in 1958, Britain was keen to show Nasser that the West would safeguard the independence of Jordan and Lebanon; and in 1961, there was a desire to persuade Kuwait and other Gulf States that they remained dependent on Britain for their security. Although the Middle East was the region where peacekeeping was in the greatest demand, it was also where Britain was most uncomfortable with UN operations. In the British Parliament, Opposition politicians generally accepted that the Government had had no option but to act as it did. However, in the first debate on the subject on 3 July they immediately started pressing for a UN force to replace the British troops.15 Macmillan replied that the Government would not rule out any solution ‘by a United Nations or other force’, but he argued that, at present, the British troops were ‘the only effective method of maintaining the independence of Kuwait’.16 However, it was soon decided that Iraq did not pose a significant threat after all and, with Arab criticism growing, the British rapidly sought to withdraw some of their forces. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union realized that

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there was political hay to be made from the situation and lost no time in condemning British actions as colonialism.17 On 7 July, it vetoed a draft British resolution which would have both called on all states to respect the independence and territorial integrity of Kuwait and urged all concerned to work for peace and tranquillity in the area.18 Soviet Ambassador Morozov justified the veto on the grounds that the draft resolution vindicated Britain’s ‘occupation’ of Kuwait.19 The Foreign Office representative in Kuwait suspected that the Soviet veto was ‘no doubt intended to keep our forces in Kuwait while Russia exploits the situation to our disadvantage with the Arab States’.20 On 20 July Macmillan told the House of Commons that the veto made a UN solution more difficult; he now mentioned the possibility that the Arab League might play a role.21 Faced with the growing risk that its feet would be held to the fire indefinitely, Britain began to support the creation of an Arab peacekeeping force. However, this was not particularly palatable to the British, since it allowed the UAR, which ended up supplying the largest contingent, an irresistible entrée into a region of profound importance to Britain.22 The Arab League had never mounted such a force and attached more importance ‘to not fumbling their operation than to making a punctual appearance’.23 It took two months for the arrangements for the force to be finalized. As a result, throughout the Berlin crisis in August, British troops found themselves tied down in Kuwait. On 10 September the first contingent (from Saudi Arabia) of the Arab League Security Force arrived in Kuwait. Contingents from Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia and the UAR also took part, bringing the total strength to 3000.24 The last of the British troops were withdrawn on 19 October 1961, but the United Kingdom maintained a close watch on the situation from its base in Bahrain.25 Macmillan declared in his memoirs that the Kuwait episode ‘afforded an admirable example of the effective use of a small British force if its deployment was rapid and timely’.26 However, there was no disguising the fact that such actions placed a significant strain on British military resources at a time of stringent defence cutbacks. Mounting the operation had required drawing British troops and equipment from all over the world: the Middle East, Germany, Cyprus, Kenya, Singapore and the United Kingdom.27 The simultaneous crisis in Berlin necessitated the calling up of British Army reserves. Britain could not count on being bailed out by a regional body in other areas of British interest: the case grew for rendering UN peacekeeping more reliable.

Anglo-US cooperation on peacekeeping However, in the immediate aftermath of Hammarskjöld’s death in September 1961 caution was in order. The British now realized that they had

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‘never had it so good’ at the United Nations as during his tenure. On 11 October John Tahourdin, head of the UN Department, noted that it is clear that the United Nations will never again be the same as it was under Hammarskjöld, and that Western interests will suffer … [Hammarskjöld] threw his influence … behind the Western conception of … justice and morality between nations.28 Sir Frederic Hoyer Millar, Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, agreed that ‘the UN is inevitably going to be a much less effective organization and … it may tend to develop into little more than a talking shop’.29 Foreign Secretary Home’s speech in Berwick-on-Tweed in December 1961 was a warning shot that Britain might turn its back on the United Nations out of protest against anti-Westernism in the Organization.30 Yet British interest in strengthening peacekeeping was soon revived. The immediate cause was the constructive stance adopted towards the United Nations by the Administration of US President Kennedy, who had taken office in January 1961. On 25 September 1961, just as ONUC was getting out of its depth in Katanga and days after Hammarskjöld’s death, Kennedy urged UN members to earmark special peacekeeping units in their armed forces to be on call to the United Nations, with advance provision for financial and logistic support.31 The American efforts started in earnest in the build-up to Anglo-US talks on the United Nations, which were held in Washington in January 1962. Initially, the British baulked at their counterparts’ enthusiasm. In November 1961, a State Department delegation called on the Foreign Office and raised the issue of peacekeeping – ‘unexpectedly’, according to a subsequent British note.32 It transpired that the United States was working on three studies: on (1) the earmarking and training of national forces for international duties, including the possible creation of an international military staff college; (2) command and control of UN operations, including ensuring better military expertise in the Secretariat and improved intelligence in the field; and (3) possible US financial subsidies for these activities.33 Duncan Wilson, Superintending Under-Secretary in charge of the UN Department, reacted cautiously and warned the Americans against giving the impression that, by offering military assistance funds for peacekeeping, they were seeking to run the United Nations for their own purposes. However, the Americans persevered. On 30 December Dean reported from New York that the United States was contemplating ‘very ambitious’ proposals to place the United Nations on its feet financially, with the help of Britain and other countries, and to endow the Organization with more effective peacekeeping machinery ‘which would presumably also be more susceptible to Western control’. Dean was sceptical that the West could in fact gain such control. Worried about the future behaviour of the majority of the

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UN’s members, he warned against ‘giving them too much money to play with’.34 The Anglo-US talks took place on 11 and 12 January 1962, at the level of senior officials; Sir Harold Caccia, who had replaced Hoyer Millar as Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, led the British delegation. The brief prepared for them remained circumspect about the US State Department’s ‘desultory re-examination’ of UN peacekeeping, and noted that even the US representatives at the United Nations lacked enthusiasm for the subject. However, while expecting little progress in the talks, the Foreign Office did not want to be so negative about the Americans’ suggestions as to encourage them to go their own way without taking British views into account. It was therefore decided that the approach should focus on obtaining clarification of the American ideas.35 At the talks, the two delegations decided to exchange papers on the military aspects of UN peacekeeping, leaving aside the extent to which improvements were politically possible or desirable. This exchange set in train a prolonged exercise which provides revealing insights into British thinking on the future scope of UN peacekeeping.

British military views on strengthening peacekeeping Although it appeared that US influence was currently sustaining British interest in strengthening peacekeeping, fresh impetus came from an unexpected source. Independently of the Anglo-US talks, the British Joint Services Staff College (JSSC) had prepared a study of the military shortcomings of UN peacekeeping forces. This project had arisen from the personal interest in peacekeeping of Lord Mountbatten, then Chief of the Defence Staff, who forwarded the paper to the Foreign Office at the beginning of February 1962.36 Mountbatten’s involvement and the work of the JSSC expanded the pool of those working on British peacekeeping policy. Mountbatten was proud that the military had initiated the paper, emphasising at a Chiefs of Staff meeting in April 1962 that it had originated not in the discussions in Washington but in an inter-service study, in autumn 1961, ‘of the chaos existing at the time in the Congo’.37 The pragmatism which their new military allies brought to the subject engendered renewed enthusiasm for peacekeeping on the part of some Foreign Office officials. The JSSC paper, entitled ‘Measures to Improve the Military Capability of the United Nations Organization’, concentrated on situations similar to that in the Congo, namely where law and order within a country had broken down. The paper echoed General Alexander’s proposal during the start-up of ONUC that a Field Force Commander, who would spend much of his time visiting contingents in the field, should be appointed below the overall Force Commander, who would be based primarily in the capital of the host country. The American paper was finished at the end of January 1962 and

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was entitled ‘The Development of the Military and Policing Capabilities of the United Nations’.38 Both documents included such ideas as the earmarking of contingents for peacekeeping and the strengthening of the UN’s military staff in New York.39 They also both acknowledged that the permanent members of the Security Council would normally not contribute military forces, but the US paper argued that, in appropriate situations, ‘the United States should by no means exclude the possibility of a more substantial United Nations military response, involving the direct utilization of United States forces, in the face of a major threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression’. On this point, which implicitly recalled the UN Command in Korea, the United States was stretching peacekeeping to include peace enforcement. The US paper suggested that the UN officer training college should be generally modelled on the NATO Defence College; it could be located at UN Headquarters or in a neutral country such as Sweden or Switzerland; and it would be staffed in part by senior officers with UN experience.40 A new round of Anglo-US talks was scheduled for 9–10 July 1962, but a British official noted that ‘we are not anxious for too rapid progress while there is still uncertainty about the future of the office of the SecretaryGeneral, the United Nations is in financial difficulties, and the majority of the General Assembly is preoccupied with anti-colonialism’.41 Ahead of the meeting, the Chiefs of Staff produced a more detailed version of the JSSC paper, which was handed to the Americans in June.42 It identified four main areas for UN military action, which implicitly recalled past UN experiences: (1) to support a country against external aggression or a large-scale violation of a truce line (Korea); (2) to support the civil power where law and order appeared likely to break down (the Congo); (3) to help restore law and order if they did break down (the Congo); and (4) truce supervision (Palestine and Egypt). The Chiefs of Staff, while acknowledging that it was impracticable in existing circumstances, asserted that the most efficient military solution would be a ‘small international security force, of perhaps 5000 men, controlled and administered directly by the United Nations’. As a more practical alternative, they backed the earmarking of operational and logistic units by all UN member states except the permanent members of the Security Council, which should, nevertheless, be invited to earmark logistic support and communications units. The paper placed much stress on the need to improve the military advice available to the Secretary-General. The Chiefs of Staff believed that the Secretary-General’s military advisory staff should be headed by a two-star General and should comprise twelve officers. Revealing that the British military conceived peacekeeping as more multifaceted than simply the deployment of ground troops, the paper proposed that the twelve officers be divided into six army, four air force and two naval officers. It retained an earlier

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suggestion of the advance identification of a group of potential UN force commanders; these should be earmarked for a year at a time and should be able to draw on a skeleton staff to serve as the nucleus of their headquarters. The British firmly supported the creation of a UN officer training college, noting that this would provide the United Nations with ‘a permanent establishment where lessons of past operations could be analysed and future military policy and training methods evolved’.43 The planning paper continued to stress the need for a clear and comprehensive directive to the Force Commander, and even provided a succinct template, which included such optimistically clear instructions as ‘Your task, in co-operation with the [blank] Government is to restore and maintain law and order throughout the country’ and ‘You are empowered to disarm lawless elements in the furtherance of your task, and to make arrangements for Arms Control with the Government of [blank].’ Like the Americans, the Chiefs of Staff did not accord as much importance as the United Nations to the dividing line between peacekeeping and peace enforcement: their paper clearly envisaged the possibility of UN operations encountering armed resistance, and stated that ‘it is essential that the United Nations Force should be as well-equipped as the opposition that they are likely to meet’.44 This mindset ignored both the fundamentally pacific ethos of peacekeeping and the inevitable misgivings of troop contributors if there was a significant likelihood of their contingents becoming involved in hostilities. The adage si vis pacem, para bellum was never likely to be embraced as a motto for UN peacekeeping.

Parliamentary and public views on peacekeeping In the event, the Anglo-US meetings on 9–10 July 1962 did not result in immediate further progress. British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Joseph Godber told US Assistant Secretary of State Harlan Cleveland that events of the last twelve months (during which time ONUC had embarked on peace enforcement) had made the British Parliament reluctant to equip the United Nations with ‘ready forces’. However, Godber predicted that the objections would be short-lived if a peaceful settlement could be reached in the Congo. He asked that the United States ‘make the running for the moment’ but keep Britain in the picture.45 In fact, interest in peacekeeping did endure in Britain, both in Parliament and among the public. In February 1963, the House of Lords debated the subject of ‘A United Nations Force’, with Labour peer Lord Ogmore calling on the Government to support ‘a separate and permanent naval, military and air force, together with the necessary military government or civil affairs component, created, controlled and paid by, and owing sole allegiance to, the United Nations, with its own command structure and staff’.46

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Another participant in the debate was Lord Robertson of Oakridge, formerly General Brian Robertson, whose distinguished military career had included a period as military governor of Berlin and who had helped negotiate the withdrawal of Britain’s military presence from Egypt in 1954, two years prior to the Suez crisis. In a detailed speech he included in the lessons drawn from UN operations the need for: (1) speed of deployment; (2) the provision of ‘fighting’ troops; (3) suitable administrative arrangements; and (4) proper control of the force. He also stressed that no two cases encountered by the United Nations would be alike, and that the nature, size and composition of a peacekeeping force would have to be determined according to circumstances. He therefore ruled out the creation of a standing UN force: the United Nations was insufficiently mature as an organization to control a ‘vast and powerful weapon of this nature’. Nevertheless, Robertson, like the Chiefs of Staff, favoured strengthening the planning and logistic component of the UN’s military staff in New York.47 Foreign Secretary Home also participated in the debate, but was measured in his remarks, asserting that ‘while the United Nations is so weakened as it is by division, [its] police operations should be restricted to modest tasks within its strength’. If the Security Council or General Assembly reached broad agreement on the purpose of an international police force, then Britain would be prepared ‘to earmark forces without qualm’. By this, Home apparently meant giving the United Nations considerable authority to deploy a British contingent where it was needed, since he then qualified the offer by pointing out that at present ‘no country would assign its forces to the United Nations police force without conditions, and … would insist on retaining control of the circumstances in which the forces so allocated would be used’. For these reasons Home supported continuing the current ad hoc arrangements, while agreeing with the need to improve the military and administrative expertise at UN Headquarters.48 Lord Ogmore withdrew his motion without putting it to a vote. As for the House of Commons, some members had expressed their desire to strengthen peacekeeping the previous year, when the Parliamentary Group for World Government (which numbered 160 MPs and peers and included Margaret Thatcher, Parliamentary Secretary for Pensions) called for volunteers for a world police force, to number up to 20 000. As recounted in the press, the purpose was to prove that enough recruits could be found if the United Nations were to set up a force to maintain world law and order. It was reported that the British Government had so far shown no interest in the project, but the group hoped to send a deputation to Moscow to win Khrushchev’s support.49 The proclaimed goal of the world police force, which derived from the proposals of the Commission chaired by Lord Pakenham (see Chapter 4), was ‘to enforce clearly-defined world security (i.e. war-prevention) laws, as laid down by the United Nations, in those areas

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in which it had been invited to operate by the national governments concerned’. It would be supported by a peace reserve force. At a press conference at the House of Commons on 5 March 1963, the National Council for the Registration of Volunteers for a World Police Force was launched. The results of a Gallup poll were announced, according to which 73 per cent of British adults favoured the creation of a ‘permanent United Nations Emergency Unit’ and 29 per cent would be prepared to serve in it. The first volunteers included students, a secretary and a ‘recording artist’.50 The Chairman of the Council, Major-General W.A. Dimoline, a former British representative on the UN Military Staff Committee, articulated the approach that appeared to motivate many of those interested in strengthening peacekeeping at this time, namely that the proper lesson from the ONUC experience was not that the UN should be condemned, but rather that it ‘must be given the proper tools for carrying out a job which cannot, at this point in history, be carried out by anyone else’. Messages of support included one from Harold Wilson, the new leader of the Labour Opposition, who stated that volunteers could ‘bring appreciably nearer the time when some form of World Government in the peacekeeping sphere can be a reality’. By 19 March the number of British registrants had reached 4500.51 However, the Government did not pursue the issue and a Foreign Office internal minute noted that the policies of the Parliamentary Group for World Government tended to be over-idealistic and consequently difficult for the Government to associate itself with.52

Further Anglo-US collaboration On 15 April, Alan Campbell, the deputy British representative at the United Nations, reported that the US Mission had ‘received virtual carte blanche from the State Department to push forward with such moderate improvements [to peacekeeping] as can be made in the Secretariat without involving formal decisions by the Assembly or the Security Council’.53 The Americans had come up with an Eight-Point Plan which was ‘deliberately unambitious’, so as to be more acceptable to U Thant.54 Campbell considered the paper to be a useful first step towards anything more advanced. This view was shared by Sam Falle, the new head of the Foreign Office’s UN Department.55 The US plan, which ran to only two pages, included the publication of standard operating procedures for peacekeeping operations; selection, earmarking and training of key force commanders and staff officers; and a call by the United Nations ‘initially on a modest basis’ for countries to earmark forces, equipment and supplies for peacekeeping operations.56 The Americans were clearly in the lead at this point, and Sir Harold Caccia warned that ‘If we do not get in on the ground floor, we may find others doing things which would not fit in at all with our own ideas of organization, efficiency and economy.’57

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Home discussed the matter with Macmillan, who agreed with Caccia’s view. The following week, Home told the General Assembly: I want to see the element of improvisation removed from the peacekeeping operations of the Organization. In particular, a start should be made to strengthen, on a permanent basis, the chain of command at the disposal of the Secretary-General … [T]o abandon peacekeeping operations would … be very bad, for we should be abdicating our duties, which include the promotion of peace and peaceful change.58 The British Mission now collaborated fully with the Americans, and by November the two delegations had produced a joint paper based on the Eight-Point Plan. The Americans had decided to reduce the proposed number of additional military advisory staff to three, out of a desire not to ‘frighten’ the Secretary-General. The revised plan called for the preparation of military contingency plans for various kinds of peacekeeping operations, without specifying the location or countries involved. It suggested drawing up templates for launching small and larger observer missions, as well as one for large-scale peacekeeping forces such as UNEF and ONUC, confirming that the British had not rejected the United Nations running complex operations.59 This document was then handed to the Secretary-General.

Courting the Secretary-General’s Military Adviser In the previous two years the UN Secretariat had largely avoided issuing public proposals to strengthen peacekeeping. In a speech at Harvard University in June 1963, U Thant simply reiterated Hammarskjöld’s position against the creation of a permanent force, stating that it was ‘not a practical proposition at the present time’. All that U Thant proposed was that countries should make provision for suitable units to be made available at short notice for United Nations service, and thereby decrease the degree of improvisation necessary in an emergency.60 An analysis of the speech by the Foreign Office declared that the Secretary-General’s suggestions were ‘fully in accord with our own views’ and welcomed his opposition to a permanent force as ‘useful for dealing with well-meaning, but over-idealistic people in this country’.61 While the Secretariat had been reticent in public on reforming peacekeeping, there was some internal debate at UN Headquarters, and the British were aware of this. At the end of March, Alan Campbell reported that Ralph Bunche opposed expanding the Secretary-General’s military staff on the grounds that they would be underemployed after ONUC had ended; instead, Bunche preferred to encourage member states to compile lists of military and civilian personnel who would be sent on training courses. On the other hand, Major-General Indar Rikhye, U Thant’s Military Adviser, favoured strengthening his staff and improving the UN’s logistical arrangements.62

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The British generally shared Rikhye’s view and embarked on a confidential exercise to court him. Two days after Campbell’s report, Dean wrote to Duncan Wilson to propose a meeting between Rikhye and Lord Robertson, who, in addition to taking an active role in Parliamentary discussions on peacekeeping, was also a personal friend of Dean and his wife.63 On obtaining a green light from the Foreign Office, Dean contacted Robertson to explain his idea. He mentioned that the British Mission had been encouraging Rikhye to think along the lines outlined by Robertson in his speech to the House of Lords. Robertson’s own military service and contacts with politicians were ‘exactly the sort of experiences which are so sadly lacking in the UN Secretariat and which are largely the cause of the mistakes which they make from time to time’. Dean proposed that Robertson visit New York to meet Rikhye and other members of the Secretariat. Rikhye would learn a great deal from Robertson, and it would certainly be to our advantage that the man who is … the Secretary-General’s principal Military Adviser … should be well briefed on British ideas and British experience … [I]t is difficult for the British to take an active part in providing soldiers, arms, etc., for the UN, but we can provide the wide experience and knowledge which the smaller nations lack.64 Soon after writing to Robertson, Dean also took General Richard Hull, Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), to meet Rikhye. They discussed the latter’s participation in a military exercise to be hosted by Hull that September. This event, entitled UNISON ’63, would be attended by the Chiefs of Staff or high-ranking officers of Commonwealth countries, and the themes would include UN peacekeeping. Dean was confident that this would lead to ‘General Rikhye’s imbibing a great deal of British thought and experience, and the confidence which I hope he will inspire in senior British officers … should, I think, come in useful later on.’65 As Dean warmed to his mission, the tone of his correspondence with the Foreign Office became increasingly conspiratorial. It was decided that Robertson’s visit required ‘official cover’, in order to prevent ‘its true purpose becoming known’; it would therefore be portrayed as a personal visit to an old friend (Dean). This desire for secrecy revealed how sensitized the Foreign Office had become to giving the impression of great-power manipulation of peacekeeping. Dean was anxious to prevent Rikhye feeling pressured, ‘we must not let him think that he has been invited to London to the CIGS’s exercise in order to be handed over to a high-powered British General for indoctrination’.66 As Dean explained to Robertson, ‘Although Rikhye is one hundred per cent pro-British, all UN senior officials have a built-in defensive mechanism against any possibility that they might be nobbled.’67 With an ever greater air of intrigue, and no apparent sense of irony, Dean added that he had not yet revealed to Rikhye that the goal was to engage

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the latter in serious discussion with Robertson, ‘this, of course, is now the idea I must try and implant in his mind. It will … be a tricky operation; but I think we will manage’.68 Despite the great store which Dean and his colleagues in London set by the Rikhye–Robertson encounter, they never addressed the outcome they expected, except, in Falle’s words, that it should ‘help us to influence UN Secretariat thinking on the important question of peacekeeping’.69 There was certainly no plan of the gravity to merit quite such a cloak-and-dagger operation, aside from the desire not to embarrass the UN Secretariat. Nor did Dean articulate any more sinister objective, such as warning Rikhye away from developing peacekeeping in ways which might infringe on British interests. In any case, Rikhye’s British Army training and his respect for British military practices ensured that Robertson would be preaching to the converted. When apprised in 1999 of Dean’s plotting, Rikhye was amused and brushed it aside. He explained that he had welcomed the British support for his own efforts to improve the management of peacekeeping, but he had made clear the need for the Secretariat to preserve its independence.70 Dean and his colleagues simply seemed to feel an almost touching optimism that letting Robertson share his wisdom and experience with Rikhye would lead to British order and efficiency rubbing off on UN peacekeeping: as Dean put it to Robertson, ‘the essence of the British ideas [on peacekeeping] should be in the ascendancy’.71 As such, the initiative confirmed that Foreign Office officials retained both a genuine commitment to making peacekeeping work as well as possible and a conviction that British experience could not be bettered as a model to which the United Nations should aspire. In the event, Rikhye was temporarily dispatched by U Thant to Yemen and was unable to attend the UNISON exercise. Lord Mountbatten wrote a letter to U Thant in which, in Dean’s words, he ‘reacted somewhat bitterly’ to the Secretary-General’s decision. However, Mountbatten’s letter confirmed his continued interest in peacekeeping, even recording his belief in ‘the ultimate creation of a World Peacekeeping Force’.72 Mountbatten continued to feel strongly about his personal role in improving UN peacekeeping and, when informed by Clive Rose of the Foreign Office of Lord Robertson’s involvement, ‘said something not entirely complimentary about the activities of retired Generals’.73 Rose minuted that although there was no specific defence interest involved in the British efforts to strengthen peacekeeping, it would be prudent to keep the British military authorities informed.74 He thereby highlighted the fact that the subject of UN peacekeeping usually fell firmly within the ambit of the Foreign Office. Lord Robertson visited New York in October 1963 and ‘tried particularly hard to convince … Bunche of the need for building up a small operational and planning staff’ under Rikhye.75 Dean provided the Foreign Office with a rosy account of the visit, during which Robertson had established cordial relations with, and prepared a short report for, U Thant and senior

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Secretariat officials. Robertson’s report, which was welcomed by the Secretariat, was pragmatic. It endorsed the principle of standby forces earmarked by UN member states, while stressing the need for sufficient administrative units. In addition, it emphasized the importance both of a single channel for policy guidance from the Secretary-General to the force commander and of improved planning; proposed an increase in Rikhye’s staff to a total of 13; and suggested that these might be drawn from liaison officers assigned to the Permanent UN Missions of countries which had earmarked contingents for UN service.76 According to Rikhye, the British interest reinforced U Thant’s thinking on peacekeeping.77 The Foreign Office broadly agreed with Robertson’s report and welcomed it as providing ‘professional and independent backing’ for the Anglo-US plan.78 Asked for its opinion, the Ministry of Defence was, as usual, positive about the value of peacekeeping, and also concurred with most of Robertson’s report. Its assessment revealed the acceptance by at least parts of the British civil service of the extent to which UN peacekeeping forces would operate within, as compared to between, states. In fact, the Ministry of Defence assumed that the Organization would concentrate on such operations, ‘It seems inevitable that the United Nations forces will be concerned mainly with internal security operations and these, as we have good reason to know, are a specialised art.’79 Nevertheless, the Foreign Office, which did not want to publicize Robertson’s role or his paper, continued to give precedence to the AngloUS plan.

Peacekeeping’s funding crisis In 1963 the issue of funding peacekeeping moved to center stage. The financial crisis caused by the non-payment of peacekeeping dues by France, the USSR and the latter’s allies made UN bankruptcy a very real prospect. Another concern was the fact that sizeable peacekeeping costs could rapidly place poorer countries more than two years in arrears, jeopardizing their vote in the General Assembly under Article 19 of the Charter. This raised the question of fairness in apportioning the expense of operations from which developed countries with greater global interests stood to benefit the most. Aside from the issuing of 20-year UN bonds, for which Britain paid $12 million, throughout the year diplomatic efforts continued in order to find a solution. The debate again brought to the fore the British reasoning for supporting peacekeeping. As an indication of the gravity with which the British viewed the subject, the Cabinet discussed it on several occasions. A Cabinet paper submitted by Home illustrated the challenge of finding a settlement which was politically acceptable.80 For example, he noted that one proposal, for a general

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peacekeeping fund based on annual compulsory assessments, might result in too much power accumulating in the hands of the Secretary-General and tempt an Afro-Asian majority to make occasions to use it. It might involve us in automatic financial support of operations of which we disapproved.81 Home’s wording in the Cabinet memorandum glossed over the acceptance within the Foreign Office that Britain should still pay something for even those operations of which it disapproved. Whereas the United States favoured a compulsory sharing of all costs, the British plan was that only some of the expenses would be recouped through compulsory assessments on all members; the United States, United Kingdom and about fifteen other ‘faithfuls’ would make additional voluntary contributions on a regular scale. Retaining an element of compulsory funding would meet the concerns of those member states which believed in the collective responsibility of all members for all UN activities. Moreover, as Falle explained, the amount of money raised would probably be no less than under the American plan; and we should be free to contribute more generously to operations which we wished to see succeed (and, of course, less to those we found objectionable) with a consequent increase in the influence we could bring to bear upon them.82 This explanation for the British position suggested a more overt version of the influence-seeking which motivated the wooing of Rikhye. A pick-andchoose approach, allowing states to limit their expenditure on operations of which they disapproved, had undoubted appeal for the Foreign Office, because of the possibility of UN intervention in territories for which we shall continue to have responsibility for some years to come … [W]e are more vulnerable than most other countries to unwelcome UN intervention.83 Falle’s justification for seeking to avoid a showdown on this issue once more confirmed British commitment to peacekeeping and the United Nations: Despite the attractions of putting the Russians in the dock and sentencing them to the loss of voting rights in the General Assembly, it is in the interest of the United Nations and (since we and our friends want to keep the Organization going) of the West to avoid the crisis, if possible by devising … an arrangement which the major defaulters can accept without loss of face.84

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A special session of the General Assembly was held in June, at which Britain and the United States decided to let the Canadians take the lead in negotiating the Western position with the developing countries. The General Assembly adopted seven resolutions, including one declaring that the Assembly should make provision for financing a peacekeeping operation at the same time as it was authorized; one asking a working group of twentyone states to consider special methods for the equitable sharing of peacekeeping costs; and one asking the Secretary-General to explore the feasibility of establishing a voluntary peace fund. In short, the Special Session failed to resolve immediately the issue of peacekeeping financing, although it was able to reach agreement on reducing the debts incurred by ONUC and UNEF.85 Home declared that the outcome was ‘broadly satisfactory’.86

Further interventions and neo-colonialism 1964 was a pivotal year for Britain’s relationship with peacekeeping. It began with a flurry of British military interventions – in Cyprus, Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda – as well as an increase in Britain’s military presence in Malaysia. All were former colonies experiencing bloodshed or turbulence.87 The fact that their independence had not diminished their ability to prevail on Britain for assistance showed that, to an alarming degree, the former empire could strike back. The new Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home (the former Lord Home, who had succeeded Macmillan in October 196388), presented the British military actions in a positive light. He told the Commons on 6 February 1964 that I hope that if there were any doubts … about Britain’s motives towards the newer Commonwealth countries they have been removed … [and] that the Commonwealth countries understand that when the chips are down the Commonwealth can rely on Britain … [W]e want to take our troops out of their countries as soon as they feel that it is safe for us to do so. We have no other motive to be there except to help them to keep order.89 The ‘motive’ which Douglas-Home rejected was that of ‘neo-colonialism’, which had become a catchword at the United Nations during the previous year. Between 1960 and 1964 17 British colonies gained independence.90 However, no sooner had the accelerated pace of British decolonization begun to take the sting out of anti-colonialist rhetoric than Britain found itself confronted by accusations that its decolonization was simply a ploy to conceal ongoing exploitation of its former colonies. It was hard to refute this charge effectively, but the British decided to try. In 1963 the Foreign Office embarked on a search for an expert to provide suitable defensive material on neo-colonialism for the delegation in New York.91 Yet British policy-makers

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also did not accept the reasoning of their critics, and argued that, given the need of developing countries for investment capital, ‘it is vital that “neo-colonialism” should not become a dirty word at the United Nations as colonialism has’.92 On 1 October 1963, while still Foreign Secretary, Douglas-Home had lectured the General Assembly on what is called neo-colonialism. I have never understood what it means, but my answer to the charge is crisp and to the point. Do the newly independent countries want capital for development or do they not?93 Although Douglas-Home cited Commonwealth loyalty to explain the British military interventions at the beginning of 1964, Britain would not have undertaken them if it had not had national interests, including investments, at stake. Yet there was a risk that the interventions would intensify the debate over neo-colonialism. More importantly, the unexpected and urgent dispatch of British armed forces into such potentially messy situations was not the ideal way to restore stability in important regions. The notion of burden-sharing and burden-passing, became increasingly attractive and was debated in Parliament. On 19 February 1964, Labour MP Stan Awbery complained to the Minister of Defence, Peter Thorneycroft, that ‘we are spending a very large sum of money on defence in various parts of the world which we can ill afford, and … in some of these places we are not wanted at all’. Awbery asked Thorneycroft to ‘consider the possibility of the United Nations taking over some of these responsibilities instead of this country carrying them alone’.94 However, a Conservative MP, Dudley Williams, requested Thorneycroft to ‘bear in mind that one of the most important principles of war is economy of force, and that all our experience of the United Nations seems to lead us to believe that this principle would not be maintained’.95 It would clearly take some time for the United Nations to persuade its critics that peacekeeping forces could act responsibly. In an echo of colonial policing, when the British forces withdrew from Tanganyika in April 1964, they were temporarily replaced by a Nigerian battalion.96 The previous month, as the next chapter relates, Britain had taken burden-sharing to a new level, when it obtained sizeable UN reinforcement for its peacekeeping activities in Cyprus.

Conclusion The most striking aspect of the further evolution of British thinking about peacekeeping reviewed in this chapter is that it happened against the backdrop of ONUC. British policy-makers resisted reacting to their dissatisfaction with that operation by rejecting UN peacekeeping outright, although Hammarskjöld’s death caused them doubts about the direction in which the United Nations would move. Once these were allayed, the impulse to

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continue improving peacekeeping may be traced to several factors. These illustrate changing British perceptions of the character of peacekeeping. First, despite flashes of irritation, Government politicians, officials and the military generally accepted that the Organization had done its best in an impossible situation in the Congo. Second, UN peacekeeping was becoming less threatening to British interests, although, as the Kuwait issue showed, policy-makers still felt misgivings about UN involvement in the Middle East. A standing UN force was less likely than ever, depriving meddlesome UN members of the temptation to use it for unwelcome purposes. The Organization’s financial crisis served to remind the more energetic non-aligned states that the UN’s future depended to an uncomfortable extent on the willingness of powerful Western states to bail it out. In addition, Hammarskjöld’s death reduced the activism of the Secretariat, and U Thant showed little interest in using peacekeeping to carve out a more independent role for his office. These factors undermined peacekeeping’s potency as an independent actor, reinforcing its more reassuring role as a tool controlled by member states. Third, peacekeeping was a growth industry and Britain had an interest in influencing the manner of its evolution, primarily by stressing efficiency and economy. These leitmotifs reflected Britain’s traditional concern with cost-effectiveness and ensured that peacekeeping could be kept on a tight leash. British officials were pleased by the presence of General Rikhye as U Thant’s Military Adviser, and they considered him an ally. Even though Rikhye emphasized the independence of the Secretariat, his conception of peacekeeping, and especially the need to concentrate on micro-level improvements, mirrored British objectives. Fourth, external pressures were at work. While there is little evidence to suggest that support in Parliament and among the public for strengthening peacekeeping led directly to greater Government activity, it was a factor which could not be ignored. More demonstrably, policy-makers were propelled by the enthusiasm for peacekeeping of the US Administration, and particularly by the desire to keep close tabs on US efforts in this area. As for the uses of peacekeeping, its potential as a burden-sharer was becoming clearer. Whether for reasons of loyalty or neo-colonialism, Britain had not entirely relinquished its former role as global policeman. The spate of interventions in response to appeals from newly independent ex-colonies illustrated that Britain often remained the saviour of choice. While flattering, this was not conducive to effective planning of its own defence needs. Indeed, as concern shifted from defending Britain’s diminishing number of colonies against external interference to protecting its post-colonial interests against internal upheaval, UN peacekeeping grew more attractive as a surrogate stabilizer. The more competent and dependable it was, the better. The first step towards this lay in enhancing the command and control of peacekeeping, which ONUC had shown to be flawed. In the words of one

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contemporary British commentator, ‘In the field of peacekeeping, the United Nations has become essential before it has become effective.’97 Peacekeeping was here to stay, and the British resolved to fashion its management in their own image: they were convinced that the SecretaryGeneral and his advisers would benefit from a good dose of British military expertise. This conviction was driven partly by reaction to events and partly by personalities. Peacekeeping aroused the idealism of some of Britain’s older warhorses: it was a timely coincidence that Lords Mountbatten and Robertson had developed a personal interest in the subject. Their efforts, and those of the Chiefs of Staff and the JSSC, provided reinforcement for the work of the UN Department in the Foreign Office. However, like the Americans, the British military had a tendency to ignore some of the nuances of peacekeeping, notably the dividing line between peacekeeping and peace enforcement. Growing British comfort with peacekeeping led to the acceptance in principle that operations might be launched even if Britain did not support them. While it would undoubtedly still wield its veto if the Security Council proposed an operation to which it was strongly opposed, this was not an option if the force was created by the General Assembly. Accordingly, British policy-makers examined the notion of selective funding of operations, paying more, or less, depending on the level of British support. In the end, the United Nations adopted an approach whereby the permanent members of the Security Council pay a premium for peacekeeping operations, reflecting their special responsibility under the Charter for international peace and security. The willingness to pay anything at all to operations which Britain did not fully support testified to its underlying commitment to peacekeeping. Policy-makers had learned that, on balance, peacekeeping operations served British interests. They also realized that financial default by major contributors on even one operation could endanger not just that operation but also the future of the Organization, which they wished to see survive. Accordingly, their position was influenced by the commitment to meeting the institutional needs of the United Nations: the net advantage of membership of the Organization generated a willingness, in principle, to act against British interests. Britain’s efforts to improve peacekeeping also reflected a growing appreciation of the importance of appearances. Fiascos such as the bombs-forONUC issue and the denial of overflight rights to ONUC aircraft sensitized British policy-makers to the public relations risks associated with peacekeeping. They realized that to retain the goodwill of the Secretariat and the non-aligned states required a delicate approach to nurturing and reforming peacekeeping. Hence Dean’s strenuous efforts to camouflage British efforts at matchmaking between Rikhye and Robertson. Significantly, the disparity of the Selwyn Lloyd years between public support for peacekeeping and private hostility had now largely disappeared.

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The Colonial Office, traditionally peacekeeping’s greatest opponent in Whitehall, was less audible, and the greater involvement of the Ministry of Defence tipped the balance further in favour of those officials supportive of peacekeeping. The public and many parliamentarians remained positive, and there were no more attempts to show them the error of their ways. For all the enthusiasm regarding Robertson’s mission and the expertise the British believed they could offer the United Nations, it is important to keep their impact on the reform of peacekeeping in perspective. They appeared convinced that they alone understood the true value of efficient and economical management, even though the United States and the Secretariat shared similar ideas. Moreover, in contrast to such countries as Canada and the Nordic states, which had already formally earmarked contingents for UN peacekeeping, Britain’s willingness to provide logistic support remained vague. Events in Cyprus were to change that situation dramatically.

7 The Creation and Early Operation of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, 1964–67

The establishment of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in spring 1964 offered the pre-eminent test of whether UN peacekeeping could protect British interests and, more challengingly, match British expectations. The story of Britain’s efforts to control the functions, composition and command of the UN force reveals much about how British policy-makers visualized an acceptable peacekeeping operation. However, their relative success in influencing the nature of UNFICYP reflects not only their tenacity but also, so far as the United Nations was concerned, the less-than-ideal timing of the crisis. Ideas for strengthening the Secretariat’s capacity to manage peacekeeping operations remained unimplemented; the recent trauma of ONUC constituted a sobering deterrent to potential troopcontributors to any new operation; and the UN’s financial crisis was still largely unresolved. UNFICYP, which still exists, is the only UN peacekeeping force launched before the 1990s to which Britain contributed armed troops: in 1964, this meant an evolution in the British military’s involvement in UN peacekeeping from the peripheral observations and suggestions of well-intentioned senior commanders to full-fledged policy-making and first-hand acquaintance with the daily challenges encountered on the ground by a UN force. Accounts written by British officers who served with UNFICYP offer a valuable new British perspective into the strengths and failings of UN peacekeeping. Moreover, Cyprus’s membership of the Commonwealth entailed increased engagement in policy-making by the Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO), whose views were occasionally at variance with those of the Foreign Office. The chapter begins by tracing the historical background to the intercommunal crisis which flared up in Cyprus at the end of 1963. It then 153

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analyses Britain’s efforts to find a suitable mechanism to share, or possibly to take over, the burden of peacekeeping. An examination of UNFICYP’s first months highlights the fact that, in contrast to its current, comparatively uneventful existence, it was launched into an ongoing conflict in which UN troops were killed and which challenged traditional peacekeeping techniques. The United Nations has always drawn a fairly clear division between the military aspects of peacekeeping under UNFICYP and the efforts by civilian diplomats to negotiate peace between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots; the latter subject is not dealt with in detail here. The chapter analyses events until the summer of 1967, the end-date of this book, by which time the peacekeeping-related issues of concern to Britain had been resolved and UNFICYP was settling into the political landscape of Cyprus. Internationally, the first year of this period was particularly turbulent, with momentous events in autumn 1964: Khrushchev’s fall from power, China’s detonation of its first nuclear bomb, and Lyndon Johnson’s landslide reelection as US President. In the ensuing years, the escalation of the Viet Nam conflict dominated international affairs. In Britain, the Labour Party’s election to power on 15 October 1964 marked a new political era: UNFICYP was therefore the last UN operation to be mounted during the thirteen-year period of Conservative rule which had begun in 1951. This raised the question of how far a party which had traditionally been ambivalent towards the United Nations was now prepared to allow the Organization into Britain’s backyard.

Historical background and British interests in Cyprus Britain’s strong desire to contain the Cyprus conflict owed much to the peculiar and incomplete nature of its withdrawal from the island in 1960. Britain had leased it from the Turks in 1878, and assumed outright control of it in 1914. Cyprus’s value lay primarily in its location, since it provided a base in the Eastern Mediterranean in close proximity to British assets in the Middle East and beyond, via the Suez Canal. This underlay Britain’s ambivalence about granting Cyprus independence during the move to decolonization elsewhere in the 1950s.1 During the period of British colonial rule communal tensions existed between the Greek Cypriots, who constituted approximately 80 per cent of the population, and the Turkish Cypriots, who made up 18 per cent. Because the two communities could rely on the support of Greece and Turkey respectively, when Britain did come to reflect on Cyprus’s future it viewed the question as an international, rather than a purely colonial, problem.2 British resistance to granting independence contributed to the creation in April 1955 of EOKA, the Greek Cypriot ‘National Organization of Cypriot Fighters’, which embarked on an increasingly bloody struggle against British rule.3 In the years to come, up to 38 000 British troops were deployed to counter EOKA, which had an estimated 200 hard-core members.4

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EOKA’s actions and the tying down of so many British troops contributed to Britain’s eventual decision to grant Cyprus independence. In February 1959, the basis for this was agreed in treaties concluded in Zurich, between Greece and Turkey, and in London, between Britain, Greece and Turkey, with the concurrence of representatives of the two communities. Under the Treaty of Establishment, the Presidency was to be occupied by a Greek Cypriot and the Vice-Presidency by a Turkish Cypriot, with positions in Government, Parliament, the civil service and the military divided on a scale which disproportionately favoured the Turkish Cypriots.5 Union with Greece (enosis, sought by some Greek Cypriots) was ruled out, as was partition (favoured by the Turkish Cypriots). Britain was granted indefinite sovereignty over the Akrotiri and Dhekelia Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs), covering a total of approximately 100 square miles, and a number of minor ‘Retained Sites’, required primarily for military installations. Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and Britain signed a Treaty of Guarantee, assuring the independence, territorial integrity and security of Cyprus. In the event of a breach of the Treaty, the latter three were to consult together; if they could not undertake concerted action they each retained the right of unilateral intervention. Greece was permitted to station 950 soldiers, and Turkey 650 soldiers, on the island. Cyprus became independent in August 1960 with Greek Cypriot Archbishop Makarios as President and Turkish Cypriot Dr Fazil Küçük as Vice-President.6 Cyprus joined the United Nations the following month and the Commonwealth in February 1961. In November 1963, recurrent disagreements between the two communities, and in particular Greek Cypriot annoyance over perceived Turkish Cypriot obstructionism, led to Makarios proposing 13 constitutional amendments which would have reduced the level of Turkish Cypriot representation in the civil service and armed forces and removed the veto power of the President and Vice-President.7 The Turkish Government in Ankara rejected the proposals and the crisis deepened, erupting into widespread violence on 21 December 1963. As the security situation deteriorated, British policy-makers evaluated the British interests in the island and assessed the feasibility of scaling down or withdrawing the British presence. A study conducted by the Chiefs of Staff for Defence Minister Peter Thorneycroft concluded: Withdrawal from Cyprus and the consequent removal of the British presence from the Eastern Mediterranean would remove a stabilising influence between Greek and Turk, and between Arab and Israeli. It might also encourage Egyptian and, to a lesser extent, Iraqi ambitions. The SBAs were ‘strategically located near likely scenes of operations’ and provided ‘the most effective means of achieving the timely application of military power’.8 The SBAs served as a launching pad for V-bombers, and in 1964 the Akrotiri base was the largest RAF station in the world.9

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British control of the SBAs was also in NATO’s interests: although Cyprus fell outside NATO’s area of operation, the British forces there introduced a calming influence into an island over which Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, were likely to fall out. Thorneycroft was advised that withdrawal ‘would have profound consequences for our relationships within the NATO Alliance’.10 During the crisis the Cabinet never seriously considered withdrawal from the SBAs and the goal remained to protect them and the British service families living scattered throughout the island. The latter generated a need for stability beyond the base perimeters and therefore required a government and population in Cyprus which tolerated this colonial legacy. The challenge of retaining Cypriot goodwill while ensuring that the island was pacified was one of the major preoccupations of British policy. This objective had been rendered particularly difficult by Britain’s increasingly corrosive experience of trying to maintain security prior to Cyprus’s independence. EOKA’s tactics and the British reactions to them had intensified the animosity between the Greek Cypriots and the British authorities. This had been well illustrated in October 1958, prior to independence, when the wife of a British soldier had been shot dead in Famagusta. The account by the British Governor, Sir Hugh Foot (later Lord Caradon), of the subsequent British response provides a valuable corrective to suggestions that UN peacekeepers had much to learn from the discipline of British colonial policing and military aid to the civil power: I knew that it would be impossible to hold our troops. We were in Famagusta within two hours of the killing but already the troops had gone wild … hundreds of Greeks were being treated for wounds inflicted indiscriminately by the furious soldiers.11

Unilateral British peacekeeping Therefore, Britain was unlikely to relish having to fulfil its responsibilities under the Treaty of Guarantee, but it had little alternative when the disturbances broke out in December 1963. As the situation worsened, Britain dominated the efforts to restore calm. According to official British accounts, on 25 December the three Guarantor Powers informed the Cyprus Government of their readiness to intervene to assist in restoring peace and order, ‘if invited to do so’, by means of a joint ‘peacemaking’ force under British command.12 However, Makarios subsequently complained that ‘the three Powers confronted us with a fait accompli … they asked us to invite them to intervene. We had no choice.’13 Makarios’ complaint that Cyprus accepted foreign intervention only under duress suggests that the actions by the Guarantor Powers were clearly not peacekeeping as understood by the United Nations; indeed, in the

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Cabinet, Prime Minister Douglas-Home had referred to the ‘Joint Intervention Force’.14 Ambassador Dean’s account of the December events to the Security Council drew a careful distinction between ‘peacemaking’, nowadays usually known as peace enforcement, and ‘peacekeeping’, once the fighting had been brought under control. The implication in Dean’s account was that the transition from peace enforcement to peacekeeping occurred by about mid-January.15 Peace enforcement downgrades the issue of consent and implies greater coercion on the parties; this helps explain why the Greek Cypriots grew increasingly hostile to British actions. Britain’s insistence that it had been invited in was presumably intended to pre-empt accusations of neo-colonialism or, more accurately, re-colonization – the latter a charge which the USSR soon levelled at Britain.16 In the final days of December 1963 Duncan Sandys, the British Commonwealth Secretary, worked to contain the political crisis. His efforts resulted in agreements on the exchange of prisoners and hostages, freedom of movement, and the creation of a ‘Green Line’ running through Nicosia and separating to this day the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots there. The Joint Force was established under Major-General Peter Young, Commander of the British Army units in the SBAs; the 7000 British troops already in Cyprus were reinforced by around 1100 through the arrival of an infantry brigade from Britain and a British armoured squadron from Libya. A Political Liaison Committee was also created, consisting of representatives of the three Guarantor Powers and the two Cypriot communities, to provide guidance to the Commander of the Joint Force. Yet, the Greek and Turkish army contingents based in Cyprus had already manned strategic positions to assist their respective Cypriot kinsmen and, in effect, Britain was now engaged in unilateral peacekeeping. Acting rapidly on the Cypriot ‘invitation’ to help restore peace served to protect Britain’s influence over events. The forestalling of a UN military role, which was achieved by the British action, was to remain a British objective for the next two months. On 26 December 1963, Foreign Secretary R.A. Butler told the Cabinet succinctly that ‘it would be desirable to discourage any intervention by the United Nations’.17 On the diplomatic front, the British acted tactically: In order not to lose the initiative in the United Nations, and in the hope of avoiding wider United Nations involvement, we have proposed to the Turkish and Greek Governments that we should approach the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations to ask him to appoint a representative to act as a United Nations [political] observer in Cyprus. Douglas-Home told the Cabinet that the observer would observe the progress of the peacekeeping [sic] operation, would sit on the Political Liaison Committee and would help in the search for a negotiated solution.18

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This proposal was astute strategy: it would take the wind out of the sails of those already calling for a UN role, while enabling the British Government to circumscribe the nature of that involvement. Moreover, it was shrewd to share with, and soon to pass to, the United Nations the poisoned chalice of negotiating peace in Cyprus, as the subsequent political stalemate rapidly demonstrated. On 17 January, U Thant appointed Indian Lieutenant-General Prem Singh Gyani as his personal representative in Cyprus. There were several reasons why the Prime Minister and at least some other British policy-makers originally wanted to exclude the United Nations from a military role. Perhaps surprisingly, given the Government’s vexed relations with ONUC, these did not include a determination never again to let the United Nations loose with a large operation. Instead, Sandys told the Cabinet that UN observers ‘might embarrass our forces in the enforcement of the military measures necessary to maintain law and order and might also become the focus of renewed communal discord’.19 Further objections were summed up in a subsequent Cabinet discussion: Once the United Nations were formally involved in the problems of Cyprus our own right to retain our Sovereign Base Areas might well be called into question. Moreover, the Soviet Union would be entitled to take part in both the military measures and the political settlement promoted by the United Nations; and if, in an attempt to avoid Soviet participation, we agreed that both we and the United States would similarly stand aside, the fate of the Island might well be decided by the Afro-Asian group.20 Thus, a combination of British national interests and broader Cold War concerns militated, in some British minds, against a UN force. However, policy-makers were not united in this view. On 5 January Sir Harold Caccia, Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, expressed the hope that sooner or later the proposed UN political observer would be strengthened by a team of UN [military] observers: Is it really in the general British interest, with our worldwide responsibilities and commitments elsewhere (Malaysia, Aden, British Guiana, etc.) and lack of reserves, to resist this? … I do not think it is worth trying to retain prime responsibility for handling this crisis as a long-term British interest.21 Two days later, Britain convened the London Conference in an effort to find a diplomatic solution. Sandys and Foreign Office Minister Lord Carrington discussed a UN role with José Rolz-Bennett, U Thant’s Deputy Chef de Cabinet, who was attending as an observer. Sandys, whose position seemed to be evolving, told Rolz-Bennett that if the Conference failed to

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reach an agreement, ‘we would not be able to hold the baby ourselves indefinitely and might therefore wish the United Nations to take over the peacekeeping task’. Moreover, even if there were an agreement, ‘it would be necessary to establish some sort of impartial police force and we hoped that the United Nations might be able to help with this’.22

The search for a non-UN peacekeeping force However, not all other possibilities had yet been exhausted. Moreover, the Foreign Office learned that the United States would ‘oppose any United Nations peacekeeping operation … on the grounds that in the past it has fallen to them to finance by far the largest part of most UN operations of this sort, and that the Russians have not so far paid for any’.23 US UnderSecretary of State George Ball, who became involved in shuttle diplomacy over Cyprus, stressed the NATO angle: ‘Cyprus was a strategically important piece of real estate at issue between two NATO partners: Greece and Turkey. We needed to keep it under NATO control.’24 This, combined with the value to NATO of British control of the SBAs, contributed to the search for a solution conducive to the Alliance.25 It was never likely that NATO would mount a force of its own to stabilize Cyprus, but for a few weeks in January and February 1964 the British and the Americans explored the possibility of peacekeeping by a group of individual NATO members. Britain made much of the demands on its forces, warning the NATO Council that it might be obliged to withdraw troops from the British Army of the Rhine.26 However, Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh, the British Ambassador to NATO, reported to London that if no political solution to the Cyprus conflict were found, other NATO members would be very reluctant to send forces there. On the other hand, he suggested that the Alliance might help prevent unauthorized landings by sea or air and contribute to supplying humanitarian relief.27 On 24 January, Sir David Ormsby-Gore, the British Ambassador in Washington, was instructed to seek the views of the US Administration on an Allied peacekeeping force comprising troops from Britain, the United States, Italy and France (of which the last two had not yet been approached).28 Ormsby-Gore warned US Secretary of State Dean Rusk that a UN force might include ‘highly undesirable elements and would give the Communists the opportunity to make trouble’. Unhelpfully, Rusk replied that the peacekeeping operation should stay in British hands for as long as possible, adding that direct confrontation between US troops and Turks in Cyprus could jeopardize the continued stationing of 17 000 US troops in Turkey.29 On 28 January, British pressure bore some fruit. Ball showed Sir Arthur Snelling, Deputy Under-Secretary of State in the CRO, a draft paper proposing an Allied force comprising troops from the United Kingdom

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(4000), United States, Italy, West Germany and France (1200 each) and Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands or Canada (750).30 The US conditions for participation included that the force should be stationed in Cyprus for only three months, that Greece and Turkey should renounce their right to intervene unilaterally during that period, and that a mediator should be selected from a NATO country, but not the United States or one of the Guarantor Powers.31 On 31 January, in the London Conference, Britain and the United States proposed the establishment of ‘an enlarged peacekeeping force drawn from countries friendly to Cyprus’. The force would be under a British Commander, who would receive political guidance from a committee in London comprising representatives of the troop contributors, but not the Cypriots. Greece and Turkey accepted the proposal and were willing for their contingents already in Cyprus to be part of the force.32 However, Makarios rejected it on grounds of the force’s vague terms of reference and the fact that the operation would not be under the control of the Security Council.33 Makarios believed that NATO involvement would jeopardize Cyprus’s nonaligned status, that the Alliance would be disposed towards Turkey because of its strategic position, and that, by contrast, the United Nations would be more favourable to the Greek Cypriots.34 Politically, time was running out for a non-UN solution. In the British House of Commons, Labour Opposition leader Harold Wilson argued that the sooner an international force could be given a ‘United Nations status … the better it will be for peacekeeping and the reputation of the United Nations’.35 On 7 February Soviet Premier Khrushchev weighed in, writing to several Western leaders, including Douglas-Home, regarding the ‘serious international complications’ arising from the attempts through ‘foreign bayonets’ to place a ‘small neutral State under the military control of NATO’. Khrushchev complained that everything was being done to prevent discussion of the issue in the Security Council and, more ominously, warned that the USSR could not remain indifferent to the situation developing in the Eastern Mediterranean.36 Douglas-Home replied tartly that the Soviet view was ‘completely divorced from reality’.37 The United States and Britain made a further attempt with a plan for a force to include neutral states and for the Security Council to ‘take note [of the force] by consensus’, that is, without a vote and hence without the risk of a Soviet veto. However, parts of the earlier proposal remained, including the British command of the force and the intergovernmental committee. On 12 February, it was put to Makarios, who rejected it also, clearly in the belief that he could hold out for a solution more closely associated with the United Nations. The following day, Ball and Makarios agreed that every effort would be made to create a force from Commonwealth countries and certain neutrals; the British were doubtful that this would work, and even Ball considered it unsatisfactory, but better than nothing.38 There were considerable restrictions on which Commonwealth countries could contribute contingents. Snelling

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had previously made clear to Cypriot Foreign Minister Kyprianou the complicated matrix of existing demands on Commonwealth forces: we preferred Australia and New Zealand to send to Malaysia rather than to Cyprus whatever forces they could send abroad; amongst white Commonwealth countries … that only left Canada, which was already engaged in a number of international peacekeeping roles and which might not be able to make a major contribution to Cyprus; India had her hands full with China, and Pakistan was Muslim; that only left African Commonwealth countries as likely contributors on any significant scale and Mr. Kyprianou intimated that they would not be welcome.39 By mid-February the Americans and the British were clearly clutching at straws, with Makarios either spurning their efforts or welcoming suggestions which were impractical. On 15 February, Ball complained to President Johnson that the Greek Cypriots ‘do not want a peacekeeping force; they just want to be left alone to kill Turkish Cypriots’.40 The impasse was finally ended that day, when Makarios moved to bring the issue to the Security Council to consider the ‘obvious and imminent’ danger of invasion by Turkey.41 The British believed that he would attempt to have the Treaties of Alliance and Guarantee nullified, and pre-empted his application to the Council by a matter of hours, requesting a Council meeting both to discuss the worsening security situation in Cyprus and to take steps to resolve it.42

Activity at the United Nations and deterioration in Cyprus Since January U Thant had been content to let political negotiations take their course outside the United Nations, with his personal representative, General Gyani, serving as a largely token UN presence in Cyprus.43 However, as the British and US efforts began to run into trouble in February, the Secretary-General undertook consultations on the functions and organization of a possible force. On 17 February, he handed the main parties an ‘Aide-mémoire on a new approach to the situation in Cyprus’, which suggested that ‘it would greatly facilitate the work of the [Security] Council … if a plan could be submitted by the Governments of Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom for approval by the Council’. The plan should ‘give full weight to the primary responsibility [for maintaining peace] of the Government of Cyprus and of the three other Governments principally concerned, while providing for an appropriate United Nations participation’. As so described, the force would clearly not be an orthodox UN force, and U Thant pointed out that no costs would be chargeable to the Organization.

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U Thant proposed that the force be stationed in Cyprus for not more than three months, by agreement among the Governments concerned. The Commander of such a force would be designated by the Secretary-General in agreement with the Governments providing contingents … and would report to the Secretary-General, who would keep the Governments informed.44 In due course, the outline which U Thant had sketched was embodied in the resolution establishing UNFICYP. However, it was another two weeks before the Security Council reached that stage. In the process, the force came to be identified more closely with the United Nations, but the unprecedented formal role of the Guarantor Powers remained, leading to the extraordinary British influence over many aspects relating to UNFICYP. When the Council met on 18 February Dean related recent events in detail and called for the responsibility for keeping peace in Cyprus to be more broadly shared. At this stage, Britain still appeared to be aiming for a solution short of a full UN operation: Dean suggested that the Council simply call on the parties concerned, including the Guarantor Powers, and in consultation with the Secretary-General, to secure the establishment of an effective peacekeeping force as soon as possible.45 However, coming after U Thant’s aide-mémoire, which spoke of Council approval, and for want of another solution, the distinction was diminishing. The situation continued to deteriorate on the ground and Greek Cypriot hostility towards the British troops grew more intense. On 20 February General Carver, who took over command of the Joint Force from General Young that day, announced that Britain would reinforce its troops in Cyprus. Reports from Nicosia revealed that the British force was experiencing what is now known as ‘mission creep’, as its peacekeeping functions expanded to include alerting civilian groups under attack when it was safe to move to more secure locations and delivering food to besieged villages.46 Britain was rapidly learning a lesson which would resurface in UN operations after the Cold War, namely that actions taken with ostensibly impartial humanitarian motives can easily incur the wrath of the opposing side. Cyril Pickard, the British Acting High Commissioner in Cyprus, described the general Greek Cypriot conviction that the effect of peacekeeping by the British forces has been to help [the] Turks to consolidate their position as a separate community … The belief is fostered that we are forever pressing the cause of the Turks, running to their rescue, arranging relief for them, looking after their wounded, etc., and meanwhile completely ignoring provocative actions by [them]. To make things worse, Pickard added that the Turkish Cypriots were also dissatisfied and believed that they had been abandoned by their friends.47

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With attention now firmly focused on the United Nations, the continued involvement of the energetic and outspoken Commonwealth Secretary in policy-making was becoming increasingly illogical. On 20 February, the Prime Minister wrote to Sandys to inform him that Carrington would take charge of negotiations while Sandys was on a trip to Africa. Douglas-Home’s note did not explicitly exclude Sandys’ renewed involvement on his return, but there was an immediate exchange of views between the two and on 21 February a Prime Ministerial aide informed the CRO that ‘things will go on as they are for the time being’.48 With what level of determination Douglas-Home had tried to pass the issue to the less UN-sceptic Foreign Office is a moot question. A month later, The Sunday Times reported on the ‘Butler–Sandys Tug of War’ over Cyprus, which had ‘puzzled and irritated’ foreign governments. Although the Foreign Office was reported to have done most of the diplomatic work, Butler had allegedly failed to assert his authority.49 Thus, for the crucial few months while the United Nations took over and began to run the operation, the abrasive Sandys continued to play an influential role.

Resolution 186: the establishment of UNFICYP In the phrase which superseded ‘Leave it to Dag’, the failure of British and American efforts to find a non-UN solution meant that it was now ‘Over to U’.50 The Security Council President, the Permanent Representative of Brazil, worked many of the ideas of U Thant’s aide-mémoire into resolution 186, which established UNFICYP. This was formally sponsored by Bolivia, Brazil, the Ivory Coast, Morocco and Norway, and was adopted on 4 March.51 It was the first Council resolution on Cyprus and it remains the main basis of UNFICYP’s mandate.52 Resolution 186 legitimized the Security Council’s involvement in a primarily internal conflict by noting that the situation in Cyprus was ‘likely’ to threaten international peace and security. The resolution made clear that the Government of Cyprus was responsible for maintaining law and order and asked it to take all measures necessary to stop violence and bloodshed. UNFICYP’s function would be ‘in the interest of preserving international peace and security, to use its best efforts to prevent a recurrence of fighting and, as necessary, to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of law and order and a return to normal conditions’. Resolution 186 did not specify the Chapter of the UN Charter under which UNFICYP was established, but both the requirement for the consent of the Cyprus Government and the nature of UNFICYP’s tasks suggest that it fell under Chapter VI; that Chapter covers ‘Pacific Settlement of Disputes’ and the range of peaceful measures which the parties can use to resolve a dispute. In May 1964, U Thant told the

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Canadian Parliament that This is not a collective action against aggression undertaken under Chapter VII of the Charter … The nature of this operation is far nearer to a preventive and protective police action; it is not a repressive military action.53 To establish an operation under Chapter VII from the start would have been a step of such gravity that it would not have passed without debate; even the faintest allusion to Chapter VII would have aroused Soviet comment, especially given the latitude granted to the Secretary-General in running the operation. Yet, Rosalyn Higgins argues that the constitutional authority of UNFICYP does in fact lie in Article 40, that is, within Chapter VII, of the Charter. She acknowledges that the text of the resolution gives no indication, but justifies her view by the fact that ‘The entire context of the debate was that a threat to the peace existed.’54 This question was to become particularly relevant during calls for UNFICYP to act robustly. The Secretary-General’s extensive responsibilities were spelled out in greater detail than for previous UN operations. He was to establish the composition and size of the force, in consultation with the Governments of Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and Britain. He was also to appoint the commander of the force; the latter would report to the Secretary-General, who would keep the troop-contributing governments fully informed and report periodically to the Council. The force would be set up for three months and would be funded by the troop contributors and by voluntary contributions. Finally, the Secretary-General was to appoint a mediator to promote a peaceful solution; the duration of that appointment was open-ended. The USSR, France and Czechoslovakia abstained on the paragraph establishing the force, which was voted on before the whole resolution. The Soviet representative stated that his Government objected to the Security Council being circumvented in the creation of the force – presumably meaning the role of the Guarantor Powers and the Secretary-General – and particularly to giving the latter so much authority. Nevertheless, since the Cyprus Government agreed to the force, the USSR had not vetoed it. The French representative explained that he, too, had abstained because France had reservations about ‘the principle of United Nations intervention taking a military form, particularly if that were to lead to operations involving the use of force’. Moreover, France objected to the Council divesting itself of its responsibilities and going so far in delegating powers to the SecretaryGeneral; this should not be regarded as setting a precedent.55 As usual in such cases, to ease the adoption of the resolution, it was a study in vagueness. The greatest potential for controversy lay in the wording of the paragraph on the force’s functions: stark disagreements soon arose between the United Nations and Britain over its interpretation. Moreover, in requiring the consent of the ‘Government of Cyprus’, the resolution gave

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the Greek Cypriots a political advantage over the Turkish Cypriots, who had by now withdrawn their participation in government. Carver lamented that the Greek Cypriots took the resolution as ‘a green light for them to get on with the job of suppressing “the Turkish rebels” ’.56

Command and composition of UNFICYP In U Thant’s words, the Security Council’s resolution ‘dumped the problem in my lap’.57 However, the increasingly turbulent situation on the ground ensured that Britain would help to get a viable UN force on its feet as quickly as possible. It was over seven years since UNEF had been created and nearly six since Hammarskjöld had published his Summary Study of the UNEF experience. The principles for peacekeeping which he had elaborated there had been publicized by the United Nations and, despite the ONUC experience, remained generally accepted as a basic conceptual template for UN operations.58 Yet, as UNFICYP took shape, key principles were again honoured in the breach. The central issue was the nature of Britain’s involvement, if any, in the force. Dean had spoken of sharing, not relinquishing, the peacekeeping burden, and in light of Britain’s willingness to participate in the previous, nonUN, versions of the force, it might have seemed inevitable that it would contribute a contingent. However, British participation would violate the principles of excluding permanent members of the Security Council and interested parties. At one stage, Dodson had cited the risk of British exclusion from a UN force as justification for pursuing a Commonwealth alternative.59 Yet the British documents in the Public Record Office reflect no great discussion with the Secretariat on this point. U Thant was faced with either jettisoning the principle or mounting from scratch a comparatively large operation in a conflict on the verge of escalating. Brian Urquhart attributes Britain’s inclusion to the indispensability of its logistical support, the high quality of its military contingents and its financial contribution.60 Of the other member states, it was the Soviet bloc which might have been expected to create trouble by making an issue out of British participation. However, the Russian position was influenced by that of the Cypriots themselves, and Makarios had not so far called for Britain to leave. In any case, Soviet financial delinquency towards the United Nations did not leave it with strong ground to argue from. Among British policy-makers, there was little discussion about British participation, possibly because the risk of letting a UN force loose in Cyprus without strict British supervision was unthinkable. Taking for granted that Britain would participate, on 18 February, Sandys had told the Cabinet that if a UN force were established, it was important to ensure that Britain would not be called on to play too prominent a part in it.61

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In the House of Commons there was support for British involvement: Labour MP Patrick Gordon Walker (subsequently Foreign Secretary) welcomed the fact that Britain’s participation would set the precedent of a Security Council permanent member taking part in a UN operation, ‘this opens out very great prospects for this country as a world Power in peacekeeping’.62 Some Conservative backbenchers grumbled about letting a UN force into Cyprus, but once it was created they did not object to British participation in it. The fact was that the UN force was highly unlikely to come into existence without Britain’s continued engagement. If Britain had offered to provide administrative and logistical support but not a contingent of troops, other countries would presumably have resented serving Britain’s interests by stabilizing the island on its behalf. Moreover, there was never any prospect of the UN operating in the SBAs, so Britain would in any case continue to have a large military presence available on the spot. In addition, neither the Greek Cypriots nor the Turkish Cypriots objected to British participation in the force. A crucial issue was to identify an acceptable force commander, which raised the principle of whether Britain should agree to delegate command of its troops. Prior to the adoption of the resolution the Cabinet had discussed the possibility that ‘There might be considerable objection … to subordinating United Kingdom troops in Cyprus to a United Nations commander; … we should need to consider carefully whether we could accept such an arrangement if it were proposed.’63 However, U Thant seemed to see no problem with a British commander and had told Ball that he expected a careful distinction between theory and practice in the relationship of the force to the United Nations. In theory, [the] Force Commander would be designated by [the] Secretary-General, but in practice U Thant would expect to appoint a British Commander on the basis of a recommendation to him by the British Government.64 In fact, the British concluded that such an appointment would become a political liability: ‘the implications for us if we were to provide a force commander and/or the largest contingent, would be very dangerous, especially as regards our relations with Turkey’.65 They therefore decided to lower their visibility: Thorneycroft advised Douglas-Home that on political grounds the force should be commanded by a non-British officer. General Carver should serve as Deputy Commander ‘with the prime responsibility of commanding the land forces’. Giving Carver that title would ensure that no other foreign officer was placed between him and the Force Commander.66 The wisdom of the decision not to secure the top job for Britain was revealed within days, when the Greek Cypriots refused to deal with Carver and insisted that they would talk only to Gyani.67

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As for choosing a suitable foreign Force Commander, [I]n the opinion of the Chiefs of Staff there are very few foreign officers of international repute and of sufficient military stature and experience to be readily acceptable as Commander of our troops. This is particularly the case if the field of choice is limited to ‘unaligned’ nations. An effective commander was essential, since ‘A good share of the blame for any mismanagement would still cling to us.’ Fortunately, the obvious choice was Gyani, and the British decided that he would be ‘acceptable’.68 Gyani had trained at Sandhurst, was described by the Financial Times as ‘steeped in Anglo-Indian military tradition’ and was known to be ‘strongly pro-British’.69 Pickard believed that Gyani could be relied on to carry out a strong and fearless policy and to delegate to a British Deputy or Chief of Staff responsibility for all operational matters … we shall be in a better position to influence events if Gyani is in command than if we supply a British Commander who will be exposed to continued criticism.70 Thus, once again, close military ties between Britain and India offered dividends. Dean was instructed to tell U Thant that Britain accepted Gyani on the understanding that his deputy would be British.71 From Britain’s perspective, the manner of composing the force could not have been better designed to sweeten the pill of trusting foreign troops to help protect British interests in Cyprus. In no other UN resolution before or since then have parties other than the host government(s) been given a veto power over the composition of a UN force. However, resolution 186 implicitly acknowledged that Cyprus’s independence was qualified by the 1959 Zurich and London Agreements: in addition to the Cyprus Government, three parties, including Britain, the former colonial power, had to approve the composition of the UN force (it was assumed that the Turkish Cypriots would transmit their views through Turkey). As a result, many of the earlier British fears about losing control of the operation proved to be groundless. As the Foreign Office had hoped, ‘unreliable’ countries were not asked to contribute troops: the Secretary-General first approached Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The Brazilian representative reported that the Brazilian Parliament would not agree.72 When it transpired that U Thant was considering approaching Mexico and Chile, Britain did not object, but stressed that the language issue should be borne in mind; in the event, neither country contributed a contingent.73 It appears that the United States was not formally asked to provide troops to UNFICYP; Sandys had previously noted that the United States was not prepared to accept any UN control over a force in which it would participate.74 Makarios reportedly turned down an offer of troops from Czechoslovakia.75

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It was therefore not hard for the USSR to condemn UNFICYP as proWestern.76 So, in terms of the countries which would not participate, things were going well for Britain. However, obtaining firm offers of troops, even from some of peacekeeping’s most stalwart supporters, proved particularly challenging. The United Nations was aiming for a force of 7000 troops, but Dean cautioned U Thant that that number would be sufficient only if both communities in Cyprus were at least fairly cooperative.77 As for the size of the British contingent, Dean was instructed to tell the Secretary-General that Britain, while anxious to make a useful contribution, wanted to withdraw a substantial number of troops as soon as possible to reduce the strain on British resources: Further, it would not be right that in an international force any one nation should provide the bulk of the troops. The British Government appreciate, however, that effective implementation of the United Nations Resolution may be impossible unless they provide a considerable proportion of the force. Britain therefore offered to match contributions of all other countries up to the total of 7000, with the result that the maximum British contribution would be 3500 troops.78 For the other countries approached, a number of considerations were at work. Presumably with ONUC’s experience in mind, several submitted detailed questions relating to the implementation of the force’s mandate. Dean reported that both Sweden and Canada had done this, the latter posing 21 questions; U Thant produced an aide-mémoire answering some of them.79 Dean warned that the financial problems were ‘even more intractable … without the money, no one is going to commit themselves’.80 By now, British troops were experiencing the UN’s not-infrequent ordeal of being caught in a civil war without the mandate or resources to intervene effectively. On 10 March, Dean was instructed to tell U Thant that the situation had deteriorated to a point where we cannot continue much longer using British troops in a peacekeeping role on their own … We cannot allow our troops to become a party to the Cypriots’ quarrel. We are not, therefore, prepared to order them to fire on one side in support of the other, but it is equally intolerable that they should be expected to stand by and watch civilians massacred, nor will public opinion in England stand for this … the establishment of the United Nations force in the island and the appointment of a mediator have become matters of supreme urgency.81 A similar message was dispatched the same day to the Governments of Sweden, Canada, Finland and Ireland: they were told that Britain was doing all it could to help U Thant arrange the necessary finance but that it hoped

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they would agree without further delay to provide contingents, so as to avoid ‘a most serious international situation’. The Foreign Office professed itself to be ‘horrified’ by a report that the Swedes were thinking of sending troops in only 5–6 weeks’ time.82 Alan James has reconstructed the frequently interlocking considerations delaying a commitment from the potential troop-contributors, including Canada’s misgivings about the parties’ desire for peace; Sweden’s concerns about serving in a force dominated by NATO countries and its wish for prior Finnish agreement to participate; and Ireland’s sensitivity about serving in another island which might end up partitioned.83 Carver described additional calculations: Whether or not a nation would provide a force, and what it should consist of, depended on what its orders were going to be and, to a certain extent, where it was going to be deployed and what representation it was to have in the Force Headquarters.84 Dean summed up the problem as being ‘to get one of the promised participants to take the plunge’.85 As often happens prior to an agreed ceasefire, the fighting between the parties intensified with the aim of achieving last-minute gains before UNFICYP commenced its work. Yet, some of the prospective cease-fire monitors were already on the ground in the shape of the British troops, and they simply got in the way. As Carver subsequently reported to the British Chiefs of Staff, ‘Anti-British feeling was growing every day, as we attempted to frustrate the plans of the Greek Cypriots to improve their situation before the United Nations Force was established.’86 The situation in the British Parliament was also growing tense: on 11 March, Harold Wilson expressed extreme concern about ‘the present most humiliating position’ of the British troops. Sandys gave vent to his impatience. He reported that U Thant had been warned that Britain could not continue for long carrying the peacekeeping burden alone; the SecretaryGeneral had been asked to tell the British Government by the following day what progress had been made in establishing UNFICYP.87 Unfortunately, the only threat which Britain was able to make if U Thant did not confirm promptly that a UN force and a mediator were ‘in sight’ was that it would ‘review its position’ and possibly convene a summit meeting of the Guarantor Powers with the leaders of the two Cypriot communities.88 This was a weak hand to play.

Planning UNFICYP There is no evidence to suggest that the UN Secretariat actively sought to exploit Britain’s predicament, tempting though this might have been in view of the regularity with which Britain passed such thorny issues to the

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Organization. However, like the Arab League in the 1961 Kuwait crisis, the United Nations was willing to take over peacekeeping from the British only when its own arrangements were fully in place. Moreover, the Foreign Office documents give the distinct impression that the Secretariat played up its own helplessness in order to wring as much support as possible from an increasingly exasperated Britain. From 7 to 13 March, General Rikhye led a reconnaissance team to Cyprus to plan for the UN operation. The team pointed out to the British that, as the Security Council had restricted UNFICYP’s duration to three months, ‘there could be no question of establishing United Nations logistic installations in Cyprus’. Britain was asked to provide all the vehicles required by UNFICYP, as well as rations, petrol, ammunition, hospital facilities, and workshops. The War Office estimated the cost to amount to £250 000 for three months, but the UN team hoped that Britain would provide everything free of charge, as a voluntary contribution. General Richard Hull, Acting Chief of the Defence Staff, observed that if Britain did so, ‘it might be possible to persuade more nations to take part and to despatch contingents more quickly’.89 The British agreed to most of the requests, and when the UN team visited London it was told that Britain was prepared to provide $1 million in logistic assistance to other contingents.90 The fact that without such financial largesse UNFICYP would simply not have got off the ground meant that Britain escaped accusations of buying influence over the operation.91 In any case, there were more effective ways for British policy-makers to ensure that their vision of UNFICYP’s nature and functions prevailed. In this regard, Britain’s dominant role in its predecessor, the Joint Force, was invaluable. When Carver had assumed command of the latter, he had brought 170 experienced staff officers to assist him.92 As UNFICYP took shape, Britain and the United Nations agreed on a military plan which displayed the extent of British influence at the beginning, ‘The need for speed in establishing the force dictates that the existing British command structure will be used as a framework and that the majority of HQ personnel will be British.’93 Britain also decided to share its intelligence with the United Nations ‘to be fed, unattributably, into the United Nations Command through routine military intelligence channels’. This would avoid UNFICYP setting up its own ‘intelligence organization into which there was the possibility of a lot of misleading intelligence being fed by interested parties’.94 To Dean’s delight, in the first week of March a Military Liaison officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, was assigned to the British Mission in New York and established regular contact with the military staff at United Nations Headquarters. With his eye, as usual, on appearances, Dean cautioned that We shall have to be careful not to seem to be crowding in on the United Nations, but subject to this, it is obvious that they are willing to take our

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advice, at any rate for the moment. For the present, we can probably best feed it in through Colonel Collins …95

Composition finalized The fighting between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots eventually became so intense that on 12 March Turkey warned the Security Council that if there was no immediate ceasefire it would exercise its right to intervene. Makarios then requested an immediate Security Council meeting, at which the Council simply urged U Thant to ‘press on’ with his efforts to field the force.96 It was this escalation which finally ended the troop contributors’ hesitation, and the arrangements began to fall into place. In the United States, Johnson and Rusk pressed the Canadians to despatch some troops immediately.97 On 13 March, U Thant announced that Canada, Sweden and Ireland would provide troops.98 On 14 March, the first Canadian contingent arrived in Cyprus. Gyani was on leave for ten days for personal reasons, and the United Nations temporarily brought in a Brazilian General who had been commanding the UNEF contingent in Gaza. The British resisted placing their troops under UN command until the UN force was officially established.99 The British troops did, however, don blue berets, although this was not without complications. British High Commissioner Sir Arthur Clark referred to ‘a number of overriding objections … connected both with precedent and with military morale’ to giving British troops UN berets; instead, he proposed UN armbands. He was slapped down by the CRO and told that such matters were none of our business. It would be particularly unfortunate if views were expressed about headgear, and from every point of view national contingents should comply with United Nations requirements.100 On 17 March, U Thant reported to the Security Council that ‘sizeable elements’ of the Canadian contingent and a Swedish advance party had arrived and that an Irish planning party was due soon. Even with the British presence, this was a shaky foundation for a UN operation, but the SecretaryGeneral finally yielded to the international pressure for the United Nations to assume its responsibility, and declared that UNFICYP was now ‘in being’.101 Ultimately, UNFICYP’s infantry units were provided by Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Sweden.102 Austria provided a field hospital and staff, and civilian police units were contributed by Australia, Austria, Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden.103 In short, all the countries which participated were either NATO allies, Commonwealth members or reliable neutrals with pro-Western inclinations. There were none of the political

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agitators which had contributed to ONUC, no members of the non-aligned group, nor even any developing countries. Carver declared the composition to be ‘highly satisfactory to us’.104 On 25 March, U Thant announced the appointment of Finnish diplomat Sakari Tuomioja as mediator.105 In the event, the comfort which Britain felt from the presence of such compatible colleagues was not fully reciprocated, and newspapers reported how the Finns and the Canadians, in particular, strove not to be associated in Cypriots’ minds with the British. Measures included cycling rather than travelling in British trucks and painting prominent maple leaves on vehicles.106 However, the Secretariat seemed to have no such qualms about Britain’s presence and soon asked it to expand its contribution by providing civilian police. Clark reported from Nicosia that ‘The use of British policemen in Cyprus is too closely associated with the emergency’ and argued that they could not be used successfully.107 The Cabinet agreed that Britain should not become further involved and refused the request.108 Now that all the arrangements had fallen into place, Gyani formally assumed command on 27 March, and U Thant announced that UNFICYP, hitherto ‘in being’, was now ‘operational’.109

UNFICYP’s mandate As noted above, the nature of UNFICYP’s functions had been a major consideration among those countries approached to provide troops. The vagueness employed in the wording of resolution 186 might have ensured its adoption, but it was manifestly unsuited to winning over troop contributors. They therefore showed close interest in how the Secretary-General and Gyani would interpret the mandate. Certain functions of UNFICYP were, and remain, relatively uncontroversial, for example, its activities to promote a ‘return to normal conditions’: these have included escorting essential civilian movements; assisting with harvesting arrangements and the provision of essential public services; and cooperation with the Red Cross to provide relief assistance for displaced persons.110 The central difficulties for UNFICYP related to the use of force, which had provoked such controversy for ONUC, and disarmament. There was little doubt that the primary tasks ordained by resolution 186, in particular preventing a recurrence of the fighting and contributing to the maintenance of law and order, would both be facilitated by disarmament and likely to entail the use of force.111 Apart from the rather arbitrary ‘Green Line’ in Nicosia, there was no defined cease-fire line to patrol and tensions requiring UNFICYP’s intervention could arise anywhere. Potential troop contributors to UNFICYP therefore needed assurance that their contingents would not be drawn into active hostilities. U Thant’s aidemémoire of 11 March had attempted to address some of these concerns: for example, it declared that disarming ‘irregular’ forces in Cyprus was not

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considered one of UNFICYP’s functions and that if the Force Commander were asked to undertake disarmament the Secretary-General would consult troop contributors before taking any decision. In addition, the aide-mémoire stated that UNFICYP’s weapons would be employed ‘only for self-defence, should this become necessary in the discharge of its function[s]’. Yet the aide-mémoire also made clear that U Thant could give no indication of the prospects for success by the mediator, that is, when the need for a force would be over. Moreover, the Secretary-General was adamant about his right not to negotiate with, or divulge to, any government his directives to the Force Commander.112 Britain had particular views on the interpretation and implementation of UNFICYP’s mandate. Since January, the Defence Planning Staff and the Chiefs of Staff Committee had been fine-tuning a ‘Concept of Operations’ for the elusive ‘International Force’, as well as an outline directive for its commander. With very little adaptation, the Chiefs of Staff finalized the Concept as their contribution to the debate about UNFICYP’s terms of reference. With regard to using force, the Concept stated that this was permissible if it was essential either for the safety of the members of the operation or to accomplish its mission. Minimum force was to be used in every case; as for opening fire, ‘If an unauthorised person is seen to be about to commit an act of violence, fire may be opened if it is the only method of preventing the violence occurring.’113 Such pre-emptive use of force was a significant departure from the practice of classical UN operations, in which UN peacekeepers are generally prohibited from initiating the use of force. In the event, UNFICYP troops did occasionally use measured force without adverse reactions: reports by the Secretary-General recounted several instances when UNFICYP troops had returned fire against both parties when shot at.114 There appears to have been a tacit acceptance by the parties that certain situations warranted the use of force by UNFICYP: it was reported that the United Nations had informed both sides that its troops would open fire, even if they themselves were not endangered, to protect Cypriot harvesters under attack.115 With regard to disarmament, the Concept stated that, aside from regular members of the Cyprus Army and Police Force, ‘As far as practicable all persons should be disarmed.’ This stipulation had been included at Sandys’ personal request.116 Sandys acknowledged that ‘It may be difficult in practice for the Commander to disarm irregulars’ but he stressed that Gyani should be given that authority.117 However, this was an unabashed attempt to have UNFICYP do what the British had been unable to, on both legal and practical grounds. Derek Bowett, a specialist in UN legal issues, argued that it would take either an additional Security Council resolution or agreement with the Cyprus Government for UNFICYP to gain the necessary authority to conduct disarmament.118 Moreover, there were practical constraints: it was legal for Cypriot citizens to carry weapons (the Concept acknowledged this), and Carver reported that during the time of the Joint Force, arms had been pouring into

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the country.119 Voluntary disarmament was hardly feasible in the absence of any political settlement or diminution of the violence: therefore, any attempt at disarmament would have to include some coercion and was highly likely to encounter resistance. UNFICYP was not equipped to deal with this. As for the Force Commander’s directive, Sandys instructed Clark in Nicosia to show Gyani the draft and urge him to communicate with U Thant, who is likely to listen to the views of his own Commander Designate more than he will to those of the British Government … It is essential that the Force Commander should be authorized to take whatever action he thinks necessary ‘to prevent a recurrence of fighting and, as necessary, to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of law and order.’ This must include the right to use such force as is necessary to restrain anybody, including the police of one or other community, who may be engaged in fighting the opposite community.120 The Foreign Office agreed that such authorization was ‘of the highest importance’.121 In effect, what British policy-makers were now trying to do was to give UNFICYP a mandate better suited to a peacekeeping force operating under Chapter VII, that is, one designed to compel the parties to end their dispute and possessing the authority to use force in the implementation of its mandate.122 Yet even such an elastic interpretation of resolution 186 could not disguise the fact that UNFICYP would never obtain the troops and resources to conduct all-out peace enforcement. The operational ethos of UNFICYP meant that, regardless of the interpretation of resolution 186, it was, in practical terms, a Chapter VI operation. Carver highlighted the practical constraints inhibiting assertive action by UNFICYP: Minimum force … had to be the order of the day … Dispersed, both generally and locally, as we had to be to do our job of having a presence wherever the two sides faced each other, we were at all times very vulnerable to them. Deliberately to have engaged in active operations against them was therefore as much out of the question militarily as it was politically.123 U Thant asked the British directly for a copy of their draft directive to the Force Commander. The Foreign Office revised it and despatched it to New York as ‘Guiding Principles’ for the directive.124 Dean warned that the references to disarmament would present difficulties and tried to reassure his colleagues in London that while, for political reasons, the final directive to the Force Commander would not be ‘a model document … in practice, the degree of discretion which the United Nations necessarily have to give to any United Nations force commander is rather wide by our standards’.125

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U Thant’s General Directive to Gyani, dated 27 March 1964, stated that As in the other United Nations peace forces, the use of armed force is permissible only in self-defence and as a last resort in the carrying out of the mandates given to the Force by the Security Council. It is recognized that in seeking earnestly to do its duty under its mandates the Force or elements of it may take actions which might provoke vigorous reaction requiring defensive action in return. [Emphasis added]126 The second sentence of the above quotation implicitly permitted UNFICYP to assert itself and to use force if it encountered opposition. Thus, while UNFICYP could still not initiate the use of armed force, it could act forcefully to implement its mandate and retaliate with armed force as soon as a party tried to prevent it. This interpretation was soon adopted when the Canadians reportedly grew ‘tired of flag-waving’ and operated more assertively, a step which did not provoke condemnation that UNFICYP had exceeded its mandate.127 Significantly, and rejecting Sandys’ request, the directive also stated that ‘The disarming of ‘irregular’ or any other forces is not an obligation of the United Nations Force’ [emphasis added]. In the event that disarmament became ‘advisable and necessary’ it should proceed only after negotiation between the Force Commander and/or UNFICYP’s Senior Political Officer with the Cyprus Government and leaders of the communities, possibly with the personal involvement of the Secretary-General.128 Douglas-Home’s reaction to a draft of the directive, which the British had been shown in confidence, was succinct: ‘On this the UN force will be no more effective than ours in the past few weeks.’129 Carver agreed with U Thant’s line, reflecting the divergence of views which existed between policy-makers in London and the senior British officer on the ground: From the very beginning, there were constant demands – from Whitehall as much as from anywhere – for stronger action by the peacekeeping force, which should include the disarmament of both sides. This has never been a practical possibility, not because of legalistic quibbles, but because of the facts of the situation. Carver elaborated that attempting to disarm the Turkish Cypriots would have been prevented by pressure from Turkey; nor would the Cyprus Government have cooperated in disarming the Greek Cypriots. As for doing it without that cooperation, Neither the British nor the UN Force was ever in a position, militarily or politically, to do this. It would have involved a military campaign against

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Cyprus, and the force was always much too vulnerable to take this on, even if the possibility had ever existed.130 However, UNFICYP troops did, on occasion, forcibly disarm individual Cypriots: for example, in April 1964, 36 Swedish soldiers disarmed 40 Greek Cypriot irregulars, who had been firing on them for two hours. In August 1964, a mobile force comprising Danish, Canadian and Finnish troops removed gun emplacements and fortifications in northern Nicosia.131 Again, on an ad hoc basis, such actions while provoking outcries on the spot were ultimately tolerated by the parties. Another debate developed over whether UNFICYP should deploy troops between parties engaged in active combat. On 23 March, Dean forwarded to the Foreign Office a draft of U Thant’s directive to Gyani; this included the instruction that if local police were unable to stop armed clashes United Nations forces would intervene but would take no positive action. However, if there was no other way of protecting life and property United Nations forces would at the last resort interpose themselves and, if necessary, exercise their right to self-defence.132 Dodson observed that this went further than the directive under which British forces had been operating; he concluded that it would give the UN force the authority to operate effectively.133 For U Thant to contemplate such a controversial step was politically courageous since it entailed UN troops being moved directly into the line of fire and returning fire only after they were attacked. Had this been adopted as policy before UNFICYP’s contingents were already on the ground it seems likely that at least some contributors would have baulked at agreeing that their troops should be thus placed in harm’s way. Illustrating that the Secretariat or Gyani might have had misgivings about this step, UNFICYP’s Standard Operating Procedures, which Dean obtained two weeks later, made such interposition dependent on it being acceptable to both sides: if there is doubt about its effectiveness, it should not normally be done. It may only lead to a direct clash between UNFICYP troops and the attacking side, the consequences of which will extend far beyond the local situation.134 U Thant subsequently summed up the gravity of UNFICYP’s predicament: it was ‘in the most delicate position that any United Nations mission has ever experienced, for it is not only in the midst of a bitter civil war, but it is dangerously interposed between the two sides of that war.’135

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Publication of UNFICYP’s terms of reference As if U Thant’s task of holding together the fragile consensus among troop contributors on UNFICYP’s mandate was not already sufficiently difficult, Sandys now exacerbated the situation. At issue was whether the SecretaryGeneral’s directive to Gyani should be published. Governmental mishandling enabled the matter to escalate. The dispute was precipitated in particular by an encounter between British troops and Greek Cypriots in the village of Kato Pyrgos, in which the British, acting with the restraint required of peacekeepers, came off worst. Several British soldiers were disarmed by the Greek Cypriots, prompting the Daily Sketch, on 6 April, to print the front-page headline ‘Humiliation! These Cypriots are holding up the British Army’.136 In the House of Commons the following day, Sandys stated that Since recent incidents have caused some anxiety, I think it right to inform the House that we are satisfied that the directions under which the United Nations troops have been operating give them adequate authority to use such force as may be absolutely necessary for selfdefence and to enable them to discharge their mission. The SecretaryGeneral … recognises that the Force must have the powers necessary to fulfil its task. Conservative MP Sir Godfrey Nicholson demanded to know whether it was ‘right that British troops, under the United Nations’ aegis, should be acting under terms of reference or orders of which this country is ignorant?’ Sandys made no attempt to defend the UN’s right not to publish internal documents, and immediately caved in. He replied that he would do his best, through the Foreign Secretary, to secure the Secretary-General’s agreement to publishing the instructions to the troops.137 He thereby simultaneously put U Thant on the spot and manoeuvred Butler, whom he had hitherto been content to sideline, into the line of fire. That evening, Dean was told that Sandys had undertaken to convey to the Secretary-General the ‘strong wishes’ of the House of Commons to be informed of the general instructions under which British troops were operating. Dean was to tell U Thant that if the British Government could not produce substantial information, ‘we shall be exposed to heavy criticism for placing British troops under outside orders the general nature of which Parliament and the British public know nothing about’.138 The following day, the Daily Express printed the headline ‘UNO Chief Snubs Britain: Cyprus Policy a Secret’ and reported, with evident relish, that U Thant had ‘given a shattering snub to Britain over his policy in Cyprus. A big row is certain to develop in the House of Commons.’139

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In more measured tones, The Guardian related that the Greek Cypriots probably want to cause Britain and the British contingent the maximum embarrassment, and … U Thant’s decision not to publish directives was designed to prevent such embarrassment being caused … [T]he demand for open discussion of directives is not in the British interest.140 In the Cabinet, Butler also made the case against publication: The directive was in fact reasonably satisfactory from our point of view; but it would be doubtfully wise to press the Secretary-General to consent to its publication since, if the Greek Cypriot community or any other interested party objected to it and the Secretary-General was subsequently compelled to amend its provisions, the protection which it afforded to our contingent in the peacekeeping force might be reduced. The Cabinet, with apparent reluctance, concurred that ‘the balance of advantage probably inclined against publication … on the grounds that disclosures of operational orders would be contrary to precedent and to accepted practice’.141 However, in the House of Commons that afternoon, Douglas-Home failed to take a firm line. After expressing the hope that it would ‘relieve some anxiety if I say that the directive provides that the British troops, and indeed all United Nations troops, can fire in self-defence’, he added that the Government was still trying to see if it could be published. He qualified this with an acknowledgement that ‘to some extent’ the directive was of an operational nature.142 Following further pressure, U Thant came up with a rather convoluted compromise which maintained his prerogative not to divulge the directive. The Secretariat constructed a reverse questionnaire containing the information it was prepared to release and left it to the British to formulate questions matching the responses.143 The result, published without the questions, was ‘An aide-mémoire concerning some questions relating to the function and operation of UNFICYP.’ This stipulated that armed force could not be initiated by UNFICYP and was permissible only in self-defence, which included the defence of UN posts and UN personnel under armed attack. Of relevance to the incidents which had provoked consternation in Parliament, the situations in which force was permitted included in response to attempts to prevent UNFICYP from carrying out its responsibilities. This could include situations where inter-communal agreements, such as that covering Nicosia, were about to be violated, risking a recurrence of fighting.144 Illustrating the dangers when ambitious politicians profess to be defending the interests of professional soldiers on the ground, the British troops in

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Cyprus were reported to be ‘sorry the gist of the terms [of reference] has been revealed; they feel that a vital element of bluff has been lost’.145 Carver also considered it ‘unfortunate that British and Canadian parliamentary pressure forced the Secretary-General, against his better judgement’ to publish the aide-mémoire.146

UNFICYP in operation, 1964–67 During UNFICYP’s first months British policy-makers worked to reduce Britain’s prominence in the force while attempting to preserve its influence. Within three weeks of UNFICYP becoming operational the Chiefs of Staff examined the implications of reducing the British contingent from its present size of 2700 to approximately 2000.147 This would consist of three major units, air support and a sizeable staff contribution to UNFICYP’s Headquarters. The Chiefs of Staff expected that the three ‘teeth’ units would be deployed in Larnaca, Limassol and Nicosia. They would serve a purpose not included in resolution 186 (aside from the reference to restoring law and order), namely, protecting our [service] families outside the SBAs. General Gyani fully understands our national responsibilities in this field and can be expected to cooperate in any such deployment.148 UNFICYP did not operate within the SBAs and British non-UNFICYP troops did not operate outside them.149 British participation in UNFICYP therefore provided cover for the military protection of British citizens outside the SBAs, within a sovereign foreign state. While this could be justified on the grounds that Britain’s large contribution to UNFICYP diverted manpower resources from its national responsibilities, it laid the United Nations open to possible accusations of serving British purposes. This underlined the significance of Hammarskjöld’s original prohibition on contingents provided by states with interests in the conflict. Both Thorneycroft and Sandys backed the proposed reduction to 2000 British troops. In a meeting with C.V. Narasimhan, U Thant’s Chef de Cabinet, Carrington portrayed the request as reflecting a desire to emphasize the international character of the force.150 Other contingents were soon expanded and by June the total British contingent was down to approximately 1800.151 UNFICYP’s operational directive did not remain out of the news for long. At the end of April, the Greek Cypriots launched an attack on Turkish Cypriot positions in the Kyrenia Pass, in the zone patrolled by the British, Canadians and Finns. Carrington told the Cabinet that the United Nations peacekeeping force appeared to consider that their function was limited to creating the circumstances in which a solution of

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the Island’s problems could be promoted by diplomatic means … [E]fforts to persuade the Secretary-General … to instruct the force to adopt a more resolute attitude had had little success.152 Nor were such views limited to Britain. In New York, Dean met with representatives of the US and Canadian Missions who both considered that UNFICYP should take vigorous action to regain control. The United States thought it should be given more powerful weapons, and should be ‘less gingerly’ about interposing itself between the two communities, while Canada wanted more active military operations. Dean attributed some of the UN’s problems to institutional weaknesses: the United Nations’ (and particularly Bunche’s) method of carrying out military operations is often vague, and political considerations tend to get mixed up with military orders … [T]he only way in which we can improve the situation is by keeping at the Secretariat … [T]he way in which the United Nations is organised makes it impracticable for there to be a proper division between political and military responsibilities or for the military chain of command to be as clear and direct as we should like it to be.153 In an official report on UNFICYP on 29 April, U Thant acknowledged the unsatisfactory nature of UNFICYP’s position: ‘the Force cannot stand idly by and see an undeclared war deliberately pursued, or see innocent civilians of all ages ruthlessly struck down by snipers’ bullets’. However, he argued that UNFICYP had been created to try to save lives by preventing a recurrence of fighting. It would be incongruous, even a little insane, for that Force to set about killing Cypriots, whether Greek or Turkish, to prevent them from killing each other.154 This was a spurious argument since no one was arguing that UNFICYP should ‘set about killing Cypriots’. U Thant may have been reassuring troopcontributors that their contingents would not be drawn into fighting. Alternatively, it may have been the case that he objected in principle to a UN peacekeeping operation using armed force; while he had supported ONUC’s final use of force to quell the secession of Katanga, that experience had clearly left him very uneasy about a repetition. Dean believed that the Secretary-General was ‘constitutionally averse to the use of force’.155 If that was the case, it would lend credence to earlier British complaints that the UN Secretariat attached more value to keeping the peace than upholding the law. U Thant told Dean what the British Government did not want to hear, namely that if the Force Commander were to be instructed to pursue a more

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vigorous policy this would have to follow from a further Security Council mandate. To buttress his point he also recalled the widespread criticism in the British press that ONUC had exceeded its mandate in the Congo, even though it had been specifically authorized to use force in certain circumstances. Dean understood U Thant’s reasoning and warned the Foreign Office that a Security Council debate would be expanded to include UNFICYP’s whole scope and purpose, as well as the constitutionality and legality of the Greek Cypriot ‘Government’ and the Turkish Cypriot authorities. Any resolution authorizing the use of force in conditions which did not exactly suit Makarios would be vetoed by the Russians.156 Once again, Carver diverged from his political masters in London. He defended Gyani, stressing that the latter had taken all possible measures to stop the hostilities in Kyrenia short of ordering the Canadian troops to fight on one side or the other. Carver also rejected providing UNFICYP with additional helicopters and more powerful weapons. In words which foreshadowed the frustration of UN commanders in Bosnia in the 1990s he argued that if the Council wanted UNFICYP to engage in hostilities with the armed forces of the Cyprus Government to protect Turkish Cypriot positions, [the] United Nations should make this clear and provide a force of adequate size and type for this purpose. Equally, if the Security Council intended UNFICYP to remove by armed attack Turkish posts they should say so.157 In London, Sandys wrote to Butler of his concern that the Greek Cypriots appeared to be pursuing a ‘policy of deliberately discrediting the British contingent … and of co-operating with other contingents’. He was concerned that when it came to extending the mandate beyond 26 June, Makarios might object to the continued participation of the British contingent, ‘and we must not expose ourselves to the indignity of being blackballed by Archbishop Makarios’.158 Dean should be instructed to tell the Secretary-General that if the force’s mandate were extended ‘we should prefer not to be asked to contribute to the Force’; Britain would, however, consider with U Thant what assistance it could give.159 In reply, Butler accepted the risk that Makarios could object to continued British participation, but he warned that ‘Unless we play a good part I have doubts whether the force will be able to do its work at all: and it is in our interest that the United Nations operation, inadequate and frustrating though it is, should at least carry on as best it can.’ More positively, he noted that, ‘This is the first time since Korea that a great power has been involved in a United Nations peacekeeping operation. This may surely be a useful precedent’.160 A firm decision was not taken for several weeks, but during this period it was accepted that if the Government were to agree to maintain a British presence this should be a reduced one, and the British should play ‘hard to

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get’.161 It was hoped that this approach would defuse Greek Cypriot accusations that Britain had assumed the dominant role in the conduct of the Force and ‘that we are trying to do too much back-seat driving’.162 On 26 May, the United States applied some pressure, when Assistant Secretary of State Harlan Cleveland emphasized the importance of maintaining a British contingent of at least 2000 troops and asserted that ‘British troops were crucial to the overall effectiveness of the force.’163 Similarly, Dean reported that Rikhye had been ‘emphatic that [UNFICYP’s] efficiency, which he says is unique in the record of United Nations peacekeeping, is to a great extent attributable to its United Kingdom origins and backing’. Rikhye had urged that Britain continue to provide the largest of all the contingents.164 A decision was finally taken on 27 May. The Defence and Oversea Policy Committee, a sub-group of the Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, decided that U Thant should be told that we should prefer not to participate in the Force after the end of its present term, but that if he considered it essential and if this was generally desired by the other nations concerned … we should reluctantly be prepared to participate for a further period, although preferably on a reduced scale.165 Dean was asked to convey the message to U Thant and to add that Britain expected the Secretary-General to overcome any objections which Makarios might have to continued British participation.166 If the British had hoped to play ‘hard to get’, the Secretary-General seemed disinclined to make them feel too indispensable. He agreed that ‘From the strictly political point of view he thought it would probably be best both for us and for the United Nations if we withdrew.’ However, he accepted that ‘there were the questions of finance, transport, logistics and the effect which our decision might have on other contributors’. Bunche told Dean that UNFICYP could not function without British assistance, although he apparently also had little interest in indulging the British ego, ‘he appeared to have in mind more our logistic contribution than our contingent of fighting troops’. Bunche also warned that British withdrawal could double UNFICYP’s cost, something which was unlikely to endear itself to Britain, which was already concerned about the difficulty of funding the operation.167 This conversation appeared to be as far as the Secretariat would go in entreating the British to stay on. It was hardly a plea which could be portrayed to the British public as irresistible. Still, the Foreign Office now instructed Dean to pursue the same tactic of playing ‘hard to get’ with other delegations and to let them know of a possible British withdrawal, ‘there may well be advantages in [our] continued participation … provided that this can come about as a result of our being “drafted” by general request’.168 On 12 June, Dean informed a

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troop-contributors’ meeting convened by U Thant that Britain would prefer not to have to provide a contingent beyond 26 June, but ‘if the SecretaryGeneral considered it necessary and if it was the general idea that they should do so’ the British would continue to provide a contingent reduced from the current 1700 to 1100–1200. On this occasion, the Secretary-General performed as the British had hoped, declaring that a British contribution was ‘essential to the efficiency of UNFICYP’ and that it would be very difficult for the force to function without it.169 On 22 June U Thant duly told the British that ‘the continued presence of a British contingent was desired by all concerned’ and formally requested one.170 On 25 June, Sandys told the House of Commons that the Secretary-General had warned that the withdrawal of the British troops would ‘seriously weaken the effectiveness of the whole operation’.171 Gyani was soon replaced by another Indian, the highly regarded General K.S. Thimayya, who had also trained at Sandhurst. At the same time, General Carver returned to Britain, and a British Brigadier, Colin Yeo, assumed the post of UNFICYP Chief of Staff. For the time being, the post of Deputy Commander was left empty.172 By mid-August the size of the British contingent had levelled off at just over 1000. Meanwhile, the British contingent had been redeployed. By May, it had been moved out of the tense Nicosia zone to the calmer zones of Limassol and Larnaca to the south; by September, the Irish troops had assumed responsibility for Larnaca and the British contingent was located solely within the Limassol zone. This redeployment reflected the residual unpopularity of the British troops in the period immediately after the transition from British to UN peacekeeping.173 In August 1964, fighting flared up in the Kokkina area and aircraft from Turkey launched attacks. There was renewed outrage in some British quarters, with The Daily Telegraph condemning UNFICYP as being in a ‘farcical position’ because U Thant’s interpretation of resolution 186 had rendered it ‘powerless’.174 The British Chiefs of Staff believed that there should be a modest increase in UNFICYP’s powers to enable it to insist on its freedom of movement and to remove fortifications; however, they concluded that it would be impracticable to enforce any greatly strengthened terms of reference.175 The Security Council both adopted resolution 193, calling for a ceasefire, and asked UNFICYP’s Commander to supervise it and to reinforce UNFICYP’s units in the affected zones. These instructions, conveyed in the Council meeting by the Council President, bypassed the Secretary-General altogether.176 Stegenga notes that the USSR’s consent to the instructions was in part due to its support for the assertion of direct Council control over a UN operation. However, Stegenga adds that this ‘one, lonely venture toward Council direction’ required lengthy discussions and was both weak and imprecise: ‘It is little wonder that the Organization, blessed with such a divided Council, finds itself usually obliged to delegate substantial increments of its authority to its very cautious chief executive.’177

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In September, when the mandate came up for renewal, Britain again made it clear to the United Nations that ‘we were not very willing to continue and could therefore readily withdraw later if we were asked to do so’.178 However, the debate about British participation was not reopened in any serious way, and the Greek Cypriot provocations, which had so exercised Government Ministers, eventually diminished. In the final months of 1964 the Cyprus Government relaxed economic restrictions which it had placed on the Turkish Cypriots, and the general situation in Cyprus improved. Successive reports by the Secretary-General to the Security Council reveal that a level of tension persisted, but violent incidents diminished. In June 1965, U Thant reported that the situation was basically unchanged and, for the first time, recommended that UNFICYP’s mandate be renewed for six months, not three, as had been the case until then; the Council agreed. Following renewed tension, the ensuing extension was again for three months, but then six-month renewals became routine. In the years that followed, UNFICYP continued to promote what U Thant termed ‘deconfrontation’ by interposing its forces between the two sides in sensitive areas and securing agreement to eliminate checkpoints and fortifications. In June 1966, the Secretary-General reported that UNFICYP had had to take a ‘particularly strong stand against action that tends to intensify armed confrontation’.179 However, political attention had shifted to the diplomatic efforts to resolve the underlying dispute. UNFICYP’s activities became more focused on normalization of the situation in Cyprus, through such measures as restoring the postal service, protecting agricultural activities and trying to solve cases of missing persons.

British experience of peacekeeping As during the Suez crisis, involvement in an issue of global political significance encouraged some of the British participants in UNFICYP to record their experiences and impressions. However, their accounts broke new ground by providing first-hand British insights into the day-to-day functioning of a UN operation. Of the British members of UNFICYP, General Carver produced the most useful analyses of the operation as seen from the ground. He clearly possessed sound political judgement, as illustrated by his efforts to pre-empt difficulties during the transition from British to UN peacekeeping. In midMarch 1964, he formulated for the United Nations what he described as ‘the awkward questions which would have to be answered if a clear directive were to be issued to the UN Force’. These included such issues as whether the Greek and Turkish military contingents already in Cyprus would come under UN command, and how UNFICYP should handle the de facto existence of two separate communities.180 Carver’s influence extended to proposing the locations to which other national contingents were assigned,

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in particular separating the Swedish and Irish contingents, to avoid repeating frictions which had reportedly existed between them in the Congo. Carver recorded that ‘In every respect, General Gyani was most sympathetic to my proposals, and I consider that Her Majesty’s Government were extremely fortunate in being able to achieve everything they wanted with the full agreement and support of the United Nations.’181 Carver’s various accounts also highlight the particular problems created by Britain’s involvement in a UN operation. He reported that, particularly in the early months, ‘As might be expected, the Greek Cypriots did not regard British troops, who donned UN insignia, as the genuine article.’ Britain’s historical baggage became an impediment for the British troops: One had to stick to the general principle of the use of minimum force; but what you could do varied. Non-British UN troops, for instance, could afford to act much more toughly than British, as it did not give rise to hysterical cries of imperialist plotting. British participation in UNFICYP therefore had the unwanted by-product of fanning anti-British feeling in general.182 Clearly, this ran counter to Britain’s original goal, namely to co-opt UNFICYP into protecting British interests. The legacy of British anti-terrorist actions during colonial rule cast a long shadow over Britain’s subsequent attempt to be perceived as a neutral peacekeeper. Nor was the conversion necessarily easy for the individual British soldiers: a British Major with UNFICYP subsequently wrote that not taking sides ‘may be especially difficult for those … who remember the last Cyprus tour in EOKA days’.183 The British decision to assign soldiers with such prior service to UN peacekeeping duties suggests both considerable faith in the soldiers’ ability to suppress memories of their previous experience and questionable judgement as to the risks of the UN force being tainted by such associations. The impressions of UNFICYP recorded by two other British commanding officers shed more light on the British experience of UN peacekeeping. Brigadier (subsequently General) James Wilson became the first British officer to command a UN peacekeeping force when he served as Acting Force Commander from December 1965 to May 1966, following the death in service of General Thimayya; Brigadier Michael Harbottle succeeded Wilson as UNFICYP’s Chief of Staff. Like Generals Alexander and Robertson before them, both Wilson and Harbottle argued for greater planning and support capacity at UN Headquarters.184 In addition, Wilson highlighted the ‘clear advantages … of having the logistical support for a Force supplied by one contingent’.185 The extent of such British assistance to UNFICYP is remarkable: by November 1964 the British had supplied nearly 1000 vehicles, 400 tons of tents, over 200 tons of camping equipment and over one million food rations. The expense was considered part of Britain’s voluntary financial contribution to UNFICYP.186

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Wilson also repeated the common lament of British officers who had been involved with UN peacekeeping, namely the Secretariat’s comparative lack of interest in lessons learned. He regretted that on leaving UN service he was given no opportunity to make a report to UN Headquarters with suggestions arising from his experience, ‘I did, of course, make one to the British Government, who took a great deal of interest.’187 The Secretariat was still seemingly less interested than member states in translating experience into an institutional memory. As for the British soldiers themselves, their assignment to UNFICYP was initially made that much harder by the suspicion and hostility of many of the local population, and two servicemen were kidnapped and killed in the early months of the operation. On 11 May 1964, The Daily Telegraph reported that a group of returning British paratroopers went wild when they reverted to their highly-coveted red berets and were no longer obliged to wear the resented blue ones. One group threatened to burn the [UN] berets in Trafalgar Square. But it must be said that [their] general conduct … throughout their peacekeeping mission was extremely good. They were simply glad to be leaving the job to others.188 The Economist reported that ‘most UN officials … are impressed by the way in which the British have undergone their metamorphosis into “Onusians” ’.189 These comments suggest that while British peacekeepers may not have embodied the ‘spirit’ of peacekeeping to the same extent as the Scandinavians and Canadians, they understood what was required and acted accordingly.

The semantics of peacekeeping Frank Kitson, who headed Carver’s intelligence staff in Cyprus in 1964 and commanded a British battalion in UNFICYP three years later, wrote of peacekeeping that The stress placed on officers and men alike is considerably greater than is popularly supposed to be the case. In fact … the demands of peacekeeping constitute one of the greatest tests which a commander can experience, and certainly one of the least agreeable.190 The title of Kitson’s book, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peacekeeping, might startle those who approach peacekeeping from an idealist direction, viewing it through the moral lens of the UN Charter, with its connotations that war is wrong and that anything which contributes to peace is intrinsically good. On this reading, peacekeeping is sullied by being linked with subversion and counter-insurgency operations. However, Kitson’s title

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raises the valid question of whether the British, or at least some British, held a different image of peacekeeping. After all, Pax Britannica was a form of peace, but those engaged in keeping it did not necessarily share the noble ideals subsequently enshrined in the Charter. In other words, did British policy-makers and practitioners understand the concept of peacekeeping differently from the UN Secretariat – by default the definer of the term? If so, did this affect how they practised it and what they expected it to achieve? The accounts by some of the British participants in UNFICYP shed light on the subject. For example, Harbottle relates that In Cyprus it always took the British soldier of the infantry battalions a certain time to adjust to this new concept of peacekeeping. At first, it was not easy to grasp the subtleties of it, though the majority had done so by the end of their six-months’ tour … They had never before been placed in this ‘in-between’ position where weapons were the last thing to be used – and none of them liked it … Although the British soldiers have much to offer and contribute to a UN peacekeeping operation in the way of military techniques and operational experience, they are novices compared with the Canadians, Irish and Swedes in the arts of peacekeeping – because the operations in which so many of them have been involved over the past ten years, in Malaya, East Africa, Borneo, and the EOKA campaign in Cyprus itself, have not been peacekeeping operations. Peacekeeping, or keeping the peace, is the wrong terminology for what they have been doing.191 Harbottle posits the primary difference between UN-style peacekeeping and the sort of operation formerly known by the British as ‘aid to the civil power’ in ‘the partial rather than the impartial methods used and in the application of armed force’.192 Occasionally, in a manner which tends to characterize the writing of peacekeeping’s early disciples, Harbottle’s tone verges on the pious: ‘It is a form of soldiering that does not depend on the rifle for its answers but on quiet reasoning, infinite patience, an impartial attitude and approach, and above all an understanding of human relationships.’193 By contrast, Kitson’s bluff approach is somewhat disconcerting. He pursues his theme in another book, the robustly named Bunch of Five; he accepts that peacekeeping is ‘a totally different business from fighting insurgents’: the peacekeeper is an outsider, called in by both parties to a dispute to help them settle their quarrel, whereas those active against insurgents are operating as agents of the government, against a section of the people. However, Kitson argues that ‘peacekeeping has more in common with counter-insurgency than it has with any other form of military activity’ on the grounds that in both peacekeeping and counter-insurgency soldiers are

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spread over a broad area, rely on intelligence-gathering, and require a greater awareness of political factors. In short, ‘peacekeeping provides very good experience for counter-insurgency and vice versa’.194 By referring to peacekeepers as outsiders, Kitson is clearly still speaking of UN-style peacekeeping, rather than of aid to the civil power, but his image of peacekeeping is devoid of the moral aura of Harbottle’s description; for example, he believed that peacekeepers under his command should at least be respected ‘and, if necessary, feared’.195 Harbottle and Kitson each reflect a distinct strain of British thinking on peacekeeping during the Cold War era. The first school was generally more in tune with the Secretariat’s conception in terms of the awareness of the symbolic power of a UN force and the need for both scrupulous impartiality and restraint. Carver, Harbottle, Wilson, Dean and other members of the Foreign Office can be considered to fall into this category. The second school tended to be more hard-nosed and impatient with political sensitivities. In this group might be included the more UN-sceptic members of the Cabinet, notably Sandys, as well as Kitson and those British Chiefs of Staff who had called in 1962 for UN forces to be as well-armed as their potential opposition. Members of the Commonwealth Relations Office might also be included here, as evidenced by the boasting of Clark in Nicosia that ‘we are … busy teaching [the] UN advance guard the delicacies of “peacekeeping.” ’196 Significantly, the British Army’s 1995 manual on Wider Peacekeeping described that form of peacekeeping in terms which echoed Kitson’s, highlighting the fact that UNFICYP’s operating environment bore some similarities to the semi-permissive environment of some post-Cold War peacekeeping operations.197 That Douglas-Home also fell into this category was illustrated in March 1964 when he used as an argument for not earmarking a British contingent for UN peacekeeping the fact that ‘At this very moment we are doing a good deal of peacekeeping all over the world.’198 Equating peacekeeping with the counter-insurgency operation in Malaysia and the interventions in Kenya and Uganda enabled the Prime Minister to skirt the larger issue of a stronger practical British commitment to UN peacekeeping.

Conclusion In April 1964, Dean reflected on the place of the United Nations in British foreign policy: For us and for the West as a whole the United Nations remains what it has been from its beginning, an element – and on the whole increasingly an indispensable element – in our international policy. As the United Nations now is, it is a very different organization from what was envisaged in the Charter, but it does not necessarily figure less importantly in the world

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scene. Whether we like it or not, the United Nations is now all-pervasive in international affairs and we have to take account of it and make the best of it. We are now in some respects even in a position to take advantage of it.199 The creation of UNFICYP offered a prime example of Britain taking advantage of the United Nations, but the initial hesitation about doing so revealed that policy-makers were far from embracing the Organization unreservedly. Moreover, British satisfaction with UNFICYP was not unalloyed: the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Foreign Office deemed it respectively a ‘modified’ and a ‘qualified’ success.200 Such verdicts can be explained in a number of ways to provide insights both into Britain’s experience and into the UN’s competence in mounting its third full peacekeeping force. ‘Qualified’ or not, UNFICYP was undeniably a success in protecting British interests in Cyprus, especially given the escalation which had occurred in the conflict while Britain sought vainly to avoid a UN force in the first place. Once fully established, UNFICYP helped stabilize and contain the hostilities and enabled Britain to redeploy troops to reinforce the protection of the SBAs. UNFICYP also provided cover for the British contingent to protect families living outside those areas. For these reasons, in December 1964, Dodson reported that the Ministry of Defence attached ‘the greatest importance’ to the continuation of UNFICYP as long as there was no political settlement in Cyprus, ‘Of all the countries participating in UNFICYP we would seem to have the greatest national interest in avoiding its premature withdrawal.’201 It could even be argued that Britain’s prominence in, and logistical support to, UNFICYP reinforced the British justification for retaining its SBAs which, otherwise, ‘even the most ingenious military mind could no longer justify’.202 In addition, although tensions remained high, Greece and Turkey did not go to war over Cyprus, to the relief of both Britain and NATO. That UNFICYP was needed was illustrated by the repeated international crises over Cyprus which occurred in the ensuing years, although the Turkish invasion and partition in 1974 showed the limits of its capacity to stave off external intervention. Carver identified another positive aspect of UNFICYP, as seen from a British perspective: The odium of being the arbiter between the two sides had been adroitly diverted from British to UN shoulders, the fact that the British formed a sizeable part of the United Nations Force, and exercised a strong influence within it, being conveniently camouflaged by our light blue berets and clear enthusiasm for the UN cause.203 From Dean’s vantage point, UNFICYP had the added advantage of providing him with a military adviser as part of the British Mission to the United Nations. He reported that Rikhye was willing ‘to refer many matters to a British officer which he will not refer to anyone else’.204

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Quite apart from UNFICYP’s performance and its protection of British interests, its very nature could be considered by the British to have been a success. Despite all the misgivings about allowing a UN force into an area of strategic importance for Britain, it turned out as well as could have been hoped in terms of its composition, command and the dominant role which Britain played in the operation. Having a sympathetic Secretary-General had been useful, and Britain had not had to use its informal veto over the choice of the other troop contributors. Neither the non-aligned group nor the Communist bloc had established a foothold in Cyprus, despite that country’s non-aligned status and its not insignificant Communist party. With such a Western complexion, peacekeeping could not be less threatening to Britain. However, Carver related that the prominence of British troops in the UN force made them ‘the obvious and easy target for blame’, particularly by the Greek Cypriots.205 This was one of the aspects which might have ‘qualified’ the British judgements of UNFICYP’s success. Another of Carver’s criticisms could apply to any peacekeeping operation functioning in the absence of progress towards a political settlement: UNFICYP had served to make a solution more rather than less difficult, in that it had prevented the real sources of power from acting on the situation. Any pressure, military, economic, political or diplomatic, exerted by either side, impelled the force, in the interest of keeping the peace and maintaining a stable situation, to resist it. As, on most occasions, such pressure came from the Greek Cypriot side, the force inevitably found itself ranged on the Turkish side of the balance …206 Carver thus confirms that UNFICYP sought to implement its mandate impartially: its main objective was preservation of the status quo; when that was endangered by either party, UNFICYP moved to provide a counterbalance. Thus, scrupulous performance of its responsibilities created a balance of power between two unequal sides. The fact that UNFICYP still exists illustrates quite how effectively this counterbalancing froze the conflict. In some quarters in Britain, UNFICYP’s success was also qualified by its failure to be more assertive in disarming the parties and using force against any opposition it encountered. Yet, as Carver noted, the UN force was too vulnerable to act more robustly, and, given the rapidity with which the House of Commons could apparently become ‘incensed’ by UN actions, U Thant was right to warn of an ONUC-style backlash against UNFICYP using force. In fact, in contrast to Sandys’ exasperation, UNFICYP generated regular Parliamentary questions about strengthening British support for peacekeeping, which, as the next chapter relates, began to play into pre-election party politics. At the root of such criticisms as arose was the fact that, despite Britain’s repeated exposure to UN operations, UNFICYP was a learning experience for

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some British policy-makers and parliamentarians. Burden-sharing with the UN was distinctly less agreeable than burden-passing to it. Deprived by its interests in Cyprus of the option of cutting and running, Britain for the first time experienced the gamut of dilemmas associated with participating in a UN force in a volatile environment. Abandoning Palestine to UNTSO and handing over the Suez Canal to UNEF had been straightforward compared to the practical and psychological demands of integration into a UN operation. From the UN’s perspective, notwithstanding the elusiveness of full peace, UNFICYP was, and is, more than a qualified success. In addition to containing the conflict, it made good progress on every aspect of its mandate. To do so, the Secretariat stretched the bounds of a peacekeeping operation which was not explicitly authorized to use force; this involved a creative interpretation of self-defence, permitting the use of force beyond simply responding to an attack on the lives of UN personnel. In 1973, when the United Nations set up its Second Emergency Force (UNEF II) in the Middle East, it interpreted self-defence from the beginning as including ‘resistance to attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties’. This time, SecretaryGeneral Kurt Waldheim published the definition immediately.207 Even though UNFICYP’s methods of composition and financing meant that it was not an orthodox UN operation, it helped lay to rest the ghost of ONUC. Another intra-state operation, it benefited not just from the more controlled nature of the conflict compared to that in the Congo, but also from the comparatively smaller size of Cyprus, with the result that there was a good chance of UN troops arriving at the scene of a dispute and exercising a preventive function before it escalated. British policy-makers held divergent views of UNFICYP’s character, although none judged it to be threatening to Britain. Whereas Sandys and, to a lesser extent Douglas-Home, viewed the operation as a weak and flawed surrogate for British forces, Carver and subsequent British commanding officers considered it to be doing its best under the circumstances and given its limited resources. In terms of UNFICYP’s management, some of the usual issues of concern to the British did not arise, above all because they played such a central managerial role before and after the creation of the force. Had this not been the case, there is little doubt that the United Nations would have been severely stretched by the scale of the task – and criticized accordingly. British policy-makers felt comfortable with Indians in control of the military side: they were reliable British proxies with valuable non-aligned and Commonwealth credentials. Furthermore, the high military standard of UNFICYP’s contingents, all from developed countries, precluded the discipline problems which had bedevilled some of ONUC’s national units. Nevertheless, the controversy surrounding the Force Commander’s directive showed a basic mistrust among some policy-makers, MPs and journalists of the United Nations as a commander, despite Carver’s central role.

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Rather than attempting to explain the basic tension between UNFICYP’s official mandate and the tasks it was being called on to perform, the Government seemed content to let the Secretariat play the role of scapegoat. An assessment of UNFICYP’s impact on British peacekeeping policy is hampered by the fact that the Conservatives were voted out of government six months later. This left little opportunity to gauge whether the UNFICYP experience had affected how they perceived and reacted to UN peacekeeping. One can speculate that had they stayed in power, they would have remained essentially supportive. Indeed, as the next chapter relates, in their remaining months in office they continued to pledge their commitment to strengthening peacekeeping. Harold Wilson’s Government maintained the Labour Party’s earlier support for peacekeeping and UNFICYP. As for the impact of British policies on peacekeeping, much of this chapter has described Britain’s practical influence on UNFICYP, and certain broad conclusions can be drawn from that. Rikhye’s praise of UNFICYP’s efficiency reflected the value of subcontracting certain functions to a major power with an efficient army. U Thant accepted Britain’s insistence on a quid pro quo: in exchange for Britain’s military and logistical support, it was granted strong influence over many aspects of the force. What the Secretary-General may not have expected as part of the arrangement was having to contend with tiresome displays of national pique and playing hard to get. The United Nations soon learned that if a major power helps run the show it may feel entitled to play the prima donna. Britain was fortunate in having U Thant as Secretary-General at the time; it is questionable whether Hammarskjöld, who attached greater importance to codifying peacekeeping, would have broken his own rules and permitted British participation or such restricted geographical representation among the troop contributors. Although the United Nations had not been their first choice, British policymakers came to perceive UNFICYP as a viable alternative for maintaining stability when Britain could no longer perform the job. The demands of the Cyprus crisis were on a qualitatively different scale from previous situations in which Britain had tried to control or sideline the UN’s activities, such as in Lebanon in 1958. It turned out that the best way for Britain to ensure the reliability of UNFICYP was to participate in it and manage it from within. Before UNFICYP took shape, there is no doubt that the prospect of relinquishing control to an international organization was an issue, and it arose in the Cabinet. However, this concern was soon resolved by the SecretaryGeneral’s full acquiescence in Britain playing a lead role; indeed, it was the British who turned down his offer that they should provide the Force Commander. As for command and control problems, once again, Britain’s prominence prevented too many difficulties. On the ground there appear to have been few problems, and the contingents cooperated well. Nevertheless,

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the Secretariat’s difficulty in marrying operational orders with political considerations came in for criticism again. Dean took a more tolerant view: We have to accept that, because of the political complications, no United Nations force will ever provide a text book example for students of military efficiency. This is partly because the countries contributing forces have their own political problems of which account has to be taken. It is also because, in the present circumstances, there is a tendency in the senior political ranks of the Secretariat to view military advisers as suspect and only to be brought in at the last resort … there is no doubt that if the Secretary-General had been able to put into effect the modest proposals which we put to him earlier this year for expanding the staff of his military adviser, the problems of getting the force organised would have been less … We must try to ensure that, just as the United Nations learned much from the Congo operation, they will also gain both in experience and efficiency as a result of their peacekeeping role in Cyprus.208 That the recurrent British demands for clarity might have been simply unrealistic is suggested by Harbottle’s observation that, compared to some other nationalities, the British were novices in the arts of UN peacekeeping. Troops with counter-insurgency experience do not necessarily make ideal peacekeepers for a Chapter VI operation. Finally, what insights does Britain’s response to the challenges of UNFICYP provide for our understanding of peacekeeping? First, in the right circumstances, a single state can have considerable influence over a UN operation. No previous UN peacekeeping force had been so controlled by a participant. Yet with such power comes responsibility, and the dispute over the publication of UNFICYP’s terms of reference illustrates the dangers when a state used to getting its own way manhandles a delicate political situation. British agitation also revealed that peacekeeping was not yet a settled concept for the United Nations. Some issues which might have seemed closed were reopened, including the diversity of the composition, and limitations on the use of force. The latter remained an issue on which the Secretariat and Britain still failed to see eye to eye, partly because of the fact that the British position on the use of force was strongly dependent on its interests in each conflict. In short, neither Britain nor the United Nations fully won round the other, and UNFICYP represented a compromise between two visions of peacekeeping.

8 Promoting and Defending Peacekeeping, 1964–67

The years 1964–67 marked a watershed in the evolution of peacekeeping. Efforts to break the paralysis over the funding of UN operations highlighted conflicting interpretations of the Charter and brought into the open a profound constitutional dispute among key members of the Organization over the division of responsibilities between the General Assembly and the Security Council. Peacekeeping became the central issue on which the major powers were prepared to take a stand to defend their respective conceptions of the United Nations, even at the risk of destroying the Organization. The struggle did not bode well for Britain’s quest, conducted with fresh vigour by the new Labour Government, for practical measures to improve peacekeeping. During this period, the domestic political situation in Britain was dominated by attempts to deal with economic challenges, which led to several sterling crises. This instability had a direct impact on foreign policy, as the continued need to reduce national expenditure forced the Government into another far-reaching reassessment of Britain’s role in the world and the overseas deployment of its armed services. The debate was suffused with rhetoric about peacekeeping, both unilateral and within a UN framework. At the same time, Britain’s growing tribulations over Rhodesia perpetuated the tension between a desire to strengthen the United Nations and the need to limit the Organization’s ability to interfere in matters affecting British interests.1 Other international events also made this a sombre period, including the 1965 conflict between India and Pakistan, growing American embroilment in Viet Nam and the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War in June 1967.2 This chapter begins by looking at UNFICYP’s impact on thinking about generic peacekeeping during the final months of Conservative rule until October 1964. Those months saw renewed examination of the Commonwealth’s capacity for peacekeeping, as well as the first detailed public exposition of Britain’s views on the constitutionality of UN operations 194

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under the Charter. The chapter then assesses the implementation of Labour’s pre-election pledges of support for peacekeeping. Labour had not been in power since the period of the UN’s first observer missions and so British policy on all aspects of peacekeeping since 1951, including on the three major peacekeeping forces covered in this book, had been formulated under Conservative Governments. Harold Wilson’s Labour Government proclaimed both that it would make peacekeeping a centrepiece of its foreign policy and that it would develop a more holistic approach towards peace through the United Nations, notably through strengthening procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes. The chapter examines the progress of this approach against a turning political tide in the General Assembly. Finally, the focus turns to the Middle East – hitherto the region arousing the greatest British sensitivity to UN involvement – and reactions to U Thant’s withdrawal of UNEF immediately prior to the Six-Day War. Those reactions are assessed for what they reveal of British perspectives on UN peacekeeping two decades after its creation.

Expanding British involvement in peacekeeping The participation of British troops in UNFICYP revived interest within and outside Parliament in UN peacekeeping and generated a steady stream of calls for Britain to do more to help the United Nations in this field. In March 1964, Prime Minister Douglas-Home told the House of Commons that ‘we would always be willing, provided we approved of the situation and of the United Nations resolution concerned, to provide forces to help, and we could do so expeditiously’. Harold Wilson, then still Leader of the Opposition, asked if Douglas-Home would consider earmarking for UN peacekeeping two thousand or more of the British troops stationed in Germany. The Prime Minister replied that he did not want to commit himself to earmarking particular troops in a particular place for a particular purpose. He preferred to give the matter further consideration, because ‘in the event, it might prove embarrassing to this country’.3 The issue was taken up by a Foreign Office planning committee which decided that there might now be scope for Britain to earmark non-combatant units and provide logistic support for UN peacekeeping operations. Sam Falle, head of the UN Department in the Foreign Office, also pondered whether Britain could offer combatant troops. He concluded that despite the fact that British participation in UNFICYP had by now broken Hammarskjöld’s rule against troops contributed by permanent members of the Security Council, this operation would be an exception: there are in many cases likely to be as strong objections to the use of British troops as to using those of the two super-powers. This is partly because of our world-wide defence commitments and our military bases

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in those areas where peacekeeping operations are most likely to be required, and partly because of our position as an ex-colonial power. The use of British combatant troops would in such cases almost certainly be unacceptable to one or other of the parties concerned. However, Falle believed that it would be to Britain’s advantage to agree with the Secretary-General on some more permanent way of assisting UN peacekeeping. This could encourage other states to take similar action, win Britain some credit in the United Nations for taking the initiative, and ‘dispel any doubts there may be about our alleged lack of enthusiasm towards UN peacekeeping’. Moreover, Britain’s retention of overseas bases need not be a liability, but rather could be turned to good advantage as logistic staging posts for UN forces: ‘some of the pressures on us to do away with such bases might be thus eased’.4 Although this last point never came to fruition, the suggestion showed that Falle viewed peacekeeping as a versatile tool to protect or promote British interests, even to the extent of preserving the vestiges of colonialism through justifying the retention of British military bases in former colonies. This provocative idea was to reappear under the Labour Government. In May, Defence Secretary Peter Thorneycroft and Foreign Secretary R.A. Butler debated the issue of earmarking a British combat contingent for peacekeeping. Thorneycroft considered that if countries earmarked specific units it would create unnecessary rigidity in national and UN planning. Given the unpredictable location and scope of UN operations, the focus should be on developing ‘mobile and flexible forces of the kind that we have used to such good effect in so many parts of the world in recent months’. Thorneycroft concluded that if it proved possible for Britain to make a contribution, the Ministry of Defence would be very pleased, but the contribution should be designed to meet the needs of a specific situation, not a pre-assigned unit. Butler replied that this approach raised certain political difficulties, and he maintained that Britain should not exclude offering logistic support or non-combatant units. However, he accepted that since these might not require special training, they need not be earmarked in any case.5 In May, Dean asked U Thant how best Britain could help in this field. The Secretary-General confirmed that British participation in UNFICYP had not blazed the trail to the extent that some had hoped: he told Dean that he saw some difficulty in principle in a permanent member of the Security Council earmarking troops. Ralph Bunche, whose caution was to become an increasing irritant for Britain, agreed that permanent members could make a better contribution through providing logistic support.6 Other avenues for a more direct British role in peacekeeping were also explored. In April, Falle reported to Alan Campbell, Head of Chancery in the British Mission, that the Foreign Office had been speculating on whether it would be possible, ‘under cover of the Cyprus operation (an opportunity

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which may not recur), to seek to infiltrate a British officer onto General Rikhye’s staff’. However, Falle noted that the preliminary conclusion in London was to ‘continue to let the Scandinavians and Canadians make the running’ and to pursue Lord Robertson’s idea of the secondment of an officer from a country which had already earmarked troops for UN service.7 Campbell believed that even just the attachment of a British military officer to the British Mission in connection with UNFICYP had distinct advantages, since it, fully ensures that our views are put in at the right level and at the right time. In some ways, Colonel Collins [the current British liaison officer] is almost on General Rikhye’s staff already, judging by the amount of help he gives him and the number of ideas he feeds him.8 On 23 April, Dean suggested to Sir Harold Caccia, Permanent UnderSecretary in the Foreign Office, that the post of military liaison officer be made a permanent fixture at the British Mission, regardless of the future of UNFICYP. Dean saw this as a way to preserve British influence at the United Nations since he feared that Britain might eventually lose control of some of the key Secretariat positions occupied by British nationals. Through the appointment of a high-quality military liaison officer, we shall be bringing a great deal of our influence to bear on the United Nations through … a very important back door … The officer … would also undoubtedly find out a great deal of what is going on inside the inner circles at the United Nations, particularly on important current issues, and would … be a valuable source of information to us.9 Dean had his way, and the British Mission gained a permanent, discreet conduit to and from the Secretariat on general peacekeeping issues.

A Commonwealth standby contingent British officials were not completely deterred by U Thant’s reluctance to build on the precedent set by British troops serving in UNFICYP. In June, Campbell expressed a more optimistic view than Falle had: we have reached the point at which it is reasonable to question the doctrine originally enunciated by Hammarskjöld … that permanent members of the Security Council should in principle not contribute forces to a UN operation … both we and the French might, in certain circumstances, come to be regarded as eligible, although the United States and the Soviet Union will probably continue to be considered ineligible, at any rate for some time to come.

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Campbell admitted that it was not easy to foresee the circumstances in which British combat forces could be included in a UN operation, ‘In addition, … the British are not regarded by the Scandinavians, or even by the Canadians, as naturally belonging to the UN peacekeeping club.’10 The UN Department explored one possible solution, namely the idea of a joint Commonwealth initiative to establish a standby peacekeeping contingent; the Commonwealth contingents in Korea and Malaysia offered precedents for such military cooperation.11 Falle saw several advantages to the idea: it would expand those states which had earmarked troops beyond white, developed countries and would also restore some influence to the Commonwealth group at the United Nations. Finally, ‘it would provide this country with a means of providing assistance fairly discreetly; the difficulty inherent in our being a permanent member of the Security Council would be less evident if our assistance was offered as part of a joint Commonwealth initiative’.12 In June, the Foreign Office included in its briefing papers for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting an appeal for other Commonwealth Governments to earmark forces for use by the United Nations; this could lead to the possibility of joint Commonwealth arrangements. Indeed, Britain would be willing to consider providing forces for UN operations which it considered to be ‘justified’.13 In their final communiqué the Prime Ministers undertook to consider practical measures to strengthen the UN’s peacekeeping machinery.14 Unfortunately, Britain’s relationship with some of its Commonwealth partners was by now suffering over the issue of Rhodesia (discussed later in the chapter).15

The constitutionality of peacekeeping The summer of 1964 was the last time when Douglas-Home’s Conservative Government displayed its stance on peacekeeping; this period provided several opportunities to take stock of how far the Conservatives had travelled since their ambivalent reaction to the creation of UNEF. When U Thant visited London in July, Douglas-Home told him that while Britain did not want to earmark specific troops for the United Nations, it had ‘fully professional armed forces ready to move at a moment’s notice, [and] we should always be ready to help the United Nations in operations of which we approved’.16 These comments showed a growing receptivity to UN peacekeeping in principle, but such conditional offers of support remained unhelpfully vague. At this time, Britain was drawn into a public debate with the USSR over the legitimacy of peacekeeping in its current form. On 10 July, the Soviet Government sent the Secretary-General a ‘Memorandum … regarding certain measures to strengthen the effectiveness of the United Nations in the safeguarding of international peace and security’.17 The memorandum

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started positively, noting that international relations had recently shown distinct signs of changes for the better, aided by such agreements as the Partial Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty; there had also been some improvement in the political situation within the United Nations. The memorandum diverged only a little from the position on peacekeeping which the Soviet Union had espoused ever since UNEF, especially the conviction that international peace depended on strict adherence to the letter of the UN Charter. The fundamental points remained that the UN’s use of armed forces could be authorized only by the Security Council (where the USSR could exercise its veto), and not by the General Assembly; that the Council should be assisted by the Military Staff Committee in all matters related to the deployment of United Nations armed forces; and that executive control of UN forces remained with the Council or the Military Staff Committee. On this last point, the memorandum noted that the SecretaryGeneral, as the chief administrative officer of the United Nations, should contribute to the execution of the Council’s decisions: implicitly, this kept the Secretary-General firmly subordinate to the Council. The USSR had also always maintained that the Council was responsible for deciding on how UN operations should be financed: the memorandum stated that the expense of UN operations should conform to the ‘generally recognized principle of international law that aggressor States bear political and material responsibility’ for the aggression and material damage. Nevertheless, the USSR accepted that there might be occasions when other UN members would, in accordance with a Security Council decision, have to pay the costs of a UN force, and the USSR would be willing to take part in that. In a contemporary gloss on the standard Soviet position, the memorandum stated that UN armed forces should not be used in ‘the narrow unilateral interest of any individual States or groups of States’ and that they should include contingents from socialist countries. This was presumably an allusion to the West’s interest in, and domination, of UNFICYP. The memorandum made one concession to UN peacekeeping as it had evolved, namely in acknowledging that it was inadvisable for UN forces to include contingents provided by permanent members of the Security Council. The USSR believed that member states (presumably excluding the permanent Council members) should conclude agreements governing the provision of contingents, in accordance with Article 43 of the Charter.18 This memorandum, and in particular the confirmation that the USSR would pay for future UN operations, was apparently intended to demonstrate Soviet preparedness to discuss the contested issue of peacekeeping. Yet it signalled no movement on the matter of settling arrears for UNEF and ONUC. Moreover, it stood to create a curious hybrid: through detailed references to Articles of the Charter, it appeared to envisage only operations conducted under Chapter VII, that is, those normally considered

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peace enforcement operations. However, excluding troops from permanent members of the Security Council would make it far harder to mount a militarily effective enforcement operation. The fact that in the Military Staff Committee representatives of the permanent five would plan the use of armed force by other countries’ troops, but not their own, was unlikely to endear itself to the broader UN membership. The British reluctantly concluded that while the memorandum showed some willingness to establish a basis for cooperation, it did not represent much advance: they believed that by focusing on Chapter VII, the memorandum would, in fact, ‘debar the kind of operation to which we are now accustomed’.19 Alan Campbell subsequently wrote that ‘The whole memorandum was so far removed from the reality of United Nations peacekeeping as it has developed over the last 20 years that one wondered whether it was meant as a serious contribution to discussion’. Furthermore, he suspected that the Soviet desire … to have a hand in United Nations peacekeeping relates almost entirely to their calculation that before long the United Nations will have to consider the possibility of forceful action against South Africa. It will be at that stage that they will hope to be able to turn the tables on the Americans and ourselves.20 Despite this, the British decided to react as positively as possible in order to leave open the option of dialogue. Accordingly, they submitted their own memorandum in reply. This was issued as a UN document, and effectively made Britain the primary interlocutor with the USSR and the main Western spokesman on UN peacekeeping.21 The British memorandum noted that the United Nations had been gradually and reasonably adapted to give it the necessary flexibility to deal with such dangers to peace as had hitherto arisen: the United Nations has been able to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security by the provision of forces bearing arms, which have entered the territory of the States concerned with the consent of their Governments. Her Majesty’s Government hope the Soviet Government have no intention of excluding the possibility of these valuable activities which are clearly in accordance with the United Nations Charter. Crucially, the memorandum then opposed ‘the doctrine that any permanent member of the Security Council has the right under the Charter wholly to prevent the United Nations fulfilling its peacekeeping role’. In other words, UN peacekeeping operations should not be hostage to a veto in the Security Council.

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The memorandum expressed interest in further information on the Soviet position on the provision of forces under Article 43. However, it stressed that the basic question was ‘the proper role of the Security Council and the General Assembly respectively in relation to peacekeeping operations and their financing’; in this regard, the Soviet document had made no reference to peacekeeping arrears nor to proposals made in March 1964 by the United Kingdom and the United States to try to find a compromise on this issue.22 This memorandum confirmed that Britain had come fully to terms with UN peacekeeping as an institution. The misgivings of the late 1950s about a role for the General Assembly, and belated doubts about the wisdom of the ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution, had now been laid to rest. Certainly, rapid British decolonization during the intervening period had reduced the number of potential hotspots in which the United Nations could interfere with British interests, but several key ones remained. Rhodesia was a prime target, and the Soviet memorandum had explicitly called for the application of sanctions against South Africa under Article 41. Yet British policy-makers had apparently concluded that such risks were outweighed by the situations, such as that in Cyprus, in which the United Nations could protect or promote British interests. The memorandum also displayed greater British comfort with the informal adaptation of the Charter. Britain had traditionally attached importance to the codification of, and compliance with, international law. For example, it had scrupulously complied with decisions against it in the International Court of Justice.23 However, the British memorandum stretched the truth when it declared that peacekeeping was ‘in accordance with the United Nations Charter’: peacekeeping under Chapter VI accorded with the spirit of the Charter, but patently did not appear in the text. Moreover, when assertive actions by a force such as ONUC or, to a lesser extent, UNFICYP went against the wishes of a permanent Security Council member, these were arguably in actual violation of the Charter’s emphasis on great-power unanimity in the use of armed force. Yet Britain was now prepared to accept such a flexible interpretation of the terms of the Charter. The next instalment in this dialogue by memorandum followed a month later, with another Soviet disquisition. This one dealt primarily with the UN’s financial crisis, and restated the USSR’s conviction that the Security Council had sole responsibility for decisions on the funding of UN forces.24 The United States now weighed into the debate with its own detailed pronouncement on the financial crisis, pointing out contradictions in the Soviet position, including the fact that it had voted to create ONUC yet now refused to pay for it.25 A further Soviet memorandum followed on 7 November.26 A coda to this increasingly acrimonious exchange was an offer by Czechoslovakia – which had presumably been put up to it by the USSR – to conclude an agreement with the Security Council to make a contingent of its armed forces available in accordance with Article 43 of the Charter.27 The offer was never taken up.

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Labour in power On 15 October 1964, the day before the UK General Election, Dean wrote a despatch on ‘The United Nations As It Is Today’. A thoughtful analysis, it turned out to be his valedictory: he was soon appointed British Ambassador in Washington. He recorded that the utility of the United Nations as a contributor to peace has grown. It has played its part, albeit a something less than glorious one, in most of the conflicts which could have escalated to nuclear war … The important defect of the United Nations as a whole, however, is that it has failed to be fully adjustable to [the] recent evolution of world affairs and it has not provided adequately for change … The West, while not insensitive to the wishes of the underdeveloped countries, prefer to look to an evolutionary process of orderly decolonisation and economic progress. The less developed countries, however, seek to use the United Nations as an engine for radical and rapid change through its decolonisation committees and UNCTAD [the UN Conference on Trade and Development, founded in 1964]. The conflict between these conceptions of the Organization soon intensified, and in some respects the Western conception came off worse. As for peacekeeping operations, Dean considered that they had undoubtedly made an important contribution to reducing the tension inherent in a particular crisis in spite of all their obviously unsatisfactory features and the still unresolved problems which arise from their financing … In the peacekeeping field we can therefore take some satisfaction from the way in which the United Nations has adjusted itself to meet the unforeseen needs of the first two decades of its existence.28 The Labour Government, which took power after narrowly winning the election, was determined to raise the profile of the United Nations in British foreign policy. Before the election Harold Wilson had set the tone by remarking on the deep cleavage between the attitude of the two [sic] British Parties on the UN. It has been basically a clash of philosophies, between one Party which has not rid itself of its imperialist yearnings, and one which recognizes the character of the post-colonialist age in which we live.29 One of the new Prime Minister’s first steps was to bestow a peerage on Sir Hugh Foot, who became Lord Caradon, and to appoint him both as one of four Ministers of State for Foreign Affairs and as Permanent Representative to the United Nations. At the United Nations Caradon enjoyed a large

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measure of autonomy under Foreign Secretaries Patrick Gordon Walker and Michael Stewart. Labour was re-elected with a larger Parliamentary majority in March 1966 and in August 1966 George Brown was appointed Foreign Secretary. Brown played a more assertive role on UN issues than his two predecessors, especially during the 1967 Middle East war and its aftermath. After his posting as the last British Governor-General in Cyprus, Caradon had served at the United Nations, both as Britain’s representative on the Trusteeship Council until he resigned in 1962 over Britain’s African policies, and then as a UN official specializing in African economic development. Following his appointment as British Ambassador at the United Nations, he emphasized the fact that he was also a serving Cabinet member, citing it as evidence of the importance the new Government attached to the Organization. Caradon also publicized the terms of reference which he had been given, which were: (a) to seek new initiatives to further the purposes of the United Nations Charter; (b) to seize every opportunity to support, strengthen and, where necessary, reform the United Nations; and (c) to take a constructive and leading part both in peacekeeping plans and in the economic development of new nations. However, in public he omitted the caveat that these objectives were subject to the maintenance of British interests and that support for peacekeeping was to be a means to increase British influence in the Organization.30 Finally, as further publicity for Britain’s actions at the United Nations, a collection of statements on the Organization by Caradon, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were published in 1965 in two volumes under the title A Positive Policy Towards the United Nations.31

Foreign and defence policy under Labour The new British Government spent its first few months developing its foreign and defence policies. Always present in the background were the ailing British economy and the need to bring overseas expenditures into line with resources. Wilson told the Cabinet on 26 November that Britain was attempting to discharge three major defence roles: a commitment to the defence of Europe under NATO; the role of a nuclear power; and the maintenance of a worldwide military presence, based on Britain’s overseas commitments.32 Although the Prime Minister acknowledged that it was impossible to sustain all three indefinitely, he was reluctant to scale down Britain’s military presence abroad. On 16 December he told the House of Commons that ‘Whatever we may do in the field of cost-effectiveness, value for money and a stringent review of expenditure, we cannot afford to relinquish our world role … sometimes called our ‘east of Suez’ role …’33 Phillip Darby notes that ‘when Wilson and other Labour ministers used language with a remarkable similarity to that of the later imperialists they drew on a fund of imperial romance, of enthusiasm for the Commonwealth, and a deep-seated paternalism which reflected their alienation from Europe

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and from America’.34 Darby might have added that in line with Labour’s tradition of internationalism, Wilson replaced the language of imperialism with frequent references to peacekeeping, which were henceforth to pervade the protracted debates on defence reductions: Our maritime tradition, our reputation, our mobility, despite inadequate equipment, above all our Commonwealth history and connections, mean that Britain can provide for the Alliances and for the world peacekeeping role a contribution which no other country, not excluding America, can provide … Obviously our overseas role depends on having adequate bases both for our peacekeeping forces and as an essential link in communications with areas still further afield … If we are to fulfil our overseas role … we need most, if not all, of the bases we now hold, but we need to be accepted in those bases.35 Similarly, Defence Secretary Denis Healey rejected suggestions that Britain’s military presence ‘East of Suez’, that is, in parts of Asia and Africa, served ‘selfish British economic interests’.36 On the contrary, he argued that Britain’s bases in Aden and Singapore made ‘a substantial contribution to international peacekeeping’.37 When he had been Prime Minister, Douglas-Home had also used the terminology of peacekeeping, but this had been more closely related to British interests, notably military interventions in aid of Commonwealth countries. Wilson’s and Healey’s usage added stronger moral and international overtones, suggesting that Britain had not only the capacity, but also the duty, to use its military resources to promote world peace in general. Given these connotations, the traditional Labour emphasis on the moral duty to reduce military bases in former colonies was turned on its head: Wilson sought to transform the image of Britain’s military and strategic assets abroad from a national interest maintained in defiance of the international spirit of decolonization to a contribution to global stability for the good of all states. Whereas Wilson played up the contribution which British troops could make to global peacekeeping, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs George Thomson made a more traditional argument, linking peacekeeping by the United Nations with the protection of British interests: No country … has a greater interest in peaceful, stable and prosperous conditions throughout the world than the United Kingdom … It is the Government’s particular objective to do everything they can to strengthen the peacekeeping capacity of the United Nations.38 The Government now determined to make this objective a reality. In November, in response to a request from the Foreign Office, the Chiefs of Staff set in train a formal study into the possibility of Britain providing

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logistic support or some non-combatant units to the United Nations to strengthen the latter’s ability to mount peacekeeping operations at short notice.39 While this was in preparation, the UN’s financial crisis came to a head. To avoid forcing the issue of whether the USSR, now over two years in arrears to the UN budget, should be deprived of its vote in the General Assembly under Article 19, all decisions of the new Assembly session were adopted without a vote. On 1 January 1965 France also became liable to the loss of its vote. Before adjourning on 18 February 1965, the Assembly established a special committee, known as the Committee of 33, to undertake ‘a comprehensive review of the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects’, including ways to overcome the UN’s financial difficulties.40

British logistical support for peacekeeping By January 1965 work was under way to refine British policy at the United Nations. Foreign Secretary Gordon Walker told Caradon that the first objective should be to improve the UN’s peacekeeping capacity; this should include strengthening the permanent military staff at UN Headquarters. Other objectives included overhauling the UN’s economic development work, promoting human rights and racial equality and strengthening the UN’s machinery for the peaceful settlement of international disputes.41 As the draft study on British logistical support for peacekeeping took shape, Falle wrote enthusiastically to Campbell that the offer would ‘surely be the best ever made to the United Nations for peacekeeping purposes’ and would demonstrate ‘that our fine sentiments about the support of the United Nations are being translated into practical action’.42 However, Campbell was alarmed by a sentence in the draft paper that Britain’s offer of logistic support would mean that ‘the whole international community would derive advantage from the resources of our overseas bases’. He insisted that the sentence be modified: It would be only too easy for the Russians and their friends to point to this sentence as showing that we are simply trying to use the UN as a justification for maintaining our bases in Aden and elsewhere and I fear that this line of criticism would succeed in sowing suspicion in the minds of those who would otherwise regard our offer as a very generous one.43 The Principal Administrative Officers of the armed services, who had drafted the study, had more substantial doubts: they questioned the wisdom of undertaking new commitments in the logistic field at a time when major economies were being sought in the defence budget and when resources were already fully stretched. Accordingly, Lord Mountbatten, Chief of the Defence Staff, recommended that any government statement ‘should be in

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such general terms as to cause us the minimum embarrassment should we at any time in the future be unable to meet a request for assistance, or be forced to withdraw our forces prematurely after they had been committed to help the United Nations’.44 Once again, it was precisely this placing of conditions on the use of earmarked contingents which undermined the value of such pledges to the Secretariat. Michael Stewart announced the British offer in the House of Commons on 23 February 1965: If so requested, and subject to our national commitments, we will help to provide logistic backing for a United Nations force of up to six infantry battalions. This could include, for example, short-range aircraft, engineering and signal troops, and ambulance, ordnance and motor transport units. If it were desirable, suitable units of these categories would be earmarked for use as available. Her Majesty’s Government also hope to take a share in providing long-range aircraft for the transport of peacekeeping forces.45 This offer fell some way short of the appeal made the previous week by the Parliamentary Group for World Government (numbering 50 Peers and 120 MPs), for the Government to ‘press for the establishment of an independent, individually recruited United Nations peace force’.46 However, Stewart’s statement was reported as receiving ‘loud cheers from the Government benches’.47 Douglas-Home, now Leader of the Opposition, highlighted the caveats in the offer and questioned how this differed from the previous situation. Stewart retorted that no previous Government had made such a precise offer to the United Nations, and he promised that it would be made more specific when the Committee of 33 commenced its work.48 Accordingly, in April Sir Roger Jackling, Caradon’s deputy, sent U Thant an unpublicized but highly detailed ten-page memorandum spelling out what Britain could provide.49 In the defence debate in the House of Commons shortly after the offer had been announced, Healey did not allude to Wilson’s earlier suggestion of earmarking 2000 troops of the British Army of the Rhine for peacekeeping duties. Indeed, Healey predicted that ‘the occasion will not often arise when the Security Council will be prepared to allow a great power to supply frontline combat troops’. Healey’s statements revealed conflicting tensions: on the one hand he supported Wilson’s position that Britain had an international responsibility to retain overseas bases, but on the other, the need for economies led him to assert a view of the utility of UN peacekeeping fo burden-sharing and providing back-up for Britain’s own resources: ‘A major element in the foreign and defence policies of the Government is to ensure that responsibility for peacekeeping outside Europe falls increasingly on the United Nations … the offer by Britain of military support for United Nations

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peacekeeping is not a diversion from our national defences, but is, in this age, the only way of making national defences really effective in the long run.’50 In contemporary jargon, Healey saw Britain’s offer of logistic support as a ‘force multiplier’ for UN operations. British policy-makers were pleased with the positive reception which their offer received from other UN members. Harlan Cleveland told Caradon that the US Administration had been greatly impressed by Britain’s activity and constructive thought. He even applauded the offer of logistic support as ‘a useful effort to present overseas bases not as the last bastions of a colonial past, but as the first symbols of international peacekeeping’.51 By contrast, the British were somewhat taken aback by the UN Secretariat’s silence. In his Annual Report on the United Nations the previous summer U Thant had regretted having no mandate to do more than welcome national offers of standby units.52 However, he did not even welcome Britain’s offer. The British Mission learned that Bunche and Rikhye had adopted opposing positions: Bunche rejected the idea of a great power providing even logistic units to peacekeeping forces, whereas Rikhye argued that: (1) the United Nations could not afford to ignore the offer, which was a great step forward; (2) the nationality of logistic units was not important; and (3) there had already been precedents. The British told Rikhye that they would not insist on a formal reply. Campbell concluded that this episode again highlighted the difficulties facing any practical attempt to strengthen the UN’s peacekeeping capabilities.53 In May, Lord Mountbatten met U Thant and Brian Urquhart at UN Headquarters. Mountbatten recalled General Robertson’s proposals and stressed the need for effective standby arrangements for logistic support; U Thant acknowledged the point, but asserted that, politically, the time was not suitable to pursue those ideas. The Committee of 33 was currently discussing peacekeeping and the Secretary-General considered that he did not have the authorization to proceed further on questions of command and organization at this stage. Urquhart stressed the political delicacy of the subject of great-power involvement in peacekeeping, including in logistic support.54 This conversation suggests that the tide was beginning to turn against Britain’s efforts to enhance peacekeeping: not only was the USSR growing more strident in its insistence on adherence to the Charter, but the Secretariat was becoming more nervous about the great-power altercation rumbling over its head. The situation had clearly evolved quite drastically since the previous year when U Thant had appealed to Britain to provide the logistic backing for UNFICYP. Despite such resistance, buried in the December 1965 British White Paper on the Reorganization of the Army Reserve was the statement that ‘There will… be a few units in the Special Army Volunteer Reserve, with a total establishment of about 1600, which might be needed to cover the logistic support of

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a United Nations peacekeeping force.’55 While the use of these units would no doubt be contingent on political factors, this statement confirmed that Britain had effectively earmarked units for UN peacekeeping.56

Committee of 33 The Committee of 33 was chaired by the President of the General Assembly ‘in collaboration’ with the Secretary-General, and was under instructions to submit a report to the Assembly by 15 June 1965. Four of the five permanent members of the Security Council participated in the Committee: China’s exclusion reflected the growing controversy over the fact that the Taiwanese authorities continued to occupy the Chinese UN seat.57 Michael Stewart had previously told the House of Commons that Britain intended to play a leading part in the Committee and to put forward new ideas.58 However, an Anglo-US agreement on a common position revealed few surprises: the primary responsibility for peacekeeping lay with the Security Council, but the General Assembly had residual powers; peacekeeping as currently exercised by the United Nations should be continued; there should be more frequent resort to the peaceful settlement of disputes; the Secretary-General’s peacekeeping staff should be strengthened; the Secretary-General should encourage the earmarking of national contingents; the United States and the United Kingdom were prepared to resume negotiations on agreements under Article 43;59 voluntary contributions appeared to be the best way of resolving the UN’s current financial difficulties;60 and peacekeeping operations could be financed by various means, including compulsory assessments, voluntary contributions and from a standing peacekeeping fund.61 As the discussions progressed in the Committee it became clear that this rather unambitious position was not a point of departure for new British ideas, but rather the upper limit of its aspirations. The Committee held 14 meetings between 26 March and 15 June. Progress was difficult: on 31 May the Chairman and the Secretary-General reported that there did not appear to be a general consensus even on what constituted a peacekeeping operation.62 They related that there had been frequent assertions that enforcement actions were the exclusive prerogative of the Security Council, but a serious difference of views existed as to what constituted enforcement action.63 The report fudged the issue of financing peacekeeping operations, stating simply that this should be ‘in conformity with the Charter’ and that the Assembly and Council should cooperate.64 Finally, the report proposed guidelines for future peacekeeping operations and sought the Committee’s agreement. These stated that the Security Council had the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security but that the General Assembly also bore a share of that responsibility and could act if the Council did not. It was suggested that the Assembly, with a two-thirds majority, could make recommendations to the

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Council, the expectation being that this would have ‘a very significant effect upon the subsequent action by the Council’. Similarly, the Assembly was to give ‘the most serious weight’ to the views expressed in the Council. Clearly, this approach lay closer to the UK–US position than to that of France and the USSR. Michael Stewart had even entertained the idea of Britain committing itself not to use the veto against a peacekeeping operation which had the support of a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly and a majority in the Security Council. Both Campbell and Caradon had misgivings about making such a binding commitment, especially with the Rhodesia issue on the horizon, and the idea was not pursued.65 Stewart was persuaded that Caradon should instead be authorized simply to endorse the Secretary-General’s comments on the ‘very significant effect’ which a General Assembly recommendation should have on the action of the Council. Even though Stewart’s idea was ultimately not taken up, the fact that a British Foreign Secretary contemplated Britain deferring to the General Assembly and relinquishing its right to veto a peacekeeping operation was a remarkable reflection of the changed nature of British relations with the United Nations and a far cry from the scepticism of most Conservative Foreign Secretaries. On 15 June the Special Committee reported to the General Assembly that more time was required to consider the constitutional, financial, organizational and other aspects of peacekeeping operations.66 The Committee resumed its work in August. On 16 August the United States backed down on its insistence on the application of Article 19, and was supported in this by Britain, which had already taken the lead in making a voluntary contribution of US$10 million towards restoring the UN’s solvency.67 On 31 August the Committee of 33 formally agreed to advise the General Assembly to continue its work as normal and not to raise the applicability of Article 19 with regard to UNEF and ONUC; the UN’s financial difficulties should be solved through voluntary contributions, with the most developed countries making substantial donations.68 This broke the stalemate: Britain, the United States and other Western countries agreed to turn a blind eye to the delinquency of the Soviet bloc and France, and the latter accepted that issues of the constitutionality and control of peacekeeping should remain within the Committee of 33 rather than being taken up by the full General Assembly and delaying the Assembly’s other work. However, as for practical advances in peacekeeping, Assistant Under-Secretary of State Cecil King concluded that ‘the present operation in Cyprus represents about the limit which the UN could at present be expected to achieve – i.e., a simple fire brigade exercise, kept going by voluntary contributions from interested members’.69 Even though the proceedings of the Committee of 33 had been disheartening, the British Government was feeling good about Britain’s standing in the United Nations. In June, Stewart reported to the Cabinet that Britain’s

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reputation in the Organization was high, and in July Wilson boasted to the House of Commons that After years of doubts about the degree of support that this country was prepared to give the United Nations … I believe that Britain’s acceptance of the UN as a cornerstone of our world policy is now recognised by every nation in the world.70 Wilson cited Britain’s support for a resolution condemning apartheid in South Africa, its unconditional financial contribution (which Stewart had presented as ‘an act of faith in the United Nations’71) and its pledge of logistic support for peacekeeping operations – ‘the first step to the international peace force we have all dreamed of’.72 The following month, Caradon told the Committee of 33 that, in addition to its financial support to UNFICYP, Britain had increased its contributions to the UN’s development activities, as well as to its work with children and refugees. Even without its donation of $10 million, Britain was now the UN’s second largest financial contributor.73

Peaceful settlement of disputes The British now embarked on another track of their approach to strengthening the United Nations. Michael Stewart’s announcement in February, offering logistic support for peacekeeping, had included the statement: It is one thing to keep the peace; another to settle the problems which threaten peace. A number of experts are considering the process of settling disputes by conciliation, mediation, arbitration and other methods. After examining their recommendations we shall expect to make positive suggestions.74 On 18 August Stewart instructed Caradon to have an item on ‘The Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’ inscribed on the agenda of the General Assembly session which was due to begin the following month.75 The aim would be to explore and expand political means of dispute settlement and relevant procedures in the United Nations, though without amending the Charter. The proposal might enable the United Nations ‘to capture some of the initiative in the world which has been lost in the sad history of peacekeeping expenses’.76 Harold Wilson subsequently described the goal as to establish more effective peacemaking machinery ‘designed to make peacekeeping operations themselves ultimately unnecessary’.77 Yet, in the view of F.S. Northedge, Britain’s interest in the subject did not establish it as somehow a more idealistic or civilised UN member state than the rest. The fact is … that all or almost all British national interests now require a

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peaceful and as far as possible tension-free world. For Britain, peace is good business and to that extent British interests are identical with the principles and purposes of the UN Charter.78 While denying that the project was a Cold War exercise, Stewart argued that it would ‘recapture for the West the initiative which was lost to the USSR when they introduced the subject of peaceful coexistence’. He acknowledged that the British had no new ideas on the subject but he expected the outcome to be a study by the Secretary-General of the ‘working of procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes within the United Nations over the last 20 years’, for consideration by the General Assembly the following year.79 His request that the item be taken up late in the General Assembly’s session was to prove fateful. The initiative was well-intentioned but impulsive and poorly thoughtthrough; the speed with which it was launched surprised the Americans, who would have preferred it to be a joint proposal.80 Moreover, the British had overlooked the fact that the Americans expressly wanted to keep interAmerican disputes out of the United Nations and to deal with them at a regional level instead.81 Yet by December, Britain, the United States and eleven other countries had agreed to sponsor a resolution creating an expert group to ‘seek imaginative answers’ to the problems of resolving disputes.82 Unfortunately, US Ambassador Arthur Goldberg made a speech vigorously supporting the resolution, thereby contributing to Soviet hostility on the grounds both that the sponsors were trying to impose ‘new forms of activity contrary to the Charter’ and that the failure to settle disputes resulted from the policy of the colonial powers, identified as Britain and the United States.83 Stewart had clearly failed in his ambition to avoid the issue becoming a Cold War exercise. More disturbingly, the initiative fell foul of a coalition led by Ghana and including India, two members of the Commonwealth. The cause was British policy over Rhodesia, whose white minority Government under Ian Smith had issued its unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) the previous month. Stewart’s request that the ‘Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’ item be delayed until the end of the General Assembly session meant that it became entangled in anti-colonial politics and, in the rueful words of a subsequent Foreign Office report, was taken up on ‘Hate Britain Day’ at the United Nations, marked most spectacularly by the walkout of African delegates during a speech by Harold Wilson to the General Assembly; this occurred less than three months after Wilson had told the Cabinet that Britain’s reputation in the United Nations had ‘never stood higher’.84 African states suspected that the ‘Peaceful Settlement’ initiative was designed to bolster British views against the use of force to compel Rhodesia to adopt majority rule; the item was deferred to the next year without any progress.85

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1966: disillusion sets in In the prevailing political climate at the United Nations, by 1966 the steam was starting to go out of Britain’s fervour to develop peacekeeping further. The comments on the United Nations in the Government’s Statement on the Defence Estimates had a chastened tone, reflecting an awareness of the constraints posed by UN politics: ‘Political disagreements, not only among the great powers, but also among the small, have so far set limits to the United Nations’ authority for peacekeeping, and the failure of many countries to pay their share has restricted its effectiveness in this sphere.’86 Furthermore, the risks of UN interference in Rhodesia and South Africa were causing second thoughts about how far the General Assembly should be granted authority to launch peacekeeping operations.87 When, in March 1966, US and UK officials met to discuss peacekeeping, the British objectives therefore included moving gradually towards strengthening the primacy of the Security Council.88 As for ideas of improving the Secretary-General’s military staff, a British brief for talks with the Canadians in May lamented that, in the two years since Britain and the United States had presented U Thant with a plan for a military advisory staff of ten, We have lost a good deal of ground … The Secretariat … seem blandly to be accepting a state of affairs in which some thirty nations are taking – or have recently taken – part in peacekeeping operations … Yet the United Nations’ rudimentary military staff is being allowed to wither away. The British understood the Secretariat’s fear that the USSR might oppose any military staff in the Secretariat, but they considered that the situation was further complicated by the character of Dr. Bunche … with all its inhibitions. His many dislikes include soldiers; changes; a large staff; anything that can be construed as military intelligence; and devolution of authority from himself.89 Bunche had certainly adopted a highly cautious position on efforts to help strengthen the Secretariat’s ability to run peacekeeping operations. According to Falle, Bunche now believed that the Secretary-General required specific Security Council authorization even to acknowledge pledges by member states of contingents for peacekeeping operations.90 Given these factors, the British realized that they would have to scale back their ambitions to ensuring that a Military Adviser’s post continued at all and to retaining the two subordinate officer posts. They wanted a suitable successor to be found for General Rikhye, who was soon to leave the United

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Nations, and were alarmed when U Thant contemplated appointing a Yugoslav officer.91 British policy-makers were also heartily tired of the Committee of 33, which ‘dragged out its halting and unproductive existence’ during the summer of 1966.92 On the issues of precise guidelines for peacekeeping and its financing, in view of the ongoing Soviet and French evasion, Caradon questioned the wisdom of continuing to seek an outcome ‘on the basis of an ever lower common denominator’.93 U Thant also criticized the Committee’s ‘reluctance to come to grips with the problem’.94 In September Edward Youde, Head of Chancery in the British Mission in New York, reported that his colleagues in the Mission and the Americans opposed the continuation of the Committee, which was incapable of taking any initiative and was more likely to obstruct progress.95 By November, the Foreign Office had concluded that a new era had commenced ‘in which the majority may not have much hesitation in launching operations against British wishes’. The British reaction to this situation revealed that policy-makers were now undergoing a volte-face: we are in practice moving somewhat closer to the Soviet and French view, although we cannot accept the exclusive right of the Security Council to authorise operations and assess members shares of the costs. Though we can usually be reasonably sure of our ability to have mounted an operation favourable to our interests and for which we are prepared to pay, the new situation in the Assembly requires us to seek and consolidate means by which we can control, if not prevent, actions by that body which would damage our interest and, in any event, to avoid financial obligations arising from them.96 The fact was that a major characteristic of the ‘new era’ was the growing assertiveness of the non-aligned states on issues of their own choosing. For several years the West had accepted the need to court the non-aligned, but this had always been on issues – notably, peacekeeping operations – from a UN agenda drawn up by the great powers. Now, there was growing evidence that many new members of the Organization did not share the same conception of its main purpose: in Caradon’s words, ‘many Afro-Asians do not look at the United Nations primarily as an instrument for keeping the peace’.97 The agenda of the non-aligned was dominated by such issues as political change (whether peaceful or not), racism, justice and social development. Several of these issues were typified in the Rhodesia dispute and it should therefore not have been surprising that in 1966, as in the previous year, the rather lame ‘Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’ item was shunted aside by the more explosive Rhodesia issue. This time, shortly after the Security Council had debated events in Rhodesia, the Assembly decided to adjourn discussion of the ‘Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’ indefinitely.

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Rhodesia In some respects, the international hostility which the Labour Government increasingly encountered over the Rhodesia issue resembled that faced by its Conservative predecessor during the Katanga crisis. The British were accused of seeking to protect white interests against the wishes of the black majority, and found themselves opposed in the United Nations by a vocal group of African states. However, stark differences existed between the two situations. In contrast to the Conservatives’ ambivalence towards Moïse Tshombé; in Katanga, the Labour Government explicitly opposed the policies of Ian Smith’s regime in Rhodesia, including its declaration of independence. Legally, therefore, the issue remained a domestic one for Britain as the administering power: the onus was on those states wanting UN action to make a plausible case that the crisis threatened international security. Moreover, at the beginning of the Congo conflict, ONUC had received the cooperation of the Lumumba Government; in Rhodesia, in the absence of any cooperation by the de facto authority, there was simply no scope for a traditional UN peacekeeping force. If the Smith regime neither agreed to relinquish or share power, nor succumbed to economic and military sanctions, ousting it would entail full-scale war. Only with the transfer to majority rule in 1980 did the crisis finally end. However, events falling within the time frame of this book, in particular in 1965–66, shed some useful light on the Labour Government’s position on whether or not the United Nations could be allowed a role, including a military one.98 Prior to UDI the British and Rhodesian positions on a UN role were contrary to what might be expected: Ian Smith hoped that Britain would permit UN involvement in the issue since this would swing Europeans in Rhodesia behind his own cause (events in the Congo had reinforced their antipathy to the United Nations). By contrast, the Labour Government, traditionally supportive of the United Nations, tried to restrict a UN role since this could actually trigger UDI. However, by May 1965 the Government’s acquiescence in a Security Council resolution asking it not to permit UDI revealed that British policy-makers considered that the issue could not be kept completely outside the United Nations.99 On 7 October 1965, as indications grew that Smith would declare Rhodesian independence, the British Cabinet endorsed the view of its Defence and Oversea Policy Committee that British forces could not intervene militarily. However, the Cabinet did not rule out intervention by UN forces. At this stage, presumably because the Government hoped that economic sanctions would solve the problem, policy-makers gave remarkably little thought to the nature of such a military operation and how markedly it would differ from previous UN peacekeeping forces. The Cabinet chose to ignore the distinction between peacekeeping (including what remained of

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the prohibition against troops contributed by permanent Security Council members) and the greater military resources required for peace enforcement or war fighting (to which no such prohibition had ever applied). It therefore decided that Britain should seek to avoid contributing combat troops to such an operation: It was recognised that the practice by which, save in the special circumstances of Cyprus, troops were not supplied for United Nations intervention by the permanent members of the Security Council might help to avoid pressure upon us to do so. It would, however, be difficult to withdraw our standing offer to provide logistic support for up to six battalions of a United Nations peacekeeping force and a decision on the extent of our participation could only be taken in the light of events.100 This discussion suggests that when faced with the prospect of a UN operation in which British participation could actually damage Britain’s national interests, the Government lost its enthusiasm for building on the precedent of British troops serving in UNFICYP. Presumably, an additional factor in the Cabinet’s thinking was Wilson’s commitment to Smith in October 1964 that the United Kingdom would not use military force in the event of UDI. Wilson had painted himself into a box, and Healey described his pledge as a ‘classic strategic blunder’.101 On 12 November 1965, the day after UDI, Wilson’s tactics in the House of Commons contradicted all that the Labour Government had done to build up UN peacekeeping and British confidence in it. Wilson warned that if Britain was not decisive in applying economic sanctions against Rhodesia, communist China and others might gain a foothold in Africa, under cover of a UN resolution. In words of which, during the Katanga crisis, the most UN-sceptic Conservative would have been proud, he invoked ‘a prospect which is not one that I find comforting, the prospect of a Red Army in blue berets’.102 Wilson’s strategy was clear: given the immediate crisis he was seeking to steel the British Parliament and electorate to the need to restrict economic dealings with Rhodesia. However, his sound bite became his most memorable comment on UN peacekeeping, and gave the impression that Labour had inherited the stock Conservative view that UN peacekeeping was to be handled with considerable caution. In the Security Council Britain controlled the issue of Rhodesia carefully, and steered attention to economic sanctions.103 On 20 November, on British initiative, the Council decided that the ‘continuance in time [of the situation in Rhodesia] constitutes a threat to international peace and security’. The Council also called on Britain to take all appropriate measures to end the rebellion and on all states to break off economic and diplomatic relations, including through an oil embargo.104 At this stage, however,

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participating in such an embargo remained a voluntary option for states. This conformed with the current British policy of limiting the internationalization of the issue. Caradon believed that the expression ‘continuance in time’, rather than ‘continuation’, ‘just sufficed to take the resolution out of the ambit of Chapter VII of the Charter’, thereby deferring the imposition of mandatory sanctions and the possible use of force against Rhodesia.105 In fact, Caradon was more assertive than his colleagues in the Foreign Office, who turned down his suggestion in December 1965 to tell the Council ‘that we are prepared for Chapter VII action (Article 41) in order to support and supplement economic action we have already taken’.106 The Foreign Office believed that adopting a resolution explicitly under Chapter VII would mean that if South Africa did not comply with mandatory sanctions against Rhodesia, South Africa in turn could be subjected to sanctions, with attendant risks to the UK economy. Moreover, a precedent would be set which could have dangerous consequences for Britain’s presence in Aden, South Arabia and elsewhere.107 It is clear that despite the Labour Government’s professions of greater support for the United Nations, the Foreign Office’s commitment to protecting British interests remained constant. However, in the Defence and Oversea Policy Committee, Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart added another argument: if mandatory sanctions were ineffective, the United Nations itself would be discredited.108 On 9 April 1966, faced with the impending delivery to Mozambique of a tanker of oil destined for Rhodesia, the Security Council declared that the situation constituted a threat to the peace and authorized the British Government to use force, if necessary, to prevent the delivery.109 The following month, a Cabinet committee produced the most explicit statement to date on why a UN force for Rhodesia should be resisted. The committee, set up under the chairmanship of the Commonwealth Secretary to examine future policy towards Rhodesia, argued that there are very powerful objections to the employment of a mixed United Nations force; such a force would be unlikely to succeed and would be most unwelcome to President Kaunda [of Zambia] (and probably to other neighbouring African territories) because of its mischief-making potentiality, and it would take the final settlement out of British hands; the result could well be chaos. If force is to be used it would be preferable that it should be British, but the objections to the use of force are formidable … The alarmist tone of these comments, consistent with the CRO’s inveterate suspicion of the United Nations, differs from the more practical assessment contained in an annex to the report, submitted by the Ministry of Defence. This weighed up the relative merits and risks of a full-scale attack, respectively by a British force and a UN one, to overthrow the Smith regime. It concluded that a purely British operation would face such practical

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difficulties, have such destructive consequences in Rhodesia and elsewhere and would face such a serious risk of failure that it should be contemplated only as ‘a last desperate resort’. The same applied to a UN force: unless either the United States or the USSR played a dominant role – both of which options were highly unlikely – ‘we know of no means by which the United Nations could ensure the success of the operation’.110 The Foreign Office raised other considerations, notably ‘the dangerously awkward decision whether or not to stand aside in a situation where Communist countries were pressing hard for a UN force and offering contingents’.111 Thus, the three main British departments were divided over the possibility and desirability of a UN role. The CRO objected on political grounds; the Ministry of Defence ruled it out on the basis of incapacity; and the Foreign Office thought that if a UN force were established Britain should consider participating. All of these positions contradicted the Cabinet’s view at the beginning of the crisis that a UN force was more likely than a British one and that Britain should not participate in it. The gradual acceptance by British policy-makers of the value of classical UN peacekeeping clearly did not extend to any consensus on the merits or feasibility of peace enforcement or war fighting by the Organization. The Foreign Office’s view was contained in an internal paper in November 1966 which pondered the possibility of transferring responsibility for the Rhodesia issue to the United Nations.112 It concluded that, although there were tactical advantages in doing so, Britain’s friends and allies would find it hard to understand why it had decided to relinquish responsibility so suddenly. However, if mandatory sanctions failed to work, the matter should be reconsidered after an appropriate interval. A subsequent note on this issue by Crawford Maclehose, George Brown’s private secretary, recorded that Brown had had a ‘long and difficult struggle’ with members of the Foreign Office on the issue of policy on Rhodesia. Maclehose suppressed a cri de coeur contained in a note by Falle, refusing to forward it to Brown. Falle wrote that this is a water-shed in the evolution of our policy in the world, of equal importance to the Suez crisis in 1956. We still claim to have a world role; we have proclaimed that Rhodesia is a moral issue for which we are responsible. Surely, if we now wash our hands of Rhodesia we shall lose as much prestige and respect in the world as we did in 1956. If we cannot solve this question on our own and wish to hand over to the UN, we can do this without dishonour and great loss of prestige. We can, however, only do this if we are prepared to accept, if necessary, military action against Rhodesia in which we would take a part, or participation in at least mandatory oil sanctions against South Africa … if we are not prepared to take at least this action, the Government must accept that they are certain to face a period of international ignominy.113

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On 16 December 1966, Britain sponsored a resolution under Chapter VII imposing selective mandatory sanctions against Rhodesia.114 For the remaining fourteen years of the crisis, Britain did not transfer to the United Nations the responsibility for resolving it.

1967: British entrenchment on peacekeeping By the beginning of 1967 the Foreign Office believed that on the issue of the peaceful settlement of disputes ‘we have reached the end of a phase’. In fact, this conclusion was becoming equally applicable to peacekeeping.115 Youde wrote that the main danger was that in seeking to improve and formalize the machinery of peacekeeping, for example through negotiation of Article 43 Agreements, we shall end up by tying the hands of the Secretary-General and limiting his discretion and freedom of action. We come more and more to the view that, of all that we at present have, the Secretary-General’s role in peacekeeping, which has been built up over the years, is probably the most worth preserving.116 The feeling that the current phase of peacekeeping’s evolution had run its course was reinforced by the Fifth Special Session of the General Assembly, which lasted from 21 April to 13 June 1967. This was devoted to two subjects, peacekeeping and the situation in South-West Africa (later Namibia). Peacekeeping was included because the previous regular session of the General Assembly had failed to reach agreement on topics being discussed in the Committee of 33. On 4 April the USSR issued another memorandum recapitulating its position on the need to comply with the Charter and to prevent the General Assembly from authorizing peacekeeping operations. The USSR warned that if its views were disregarded, it would have to reconsider its whole approach to UN activities.117 By mid-May the British Government was growing concerned at the risk of actual regression on peacekeeping: George Thomson told the House of Commons that Whatever advance is made with Article 43 arrangements, whatever agreement is reached in the Peacekeeping Committee … it must not be at the expense of the existing peacekeeping operations. We must not risk ending up with less than we have at present in terms of United Nations peacekeeping.118 A clearly exasperated Caradon told the General Assembly’s Special Session that the last five years had been wasted: during that time, the UN’s members

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could have forged an instrument able to give immediate effect to the decisions of the United Nations in any emergency.119 The Special Session ended without further progress on peacekeeping. Caradon reported back to London that it had been ‘a dead loss, both for the furtherance of British objectives at the United Nations and for the future prestige and prospects of the Organization itself’: Many members of the United Nations have concluded that the discussion on peacekeeping had become almost theological; they argued that in the past ad hoc arrangements had been effectively reached when circumstances really demanded them, and that the more we talked about peacekeeping the more practical possibilities were whittled down … 120 Just as policy-makers were reaching the minimalist conclusion that it was best not to tinker with peacekeeping, and to allow the Secretary-General the room for manoeuvre which he had hitherto enjoyed, events in the Middle East challenged that decision.

Withdrawal of UNEF Since its full deployment in spring 1957, UNEF had enjoyed a generally quiet existence, and after the emotions associated with the circumstances of its launch had died down, Britain had been content with the force’s performance. A Foreign Office brief in 1966 declared that there was ample evidence that UNEF’s presence had deterred local incidents and helped avoid escalation to a major conflict between Egypt and Israel: ‘We … attach importance to UNEF’s continued existence, and in particular to the maintenance of its capacity to interpose United Nations troops.’121 UNEF’s operations along the Egyptian–Israeli border remained largely unaffected by tensions elsewhere in the Middle East. However, this laid Egypt open to accusations by Syria (with which it had been federated as the United Arab Republic from 1958–61) of hiding behind the United Nations and shirking its responsibilities in the ongoing struggle against Israel.122 These taunts increased in early 1967 as tension between Syria and Israel grew. Egypt’s response – a request for the withdrawal of UNEF contingents – precipitated a major crisis for the United Nations, reopening the whole question of the Secretary-General’s prerogatives and responsibilities in the field of peacekeeping. The crisis broke on 16 May when General Rikhye, who was then serving as UNEF’s Force Commander, received a request from the Commander-inChief of the Egyptian Armed Forces to withdraw all UN troops manning observation posts along Egypt’s border with Israel; UNEF then numbered 3378 troops. The Egyptian General transmitting the message informed Rikhye that UNEF should also be withdrawn from El Sabha and Sharm

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el Sheikh, commanding the Strait of Tiran and therefore access to the Red Sea and southern Israel.123 Rikhye referred the matter to U Thant who refused to accept the message as a formal request and sought clarification from Cairo. He made clear that he would not agree to withdraw only part of UNEF so that it could stand aside and witness an armed confrontation: it was all or nothing. On 17 May the Secretary-General told representatives of the countries contributing troops to UNEF that if a formal request for the force’s withdrawal were received, he would have to comply with it; his position was that UNEF was in Egypt only with Egyptian consent and that if this were withdrawn the force would have to leave. The troop contributors were divided in their views: Brazil and Canada raised the possibility of consideration by the General Assembly, while India and Yugoslavia, which contributed approximately half of the troops, argued that Egypt was entitled to make the request and that UNEF should comply. Meanwhile, some Egyptian contingents had interposed themselves between UNEF units and the border. On 18 May the Israeli Ambassador refused to accept the temporary deployment of UNEF troops on Israeli territory. The same day, a formal request was received from the Egyptian Foreign Minister; the Egyptian Ambassador, who delivered it, advised the SecretaryGeneral against a personal appeal to President Nasser to change his mind. The Secretary-General then met the UNEF Advisory Committee and troop contributors. None suggested that the Committee should convene the General Assembly (as it was entitled to do), nor did any Security Council member propose summoning the Council. The USSR maintained that U Thant should comply with the request, France adopted a non-committal position of ‘deliberate objectivity’, and the United States and United Kingdom insisted that the Secretary-General should defer a decision.124 That day, U Thant instructed Rikhye to withdraw UNEF. On 19 May he reported the situation to the Security Council and on 22 May he left for Cairo to discuss the situation with Nasser. While the Secretary-General was en route, Nasser closed the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping, which Israel regarded as a casus belli. Three weeks later, the Six-Day War broke out.125 Although UNEF’s Canadian contingent, which had provided essential logistic support, had been withdrawn by the end of May, many other UNEF troops remained on the ground in Gaza until late June, and some were killed in the war. There have been numerous controversies about this affair, including over the nature of Egypt’s exact request (Nasser subsequently maintained that he had not asked for withdrawal from Sharm-el-Sheikh or Gaza; Urquhart explains that ‘It was only after things went wrong’ that Nasser denied having requested the withdrawal of all UNEF posts from Egyptian territory);126 whether Nasser expected the United Nations to comply; whether it was U Thant’s prerogative to take the decision, especially so quickly (he maintained that it was his right);127 whether he in fact had a choice, given both the requirement for Egyptian consent to UNEF’s presence and the danger

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faced by the UN troops; whether the Secretary-General’s decision was forced by the announcement by some troop-contributors that their contingents would be withdrawn regardless; whether he – or a Security Council member – should have convened the Council in view of the threat to international peace (Urquhart relates that U Thant wished to save the divided Council from publicly discrediting itself by not acting);128 the interpretation of Hammarskjöld’s ‘good-faith agreement’ with Egypt, according to which Egypt would not request UNEF’s withdrawal until its tasks were ‘complete’; and whether UNEF’s withdrawal precipitated the war. These controversies have been analysed in great detail elsewhere, including in several documents by U Thant at the time.129 The issue here is how British policy-makers reacted to the decision to terminate UNEF and the implications for British perspectives on peacekeeping. British actions during the crisis generally resembled those of other Western countries: diplomatic dithering and an element of treating U Thant as a scapegoat. In New York, Caradon discussed the issue with the SecretaryGeneral and Bunche on 17 May: they all agreed that a tough line should be taken with the Egyptians over UNEF. The Foreign Office concurred: ‘We have always championed UN peacekeeping and it would be bad if UNEF were a casualty of what may be military posturing.’130 Caradon’s report lends credence to suggestions that U Thant, in insisting that he would only completely withdraw, not partially redeploy, UNEF, was calling Nasser’s bluff. George Brown instructed Caradon, in consultation with the Americans, to ‘press U Thant strongly to call a meeting of the Security Council in accordance with his powers under Article 99 of the Charter’. If this failed, Caradon should consider supporting a US initiative to call a Council meeting.131 On 18 May Caradon told the Secretary-General that he hoped it was not true that he would accept the demand for withdrawal: the question was so important that it should be dealt with only after proper consultation in the United Nations rather than by the Secretary-General alone. U Thant replied that, having consulted his advisers, he was satisfied that ‘it was for the Secretary-General to decide and to reply’. Caradon urged both that U Thant summon the permanent members of the Security Council before taking a final decision and that he delay a reply to Nasser until after further consultation could take place (neither of which the Secretary-General did).132 Caradon reported to London that he was at a loss to understand why U Thant was so ready to accept the Egyptian demand and to reply so precipitately. He surmised that the Secretary-General considered that it would be easier to enter into discussions with the Egyptians, including about the request for withdrawal, if he had first accepted the request in principle. Caradon noted that ‘what has happened has dealt a most serious blow to future United Nations peacekeeping capacity in the Middle East and elsewhere’.133

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That evening, George Brown condemned U Thant in a speech to the British UN Association: It really makes a mockery of the peacekeeping work of the United Nations if, as soon as the tension rises, the UN Force is told to leave. Indeed the collapse of UNEF might well have repercussions on other United Nations peacekeeping forces and the credibility of the United Nations efforts in this field are thrown into question.134 Brown supported a meeting of the Security Council, but Caradon hesitated to call one because he doubted that Britain could obtain adoption of a satisfactory resolution. The US was also reluctant because of Syrian allegations that the present situation arose from an Anglo-American plot.135 It was decided that, in light of the Suez affair in 1956, it was not in Britain’s interests to be seen to be taking a leading role: when the Security Council finally met on 25 May, it was at the request of Canada and Denmark.136 There was little further diplomatic progress before the war broke out. U Thant’s withdrawal of UNEF produced almost unanimously negative verdicts from British policy-makers. Caradon told him that the withdrawal had caused ‘great shock and consternation in most circles’ in Britain and that ‘it had excited the Foreign Secretary no little’.137 Writing subsequently, Caradon was more understanding of U Thant’s predicament: referring the issue to the Security Council or General Assembly would have led to certain delay and almost certain deadlock, while UN troops were in danger; U Thant had shown courage in taking the decision himself.138 Frank Brenchley, who headed the Foreign Office department dealing with the Middle East at the time, believes that U Thant had no choice but to accede to Nasser’s request: however, by doing this so quickly, the Secretary-General deprived the great powers of an opportunity to try to influence the course of events. Moreover, the decision to withdraw the whole of UNEF, and not just those units on the Egypt–Israel border, was a ‘grave mistake’.139 Wilson considered that decision ‘ill-judged, indeed procedurally wrong’ since the Secretary-General had not consulted one of the UN organs.140 Brown was the most critical: everyone, including Nasser had been surprised by U Thant’s extraordinary, … very ill-considered, … totally unnecessary and unexpected decision. Certainly at that moment, if at no other, the need for a very different character at the head of this vital organization … became very apparent. Brown accepted that U Thant’s arguments for complying with Egypt’s request were ‘legalistically true, but wise men, faced with big events whose

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possible consequences are immeasurable, shouldn’t, in my view, act as though they were working in a solicitor’s office conveyancing property’.141 In Parliament, Brown declared that UNEF had been probably the best United Nations peacekeeping force that had ever existed. Its disappearance is, at once, a sharp blow to the United Nations and to international law and order. Edward Heath, who had succeeded Douglas-Home as leader of the Conservative Party, decried the withdrawal as ‘a most extraordinary incident’, ‘entirely incomprehensible’ and ‘a major error of judgement’. Heath also created the spectre of a similar fate for UNFICYP if President Makarios requested its withdrawal; he urged that the British Government state at the United Nations that there would be no change in UNFICYP’s status, if there were such a request, until the issue had been debated in the Security Council or General Assembly. Wilson denied that UNEF’s fate had any bearing on UNFICYP: the latter force had been set up by the Council and if its withdrawal were requested, Britain would certainly call for a Council meeting.142 The widespread conviction that U Thant had made an error of judgment meant that limited attention was paid to lessons to be learned from the experience. However, in October, a report of the Foreign Office’s Steering Committee on International Organizations stated that: We have in no way changed our view of the importance of establishing generally acceptable arrangements for peacekeeping as a permanent part of the United Nations scene. But, against the background of the disappointment over the sudden dissolution of UNEF and continuing uncertainty in the Middle East, Her Majesty’s Government see no value in a theoretical discussion on peacekeeping at this session [of the General Assembly]. To the report was annexed a ‘Memorandum on the Principles and Problems of Establishing a United Nations Peacekeeping Force’. It suggested that one lesson to be drawn from UNEF was that an interposition force equipped with arms may (and probably can) be no more effective than a much smaller, unarmed observation force once the host government withdraws consent. In particular, it is clear that an interposition force placed on only one side of a frontier is badly placed to resist moves by its host which may disturb peace and security … In future, therefore, even stronger evidence that there is significant advantage in a force empowered in certain circumstances to use its weapons may be required before this form is chosen.143

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The memorandum added that, in future, such interposition forces should be stationed in the territory of each of the states concerned and should be given reasonable notice if asked to withdraw. As for the control of a peacekeeping force, this should still be vested in the Secretary-General. However, Britain would not necessarily rule out some formalization of the general understanding that the Secretary-General should consult regularly and in depth with the states concerned and with the UN organs (although this should not make the day-to-day running of an operation subject to the veto). This point appeared to reflect the Foreign Office’s conclusion of the need to prevent a repetition of a unilateral decision by the Secretary-General to withdraw a force. With regard to the composition of the force and the recruitment of its staff, these should be left to the Secretary-General: ‘In principle, … the possibility of a contingent or other form of participation by a Communist State should not be excluded.’144 These were not radical changes in policy: they reflected the fact that in the present political environment, peacekeeping had reached the end of its first full phase of evolution. In the following two decades, only three further operations were mounted, all of them in the Middle East, and all of them performing functions conducted by earlier forces.145 Only at the end of the Cold War would a new phase in the evolution of peacekeeping begin.

Conclusion Between the launch of UNFICYP and the demise of UNEF British hopes for strengthening UN peacekeeping gave way to disillusion and, ultimately, to resignation to the status quo. Before leaving office, the Conservatives laid out their most positive stance to date on the legitimacy and value of UN peacekeeping. The duel by memorandum with the Soviet Union in summer 1964 marked a robust public affirmation of Britain’s determination that the UN should not be deprived of the capacity to launch peacekeeping operations, if necessary over Soviet opposition. The new Labour Government’s claims that it had instituted a sea change in British policy towards the United Nations were therefore a little disingenuous. The Wilson Government started with lofty rhetoric, especially with its anointment of Britain as the quintessential peacekeeper and guardian of international stability. Yet suggestions that the United Nations might use Britain’s overseas military bases risked laying the Government open to charges of trying to co-opt the Organization into safeguarding Britain’s remaining colonial assets. Political and economic realities, as well as the millstone of Rhodesia, soon tempered such ideas. The Rhodesia episode also revealed the ease with which pro-UN rhetoric could be overturned in an effort to resurrect fears of the meddling potential of UN peacekeeping forces.

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However, Rhodes James’ assertion that the Labour Government ‘did not, despite many early indications, in reality change the basic situation’ requires qualification.146 The Government was sincere in its commitment to the United Nations and took constructive steps towards strengthening the Organization. While its ‘Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’ initiative was flawed, it acted in good faith in pledging logistic support for peacekeeping. Its early gestures of commitment to the United Nations, including its unconditional financial contribution, earned it good will from the other members. Whether, under different circumstances, the Government would have offered more to the Organization – particularly, combat units for peacekeeping – is a moot point: it achieved the most it could, given external political factors. If the practical effects of Britain’s efforts were minimal, this was due above all to Soviet opposition to strengthening peacekeeping. The clash between the West and the Soviet bloc over this issue recalled that over Article 43 agreements two decades earlier. Now, the West largely won the battle: peacekeeping continued in much the same form, the Secretary-General’s role was preserved, and there was no prohibition against General Assembly involvement. The main Western concession was backing down over the application of Article 19 for past arrears. Moreover, while the British and Americans remained determined to prevent Soviet involvement in the control of peacekeeping, they soon displayed greater tolerance of East bloc countries participating in UN operations: Poland provided troops to UNEF II, the next operation to be launched. A consequence of the great power conflict over the nature of peacekeeping was increased diffidence of the Secretariat: U Thant, confronting the prospect of UN bankruptcy, grew more cautious. He was also constrained by the creation of the Committee of 33; in his view, its broad mandate of a comprehensive review of all aspects of peacekeeping ring-fenced the subject and debarred ad hoc measures to enhance the planning and management of UN operations. The Secretary-General’s most visible assertion of his independence at this time was also his most controversial. His assumption of sole responsibility for the decision to withdraw UNEF has been depicted as setting himself up as a scapegoat for a divided Security Council. British Ministers and politicians certainly accepted his playing that role when Britain failed even to make the gesture of convening the Council. Yet U Thant’s action also preserved the integrity of peacekeeping: the criticism stuck to the Secretary-General, not to the UN operation. The British did not doubt UNEF’s value as a firewall, and did not conclude that its fate had discredited peacekeeping as an institution.

9 Conclusions

This book has recounted how British policy-makers came to view peacekeeping as a legitimate role for the United Nations and one compatible with UK national interests. It has assessed British perceptions of the character, uses and management of UN operations during peacekeeping’s formative first two decades, a period in which Britain’s global power waned and the United Nations was given responsibility for handling conflicts in a number of post-colonial territories. Examination of the private views of politicians and civil servants on the questions of whether, and under which circumstances, the Organization could be permitted to manage military forces has revealed a considerably more nuanced picture than that suggested by their public statements. Their efforts to control the nature and functions of UN peacekeeping have provided insights into how Britain sought to protect its continuing worldwide interests during its post-War decline.

Reflections on the nature of peacekeeping Some conceptual reflections on the nature of peacekeeping and the image of conflict which it embodies help explain Britain’s endorsement of it. Peacekeeping is a product of a decentralized international system rather than a component of an embryonic world government: UN operations are created, or not, based on the careful calculation by key states of how they perceive their interests in particular crises. This lack of automaticity enables those states to rally or deter support for an operation depending on whether they favour or oppose it: this has worked well for Britain, which has traditionally held particular views as to whether, when and with which objectives an operation should be launched. After 1945 Britain’s increasing inability to safeguard the stability required by its overseas interests predisposed it to peacekeeping as a mechanism for managing limited conflict at minimal cost. British colonial experience – in the form of colonial policing and military aid to the civil power – provided important, but only partial, antecedents: British officers, such as General 226

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Alexander, initially had difficulty comprehending the greater emphasis placed in UN operations on the consent of the parties and the non-use of force. However, the importance of UN peacekeeping in British foreign policy should not be overstated. As the unilateral British intervention in Kuwait in 1961 showed, there were occasions on which Britain opted against a UN operation. Such instances tended to be attributable to the urgency of the crisis, doubts about whether the United Nations was up to the job, and Britain’s political or economic interests vis-à-vis the host state or states in the region. Unilateral action could shore up the recipient’s loyalty to Britain, as well as constituting a deterrent to potential regional aggressors. Even after nearly two decades of UN peacekeeping, Britain still carefully weighed up the pros and cons of unilateral versus multilateral action: in Cyprus it eventually came round to backing a UN force, whereas in the operations in East Africa in 1964 it chose to go it alone. This caution also reflected the British realization that a UN peacekeeping operation was not just a tool of the member states but could also play a role as an independent actor. This first became apparent when the British learned that they had minimal leverage over UNEF and were compelled to retreat from their original conception of the force as a tool to complete AngloFrench objectives in the Suez Canal zone. The issue was also strikingly illustrated in the Congo crisis, in which the British perceived ONUC as increasingly unaccountable and capable unilaterally of altering the dynamics of the conflict. ONUC’s influence extended to the British Parliament, where its actions threatened to bring down the Government. Peacekeeping can be employed to address both inter-state and intra-state conflicts. British policy-makers understood that it was not difficult to make an intra-state dispute eligible for Security Council treatment on the grounds that it endangered international peace and security; they relied on this strategy when Britain could no longer unilaterally keep the peace between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. However, the UN’s ability thus to become involved in essentially internal affairs was a significant factor in British opposition to rendering the Organization militarily too selfsufficient. Other reasons were the expense, and the fear that states would lose their ability to control into which situations a UN force was deployed. Britain never backed the creation of a standing UN force. Peacekeeping is best suited to dealing with conflicts between or within small states, over which more powerful ones can, theoretically, exert some influence to cooperate. However, during the Cold War, the UN Secretariat’s reluctance to accept troop contributions from the permanent members of the Security Council meant that the latter had little direct stake in first ensuring that the circumstances were appropriate for a UN operation. The contrast between the fate of the poorly mandated and under-equipped UNOGIL, in which none of the Permanent Five participated, and the

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carefully controlled UNFICYP, which was dominated and amply supplied by Britain, is instructive. The stage of a conflict at which peacekeeping can be used varies: as happened during the Suez crisis, the acquiescence of the parties need not be attributable to a military stalemate but can instead result from external pressure. The timing of an operation’s deployment can therefore have considerable political significance: if deployed before a conflict has produced significant territorial or political changes, it can preserve the status quo, as with ONUC’s obstruction of Katanga’s secession; alternatively, it can help perpetuate a new distribution of power, as UNFICYP has done for the two communities in Cyprus. The optional and flexible nature of peacekeeping means that its primary governing principle is simply that conflicts should be resolved by diplomatic means away from the battlefield. Peacekeeping generally refuses to take a position on the legitimacy of, or culpability for, a given conflict and can therefore freeze both just and unjust wars. It can also have unjust results: it can help consolidate gains achieved by force in violation of UN principles and it requires the equal compliance of both parties, regardless of whether they are the aggressor or the victim. Both the British and the Egyptians felt a sense of injustice that UNEF failed to discriminate between them. This fact undoubtedly lay behind the British complaints about the UN’s propensity to favour keeping the peace over protecting the law and ensuring justice. Given a neutral mandate, that is, one that favours neither party, UN peacekeeping operations are best able to act impartially when their tasks are straightforward and they enjoy the cooperation of the parties. In other words, in addition to not taking sides, they are not obliged to take a position on the interpretation of either a contested mandate or extraneous principles, such as the protection of human rights. UNEF’s monitoring of the Egypt–Israel border provided an example of this. Neutrality need not preclude acting assertively against one side to restore compliance with an agreement: UNFICYP has been able to act robustly against both parties in Cyprus at different times without seriously undermining its neutrality. However, the challenge of acting impartially grows when a UN force has more complex responsibilities; is obliged to use political judgement in interpreting or applying its mandate; has a mandate which is flawed or outdated; or lacks adequate military capacity or international backing. In the Congo, ONUC’s difficulties were exacerbated when Kasavubu and Lumumba parted ways. The Force was obliged to take decisive actions in the absence of guidance from the Council and ended up acting partially. However, because the net effect was to Lumumba’s disadvantage, British criticism was muted. If the mandate inherently privileges one party in a conflict, it is far harder for a UN force to be seen as impartial by all concerned: an attempt by the force to treat both parties even-handedly is likely to annoy the one which considers itself vindicated by the mandate, as well as its external backers.

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UNOGIL’s efforts to interpret its non-neutral mandate impartially provoked condemnation from the Lebanese, US and UK Governments. Its plight was aggravated by the fact that it lacked the military capacity to force its way into rebel-held territory from where it could monitor the entire Lebanese–Syrian border. The versatility of peacekeeping helps explain British calls to strengthen it. In the words of a 1955 Government pamphlet on Britain and the United Nations: A characteristic of British policy evident in domestic as in foreign affairs, is the tendency to proceed pragmatically, seeking practical solutions which can be made effective, rather than relying on a priori schemes. This has been illustrated in the proceedings of the United Nations on such subjects as human rights or disarmament where United Kingdom representatives have concentrated on some real and tangible progress … and have declared in forthright terms their distrust of impractical paper formulae and unrealistic slogans and phrases.1 Peacekeeping’s ad hoc and malleable character is highly compatible with this approach. However, when the British spoke of strengthening peacekeeping, they really only meant strengthening its management: they never argued in favour of equipping UN operations to act more robustly or permitting them to function more independently of the member states. Britain’s position on peacekeeping did not develop in isolation but was inevitably bound up with the British relationship with the United Nations in general. This was equally interest-based: in the stark words of a Foreign Office paper in 1963, ‘It is pointless attempting to work through the United Nations if we get no dividend thereby.’2 Yet, gaining maximum utility from the United Nations required sustained effort, especially as decolonization diluted Western influence in the Organization. As Caradon observed after the collapse of efforts to strengthen peacekeeping in the Committee of 33, none of the principal Powers nor the groups (such as the Arabs or the black Africans) can get worthwhile results from the United Nations unless they woo and win the general membership … the United Nations is much more effective in being negative than positive. The checks and the balances tend to inhibit action. No national tail can wag the international dog. The realisation of that negative fact may sometimes be a necessary preliminary to any positive action.3 Participating in peacekeeping gave the smaller powers a constructive purpose in the United Nations and a legitimate entrée into areas where Britain remained sensitive to external influences. This necessitated careful evaluation of the composition of individual UN operations. When non-aligned

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and pro-Soviet countries were excluded from providing troops to UNFICYP British fears were allayed. In ONUC, however, the political complexion and the level of military training of some of the troop-contributors selected by Hammarskjöld gave cause for alarm.

British policy-makers So far, these conclusions have concentrated on the international level. However, the book has shown that to assess British perceptions fully, and to understand how British positions were formulated, requires careful attention to the national level. During the period reviewed it is possible to identify three major groups of policy-makers. The first two groups comprised Government Ministers, divided into Labour and Conservative. For each group, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and occasionally other members of the Cabinet, were actively engaged in key decisions on actual operations, such as Bevin’s determination to restrict British military assistance to UNTSO, Lloyd’s and Eden’s attempts to influence the nature and composition of UNEF and Douglas-Home’s and Sandys’ demands for more robust rules of engagement for UNFICYP. The third group consisted of the civil servants in the Foreign Office and elsewhere in Whitehall, as well as at the British Mission in New York. They had more time to ruminate on the general evolution of peacekeeping and provided a level of continuity in policy-making. Other groups influencing policy-making, albeit to a lesser degree, were other Members of Parliament and the public. During the Katanga crisis Macmillan’s Cabinet was attuned to the resentful mood among Conservative backbenchers, whereas certain Labour MPs and peers regularly pressed for a stronger British commitment towards peacekeeping. As for the public, opinion polls suggested that peacekeeping tapped a vein of idealism; however, that support vacillated during particular crises.

British perceptions of the character of peacekeeping The study has assessed British perceptions of the character, uses and management of UN operations. On the character of peacekeeping, the divergence of views between Conservative and Labour politicians was not as great as might be expected. Both groups accepted peacekeeping’s identity as a primarily political rather than military device, and they entrusted the Foreign Office, rather than the Ministry of Defence, with the main responsibility for handling it. Given the Conservatives’ traditional distrust of entanglements and preference for military self-sufficiency to protect British interests, it was likely that they would be less enthusiastic about peacekeeping than their Labour counterparts. Moreover, their stronger attachment to retaining Britain’s

Conclusions 231

colonies initially made them suspicious that the United Nations, bolstered by the admission of newly independent, and independently minded, former colonies, might assign itself responsibilities which ran counter to British interests. Some Conservatives, as well as some conservative civil servants, worried that UNEF was the prototype of a UN intervention force with a trouble-making agenda. However, such considerations did not have a significant impact on the position of Conservative Governments on peacekeeping. They accepted its value in certain situations and judged each operation on its merits; the majority of the UN’s early operations were launched while the Conservatives were in power. Labour’s internationalist tradition did not result in an unquestioning embrace of peacekeeping – indeed, Wilson’s objection to ‘a Red Army in blue berets’ in Rhodesia was as emphatic a rejection of a UN role as any statement by a Conservative Minister. Nevertheless, the Labour position on peacekeeping was generally more constructive than that of the Conservatives. The Wilson Government depicted its pledge of logistical support for UN operations as an affirmation of faith in the Organization as a whole. As for the civil servants, the senior officials dealing with the launch of UNEF, especially Ivor Pink and Ivone Kirkpatrick, were unusually hostile, but they departed the scene soon after the Suez crisis. Thereafter, Foreign Office officials were generally supportive of peacekeeping, viewing it neither as a panacea nor as a Trojan horse for communist subversion in sensitive regions. On the whole they believed in the value of peacekeeping and gave much thought to improving it, including when Patrick Dean masterminded efforts to share British expertise with the Secretariat. Ministry of Defence officials and members of the military were also largely positive towards peacekeeping. Officials from the Colonial Office and Commonwealth Relations Office, in line with their more overt professional interest in protecting British interests in present and former colonies, were more doubtful; however, they were less involved in policy-making.

The uses of peacekeeping Peacekeeping had a number of uses for Britain. The first related to the need to preserve stability in regions where Britain had interests or wished to exclude Soviet bloc adventurism. Peacekeeping helped contain conflicts and filled dangerous vacuums, most notably in the Congo. Another use of peacekeeping was face-saving, although the obstructive behaviour of British Ministers during the launch of UNEF undermined the efficacy of this function during the Suez crisis. Peacekeeping could also serve as a scapegoat to conceal an ineffective policy. Macmillan’s Government was critical of ONUC’s strategy in Katanga, but did not suggest an alternative approach for reversing Tshombé’s decision to secede. Similarly, in lieu of assertive diplomatic action at the United Nations when the gravity of the

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1967 Middle East crisis became apparent, George Brown opted simply to criticize the Secretary-General publicly for withdrawing UNEF. Peacekeeping could be a temporary expedient until a better approach suggested itself. In July 1958, when an alternative policy became available for Lebanon, the Government showed no compunction about condemning UNOGIL and letting it be shunted aside, disregarding any damage to the long-term credibility of peacekeeping. It was in the Middle East that the United Nations faced a particularly hard challenge trying to meet British expectations. UNFICYP and UNTSO also showed the UN’s value for burden-sharing and burden-passing respectively. This saved expense and lives, and could also preserve Britain’s standing with the parties. Politicians were generally reluctant to be publicly critical of the Organization or peacekeeping, primarily because of the reservoir of support the United Nations enjoyed among the public. Even despite agreeing privately with criticism of ‘the new Pope’ Hammarskjöld, Lloyd and Eden continued to be upbeat in their public expressions of hope that the United Nations could emerge strengthened from the Suez experience. When politicians did express criticism of the United Nations, such as Home’s attack on anti-Westernism in the General Assembly in his Berwick-on-Tweed speech, this tended to be portrayed as emerging from a desire to see the Organization fulfil its potential. While Government support for peacekeeping may not have won elections, there was little to be gained from public criticism of an Organization which ultimately served British interests.

The management of peacekeeping In terms of the management of UN operations, British policy-makers were generally unimpressed. At the legislative level, they were unhappy about UNEF being authorized by the General Assembly, which circumvented their veto in the Security Council. However, as they grew more comfortable with peacekeeping, the constitutional issue became less important. Indeed, in Britain’s altercation with the USSR in 1964, it even defended the Assembly’s right to launch UN operations. At UN Headquarters, day-to-day operational control of UN forces was usually delegated to the Secretary-General. The British tolerated his taking the lead role and acquiesced in the rules and principles which Hammarskjöld developed. They had no objection to those rules being broken when the violation was favourable to them: abandoning the principle that permanent members of the Security Council should be excluded from UN operations was fine in the case of British troops in UNFICYP, but the British reaction would have been very different if the Secretariat had proposed using a Soviet contingent. When UN operations did not act sufficiently robustly, the British tended to suspect the Secretary-General, whether Hammarskjöld or U Thant, of pacifism.

Conclusions 233

The extent of improvisation in the management of peacekeeping was never likely to impress a country with a strong military tradition, and the disagreements within the Secretariat over whether to enhance its planning capacity suggested a level of amateurism which ran counter to military efficacy. This lay behind Dean’s surreptitious manoeuvres to insinuate British influence into the Secretary-General’s military advisory staff. The British believed that they had a soulmate in General Rikhye and did all they could to cultivate and support him. However, Rikhye asserted his political independence while deftly exploiting Britain’s willingness to help UN peacekeeping, notably through his insistence on sizeable logistical support for UNFICYP. A recurrent theme in British criticisms of the Headquarters management of peacekeeping was the involvement of civilians in directing UN forces. Ralph Bunche was a particular target, especially for allegedly complicating military instructions by introducing too many political nuances. Yet the British military’s belief, derived in part from its experience of colonial policing, that a UN force could be issued clear-cut military orders reflected a misunderstanding of the often highly political nature of the mandates handed down by the member states. Peacekeeping was not counter-insurgency against a clearly defined opponent nor did UN operations enjoy an objective as comparatively straightforward as restoring stability to a colony. The Congo’s rapid descent into political chaos revealed the UN’s difficulty in functioning effectively in a fastevolving situation in which some decisions required taking sides. In Cyprus, UNFICYP faced the challenge of restoring stability without prejudging or influencing the outcome of the constitutional dispute. It was impossible for the military orders to the UN troops not to reflect such complexities. At the field level, the British had clear views as to acceptable force commanders. Officers from Commonwealth countries, especially India and Canada, were deemed to be sufficiently competent and in tune with British concerns. In the Congo, the Swedish nationality of General von Horn and, for that matter, of Hammarskjöld, provoked suspicion that citizens of a neutral country lacked the experience and outlook to make decisive commanders. Generally, however, there was some appreciation, particularly among British officers such as Generals Alexander and Carver, that UN personnel were doing their best under difficult circumstances. In UNFICYP, the only UN operation in which British troops were deployed during this period, the British took care to ensure that the Force was commanded by an officer with reliable credentials. It helped that the military command of that operation was clearly separated from the diplomatic mediation being conducted by the civilian Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral. With the memory so fresh of UN troops being sent by a civilian official into active combat in the Congo, it is highly unlikely that Britain would have agreed to subordinate its own troops in the field to anyone other than a competent military commander.

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In sum, British policy-makers, with their expectations of clarity and efficiency, were always likely to be sceptical of the quality of command and control in a multinational force comprising contingents of differing levels of expertise from countries with divergent political agendas seeking to fulfil a mandate which usually reflected a deliberately vague political compromise applied in a fluid military and political environment where the legitimacy of the local authority was often unclear. To the extent possible, the British tried to reduce the number of variables: UNFICYP, with its highly trained Western contingents, reliable Force Commander and strong degree of British influence, constituted the most acceptable of the UN forces surveyed here.

The influence of UN operations on British policies Originally, it was the objective fact of economic decline and the need to reduce its expenditure overseas, rather than a conversion to international communitarianism, that made Britain receptive to peacekeeping. Familiarity with UN operations then helped dispel some of the worst British fears about peacekeeping’s capacity to create havoc. In fact, for most of the period covered in this book British policies on peacekeeping remained ad hoc. After seeing UNEF in action, Foreign Office officials concluded that peacekeeping had potential to serve British interests, and they took it on themselves, without any Ministerial direction, to consider ways of strengthening it. This endeavour continued throughout the period, and regularly included collaboration with the United States. Politicians and officials tried hard to limit the extent to which UN operations influenced their actions and impeded the active pursuit of British political objectives: they liked to be in control of the relationship and they expressed exasperation when, as in the bombs-for-ONUC affair in 1961, they risked losing their grip on developments. Approaches to the Security Council during the Suez crisis and prior to the launch of UNFICYP were carefully timed so as to cause Britain the least inconvenience. In Cyprus the British literally ring-fenced their interests, insisting on retaining sole responsibility for security in the Sovereign Base Areas. In Kuwait in 1961 they avoided the deployment of a UN force, which could have hindered future British unilateral intervention in support of the regime. On the issue of the use of force, the events in the Congo might have been expected to persuade the British that the United Nations should not engage in coercive actions. However, this proved not to be the case: in Cyprus they argued that UNFICYP should be acting more assertively than U Thant was prepared to allow. Once again, the British position was based entirely on the situation at hand. Only after a number of years did anything resembling a formal British policy on peacekeeping emerge. The dialogue by memorandum with the USSR in the summer of 1964 offered the clearest indication of how the

Conclusions 235

Conservative Government viewed the value and parameters of peacekeeping. The following year, the new Labour Government implicitly accepted that position and sought to build on it. However, by the end of the period, as efforts to strengthen peacekeeping ran into the sand, British policy-makers decided not to risk the progress made so far by holding out for more.

The influence of British policies and actions on UN operations As for the impact of British policies and actions on UN operations, the study has confirmed Brian Urquhart’s observation that ‘Britain was, albeit unwittingly, the parent of United Nations peacekeeping.’ Urquhart points to Britain’s close association with the conflicts which gave rise to the early operations, notably its withdrawal from Palestine, Kashmir and Cyprus, as well as its involvement in the Suez crisis.4 UNEF, which would simply not have existed without the British-coordinated invasion of Egypt, helped establish one of the central tenets of classical peacekeeping, namely that UN operations should exclude contingents provided by permanent members of the Security Council. Britain’s ignominious role in the crisis deprived it of the chance to take more legitimate credit for UNEF: British policy-makers had been thinking for some time of the possibility of a UN force serving as a buffer between Egypt and Israel. UN operations in countries where Britain had some security responsibility were affected by the stage at which it involved the Organization. In Palestine in 1948, the situation descended into chaos so quickly that Britain simply bailed out, handing the whole problem to the United Nations. In Cyprus, the fruitless British search for a non-UN force allowed hostilities between the two parties to escalate before UNFICYP was deployed. In both cases, British actions made the UN’s task harder. It was in the Congo that British efforts to exert influence were most evident, not only on the issues of providing bombs for the UN force and overflight rights for its jet fighters but also diplomatically, including through the support for Tshombé of British representatives on the ground. However, Britain’s inability to prevent ONUC from using force highlighted the limits of its influence. Ultimately, this was also illustrated by the comparative lack of success of Britain’s repeated efforts to improve the Secretariat’s capacity for planning peacekeeping.

Britain’s response to the challenges posed by UN operations Finally, Britain’s response to the challenges posed by UN operations enhances our understanding of peacekeeping in a number of ways. A central issue is the power relationship between Britain, a major state holding forceful views, and the UN Secretariat, which remained determined to preserve its

236 Britain and UN Peacekeeping, 1948–67

independence and protect the integrity of peacekeeping. For example, Hammarskjöld did not yield to Britain’s conditions for withdrawing its troops after the Suez invasion nor to its demands regarding the control of the Canal. He thereby preserved the notion of a neutral peacekeeping force. Under firm management, peacekeeping can be surprisingly resilient against external pressures. British displeasure with UNOGIL reflected a failure to appreciate the delicacy of the Secretariat’s position. Certainly, not discriminating between the differing levels of legitimacy of its interlocutors exposed the Secretariat to charges of political ineptitude. However, this was usually the only way in which both parties would agree to let the United Nations play a role. Moreover, UNOGIL was not equipped for ‘robust peacekeeping’, and the Secretary-General had a duty to its troop contributors not to expose their soldiers to undue danger. Britain’s response highlights the limited awareness of a major state of the political and other constraints under which a UN force operates on the ground. In any case, Hammarskjöld proved in the Congo that in a situation of overriding humanitarian need, a UN force could step outside its mandate and take sides, in that instance to try to halt acts of genocide by Lumumba’s forces. Although the Congo experience landed the United Nations in severe controversies which scarred the Organization, the British drew few lessons, except that UN operations should be better controlled. The pragmatism on which the British prided themselves apparently made them philosophical about setbacks: they appeared to conclude that ONUC’s problems were attributable to human failings as well as the chaotic political situation on the ground. They did not reject peacekeeping, but ensured strong British management of UNFICYP, the UN’s next large-scale, intra-state operation. Britain’s logistical and Headquarters support was invaluable to UNFICYP and highlights the enormous advantage to a UN operation of having a welldisposed major power providing such services. Moreover, when the situation in Cyprus was most volatile at the beginning, UNFICYP undoubtedly benefited from having troops provided by an influential member state with experience of acting assertively and with the means to do so. However, when the situation grew calmer, the need for the United Nations to contend with the British ego, and to entreat it to retain its military contribution to a force which was indisputably protecting British interests, confirmed that for classical operations it can be preferable to use contingents from smaller states. It was hard for some politicians to comprehend the pacific philosophy of peacekeeping: when UNFICYP’s rules of engagement diverged from what they expected, arguments arose about the interpretation and implementation of the mandate. The situation was further complicated by Britain’s belief that its own national experience gave it a special insight into, and expertise for, UN peacekeeping. However, at the field level in UNFICYP, the British troops generally functioned well. In Brian Urquhart’s words, ‘They saw the point.’5

Conclusions 237

In conclusion, by the end of the first two decades of UN peacekeeping, British politicians and officials had acquired a good grasp of its strengths and its weaknesses. They had also played an important part in defining the political and operational parameters within which it could function: with careful control they had ensured that peacekeeping had become an occasional but useful instrument, could not cause too much damage and remained compatible with British interests. Participation in UNFICYP, which seemed set to last for the foreseeable future, tied Britain into ensuring the long-term success of UN peacekeeping as an institution.

Notes 1 Introduction 1. During the period under review permanent members of the Security Council were normally excluded from providing troops. Britain’s contribution of a contingent to the UN operation in Cyprus is a notable exception, the reasons for which are discussed later in the book. 2. Peacekeeping is thus contrasted with peace-enforcement operations which use force against at least one party and are armed accordingly: the ‘police action’ launched in Korea in 1950, and Operation Desert Storm, launched in 1991 to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, have been the most prominent such cases authorized by the United Nations. However, despite their UN imprimatur, neither of these operations was controlled or funded by, or accountable to, the Organization, and neither the member states nor the Secretariat treat them as UN operations. Therefore, although falling within the time frame of this survey, the international peaceenforcement force deployed in Korea is not discussed here. The UN Operation in the Congo, although primarily a peacekeeping operation, engaged in some highly controversial peace enforcement (see Chapter 5). 3. UN transitional or interim administrations, such as those in Cambodia (1992–93) and East Timor (1999–2002) take this involvement in internal affairs even further. 4. The more prolific authors during this period included Leland M. Goodrich (for example, with Anne Simons, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1955) and Evan Luard (for example, ‘United Nations Peace Forces’ in Luard, ed., The Evolution of International Organizations (London: Thames and Hudson, 1966, pp. 138–76)). 5. UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld epitomizes this view. He perceived peacekeeping as a means of filling a power vacuum until peace could be restored. His considerable contribution to the evolution of peacekeeping is assessed in greater detail in the book. 6. Such issues remain highly topical. Like Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali worked to develop the conceptual framework for peacekeeping, while the United Nations was being increasingly buffeted by demands in the early to mid-1990s. An Agenda for Peace (UN Doc. A/47/277-S/24111), prepared at the beginning of his term, was a response to the Security Council’s request in January 1992 for suggestions for strengthening the UN’s capacity for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping. The measures Boutros-Ghali proposed included specially trained peace-enforcement units. His report testifies to the enthusiasm for the UN’s potential which the early post-Cold War era engendered. It also assumes throughout an almost limitless willingness by member states to act. That this approach was too optimistic is recognized in Boutros-Ghali’s 1995 Supplement to An Agenda for Peace (UN Doc. A/50/60-S/1995/1). The Supplement highlights difficulties which UN peacekeeping had encountered in the previous three years. These resulted both from institutional failings and from the more challenging international environment in which the Organization was now expected to operate. The Supplement reveals a significant shift from an assumption that the member states are committed to improving the efficacy of the United Nations to 238

Notes 239

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

an implicit acceptance that governments, especially powerful ones, will tend to pursue national objectives and that if these do not coincide with those of the United Nations, the Organization and its peacekeeping operations have to be protected against exploitation and abuse. A Review of Peace Operations: A Case for Change (London: King’s College, 2003) argues for greater attention by those planning and managing UN operations to local and regional capacities and perceptions. Examples of modern classical operations include the UN Iraq–Kuwait Observation Mission (1991–2003); the UN Aouzou Strip Observer Group (1994); and the UN Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia (1995–96). In a number of incisive studies, Adam Roberts has tackled contentious peacekeeping issues, especially those thrown up by second-generation operations (these include ‘The United Nations and International Security’, Survival, Vol. 35, No. 2, Summer 1993, pp. 3–30; ‘The Crisis in UN Peacekeeping’ Survival, Vol. 36, No. 3, Autumn 1994, pp. 93–120; and ‘From San Francisco to Sarajevo: The UN and the Use of Force’, Survival, Vol. 37, No. 4, Winter 1995–96, pp. 7–28). One notable exception is Mats Berdal’s article, ‘Fateful Encounter: the US and UN Peacekeeping’, which is valuable both for analysing the particular circumstances which led to US disillusionment with UN peacekeeping in the mid-1990s and, more generally, for depicting the speed and manner in which a state reassesses its position towards peacekeeping (Survival, Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 1994, pp. 30–50). See also Philippe Guillot ‘France Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Intervention’ (International Peacekeeping, Vol. I, No. I, Spring 1994, pp. 30–43). Inis Claude discussed this distinction in his 1969 article, ‘The United Nations, the United States and the Maintenance of Peace’ (International Organization, Vol. XXIII, No. 3, pp. 621–36). During this period, it was really only France which faced on a similar scale the challenge of preserving post-colonial stability with diminishing power. Yet the antipathy of General de Gaulle towards the United Nations meant that France did not explore to the same extent the UN’s potential as a firewall or burden-sharer. Postwar decolonization by Belgium and the Netherlands each led to one UN peacekeeping operation (respectively, those in the Congo, 1960–64, and in West Irian, 1962–63). The several UN operations emerging out of conflicts linked to Portuguese decolonization (in Angola, Mozambique and East Timor) belong to a later period. Unless otherwise stated, all government files referred to are held there. Annotated in the notes as ‘HC Debs.’ and ‘HL Debs.’ respectively. David Goldsworthy and Ronald Hyam, eds, British Documents on the End of Empire, 7 Vols. (London: HMSO, 1992–94); Rohan Butler and M.E. Pelly, eds, Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series 1 (London: HMSO, 1984). Annotated in the notes as FRUS. Geoffrey L. Goodwin, Britain and the UN (London: Oxford University Press, 1957); Erik Jensen and Thomas Fisher, eds, The United Kingdom – The United Nations (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1990). Rosalyn Higgins, The Administration of UK Foreign Policy Through the UN (Syracuse, USA: Maxwell School of Syracuse University, 1966). Individual documents are indicated respectively by the prefixes S/ and A/; in the UN’s early years they were identified as SCOR (Security Council Official Records) and GAOR (General Assembly Official Records). Urquhart and Rikhye were two peacekeeping practitioners whose writings draw on their first-hand experience of peacekeeping and advance pragmatic proposals for its improvement, with an eye on the constraints imposed by the UN Charter

240 Notes

20.

21. 22. 23.

(notably in Urquhart’s autobiography, A Life in Peace and War, New York: Harper and Row, 1987, and Rikhye’s The Theory and Practice of Peacekeeping, London: Hurst, 1984). Urquhart’s autobiography captures the spirit in which a number of UN peacekeeping operations were launched and thus offers a valuable service to those wishing to understand such intangible aspects as the role of personalities and the Zeitgeist in which individual UN operations existed. A more recent account, offering valuable insights into internal UN processes for managing peacekeeping operations, and the influence on them of individual personalities, is Sir Marrack Goulding’s Peacemonger (London: John Murray, 2002). The antecedents include operations launched both prior to the First World War and by the League of Nations. Since neither the principle nor the procedures of peacekeeping appear in the UN Charter, the precursors are often overlooked. The UN publication The Blue Helmets (New York: UN, 3rd Edn., 1996) provides a comprehensive account of the course of each operation. A second UN Emergency Force (UNEF II) existed from 1973 to 1979 to supervise the Egyptian-Israeli ceasefire following the 1973 October War. The period covered in the book also saw the creation of one other UN peacekeeping force (in West Irian, 1962–63) and observer missions in Yemen (1963–64), the Dominican Republic (1965–66) and along the India-Pakistan border south of Kashmir (1965–66). However, they are not treated here since they were all shortlived, uncontroversial and add little to the insights provided by the operations reviewed in the book. Nor are two small UN diplomatic missions using military personnel, the UN Special Committee on the Balkans and the UN Consular Commission in Indonesia (both created in 1947), since their military officers served in their national capacity and were not under UN command.

2 Antecedents and Early UN Observer Missions 1. Philip Wilkinson, ‘Sharpening the Weapons of Peace: The Development of a Common Military Doctrine for Peace Support Operations’. Joint Warfare Publication 3–50 (London: Ministry of Defence, 1998), Appendix 1. 2. Derek Bowett was a notable early commentator on UN peacekeeping who sought to dispel the impression that such uses of international forces were unprecedented. D.W. Bowett, United Nations Forces: A Legal Study of United Nations Practice (London: Stevens & Sons, 1964), p. 3. 3. Philip Terdoo Ahire, Imperial Policing: The Emergence and Role of the Police in Colonial Nigeria, 1860–1960 (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991), p. 62. 4. Except, notionally, in the territories placed under mandates by the League of Nations. 5. John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-War World (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), p. 50. 6. WO-279/391 (1949), Chapter 1, Section 1, para. 3. 7. Further details are contained in the section on General Alexander in Chapter 5 of this book. 8. Sarah Wambaugh, Plebiscites since the World War (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), 1933, Vol. I, pp. 305, 312. 9. League of Nations Official Journal, 7th Year, February 1926, Minutes of the ThirtySeventh Session of the Council, pp. 173–4; Annex 815, pp. 196–209 (Geneva, 1926). The officers successfully resolved a border dispute in May 1926. C.A. Macauley, ed., Survey of International Affairs, 1925 (London: OUP, 1928), Vol. 2, p. 309.

Notes 241 10. Sarah Wambaugh, The Saar Plebiscite (First published 1940, Reprinted Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1971), pp. 156, 282. 11. Quoted in David W. Wainhouse, International Peace Observation: A History and Forecast (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), p. 26. 12. Hans Wehberg, Theory and Practice of International Policing (London: Constable and Co., 1935), pp. 89–90. 13. United Nations Documents 1941–1945 (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1968), p. 10. 14. Jebb subsequently headed the preparatory commission for the United Nations and served briefly as the Organization’s Acting Secretary-General before the election of Trygve Lie as the first Secretary-General. In 1950 Jebb was appointed British Ambassador to the United Nations. 15. Gladwyn Jebb, The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972), p. 118. 16. P.A. Reynolds and E.J. Hughes, The Historian as Diplomat: Charles Kingsley Webster and the United Nations, 1939–1946 (London: Martin Robertson, 1976), p. 21. 17. CAB-66/33, WP(43)31, Annex, para. 1. 18. Ibid., para. 21. 19. Gladwyn Jebb, ‘Founding the UN: Principles and Objects’, in Jensen and Fisher, eds, The United Kingdom – The United Nations, p. 25. 20. At a meeting of the Dominion Prime Ministers in May 1944 Churchill and Eden submitted rival outlines for a world organization. The Prime Ministers backed Eden’s approach. Ibid., p. 35. 21. Jebb, Memoirs, pp. 143–4. 22. Ibid., p. 144. 23. CAB-66/49, WP(44)220: Minute by Minister of State Richard Law on ‘Future World Organisation’, Memorandum C, para. 7, 16.4.1944. 24. Ibid., paras 15–18. 25. Goodwin, Britain and the United Nations, p. 19. 26. Robert C. Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security (London: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), p. 122. 27. As a compromise, in addition to the USSR, the Soviet republics of Byelorussia and Ukraine were allotted individual seats. 28. Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 131. Statement, 22.8.1944. 29. A Commentary on the Charter of the United Nations, Cmd. 6666 (London: HMSO, 1945), p. 53. 30. Charter of the United Nations, Article 73e. 31. Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, 1945 (London and New York: UN Information Organizations, 1946), Vol. 1, p. 138. Speech, 27.4.1945. 32. FO-371/50732, U5998/12/70, ‘Reflections on San Francisco’, paras 3, 4 and 6, 25.7.1945. 33. The UN was officially founded on 24.10.1945 when all the Permanent Five and a majority of the other 46 signatory states had ratified the Charter. 34. FO-371/50855, U6311/2600/70, paras 5 and 8, 29.7.1945. 35. Reproduced in Clement Attlee, Purpose and Policy: Selected Speeches (London: Hutchinson, 1947), pp. 128–9. 36. Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945–1951 (London: Norton, 1983), p. 111.

242 Notes 37. Edward Johnson, ‘British Proposals for a United Nations Force, 1946–48’, in Anne Deighton, ed., Britain and the First Cold War (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 113–14. 38. CAB-80/53, COS(46)60, 27.2.1946. 39. CAB-80/53, COS(46)60, paras 7, 27. 40. FO-371/59666, UN-125/7/78, BMS(46)40, 31.5.1946. 41. FO-371/59666, UN-270/7/78. Letter, Sargent to Hollis (Cabinet Offices), 1.7.1946. 42. DEFE-11/4, Doc. 215. Telegram, Chiefs of Staff to British representatives on the Military Staff Committee, 30.12.1947. 43. UN Doc. S/336, 30.4.1947. 44. Ibid., p. 34. 45. Ibid., p. 13. 46. By this stage, Britain envisaged the total force comprising 12–15 divisions, 1250 aircraft, 2 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 12 submarines and miscellaneous other ships. The French proposed slightly more and the Chinese slightly less. The US proposal was the largest, consisting of a total of 15–18 divisions, 3750 aircraft, and 60 submarines. The Soviet proposal was the smallest, totalling 12–15 divisions, 1200 aircraft, 0 battleships, 0 aircraft carriers and 24 submarines. DEFE-6/4, JP(47)159, Annex, 15.12.1947. 47. Luard, A History of the United Nations, Vol. I., p. 104. 48. Parliamentary Command Paper, Cmd. 6743 (London: HMSO, 1946), para. 7. 49. Parliamentary Command Paper, Cmd. 7327 (London: HMSO, 1948), para. 52. 50. Parliamentary Command Paper, Cmd. 7631 (London: HMSO, 1949), para. 9. 51. CAB-129/1, CP(45)144, 1.9.1945. Also quoted in Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, p. 76. 52. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, p. 77; Jebb, Memoirs, p. 204. 53. CAB-21/1686, DO(46)145, Doc. 10. Note by Cabinet Defence Committee, ‘Palestine: Use of Armed Forces’, 19.12.1946. 54. CAB-129/21, CP(47)259. ‘Palestine’: Cabinet memorandum by Bevin, para. 21, 18.9.1947. 55. General Assembly resolution 181(II)A. 56. SCOR, Third Year, 253rd meeting, pp. 272–3, 24.2.1948. 57. For example, Lovett warned of the ‘incalculable harm’ which British noncooperation would cause to ‘every aspect of US–UK interests’. FRUS (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1976), pp. 829. Telegram to Douglas, 17.4.1948. 58. FO-371/72676, UN 1046. Telegram, FO-NY, 19.5.1948. Even Ralph Bunche, one of Lie’s aides and destined to win the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in the Palestine conflict, was scathing about the Secretary-General: ‘He was vain and self-centred, tending to appraise even important matters in terms of the impact on himself. He nursed petty prejudices and was anything but objective on major issues such as Palestine.’ Bunche also remarked that Lie was ‘violently pro-Israeli and against me’. UN Archives, S-370, File 39, No. 7. Undated handwritten note. 59. SCOR, Third Year, 293rd meeting, p. 2, 17.5.1948. 60. Withdrawing military equipment and supplies took several more weeks. 61. SCOR, Third Year, 296th meeting, pp. 4–5, 18.5.1948. 62. UN Security Council Resolution 50(1948). 63. SCOR, Third Year, 309th meeting, pp. 11,13, 29.5.1948. 64. This constituted a precedent for the deployment of UN civilian guards in Northern Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War. 65. SCOR, Third Year, 326th meeting, p. 11, 15.6.1948. 66. FO-371/68561, E7572/4/31 and E7573/4/31, Telegrams, Cairo-FO, 5.6.1948.

Notes 243 67. FO-371/68562, E7637/4/31, Telegrams, Cairo-FO and vice versa, 7.6.1948 and 8.6.1948. 68. FO-371/68560, E7494/4/31 and FO-371/68562, E7637/4/31. Telegrams, Cairo-FO and vice versa, 3.6.1948, 8.6.1948. 69. Ibid. Britain provided Bernadotte with four observation aircraft, manned by civilians. Sydney Bailey, How Wars End: The United Nations and the Termination of Armed Conflict, 1946–1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), Vol. 1, p. 198. 70. CAB-129/29, CP(48)207, ‘Palestine’: Memorandum by the Foreign Secretary, 24.8.1948, Annex B, para. 7. 71. In line with common practice, the term ‘Kashmir’ is used here as shorthand for the province of Jammu and Kashmir. 72. FO-371/69705, F-89/6/85. Telegram, FO-NY, 3.1.1948. 73. Ibid. 74. FO-371/69705, F-89/6/85. Telegram, New Delhi-FO, 5.1.1948. 75. FO-371/69705, F-489/6/85. Telegram, NY-FO, 9.1.1948. 76. FO-371/69705, F-89/6/85. Telegram, FO-NY, 13.1.1948. 77. FO-371/69705, F-624/6/85. Telegram, NY-FO, 12.1.1948. 78. UN Security Council Resolution 38 (1948). 79. DO-142/514. Telegram, FO-Washington, 13.6.1948. 80. There were 11 members of the Security Council until 1965, when they were increased to 15. 81. DO-142/514. Telegram, FO-Washington, 13.6.1948. 82. DO-142/514. Telegram, FO-NY, 27.8.1948. 83. DO-142/514. Telegram, FO-NY, 28.8.1948. 84. WO-32/12710, Doc. 27A. Notes of meeting chaired by the Commonwealth Relations Office, 13.12.1948. 85. WO-32/12710. Note to Attlee from Noel-Baker, 30.11.1948. 86. WO-32/12710, Doc. 27A. 87. WO-32/12710, Doc. 81. Telegram, Paris-FO, 8.12.1948. 88. WO-32/12710, Doc. 83. Telegram, FO-Paris, 12.12.1948. WO-32/12710, Doc. 95B. Minutes of Ministry of Defence meeting, 30.12.1948. 89. UN Doc. A/656, 28.9.1948. 90. CAB-130/44, GEN-261/1 and Annex. ‘UN Guard Force: Memorandum by the Joint Parliamentary Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs.’ 91. UN Doc. A/959, Annex 1, 24.6.1949. 92. UN Docs. A/RES/297A and B(IV). 93. CAB-129/46, CP(51)159, 11.6.1951; CAB-128-19, CM(51)47, 28.6.1951. 94. The minutes do not reveal which Minister made this point. 95. CO-847/36/4, No. 18, paras 2, 12. One of the ways the paper suggested promoting openness was through flooding the UN library with documents and ensuring that it ‘is better stocked with material on British colonial territories than on any other Colonial Empire, or for that matter on many sovereign states as well’. Ibid., para. 13.

3 The Creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 1. 2. 3. 4.

The bibliography for this book includes several studies of these issues. CAB-129/53, C(52)202. ‘British Overseas Obligations’, 18.6.1952. CAB-128/27(2), CC48(54), para. 5, 7.7.1954. Roy Fullick and Geoffrey Powell, Suez: The Double War (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979), p. 30. 5. Parliamentary Command Paper, Cmd. 9691 (London: HMSO, 1956), para. 47.

244 Notes 6. Coral Bell, ‘From Britain’s Angle’, United Nations News: Journal of the United Nations Association, Vol. 10, No. 1, January–March 1955, p. 7. 7. Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, pp. 221–2. 8. CO-537/5698, No. 69. ‘The Colonial Empire Today’, Colonial Office paper, May 1950, para. 82. 9. UN Doc. A/PV. 393, para. 52, 11.11.1952. 10. David Goldsworthy, ed., British Documents on the End of Empire: The Conservative Government and the End of Empire, (London: HMSO, 1994), Part I, p. xl. 11. CAB-129/66, C(54)53. ‘Middle East: Anglo-American Policy’, Note by Lloyd, 15.2.1954. 12. Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951–56 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), p. 187. Entry for 2.5.1954. 13. CAB-129/78, CP(55)152. ‘Middle East Oil’, Note by Macmillan, 14.10.1955. 14. PREM-11/1098, p. 371. Telegram, 27.7.1956. 15. PREM-11/1100, p. 283. Note to Eden, August 1956 (precise date unclear). 16. PREM-11/1123, pp. 26–7. Note to Eden, 29.8.1956. 17. Selwyn Lloyd, Suez 1956: A Personal Account (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978), p. 129. 18. Hammarskjöld had succeeded Trygve Lie upon the latter’s resignation in 1953. A philosophical and principled individual, Hammarskjöld transformed the standing of the office of Secretary-General. He was to play a pivotal role in the development of peacekeeping. 19. Yale UN Oral History Project. Interview with Brian Urquhart, 20.7.1984, p. 5. 20. UN Archives, DAG-1/2.3, Box 332, File 2590. Interview by Brian Urquhart with Nutting, London, October 1958. 21. The date of the invasion had been fixed by the British, French and Israelis in the secret Sèvres Protocol of 24.10.1956. The extent of collusion between the three Governments became apparent only subsequently. 22. UN Docs. S/3713/Rev.1 and S/3710. This was the first time that Britain had exercised its veto in the Security Council. 23. The Uniting for Peace resolution (Assembly Resolution 377(V)) of 3 November 1950 resulted from US determination to circumvent the veto in the Security Council and permit the General Assembly to consider issues of international peace and security (including recommending enforcement measures) if the Council was deadlocked. This was partly because the Council’s ability to discuss the outbreak of the Korean War had been made possible only by a temporary boycott by the Soviet representative. In an official 1955 pamphlet on Britain and the United Nations the British Government reported that it had immediately welcomed the proposal for the Uniting for Peace resolution and that its views had been closely reflected in the text (Britain and the United Nations, London: Central Office of Information, 1955, p. 4). However, the use of the procedure to override British and French vetoes in the Suez crisis caused British diplomats to rue Britain’s earlier support for the resolution. This is discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. 24. Lloyd, Suez, p. 193. 25. Alan Sked and Chris Cook, Post-War Britain: A Political History, Fourth Edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993), p. 134. 26. PREM-11/1090, pp. 7–12. Letters, 2.11.1956 and 4.11.1956. 27. CAB-128/30, CM77(56), 2.11.1956. Lloyd presumably calculated that Kuwait’s and Qatar’s non-membership of the United Nations would preclude the prospect of a conflict with other UN members coming to their assistance.

Notes 245 28. 29. 30. 31.

32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53.

PREM-11/1170. Telegram 1563, Moscow-FO, 6.11.1956. Robert Bowie, Suez 1956 (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 108. Eden, The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden: Full Circle (London: Cassell, 1960), p. 527. On a state visit to Britain in April 1956, Bulganin and Khrushchev had told their hosts that they would ‘make as much trouble for us in the Middle East as they possibly could’. Ivone Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle (London: Macmillan, 1959), p. 262. The only mention of peace enforcement under UN auspices came with a provocative suggestion by the USSR on 5 November that it and the United States should take the lead in enforcing the withdrawal of Israeli, French and British forces (UN Doc. S/3736). The United States dismissed the proposal out of hand. HC Debs., Vol. 547, Col. 952. Reported by Lloyd to the House of Commons on 22.2.1956. HC Debs., Vol. 549, Col. 357. Hammarskjöld also confirmed that Lloyd had raised the idea in spring 1956. Hammarskjöld papers, Stockholm, File 20, Aide-mémoire, 9.11.1956. FO-371/118880, JE-1074/161. Telegram, Ottawa-CRO, 27.11.1956. Lester Pearson, Memoirs 1948–1957, Vol. 2: ‘The International Years’ (London: Victor Gollancz, 1974), p. 218. HC Debs., Vol. 558, Col. 1648–49. Michael Foot and Mervyn Jones record that Prime Minister Nehru’s response to the offer in Eden’s final sentence was: ‘That’s very kind of him.’ Guilty Men, 1957 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1957), p. 37. UN Doc. A/PV. 561, para. 111, 1.11.1956. PREM-11/1123, p. 4. Letter, 6.11.1956. HC Debs., Vol. 558, Cols 1913–14, 3.11.1956. Reproduced in Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Vol. X (Bristol: Keesing’s Publications), p. 15 214. Ibid. Quoted in Foot and Jones, Guilty Men, pp. 181–2. One exception was the Council’s direct instructions to the UN Force Commander in Cyprus in 1964, detailed in Chapter 7. UN Doc. A/3306. Pearson, Memoirs, p. 249. HC Debs., Vol. 558, Col. 1865. CAB-134/1216, EC(56)40. Egypt Committee meeting, 4.11.1956, Confidential annex. HC Debs., Vol. 558, Cols 1959–60. PREM-11/1177, p. 19. Telegram, 6.11.1956. CAB-134/1216, EC(56)41, 5.11.1956. PREM-11/1106, pp. 532–3. Telegram, NY-FO, 9.11.1956. A handwritten, undated note by Ralph Bunche in the UN Archives reveals that the irritation which the British felt with Hammarskjöld was mutual: ‘Dag Hammarskjöld had great contempt for Bob [Sir Pierson] Dixon from his dealings with him during the Suez crisis. He found Bob to be weak and slippery, and having no courage. Usually, after their talks, Dag would be furious and would stride up and down his office, his face screwed up and his teeth clenching a cigar, muttering imprecations about Bob’s oily duplicity. But [he] always restrained his fury until the visitor had left … Hammarskjöld also would react angrily to some of his talks with Selwyn Lloyd, who used to hook his thumbs in his vest or suspenders and strut back and forth in full arrogance.’ S-370, Box 39, File 2. Brian Urquhart, Hammarskjöld (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 181.

246 Notes 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

Luard, History of the United Nations, Vol. 2, p. 42. FO-371/11873, JE 1074/1. Telegram. Ibid., Telegram, 17.11.1956. FO-371/11873, JE 1074/1A. Telegram, 14.11.1956. CAB-128/30(2), CM83(56). PREM-11/1106, p. 415. Telegram, NY-FO, 13.11.1956. Ibid., p. 414. Telegram 1211, NY-FO, 13.11.1956. Ibid., p. 337. Telegram, NY-FO, forwarding letter to Lloyd from Hammarskjöld, 14.11.1956. FO-371/11873, JE 1074/1A. Telegram, Lloyd to Eden, 14.11.1956. PREM-11/1106, p. 333. Telegram, Eden to Lloyd, 15.11.1956. Ibid., p. 320. Egypt Committee minutes, EC56(44), 15.11.1956. Ibid., p. 321. FO-371/118874, JE 1074/24. Telegram, NY-FO, 19.11.1956. CAB-134/1216, EC(56)46, Egypt Committee meeting minutes, 21.11.1956. Urquhart, Hammarskjöld, pp. 191–2. Ibid., p. 199. UN Career Records Project (UNCRP), Interview with George Ivan Smith, p. 18, 12.8.1993. Ibid., p. 19. Bowie, Suez 1956, p. 76. FRUS, 1955–57, Vol. XVI, pp. 1182–3. Telegram, 23.11.1956. PREM-11/1106, p. 523. Telegram 1163. PREM-11/1106, p. 545. Telegram, Lloyd to Caccia. UN Doc. A/3384, Annex 3, para. 4. PREM-11/1106, p. 55. Telegram, FO-NY, 26.11.1956. FRUS, p. 1115. Telegram, Aldrich (London) to State Department, 12.11.1956. Ibid., p. 1163. Telegram, Aldrich to State Department, 19.11.1956. Ibid., p. 1183. Telegram, Lodge to State Department, 23.11.1956. Ibid., p. 1188. HC Debs., Vol. 561, Col. 882. Statement at London Airport, 14.12.1956. Eden, Memoirs, p. 574. Dixon, Double Diploma, p. 277. Further discussed in Chapter 6 of this book.

4 Conceptualizing and Delimiting Peacekeeping, 1957–60 1. FO-371/123755, UN-2286/27. 2. FO-371/123755, UN-2286/27. The initiative was made public on 19 December when David Ormsby-Gore, Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, told the House of Commons that the Government was ‘considering whether there are any practical proposals that we can put forward for the organization of a readily available force in a form acceptable to the majority of the members of the United Nations.’ HC Debs., Vol. 562, Col. 1424. 3. General Assembly Resolution 377 (V), para. 8. 4. In a UN context, the British regularly used the term ‘Great Powers’ to signify the five permanent members of the Security Council. 5. FO-371/123755, UN-2286/27, ‘A Permanent Force’, para. 9. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., para. 14b.

Notes 247 8. Ibid., para. 14c. 9. This point reveals the change in Foreign Office thinking on the veto which had occurred in the UN’s first decade. The conclusion that the United Nations could usually function in security matters only by bypassing the USSR negated the original purpose of the veto as a safety valve to prevent confrontations between the Organization and the permanent members of the Security Council. 10. FO-371/123755, UN-2286/27. Minute, 21.12.1956. 11. Dean was another. 12. FO-371/123755, UN-2286/27. Minute, 21.12.1956. 13. Ibid. Letter, Dean to Sir Richard Powell, Ministry of Defence, 17.1.1957. 14. FO-371/129915, UN-2286/4. Letter, Poynton to Dean, 6.2.1957. 15. Edward Johnson, ‘A Permanent UN Force: British Thinking after Suez’, Review of International Studies (1991), Vol. 17, p. 257. 16. FO-371/129915, UN-2286/7, Letter, H.J.B. Lintott to Dean, 26.2.1957. 17. FO-371/129915, UN-2286/8, Letter, Sir Alexander Johnston to Dean, 28.2.1957. 18. FO-371/129915, UN-2286/13, Letter, Crosthwaite to Dean, 14.3.1957. 19. Ibid. 20. FO-371/129916, UN-2286/21, Letter, Powell to Dean, 24.4.1957. 21. These figures for the armed services excluded around 60 000 colonial or other troops as of 1957. 22. Cmnd. 124. Parliamentary Papers 1956–57, Vol. XXIII, pp. 489–502. 23. The preparatory paper, by the Joint Planning Staff, had pointedly noted that ‘there are no military or strategic grounds which would justify further considerable reductions in the resources now devoted to United Kingdom defence. We accept, however, that there are urgent economic grounds which make [them] necessary …’, DEFE-4/95, Confidential annex JP(57)8. ‘Long-Term Defence Policy’. Report by the Joint Planning Staff, 1.2.1957. 24. FO-371/129916, UN-2286/28, Note, 17.5.1957, with minutes by Pink, 24.5.1957 and 17.6.1957; FO-371/129915, UN-2286/9, minute by Pink, 13.3.1957. 25. This was not the only instance of insincere British support. According to Pink, Lloyd ‘thought that we might take our attitude in regard to Charter Review (in which we urged the holding of a Review Conference while knowing that the Russians would not agree to it) as a pattern for our action in regard to the Permanent Force’. FO-371/129916, UN-2286/28. Minute, 17.6.1957. 26. FO-371/129902, UN-2251/22. Minute on a letter in The Times by Norman Angell on the UN’s attitude to the Middle East, 26.2.1957. 27. FO-371/129902, UN-2251/22. 28. This habit, and particularly Pink’s fondness for the mot juste, necessitates particular care when judging how sincere their views were, how seriously those views were taken by their colleagues, and hence how representative they were of Foreign Office thinking. Pink’s criticisms were often ostensibly founded on principle but occasionally appeared to reflect little more than a dislike of foreigners, especially those from developing countries. 29. FO-371/129902, UN-2251/22. Minute, 15.3.1957. 30. FO-371/129903, UN-2251/29. Article, 24.3.1957. This may well have been part of Pink’s strategy of ‘enlightening’ the public. 31. Ibid. 32. Kirkpatrick thus echoed Dixon’s criticism of Hammarskjöld during the Suez crisis as ‘the new Pope’. PREM-11/1106, p. 533. Telegram, New York to Foreign Office (hereafter NY-FO), 9.11.1956.

248 Notes 33. FO-371/129903, UN-2251/31. 34. FO-371/129903, UN-2251/27, 7.2.1957. 35. Ibid., para. 10. This view was shared by other policy-makers. Selwyn Lloyd echoed Pink’s comments in a speech at the Mansion House in London on 31 May 1957 when he declared that ‘The role of the UN is not just to preserve peace. It must command respect for the rule of law and the sanctity of obligations between nations’ (Hammarskjöld papers, Stockholm, Middle East file, 1956–57). In his memoirs, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, who had played a significant role with regard to the launch of UNEF, sounded a note of nostalgia, ‘In the old days the ultimate sanction of force was a powerful card in the hands of diplomacy. Today, the United Nations is concerned only to prevent war, but not to secure and enforce justice.’ Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle, p. 266. 36. FO-371/129903, UN-2251/27. The United Nations: A Stocktaking, para. 12. 37. Ibid., para. 13. 38. FO-371/129913, UN22515/7. Brief, March 1957. 39. Ibid. 40. FO-371/129913, UN-22515/8. 41. FO-371/129904, UN-2251/45. Minute, 12.4.1957. 42. FO-371/129904, UN-2251/45. Minute, 18.4.1957. 43. FO-371/129903, UN-2251/36. Note, 29.3.1957. 44. Ibid. Minute, 30.3.1957. 45. FO-371/129905, UN-2251/68. ‘Barometer report’ prepared on behalf of the US Information Agency. 17.5.1957. 46. FO-371/129916, UN-2286/20. A Permanent United Nations Force (London: Federal Union, 1957). A Foreign Office assessment called the paper ‘as sensible a scheme for the establishment of a United Nations Police Force as we have seen.’ Ibid., Note by Michael Mann. 47. The Commission did not provide a figure for the Medium Force, but suggested that the Heavy Force should be no larger than half a million men. 48. FO-371/129916, UN-2286/20. Minute, 30.4.1957. 49. FO-371/129916, UN-2286/26A. Article, News Chronicle, 28.5.1957. 50. HC Debs., Vol. 571, Col. 8. 51. FO-371/129917, UN-2286/37. 52. FO-371/129918, UN-2286/42. Letter, Wiggin to Scrivener, 10.7.1957. 53. FO-371/129918, UN-2286/48. Letter to Pink, 8.8.1957. 54. UN Doc. A/PV. 733, para. 28. The following week, the US Senate (without a vote) and the House of Representatives (by 299 : 20 votes) adopted a resolution calling for a force ‘of a similar character’ to UNEF to be made a permanent arm of the United Nations, provided that it not include contingents contributed by the permanent members of the Security Council. The resolution suggested that consideration be given to permitting individuals to volunteer for such a force. House Concurrent Res. 373, 21.8.1958 and 22.8.1958. American Foreign Policy: Current Documents (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 1958), p. 80. 55. FO-371/136977, UN-2286/20. Letter, Beeley to C.D.W. O’Neill, 26.8.1958. 56. FO-371/134122, VL-1015/284. Telegram, Lloyd to Caccia (Washington), 15.6.1958. 57. Security Council Resolution 128, 11.6.1958. Further details on the background to this are contained in Chapter 10 of Brian Urquhart’s Hammarskjöld (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), pp. 261–92.

Notes 249 58. The Blue Helmets, p. 116. 59. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (London: Heinemann, 1966), p. 267. 60. FO-371/134125, VL-1015/378. Note of a meeting on 18.6.1958. 61. FO-371/134128, VL-1015/428. Telegram, Mason (Amman) to FO, 21.6.1958. 62. FO-371/134124, VL-1015/345. Telegrams, NY-FO, 19.6.1958, and FO-Washington, 20.6.1958. 63. FO-371/134122, VL-1015/274. Telegram, Middleton (Beirut) to FO, 13.6.1958. FO-371/134124, VL-1015/353. Telegram, Caccia (Washington) to FO, 23.6.1958. 64. FO-371/134122, VL-1015/284. Telegram, NY-FO, 14.6.1958. Dixon’s last remark echoed Pink’s accusation that the United Nations placed keeping the peace above upholding the law. 65. FO-371/134122, VL-1015/284. Telegram, Lloyd (London) to Washington, 15.6.1958. It was common at this time for a generic peacekeeping operation to be referred to as a ‘UN Emergency Force’. 66. Britain remained adamant that the French should be excluded and hoped that Chamoun would ‘make it plain to the French that they are not wanted at the party …, in which case we hardly imagine that the French would insist on gatecrashing’. The main reason seemed to be fear that French involvement would ‘alienate all friendly Arabs’, although one can also imagine that British policymakers did not want their attempts to rebuild relations with the United States tarnished by association with French neo-colonialism. FO-371/134125, VL1015/379, Letter, Hoyer Millar to Jebb (Paris), 20.6.1958; FO-371/134124, VL1015/352. Telegram, FO-Paris, 24.6.1958. 67. FO-371/134129, VL-1015/447. Letter, UK Embassy Beirut to FO, 3.7.1958. 68. FO-371/134122, VL-1015/281. Telegram, NY-FO, 13.6.1958. 69. FO-371/134129, VL-1015/462. Note on a letter from Hammarskjöld to Lloyd, 9.7.1958. 70. FO-371/134122, VL-1015/281. Telegram, NY-FO, 13.6.1958. 71. This topic is discussed in greater detail in the section on Hammarskjöld’s UNEF study below. 72. FO-371/134122, VL-1015/281, Telegram, NY-FO, 13.6.1958. 73. FO-371/134124, VL-1015/331. Telegrams, NY-FO and Washington-FO, 18.6.1958, 19.6.1958. 74. FO-371/134124, VL-1015/353. Note, 25.6.1958. 75. FO-371/134132, VL-1015/542. 76. FO-371/134128, VL-1015/431. Telegram, Lloyd to Caccia, 1.7.1958. 77. S/4040, paras 5 and 21. 78. Daily Mail, 7.7.1958, p. 1. 79. FO-371/134129, VL-1015/462. Letter, Hammarskjöld to Lloyd, 9.7.1958. 80. FO-371/134131, VL-1015/530. Letter, Lloyd to Hammarskjöld, 14.7.1958. 81. The Times, 18.7.1958, p. 18. 82. The Times, 23.7.1958, p. 8. 83. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, p. 273. 84. Ibid. 85. FO-371/134131, VL-1015/514. Contained in telegram, Scott (Beirut) to FO, 16.7.1958. 86. The United States clearly wished to avoid overstretching itself but was also sceptical about Jordan’s long-term prospects. Dulles made clear to Lloyd that Jordan

250 Notes

87. 88.

89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99.

100. 101. 102. 103. 104.

105. 106. 107.

was ‘not viable as a state’ and ‘[t]he principal reason for its existence was the dangerous situation which would ensue if it ceased to exist’. FO-371/134012, VJ-1016/16, Telegram, NY-FO, 14.8.1958. FO-371/134038, VJ-1091/1. Telegram, Mason (Amman) to FO, 16.7.1958. FO-371/134038, VJ-1091/1. Telegram, FO-Washington, 17.6.1958. Lloyd had been in the air en route from London to the United States when the crisis flared up, and arrived to find a telegram from Macmillan informing him of the British intervention in Jordan. FO-371/134038, VJ-1091/3. FO-371/134038, VJ-1091/12, Telegram, NY-FO, 17.7.1958. FO-371/134039, VJ-1091/18, Telegram, NY-FO, 18.7.1958. FO-371/134039, VJ-1091/18, Telegram, FO-NY, 19.7.1958. FO-371/134039, VJ-1091/26, 35, Telegrams, FO-NY and FO-Washington, 26.7.1958, 22.7.1958. FO-371/134040, VJ-1091/69. Telegrams, NY-FO, 28.7.1958 and30.7.1958; FO-NY, 2.8.1958. FO-371/134040, VJ-1091/69. Telegrams, Beeley and Johnston (Amman) to FO, 30.7.1958 and 1.8.1958. FO-371/134034, VJ-1052/15. Telegram, Johnston (Amman) to FO, 25.7.1958; FO-371/134040, VJ-1091/68, Telegram, Hood (Washington) to FO, 26.7.1958. FO-371/134012, VJ-1016/2. Telegram, FO-NY, 6.8.1958. FO-371/134012, VJ-1016/11. Telegram, Lloyd to NY, 13.8.1958. FO-371/134038, VJ-1091/10. Telegram, 17.7.1958. Resolution 1237 (ES-III) asked the Secretary-General to make ‘such practical arrangements as would adequately help in upholding the purposes and principles of the Charter in relation to Lebanon and Jordan … and thereby facilitate the early withdrawal of the foreign troops from the two countries.’ UN Doc. A/3905. FO-371/134043, VJ-1091/150. Telegram, Amman-FO, 1.10.1958. By November, it had 591 personnel, 18 aircraft, 6 helicopters and 290 vehicles supporting 49 permanently manned posts. The Blue Helmets, p. 119. FO-371/134134, VL-1015/665. Letter, Beirut-FO, 6.12.1958. HC Debs., Vol. 598, Col. 25, 20.1.1959. By contrast, in a Foreign Affairs article published five months after UNEF’s creation, Foreign Minister Pearson of Canada had suggested measures similar to those contained in Hammarskjöld’s UNEF report, although Pearson proposed that a ‘standby Peace Supervision Force’ be an extension of the Peace Observation Commission created under the ‘Uniting for Peace Procedure’. Lester Pearson, ‘Force for the UN’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 35, No. 3, April 1957, pp. 395–404. UN Doc. A/3943, 9.10.1958. Ibid., para. 149. An August 2000 report on peacekeeping operations by a panel chaired by former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi (the ‘Brahimi Report’) sought to relate the concept of impartiality explicitly to the principles of the UN Charter. In the process, the concept acquired a stronger moral overtone: ‘Impartiality for [peacekeeping] operations must … mean adherence to the principles of the Charter and to the objectives of a mandate that is rooted in those Charter principles. Such impartiality is not the same as neutrality or equal treatment of all parties in all cases for all time, which can amount to a policy of appeasement. In some cases, local parties consist not of moral equals but of obvious aggressors and victims, and peacekeepers may not only be operationally justified in using force but morally compelled

Notes 251

108. 109. 110. 111. 112.

113. 114. 115.

116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128.

to do so. Genocide in Rwanda went as far as it did in part because the international community failed to use or to reinforce the operation then on the ground in that country to oppose obvious evil.’ UN Doc. A/55-S/2000/809, para. 50. As indicated in the following chapter, this position had in fact been foreshadowed by Hammarskjöld’s own willingness to override ONUC’s neutrality in the case of gross violations of human rights during the UN operation in the Congo. UN Doc. A/3943, para. 151. Ibid., para. 154. Ibid., para. 181. Ibid., para. 153. FO-371/136977, UN-2286/29. Memorandum, 17.10.1958, para. 7. As the chapter on UNFICYP in this book relates, the British position on a UN force in Cyprus changed rapidly once that country had been granted independence. CAB 134/2071, IOC(58)142. Draft brief, 30.10.1958. Ibid., para. 5. Ibid., para. 10. However, Murray minuted that the Colonial Office doubted ‘whether circumstances would ever arise in which we should be happy to receive a United Nations force in or on the frontiers of a British or British-protected territory’. FO-371/136977, UN-2286/34. Note, 28.10.1958. CAB 134/2071, IOC(58)142. Draft brief, para. 12. Ibid., paras 9 and 13. Ibid., para. 16. FO-371/136977, UN-2286/37. Note by Murray, 5.11.1958. FO-371/145325, UN-2286/16. Note by Tahourdin, 14.4.1959. FO-371/145323, UN-2286/2. Letter from Sir Gilbert Laithwaite, Commonwealth Relations Office, 4.2.1959. A summary of most of the replies is in FO371/145325, UN-2286/16. FO-371/145324, UN-2286/12. FO-371/145325, UN-2286/26. FO-371/145323, UN-2286/5. FO-371/145323, UN-2286/4. FO-371/145325, UN-2286/20. Interview with T.F. Brenchley, 9.8.2001. Frank Brenchley suggests that their work tended to generate a certain amount of sympathy with the United Nations, in a manner similar to diplomats who ‘go native’ – acquire the perspective of the government to which they are accredited – in overseas postings. Interview, 9.8.2001.

5 The UN Operation in the Congo, 1960–64 1. Opération des Nations Unies au Congo. 2. The inclusion of UNOGIL in this group could be challenged. However, while Lebanon had not been a British colony, UNOGIL was deployed to monitor infiltration from Syria, which had been; moreover, in British eyes, UNOGIL was associated with the regional threat posed by Nasser, whom Britain still considered to be largely its own post-colonial problem. 3. Two useful studies exist of British policies during the Congo crisis: the contemporary, but durable, investigation by Catherine Hoskyns, The Congo since Independence: January 1960–December 1961 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), and Alan James’ Britain and the Congo Crisis, 1960–63 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), of

252 Notes

4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

which the latter draws on declassified British Government papers. James provides a detailed reconstruction of British actions during the crisis. On a number of occasions, this chapter intersects with his account (indicated in the notes), but it differs in two significant ways: first, it focuses almost exclusively on British policy towards the peacekeeping operation, and pays attention to British and Congolese domestic politics only when these are relevant to that subject; and second, the analysis is situated within the broader framework of British policies towards peacekeeping over the course of two decades. Another detailed account, this time from a UN perspective, is woven into the later chapters of Brian Urquhart’s Hammarskjöld (New York: Harper and Row, 1972). Finally, it is indicative of the passions, and resentments, which such an intense and controversial operation engendered that many of the protagonists published their own accounts. A number of these are listed in the footnotes and the bibliography. FO-371/153585, UN-2251/17. Telegram, NY-FO, para. 26. From 1959–60, Hammarskjöld ignored a deadlocked Security Council and prevented international escalation of the Laotian civil war through mediation by a personal representative. Annual Report to the General Assembly, 1959–60, UN Doc. A/4390, Add.1, 31.8.1960, p. 4. It is debatable whether the non-aligned countries could be considered as a bloc before their pivotal conference in Belgrade in September 1961. However, the British, especially when they felt besieged, rarely distinguished between individual members of the group and already regarded the activities of the ‘Afro-Asian bloc’ with deep suspicion. FO-371/153585, UN-2251/17. Telegram, NY-FO, 9.8.1960. FO-371/153527, UN-1514/2. Letter, 29.9.1960. Ibid., para. 10. Britain and France abstained on the resolution on Sharpeville (resolution 134). GA resolution 1514 (XV). Oladapo Fafowora, Pressure Groups and Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of British Attitudes and Policy Towards Secessionist Moves in the Congo (1960–63) and Nigeria (1966–69) (Lagos: Heinemann, 1990), p. 49. CAB-129/110, C(62)134. Memorandum by Chief Secretary to the Treasury, 21.8.1962. Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 1959–1961 (London: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 264–5. A useful chronological account is contained in the chapter on ONUC in The Blue Helmets, pp. 175–99. Kasavubu headed the Alliance des Bakongo (Abako) and remained President of the Congo until November 1965. Lumumba was a leader in the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) and a national deputy representing the Stanleyville district; as related below, he died in early 1961. Hoskyns notes that Lumumba was heavily influenced by the ideas of Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah on the type of leadership necessary in Africa (The Congo Since Independence, p. 80). Subsequent Foreign Office communications tended to continue referring to the Force publique. Hammarskjöld appointed Sture Linner, a Swedish businessman, as resident UN technical assistance representative in the Congo. Tshombé was President of the Confédération d’Associations Tribales du Katanga (Conakat) and was based in Katanga’s capital, Elisabethville.

Notes 253 19. FO-371/146769, JB-2251/2. Telegram, FO-NY, 12.7.1960. 20. From 1961 the Congo fell under the new West and Central African Department, headed by Boothby. 21. FO-371/146770, JB-2251/34. Note, ‘The Congo: UN Assistance’, 12.7.1960. 22. UN Doc. S/4382(II). 23. This was partly due to the fact that the Congo was not formally admitted to the United Nations until 20 September. However, utilizing the procedure also enabled Hammarskjöld to reinforce his independent role in issues of peace and security. 24. Herbert Nicholas, ‘UN Peace Forces and the Changing Globe: the Lessons of Suez and Congo’, International Organization, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 1963, p. 328. 25. UN Doc. S/PV. 873, para. 133, 13.7.1960. 26. Ibid., para. 195. 27. In addition to announcing that they were considering approaching non-aligned countries, on 17 July Kasavubu and Lumumba warned the Secretary-General that unless Belgian troops were completely withdrawn within 48 hours, they would request bilateral assistance from the USSR. 28. HC Debs., Vol. 626, col. 1603, 14.7.1960. 29. In fact, a major part of the airlift to deliver contingents and supplies to the Congo throughout much of ONUC’s duration was carried out by the United Kingdom, the United States and the USSR. 30. FO-371/146770, JB-2251/34. Minute, 12.7.1960. 31. FO-371/146769, JB-2251/2. Telegram, FO-NY, 12.7.1960. 32. UN Doc. S/4389: First report by the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolution S/4387, 18.7.1960. 33. Ibid., p. 6. 34. Beeley reported that Hammarskjöld had had some reservations about a contingent from Guinea, but had concluded that it was necessary in terms of the political balance among the African troop-contributors. FO-371/146769, JB-2251/15. Telegram, NY-FO, 14.7.1960. 35. FO-371/146773, JB-2251/92. Telegram, Robertson (Nigeria) to Colonial Secretary, 22.7.1960. 36. A Joint Services Working Party paper of March 1962 noted the advantages to both Britain and the recipient country of such secondment: the latter gained British expertise, whereas Britain was able to ‘infiltrate’ its influence, achieve defence cooperation, and cultivate markets for British-built military equipment. FO-371/ 166343, ZS-7/117. 37. FO-371/146771, JB-2251/40. Telegram, NY-FO, 18.7.1960. 38. FO-371/146772, JB-2251/64. Telegram, FO-NY, 18.7.1960. 39. UN Doc. S/4389, p. 3. 40. CAB-128/34, CC43(60). 41. FO-371/146774, JB-2251/107. Note by Howard Smith, 26.7.1960. 42. FO-371/146770, JB-2251/32. Telegram, FO-NY, 18.7.1960. 43. HC Debs., Vol. 627, col. 1058, 25.7.1960. 44. Bunche had by now been designated as Hammarskjöld’s Special Representative in the Congo. 45. S/4417, para. 10. 46. Hoskyns, The Congo since Independence, pp. 167–8; UN Docs. S/4417-Add.1/Rev.1, S/4420. 47. FO-371/146784, JB-2251/336. Note, UK Votes on the Congo. 48. CAB-128/34, CC49(60), 8.8.1960.

254 Notes 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66.

67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

FO-371/153585, UN-2251/17. Telegram, NY-FO, para. 20, 9.8.1960. FO-371/146778, JB-2251/218. Telegram, FO-NY, 30.8.1960. Ibid. However, in December 1961, Dean warned the Foreign Office that ‘we must not in present circumstances expect to achieve perfectly drafted or legally satisfactory resolutions … we must not get into the habit of nagging and niggling which simply irritates people without doing us the slightest good.’ FO-371/166860, UN-22514/1.Telegram, 30.12.1961. FO-371/146778, JB-2251/218. Telegram, FO-NY, 30.8.1960. FO-371/146778, JB-2251/218. Telegram, NY-FO, 31.8.1960. In April 1958, a year after Ghana’s independence, Dalton Murray, of the Foreign Office’s UN Department, had written that ‘we must give due weight to the fact that Ghana is a member of the Commonwealth and (because of her recent acquisition of independence and the colour of her citizens) a particularly valuable one from the point of view of projecting the Commonwealth and British colonial policy in their most favourable lights. The way to make best use of Ghana is to give her responsibility and the fullest possible support. It is not going to do us much harm if she bites back a little at the beginning. What we must not do is to give her any unnecessary cause to regard the neutral bloc as her spiritual home.’ FO-371/136950, UN-2251/7. Note, 21.4.1958. H.T. Alexander, African Tightrope: My Two Years as Nkrumah’s Chief of Staff (London: Pall Mall Press, 1965). FO-371/146773, JB-2251/80. Telegram, 25.7.1960. African Tightrope, p. 38. UN Doc. S/4445, Annex II, para. 2, 19.8.1960. Carl von Horn, Soldiering for Peace (London: Cassell, 1966), p. 185. Hoskyns, The Congo Since Independence, p. 137. African Tightrope, p. 47. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., pp. 70–1, 79–80. Brian Urquhart, ‘United Nations Peace Forces and the Changing United Nations: An Institutional Perspective’, International Organization, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 1963, p. 347. African Tightrope, pp. 84–5. Von Horn was also critical of Bunche’s ‘passion for taking a hand in military affairs … Ralph knew nothing about military matters, and never seemed to grasp the fact that unless there is real unity of command no force can operate with any degree of success.’ Soldiering for Peace, p. 157. Indar Jit Rikhye, Military Adviser to the Secretary-General: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Congo Crisis (London: Hurst and Co., 1993), p. 20. FO-371/146781, JB-2251/274. Telegram, FO-NY, 20.9.1960. UN Doc. S/4445, Annex II. UN Doc. S/4451, ‘Observations by the Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral in the Congo on the report by Major-General Alexander’, 21.8.1960. Iléo was a co-founder of the Mouvement National Congolais and remained Prime Minister until February 1961. FO-371/146643, JB-1015/295. Telegram, Beeley-FO, 6.9.1960. Fuel was added to allegations that ONUC had taken sides by the fact that Kasavubu was able to continue his radio broadcasts from nearby Brazzaville, capital of the former French Congo. Rajeshwar Dayal, Mission for Hammarskjöld: The Congo Crisis (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 38.

Notes 255 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

81. 82. 83.

84.

85.

86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

FO-371/146643, JB-1015/295. Telegram, Beeley-FO, 6.9.1960. The Times, 7.9.1960, p. 12. UN Doc. S/PV. 896, 9–10.9.1960, para. 94. Ibid., paras 100–1. Ibid., para. 102. Urquhart, Hammarskjöld, p. 438. Conor Cruise O’Brien suggests that ‘The picture of the condition of the Congo which reached the Congo Club [a group of senior Secretariat officials] was rather strikingly different from the picture which reached the Congo Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee saw no cables from or to the field. It was briefed by the Secretary-General and the briefings invariably suggested that the United Nations in the field never did anything to which any section of the membership could take exception.’ O’Brien, Memoir: My Life and Themes (London: Profile Books, 1998), pp. 210–11. Ibid. UN Doc. S/4531: First progress report to the Secretary-General, para. 10, 21.9.1960. It also qualifies claims that the August 2000 report of the UN Panel on Peace Operations (the ‘Brahimi Report’) broke new ground with its call that peacekeeping operations should be guided by the principles of the Charter in implementing their mandate and be prepared to prevent gross violations of human rights. UN Doc. A/55/305-S/2000/809. The British hoped that, in addition to protecting Lumumba, the UN guard would prevent him from escaping. FO-371/146780, JB-2251/267. Telegram, FO-NY, 24.9.1960. The Blue Helmets, p. 182. The major difference between such areas in the Congo and those created in the 1990s in Bosnia and elsewhere was that the decision to establish the former was taken not by Security Council members but by the Secretariat itself, giving the latter far greater responsibility for their success and culpability for their failure. The description by the British Ambassador in Leopoldville of ‘the UN’s special interpretation of neutrality’ in the protected areas in the Congo foreshadows accusations that the Organization deprived Bosnian Muslims of their right to self-defence during the ‘safe havens’ experience from 1993 to 1995: ONUC decreed a neutral zone in North Katanga, but ‘when Lumumbist troops from Stanleyville penetrated through this zone, the UN, having failed to prevent that, refused (by threat of the use of force) to allow Tshombé to expel [them] … from the province of which he was then the legitimate provincial Prime Minister.’ Ian Scott, Tumbled House: The Congo at Independence (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 122. UN Doc. A/PV. 869, para. 17, 23.9.1960. Scott’s doubts about the UN’s competence were mirrored in the opinion of him held by senior UN officials. Interview with Sir Brian Urquhart, 7.12.1999. FO-371/153585, UN-2251/33, paras 9–10. Gizenga was President of the Parti Solidaire Africain and had been Vice-Prime Minister in Lumumba’s Government. FO-371/146785, JB-2251/371. Telegram, NY-FO, 10.12.1960. FO-371/159683, ZP-28/1. Telegrams, Caccia (Washington) to FO and vice versa, 15.2.1961 and 17.2.1961. UN Doc. S/PV. 942, para. 21, 20.2.1961. CAB-128/35(1), CC9(61), 21.2.1961.

256 Notes 94. FO-371/155075, JB-2251/73. Letter, 29.3.1961. 95. Ibid. 96. Rikhye inclines to believing General Alexander’s tally of up to 120 Ghanaian, British and Swedish soldiers killed, and explains the discrepancy as reflecting the Ghanaian Government’s wish to play down the incident. Rikhye, Military Adviser to the Secretary-General, p. 241. 97. CAB-129/105, C(61)59. Memorandum ‘Financing of United Nations Operations in the Congo’, 19.6.1961. 98. FO-371/160948, UN-22514/37. Note, 3.3.1961. 99. FO-371/155004, JB-1205/8. Telegram, NY-FO, 6.5.1961. Home personally drafted the section quoted. 100. FO-371/155004, JB-1205/14. Letter, Powell-Jones (Leopoldville) to Ewart-Biggs (FO), 12.5.1961. 101. Hammarskjöld papers, Stockholm, Box 6. Note, 2.5.1961. 102. Conor Cruise O’Brien, To Katanga and Back: A UN Case History (London: Hutchinson, 1962). 103. Ibid., p. 273 and pp. 305–6; Arthur Gavshon, The Last Days of Dag Hammarskjöld (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1963), p. 115. 104. Macmillan, Pointing the Way, pp. 441–2. Diary entry, 15.9.1961. 105. FO-371/154945, JB-1051/87. Telegram, FO-Leopoldville, 13.9.1961. 106. Gavshon, The Last Days of Hammarskjöld, p. 130. This account is confirmed in Georges Abi-Saab, The United Nations Operation in the Congo: 1960–64 (London: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 148. 107. FO-371/154945, JB-1051/74. Telegram, FO-Leopoldville, 16.9.1961. 108. Hoskyns, The Congo Since Independence, p. 430. 109. Article in ‘East Africa and Rhodesia’, 28.9.1961. UN Archives: DAG-1/2.3.18.7.0, Box 333, File 2597. 110. The Ghanaian Times, 20.9.1961, quoted in The New York Times, 21.9.1961, p. 6. Although General Alexander had returned from the Congo to Ghana the previous year, Nkrumah now dismissed him and all the other British officers serving in the Ghanaian army. 111. The New York Times, 21.9.1961, p. 6. 112. Ibid. In his memoirs, Macmillan paid tribute to Hammarskjöld’s intellect, patience and courage, but noted that ‘many British people regarded him with some suspicion. The position of neutrality which he had to assume in order to fulfil his functions seemed almost like taking an impartial position between the principles of good and evil. Moreover, he was a Swede; and although we admired the Swedish people, we could not forget their long history of skilful abstention from the great causes which had torn the world apart.’ Pointing the Way, pp. 445–6. 113. Resolution 169. 114. By the end of November, ONUC’s air force consisted of 16 aircraft, contributed by Ethiopia, India and Sweden. Hoskyns, The Congo Since Independence, p. 447. 115. CAB-128/35(2), CC62(61), 14.11.1961. 116. CAB-128/35(2), CC67(61), 5.12.1961. 117. CAB-129/107(2), C(61)203. Memorandum, ‘United Nations Debates and Resolutions’, 1.12.1961. 118. O’Brien, To Katanga and Back, p. 306. Alan James recounts the British pressure on the United Nations to dismiss both O’Brien and Dayal (who was replaced by

Notes 257

119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124.

125. 126. 127.

128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141.

142. 143. 144.

145.

Linner as ‘officer-in-charge’ of ONUC in May 1961), Britain and the Congo Crisis, pp. 92–111. CAB-128/35(2), CC(61)69, 7.12.1961. Further details are in Fafowora, Pressure Groups and Foreign Policy, pp. 61 and 79. Reported in CAB-128/35(2), CC69(61), 11.12.1961. FO-371/155006, JB-1206/15. Telegram, FO-NY, 9.12.1961. CAB-128/35(2), CC70(61), 11.12.1961. HC Debs., Vol. 651, col. 34, 11.12.1961. Heath also cited press reports that General McKeown (of Ireland), who had replaced von Horn as ONUC’s military commander in January, had stated that peace overtures by Tshombé were to be rejected. Ibid., col. 42. HC Debs., Vol. 651, Cols 634–758, 14.12.1961. Macmillan, Pointing the Way, p. 451. Diary entry, 18.12.1961. FO-371/155081, JB-2251/205. Note, Home to Stevens, 27.12.1961. Home urged that U Thant should concentrate not on reinforcing ONUC, ‘but on making plans to reduce the military presence in Katanga and replace them with administrators and people who will train the gendarmerie and the army’. Home also proposed that the Ethiopian battalion be withdrawn, since ‘the stories about their cruelty are horrifying’. Finally, for good measure, he warned once more that ‘It is almost certain we would have to withdraw support if the UN was to go over again to the offensive.’ United Nations News, Vol. 17, No. 2, April/June 1962, pp. 1–4. DO-181/26, Doc. 24, 13.7.1962. DO-181/26, Doc. 25. The Observer, ‘The Congo, Katanga, and Dr. O’Brien’, 10.12.1961. FO-371/161526, JB-1193/3. One of Boothby’s colleagues complained that ‘We are getting buried by bullets.’ Minute by Higgins, ibid., 15.12.1961. FO-371/161526, JB-1193/2. FO-371/161527, JB-1193/21. Letter, Chadwick (CRO) to Kent (Air Ministry), 4.6.1962. FO-371/161527, JB-1193/32. Letter, Cambridge (NY) to Foster (FO), 8.11.1962. The Blue Helmets, pp. 194–6, provides a succinct account. CAB-128/36(1), CC2(62), 3.1.1962. Recounted in CAB-129/110, C(62)132, Memorandum by the Foreign Secretary on the Congo, 20.8.1962. Ibid. At the end of 1962, Dean reported that ‘The Americans, acting both directly and also through Bunche (who has a deep personal hatred of Tshombé), have, I believe, for the last nine months or so been planning and carrying out UN policy in the Congo.’ FO-371/172624, UN-2251/1. Letter, Dean to Home, 29.12.1962. Cyrille Adoula was a co-founder of the Mouvement National Congolais and served as Prime Minister from August 1961 to July 1964. CAB-128/36(2), CC(62)53, 3.8.1962. CAB-128/36(2), CC(62)55, 22.8.1962 and CAB-129/110(2), CC(62)74, 11.12.1962. The Cabinet was aware that such sanctions would set a precedent which might eventually be applied to Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. FO-371/167253, JB-1091/8. Telegram, Brussels-FO, 3.1.1963.

258 Notes 146. Home agreed that this was necessary in order to assist in maintaining law and order until the Congolese forces could finally do so themselves. CAB-129/114, C(63)145. Memorandum, ‘United Nations Forces in the Congo’, 30.7.1963. 147. FO-371/176743, JB-2251/15. Memorandum, ‘The United Nations Achievement in the Congo’, 7.7.1964. 148. Macmillan, Pointing the Way, p. 433. 149. Ibid., p. 456. Diary entry, 19.12.1961. 150. For similar reasons, General Alexander questioned the suitability of a force commander from Sweden directing active military operations, ‘Neutral countries do not always produce experienced commanders.’ African Tightrope, p. 87. 151. As Home had hoped, one Ethiopian battalion was eventually deemed to be so ill-disciplined that all of its members were repatriated early. However, Dean was told by Bunche that the United Nations would not agree to an independent enquiry into widely reported allegations of murder and rape by UN contingents in Katanga. John Tahourdin of the Foreign Office’s UN Department minuted that an enquiry ‘would be regarded as imputing [sic] the very sensitive honour of the national contingents involved. The consequent indignation of their parent governments would almost certainly lead to denunciation of the proposal as an “Imperialist smear” ’. FO-371/161543, JB-1206/15. Letter, Campbell (NY) to Millard (FO), 14.4.1962; FO-371/161542, JB-1206/5. Minute, 8.2.1962. 152. FO-371/166860, UN-22514/1. ‘Policy towards United Nations’. Telegram, NYFO, 30.12.1961. 153. HL Debs., Vol. 246, Col. 616, 6.2.1963. 154. Earl of Home, The Way the Wind Blows: An Autobiography (London: Collins, 1976), p. 148. 155. African Tightrope, pp. 85–7. 156. FO-371/176743, JB-2251/15. Memorandum, ‘The United Nations Achievement in the Congo’, para. 4, 7.7.1964. 157. Ibid. 158. Ibid., para. 5. 159. The civilian efforts are recounted in detail in Arthur House, The UN in the Congo: The Political and Civilian Efforts (Washington DC: University Press of America, 1978).

6 Strengthening Peacekeeping, 1961–64 1. FO-371/160957, UN-2284/8. ‘A Military Force for the United Nations’. Note, 7.4.1961. 2. See Chapter 4. 3. Statement by Edward Heath, HC Debs., Vol. 642, Col. 955, 19.6.1961. 4. James H. Wyllie, The Influence of British Arms: an Analysis of British Military Intervention Since 1956 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984), p. 62. 5. PREM-11/3427, Telegram 4344, FO-Washington, 29.6.1961. A useful analysis of the intervention and its significance for British defence policy is in Ginette Manderscheid, The British Military Intervention in Kuwait in 1961, unpublished M.Phil. thesis, Oxford, April 1993. 6. The United States reluctantly offered to divert a naval group towards Kuwait, but Britain declined. PREM-11/3428, Telegram 1606, Washington-FO, 1.7.1961. 7. ‘Flags in a Sandstorm’, The Economist, 8.7.1961, p. 111; Darby, British Defence Policy East of Suez, p. 220.

Notes 259 8. Manderscheid, British Military Intervention in Kuwait, pp. 46–8; Ralph Hewins, A Golden Dream: The Miracle of Kuwait (London: W.H. Allen, 1963), p. 290. 9. Kuwait applied for UN membership at the same time, but due to Soviet opposition was only admitted in May 1963. 10. PREM-11/3427, Telegram 4344, FO-Washington, 29.6.1961. 11. PREM-11/3428, Telegram 2569, FO-NY, 2.7.1961. 12. Home also warned that other Arab states were likely to grow increasingly critical of Britain’s intervention. CAB-128/35, CC38(61). 13. PREM-11/3428, Telegram 2569, FO-NY, 2.7.1961. A search of PRO files on the British–Saudi dispute over sovereignty over the Buraimi oasis has not turned up further evidence of a British strategy to exclude a UN presence. 14. Ambassador Dean and British diplomats in Baghdad and Kuwait were more positive, arguing in favour of a UN presence. PREM-11/3429, Telegram 1125, NY-FO, 10.7.1961. PREM-11/3428, Telegrams 763 and 390, Trevelyan (Baghdad) and Richmond (Kuwait) to FO, 4.7.1961. 15. HC Debs., Vol. 643, Cols 1008 and 1446, statements by Hugh Gaitskell and Denis Healey, 3.7.1961 and 5.7.1961. 16. Ibid., Col. 1008. 17. UN Doc. S/PV. 958, para. 63, 5.7.1961. 18. UN Doc. S/4855. 19. UN Doc. S/PV. 960, para. 64, 7.7.1961. 20. PREM-11/3429, Telegram 429, Kuwait-FO, 9.7.1961. 21. HC Debs., Vol. 644, Col. 1462. 22. In an attempt to dilute the Egyptian presence, the Foreign Office attempted unsuccessfully to persuade more Western-friendly Morocco to contribute a substantial contingent. PREM-11/3429, Telegram 524, FO-Rabat, 18.8.1961. 23. The Economist, 2.9.1961, p. 856. 24. Alan James, Peacekeeping in International Politics, p. 93. 25. CAB-129/109, C(62)63. ‘Intervention in Kuwait’, Memorandum by Minister of Defence, 13.4.1962. 26. Macmillan, Pointing the Way, p. 387. 27. Darby, British Defence Policy East of Suez, p. 245. 28. FO-371/160951, UN-22514/77. 29. FO-371/160951, UN-22514/78. Minute, 12.10.1961. 30. See Chapter 5. 31. UN Doc. A/PV. 1013, para. 67. 32. FO-371/166860, UN-22514/8. Note, ‘International Machinery to Keep the Peace’, undated. 33. Ibid. Meeting note, 24.11.1961. 34. FO-371/166860, UN-22514/4. Telegram, NY-FO, 30.12.1961. 35. FO-371/166860, UN-22514/8. Note, ‘International Machinery to Keep the Peace’, undated. 36. FO-371/166872, UN-2284/4. 37. FO-371/166872, UN-2284/11. COS(62)28, meeting note, 17.4.1962. 38. FO-371/166872, UN-2284/5. 39. Like the term ‘permanent force’, the notion of ‘earmarking’ was, and still is, used with two meanings: either the formal offering of a contingent to the United Nations, with the expectation that the Secretary-General will have latitude to select where and when it is deployed; or, less formally, the designation within a national army of a contingent suitable for deployment should that government

260 Notes

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

decide to offer it to a specific operation. Only the first form is of significant value in improving the UN’s planning and the speed of deployment of an operation (and even that proved unreliable when the United Nations sought reinforcements for its operations in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s). Neither the United States nor the British paper spelled out which form was intended. FO-371/166872, UN-2284/5. FO-371/166873, UN-2284/22. Note, 4.7.1962. FO-371/166872, UN-2284/20. A ‘Lessons Learned Unit’ was finally created in the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations in 1995. FO-371/166872, UN-2284/20. FO-371/166873, UN-2284/23. HL Debs., Vol. 246, Col. 1371, 20.2.1963. Ibid., Cols. 1389–92. Ibid., Cols. 1431–3. Reported in Reynolds News, 25.3.1962. FO-371/166872, UN-2284/9. UN Archives, DAG-1/2.3, Box 42, File 402. Letter, UN Information Centre, London, to Urquhart, 19.3.1963. Ibid. FO-371/172646, UN-2284/16. Minute, J.F. Wearing, 28.6.1963. FO-371/172646, UN-2284/7. Letter to Falle, 15.4.1963. Ibid. FO-371/172646, UN-2284/7. Letter, Falle to Campbell, 24.4.1963. Ibid. Letter and attachment, Campbell to Falle, 15.4.1963. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/26. Minute, 17.9.1963. UN Doc. A/PV. 1222, paras. 95–6, 1.10.1963. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/38. Letter and attachment, Dean to Wilson, 21.11.1963. Reproduced in Lincoln Bloomfield, International Military Forces: The Question of Peacekeeping in an Armed and Disarming World (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), pp. 260–7. On 24 April 1963, the Defence Ministers of Denmark, Norway and Sweden had announced the creation of what was to become known as the Nordic Standby Force, comprising infantry, medical and headquarters personnel ready for use in UN peacekeeping. Finland joined later that year. The terms of reference of the Standby Force explicitly barred it from engaging in peace enforcement. Larry L. Fabian, Soldiers Without Enemies: Preparing the United Nations for Peacekeeping (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1971), pp. 97–8. FO-371/172646, UN-2284/15. Minute, H.D.A.C. Miers, 28.6.1963. FO-371/172646, UN-2284/4. Letter, Campbell to Falle, 26.3.1963. As head of the Office for Special Political Affairs, Bunche was the most senior UN official below the Secretary-General to deal with peacekeeping policy. The Military Adviser, as the title suggests, was supposedly limited to providing technical military advice to the Secretary-General (and, by association, Bunche). FO-371/172646, UN-2284/5. Letter, 28.3.1963. FO-371/172646, UN-2284/6. Letter, Dean to Robertson, 6.4.1963. FO-371/172646, UN-2284/11. Note by Dean, 2.5.1963. FO-371/172646, UN-2284/14. Letter, Dean to Wilson, 7.6.1963. Ibid. Letter, 7.6.1963. Ibid. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/26. Note, 12.9.1963.

Notes 261 70. Interview with Rikhye, 26.11.1999. 71. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/28. Letter, 11.9.1963. 72. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/30. Letters, Dean to Wilson, 25.9.1963 and Mountbatten to U Thant, 13.9.1963. When Mountbatten told Rikhye of his interest in active British participation in UN peacekeeping, the latter was obliged to point out the need for a troop contributor to be politically acceptable to the host government. Interview with Rikhye, 26.11.1999. 73. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/33. Note on ‘Lord Robertson and General Rikhye’, Rose to Wilson, 8.10.1963. 74. Ibid. 75. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/26. Letter, Robertson to Falle, 31.10.1963. 76. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/34. Letter and attachment, Dean to Wilson, 23.10.1963. 77. Interview with Rikhye, 26.11.1999. 78. FO-371/172647, UN-2284/34. Letter and attachment, Falle to F.J. Burlace, Ministry of Defence, 10.12.1963. 79. FO-371/178214, UN-2284/22. Letter, F.J. Stephens, Ministry of Defence, to Falle, 24.4.1964. 80. CAB-129/112, C(63)29. Memorandum, ‘The Financing of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations’, 26.2.1963. 81. Ibid., para. 10. 82. FO-371/172559, UN-1119/19. Note, 12.2.1963. 83. FO-371/172559, UN-1119/20. Note by Falle, ‘UN Peace and Security Financing’, 7.2.1963. 84. FO-371/172559, UN-1119/19. Note, 12.2.1963. 85. Terence Higgins, ‘The Politics of United Nations Finance’, The World Today, Vol. 19, No. 9, September 1963, pp. 380–9. 86. CAB-129/114, C(63)107. Memorandum, ‘The Financing of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations’, para. 11, 26.6.1963. 87. In Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios accepted British assistance when intercommunal fighting broke out in December 1963; in January 1964, at the request of the respective Governments, British troops stationed in Kenya and Royal Marines based on a troop carrier put down almost simultaneous army mutinies in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda; and Britain’s commitment to help defend the Federation of Malaysia during the ‘Confrontation’ with Indonesia led, the same month, to an increase in the troops already stationed in Malaysia (eventually, 59 000 British troops were deployed there). Wyllie, The Influence of British Arms, pp. 63–70. 88. To become Prime Minister, Home renounced his peerage, entering the House of Commons under his new name. 89. HC Debs., Vol. 688, Cols 1357–8. 90. Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, p. 222. Nevertheless, in 1963, the UN Committee of Twenty-four (on decolonization) noted that 40 out of the 64 territories in which the Declaration on Decolonization had not been implemented were British. Robert Rhodes James, Britain’s Role in the United Nations (London: UN Association, 1970), p. 41. 91. FO-371/172605, UN-1519/1. Note by Wilson, ‘Study on Neo-Colonialism in Africa’, 17.1.1963. 92. FO-371/172606, UN-1519/24. Briefing note for Home’s meeting with U Thant, 10.5.1963.

262 Notes 93. ‘The Crusade Against Force’, in Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Peaceful Change: A Selection of Speeches (London: Arthur Baker, Ltd., 1964), p. 35. Douglas-Home made the ‘ignorance’ approach to policy something of a trademark, most famously with his ‘counting with matchsticks’ strategy for understanding economics. 94. HC Debs., Vol. 689, Col. 1182. 95. Ibid., Col. 1183. 96. Wyllie, The Influence of British Arms, p. 67. 97. Kenneth Younger, ‘Conference on United Nations Peacekeeping’, The World Today, Vol. 21, No. 8, August 1965, p. 321.

7 The Creation and Early Operation of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, 1964–67 1. In July 1954, Henry Hopkinson, Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, ruled out independence for Cyprus on the grounds of its vital strategic significance for Britain. HC Debs., Vol. 531, Cols 505–511. 28.7.1954. 2. CAB-129/88, C(57)161. ‘Cyprus: Memorandum by the Prime Minister’, 9.7.1957. 3. Further historical background is included in James Stegenga’s detailed study of UNFICYP, The United Nations Force in Cyprus (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1968), and J. King Gordon, ‘The UN in Cyprus’, International Journal (Toronto), Vol. 18, No. 3, Summer 1964, pp. 326–47. Alan James’ book Keeping the Peace in the Cyprus Crisis, 1963–64 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002) examines the roles in the crisis of number states, including Britain, as well as the first steps in the search for a political settlement. 4. Anthony Parsons, From Cold War to Hot Peace: UN Interventions, 1947–1995 (London: Penguin Books, 1995), p. 167. 5. For example, civil service posts were divided into 70 per cent Greek Cypriot and 30 percent Turkish Cypriot. Major General (subsequently Field Marshal Lord) Michael Carver asserted that the over-representation of the Turkish Cypriots reflected their pro-British stance during colonial rule. Field Marshal Lord Carver, ‘Peacekeeping in Cyprus’, in John Toumoulides, ed., Cyprus in Transition, 1960–1985 (London: Trigraph, 1986), p. 21. 6. Makarios had been Archbishop and Ethnarch of Cyprus since 1950. He was acknowledged as the leader of the Greek Cypriot independence movement and in 1960 his Patriotic Front party won 30 out of 35 Parliamentary seats reserved for the Greek Cypriots. Küçük had founded the ‘Cyprus is Turkish Party’ in 1955. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, pp. 18, 28. 7. Robert Stephens, Cyprus: A Place of Arms (London: Pall Mall Press, 1966), p. 179. 8. DEFE-11/446, Doc. 2134; COS-101/64. ‘The Cyprus Base’, Note by the Chiefs of Staff Committee, para. 4, March 1964. 9. Anthony Verrier, ‘Cyprus: Britain’s Security Role’, The World Today, March 1964, p. 136. 10. DEFE-11/446, Doc. 2134; COS-101/64. ‘The Cyprus Base’. Note by the Chiefs of Staff Committee, para. 5. 11. Sir Hugh Foot, A Start in Freedom (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964), pp. 174–5. 12. UN Doc. S/PV. 1095, para. 43, 18.2.1964. Statement by Ambassador Dean to the Security Council. 13. UN Doc. S/PV. 1097, para. 101, 25.2.1964. Statement by Soviet Ambassador Fedorenko, quoting comments by Makarios in Le Monde. Carver also confirmed

Notes 263

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46.

that Britain had pressed both sides to agree to British intervention. UN Career Records Project (UNCRP), MS.Eng.c.4731, folio 96. Lecture at Ball State University, USA, 28.3.1985. CAB-129/116(1), CP(64)2. Memorandum by the Prime Minister, 2.1.1964. UN Doc. S/PV. 1095, paras 50–53, 18.2.1964. UN Doc. S/PV. 1097, paras 103–5, 25.2.1964. Statement by Fedorenko. CAB-129/115, CP(63)34. CAB-129/116(1), CP(64)2. Memorandum by the Prime Minister, 2.1.1964. CAB-128/38(2), CM1(64), 3.1.1964. CAB-128/38(2), CM7(64), 28.1.1964. FO-371/174745, C-1015/117. Note, 5.1.1964. FO-371/174746, C-1015/239. Note, 17.1.1964. FO-371/174747, C-1015/518. Note by Dodson, 3.2.1964. George W. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs (New York: W.W. Norton, 1982), p. 342. A useful account is in Philip Windsor, NATO and the Cyprus Crisis (Adelphi Paper No. 14, London: IISS, 1964). FO-371/174745, C-1015/76. Telegram, FO-Athens, 4.1.1964. FO-371/174745, C-1015/97A. Telegram, Paris-FO, 8.1.1964. FO-371/174746, C-1015/276. Telegram, FO-Washington, 24.1.1964. FO-371/174746, C-1015/307. Telegram, Washington-FO, 24.1.1964. It is not clear from Snelling’s report how many of the last four countries were expected to contribute troops. FO-371/174746, C-1015/350. Telegram, Washington-FO, 28.1.1964. UN Doc. S/PV. 1095, paras. 53–54, 18.2.1964. Statement by Dean. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, pp. 42–3. Ellen Laipson, ‘Cyprus: A Quarter Century of US Diplomacy’ in Toumoulides (ed.), Cyprus in Transition, p. 60. Carver, ‘Peacekeeping in Cyprus’, p. 23. HC Debs. Vol. 688, Col. 531, 30.1.1964. UN Doc. S/5534. UN Doc. S/5537. Letter to Khrushchev, 8.2.1964. DO-220/46, Doc. 7. Telegram, Nicosia-CRO, 13.2.1964. FO-371/174745, C-1015/218. Note, 20.1.1964. In fact, Lester Pearson, now Prime Minister of Canada, told Douglas-Home on 10 February that Canada would be prepared to provide troops and would prefer to do so under the aegis of the Commonwealth rather than NATO. DEFE-11/441, Doc. 1501. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern, p. 347. UN Doc. S/5545. UN Doc. S/5543. In April, Dean recorded that ‘in the early stages of any given situation’ the Secretary-General had become ‘increasingly cautious and tentative … walking with the greatest delicacy’. FO-371/178157, UN-1011/1(22546). ‘United Nations Annual Review for 1963’, para. 4, 6.4.1964. DEFE-11/442, Doc. 1677D. Telegram, NY-FO, 17.2.1964. UN Doc. S/PV. 1095, para. 94. The following day, United States Ambassador Adlai Stevenson announced that the United States was prepared to participate in the peacekeeping force, if all the parties requested. UN Doc. S/PV. 1096, para. 78, 19.2.1964. Given the US reluctance to participate in a force under UN control, Stevenson was presumably also referring to a variant short of a full UN operation. Verrier, ‘Cyprus: Britain’s Security Role’, p. 134.

264 Notes 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

DEFE-11/442, Doc. 1677F. Telegram, Nicosia-CRO, 18.2.1964. PREM-11/4706, pp. 207, 188. The Sunday Times, 22.3.1964. Andrew Boyd, Fifteen Men on a Powder-Keg: A History of the UN Security Council (London: Methuen and Co., 1972), p. 176. Dean subsequently noted that Britain and the United States were increasingly relying on the non-permanent members of the Council ‘to steer resolutions through for us’. FO-371/174750, C-1015/1261. Note, ‘Reflections on the Cyprus Crisis at the United Nations,’ para. 3, 6.4.1964. The mandate was increased after the hostilities of 1974 to supervise the ceasefire and maintain a buffer zone between the lines of the Cyprus National Guard and the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot forces. Reproduced in Public Papers of the Secretary-General, Vol. VI, p. 573. Higgins, United Nations Peacekeeping, Vol. 4, p. 144. UN Doc. S/PV. 1102, paras 11–12, 31–32, 4.3.1964. However, the Foreign Office subsequently learned that the French representative had abstained by mistake, rather than voting in favour, because he had not received instructions from Paris. FO-371/174771, C-2281/2. Letter, Ramsbotham (Paris) to Dodson, 3.6.1964. Michael Carver, Out of Step: Memoirs of a Field Marshal (London: Hutchinson, 1989), p. 318. U Thant, View from the UN (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1978), p. 96. Foreign Office internal documents regularly referred to these principles (for example, FO-371/183574, UP-2284/16), as did secondary literature of the time, for example, Herbert Nicholas, ‘An Appraisal’, and Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Erewhon or Lilliput?’, in Bloomfield, (ed.), International Military Forces, pp. 105–25 and 187–211. The latter chapter is more circumspect than the former about the universal acceptance of the rules, stressing that they reflected Hammarskjöld’s perception of how peacekeeping operations should be organized. FO-371/174747, C-1015/572. Note, 8.2.1964. Letter to the author, 24.10.2001. CAB-128/38(2), CM12(64). HC Debs., Vol. 690, Col. 1530, 5.3.1964. CAB-128/38(2), CM15(64), 27.2.1964. DEFE-11/443, Doc. 1761. Telegram, Nicosia-CRO, 22.2.1964. FO-371/174747, C-1015/620. Telegram, Caccia (Washington) to Carrington, 11.2.1964. DEFE-11/444, Doc. 1957. Note, 4.3.1964. As is standard practice in UN operations, the commander of the British contingent would take his operational orders from the UN Force Commander, while referring purely national matters to the British Chiefs of Staff. DEFE-11/444, Doc. 2016. Report by the Defence Planning Staff, DP 40/64, para. 14, 6.3.1964. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2101A. Telegram, FO-NY, 10.3.1964. DEFE-11/444, Doc. 1957. Note, Thorneycroft to Douglas-Home, 4.3.1964. Financial Times, 13.3.1964; Carver, ‘Peacekeeping in Cyprus’, p. 27. DEFE-11/444, Doc. 1994. Telegram, Nicosia to CRO, 5.3.1964. PREM-11/4706, p. 29. Telegram, FO-NY, 1.3.1964. PREM-11/4706, p. 184. Telegram, FO-NY, 21.2.1964; DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2079. Telegram, NY-FO, 9.3.1964. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2050. Telegram, FO-NY, 7.3.1964. DO-220/46, Doc. 6. Telegram, FO-Washington, 13.2.1964. The United States did, however, help airlift other contingents into Cyprus.

Notes 265 75. Fabian, Soldiers Without Enemies, p. 25. 76. Fabian remarks on the virtual exclusion from early UN operations of troops from Communist countries. Offers of units from Czechoslovakia and Romania for UNEF were declined. Until Soviet military observers joined UNTSO in 1973, only Yugoslavia had contributed troops to the UN (to UNEF, ONUC and UNYOM). Ibid. 77. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2079. Telegram, NY-FO, 9.3.1964. 78. FO-371/174748, C-1015/1028. Note by Sir Savile Garner, undated. 79. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2087. Telegram, Dean to Caccia, 9.3.1964. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2053. Telegram, NY-FO, 11.3.1964. The aide-mémoire is discussed in greater detail below. 80. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2087. Telegram, Dean to Caccia, 9.3.1964. Displaying the abiding idealism of a minority of British Parliamentarians, an all-party group of 13 MPs appealed to the public to contribute to a fund for UNFICYP on the grounds that ‘it is unfair that smaller non-aligned nations should not only contribute contingents to the force but should bear the cost as well’. Setting an example, the MPs amassed a total contribution of £38. The Guardian, 13.3.1964. U Thant estimated the cost of UNFICYP’s first three months at $6 million. FO 371/174763, C-1201/40. Note, 12.3.1964. 81. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2101A. Telegram, FO-NY, 10.3.1964. 82. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2105. Telegram, 10.3.1964. 83. James, Keeping the Peace in the Cyprus Crisis, pp.100–16. 84. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731, Folio 87. Carver, Lecture, ‘probably at the Staff College and Imperial Defence College’, 1964/1965. 85. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2052. Telegram, NY-FO, 11.3.1964. 86. DEFE-11/461. Report by Carver to the Chiefs of Staff, COS-3359/23/11/64, para. 16. A copy of the report is also in UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731. 87. HC Debs., Vol. 691, Cols 435–7, 11.3.1964. 88. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2101A. Telegram, FO-NY, 10.3.1964. 89. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2102. Note by General Hull, ‘International Force for Cyprus,’ 10.3.1964. 90. FO-371/174763, C-1201/45, COS-1634/16/3/4, ‘International Force for Cyprus’. 91. Over time, the prominence of Britain’s financial support diminished. By 1968, Canada had absorbed $11 million for maintaining and supporting its contingent, compared to $10 million by Britain; and, of the total $85 million pledged in voluntary contributions to UNFICYP, the United States had pledged $32 million compared to Britain’s $16 million. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, pp. 166–7. 92. Ibid., p. 93. 93. FO-371/174763, C-1201/45. COS-1634/16/3/4, ‘International Force for Cyprus’. 94. DEFE-11/446, Doc. 2171, COS-1687/18/3/64, ‘Intelligence arrangements for the United Nations Force in Cyprus.’ 95. DEFE-11/444, Doc. 2028. Telegram, NY-FO, 6.3.1964. 96. UN Doc. S/PV. 1103, para. 95, 13.3.1964; UN Doc. S/5603. 97. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2060. Telegram, Washington-FO, 12.3.1964. 98. UN Doc. S/PV. 1103, para. 4. 99. DEFE-11/461. Carver, Report, para. 16. 100. DEFE-11/444, Docs. 2023, 2024. Telegrams, Nicosia-CRO and vice versa, 6.3.1964. 101. UN Doc. S/5593/Add. 2, 17.3.1964. 102. U Thant attempted to have the Greek and Turkish contingents in Cyprus included in UNFICYP, but could not accept Turkey’s condition that it should give

266 Notes

103.

104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111.

112.

113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120.

121. 122. 123.

prior consent to any task assigned to the Turkish contingent or to any movement from its present position. The Blue Helmets, p. 152. Rikhye, Harbottle and Egge point out that while civilian police had served in previous UN operations, UNFICYP was the first to include a complete multinational police component; its primary task was to provide advice to the Cypriot police. Indar Rikhye, Michael Harbottle, Björn Egge, The Thin Blue Line: International Peacekeeping and its Future (London: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 109. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731, folio 87. Carver, Staff College Lecture. The Blue Helmets, p. 153. The Times, 5.2.1966, p. 2; Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, p. 85. DEFE-11/448, Doc. 2409A. Telegram, Nicosia-CRO, 3.4.1964. CAB-128/38(2), CM23(64), 16.4.1964. UN Doc. S/5593/Add.3, 26.3.1964. The Blue Helmets, p. 158. In the debate over the parameters of UNFICYP’s actions, there was little consistency, including by the United Nations, in the employment of the terms ‘use of force’ and ‘use of armed force’. The 1988 British Army Field Manual on Peacekeeping Operations is more rigorous. It differentiates between ‘passive force’ (which involves means not intended to harm individuals, installations and equipment, such as using trucks to create a roadblock) and ‘active force’ (using means such as batons or other weapons which result in physical harm to individuals, and so on) (Manual, p. 6:17). However, the United Nations did not necessarily intend ‘armed force’ to result in physical harm; the apparent objective was to demonstrate, through the more overt display of weapons, a greater level of assertiveness in fulfilling the mandate. In fact, for potential UN troop contributors concerned about their contingents becoming involved in hostilities there was little practical value in a distinction between force and armed force: the former could rapidly escalate to opening fire in self-defence. The only safe method, which was not an option, was for UNFICYP to act as an unarmed observer mission and not to intervene at all. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2053. ‘Aide-mémoire concerning some questions which arise in connexion with the stationing and functioning of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.’ DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2025, COS-93/64, Annex B, ‘Concept of Operations’, 11.3.1964. For example, UN Doc. S/5674, 15.6.1964. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, p. 133. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2063. Note Moon (CRO) to Snelling, 9.3.1964. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2046. Telegram, CRO-Nicosia, 11.3.1964. The Guardian, 17.2.1964, ‘The Cyprus Mandate’. In April, a British serviceman and his wife were arrested for gun-running for the Turkish Cypriots. DEFE-11/461, Carver, Report, paras 9 and 29. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2025. COS-93/64, Annex A, ‘Outline Directive for the United Nations Force Commander’. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2046. Telegram, Sandys to Nicosia, 11.3.1964. DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2099. Telegram, FO-NY, 13.3.1964. The fact that they never simply cited Chapter VII in their arguments suggests that they, like the present author, viewed UNFICYP as falling under Chapter VI. Carver, ‘Peacekeeping in Cyprus’, p. 29.

Notes 267 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130.

131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149.

150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158.

159. 160. 161. 162. 163.

DEFE-11/445, Doc. 2049. Telegram, FO-NY, 11.3.1964. PREM-11/4707, p. 83. Telegram, NY-FO, 13.3.1964. DEFE-11/461. Carver, Report, Annex D, para. 13. The Guardian, 16.4.1964. DEFE-11/461. Carver, Report, Annex D, para. 14. FO-371/174763, C-1201/59. Minute on telegram, NY-FO, 23.3.1964. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731, folios 89–90. Carver, Staff College Lecture. Stegenga estimates that during 1964 there were over 40 000 armed men (Cypriots, as well as Greek and Turkish military personnel) in Cyprus. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, p. 83. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, pp. 131–2. FO-371/174763, C-1201/59. Telegram, NY-FO, 23.3.1964. Ibid. Note, 2.4.1964. DEFE-11/449, Doc. 2487. Telegram, NY-FO, 9.4.1964. UN Doc. S/5950. Report by the Secretary-General, para. 221, 10.9.1964. DO-220/210. HC Debs., Vol. 692, Cols 802–4, 7.4.1964. DEFE-11/448, Doc. 2443. Telegram, FO-NY, 7.4.1964. Daily Express, 8.4.1964. The Guardian, 9.4.1964. CAB-128/38(2), CM21(64), 9.4.1964. HC Debs., Vol. 692, Col. 1209, 9.4.1964. DEFE-11/449, Doc. 2494. Telegram, NY-FO, 10.4.1964. UN Doc. S/5653, paras 16–18, 11.4.1964. The Guardian, 23.4.1964; in FO-371/174750, C-1015/1367. DEFE-11/461. Carver, Report, para. 20. The British contribution never reached the maximum of 3500 troops. FO-371/174763, C-1201/161. Letter, Hockaday (Ministry of Defence) to Moon (CRO), 20.4.1964. The clear separation between UNFICYP and the British military presence in Cyprus contrasted with the co-deployment in Sierra Leone in spring 2000 of British troops under British national command alongside the UN mission (UNAMSIL): unlike UNFICYP, UNAMSIL was, in emergencies, able to rely for support on the British troops. FO-371/174750, C-1015/1393. Talking points. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, p. 82. CAB-128/38(2), CM25(64), 30.4.1964. DO-220/23. Telegram, NY-FO, 28.4.1964. UN Doc. S/5671, 29.4.1964, paras 5,6. DEFE-11/450, Doc. 2707. Telegram, NY-FO, 30.4.1964. DEFE-11/450, Doc. 2700. Telegram, NY-FO, 1.5.1964. DEFE-11/450, Doc. 2697. Telegram, Nicosia-CRO, 30.4.1964. Another factor which might have been in Sandys’ mind was that, having assumed such a high-profile role during the crisis, he now had a personal stake in the fate of the British contingent. FO-371/174764, C-1201/185. Note, 24.4.1964. Ibid. Note, 27.4.1964. FO-371/174764, C-1201/193. Letter, J.O. Rennie (FO) to Dean, 21.5.1964. Ibid. Note by Dodson, 21.5.1964; letter, Rennie to Dean, 21.5.1964. DO-220/66, Doc. 163. Telegram, Washington-FO, 28.5.1964.

268 Notes 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185.

186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191.

192. 193. 194.

195. 196.

DEFE-11/451, Doc. 2813. Telegram, NY-FO, 20.5.1964. FO-371/174764, C-1201/216. Note, 1.6.1964. DO-220/66, Doc. 160. Telegram, FO-NY, 27.5.1964. DO-220/66, Doc. 161. Telegram, NY-FO, 28.5.1964. DO-220/66, Doc. 172. Telegram, FO-NY, 29.5.1964. FO-371/174764, C-1201/230. DEFE-11/452, Doc. 3047. Telegram, NY-FO, 22.6.1964. HC Debs., Vol. 697, Col. 634, 25.6.1964. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731, folio 306. Interview with Wilson by Richard Symonds, 31.1.1991. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, p. 97. The Daily Telegraph, 12.8.1964. FO-371/174763, C-1201/348. Note, Thorneycroft to Douglas-Home, 22.9.1964. UN Doc. S/PV. 1143, para. 358, 11.8.1964. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, pp. 104–5. CAB-128/38(2), CM47(64). Statement by Butler, 10.9.1964. UN Doc. S/7350, para. 29, 10.6.1966. PREM-11/4707, p. 24. Telegram, Nicosia-CRO, 17.3.1964. DEFE-11/461, Carver, Report, para. 17. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731, folios 88, 90. Staff College Lecture. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731, folio 181. Article by General Sir Robert Pascoe. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731, folio 313, Interview with Wilson. Michael Harbottle, The Impartial Soldier (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 194. A.J. Wilson, Some Principles for Peacekeeping Operations: A Guide for Senior Officers, (Paris: International Information Center on Peacekeeping Operations, Monograph No. 2, 1967), p. 10. Stegenga, The UN Force in Cyprus, p. 162. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.4731, folio 320. Interview with Wilson. The Daily Telegraph, 11.5.1964. The Economist, 25.4.1964. Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peacekeeping (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), p. 161. Harbottle, The Impartial Soldier, pp. 45–6. More recently, John Mackinlay, himself a British former soldier, has written on this subject, noting that even the US military interventions in Grenada and Beirut in the 1980s were described as ‘peacekeeping’. John Mackinlay, The Peacekeepers: an Assessment of Peacekeeping Operations at the Arab–Israel Interface (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 1. Harbottle, The Impartial Soldier, pp. 46–7. Rosalyn Higgins and Michael Harbottle, United Nations Peacekeeping: Past Lessons and Future Prospects (London: David Davies Memorial Institute, 1971), p. 19. Frank Kitson, Bunch of Five (London: Faber and Faber, 1977), p. 252. Phillip Darby identifies differing interpretations of the concept of peacekeeping among the various branches of the British armed services. He argues that many soldiers understood peacekeeping to refer to local stability, ‘keeping the Queen’s peace, rather in the old Indian tradition’. By contrast, sailors and airmen ‘tended to adopt a loftier view in keeping with their more general responsibilities and the nature of their weaponry. To them peacekeeping meant maintaining the status quo in the area generally’. Darby, British Defence Policy East of Suez, p. 227. Kitson, Bunch of Five, p. 277. DEFE-11/446, Doc. C-2161L. Telegram, Clark to Sandys, 17.3.1964.

Notes 269 197. Wider Peacekeeping (UK Ministry of Defence, London: HMSO, 1995) noted that the kinds of operations it addressed ‘are not new to the British Army. In the latter half of this [twentieth] century our Army amassed a wealth of unique experience in counter insurgency, counter terrorist and peacekeeping operations, maintaining a remarkably successful record. Although the first two are, of course, very different from the latter, many of the doctrinal principles and techniques … apply to Wider Peacekeeping operations’ (p. xii). 198. HC Debs., Vol. 690, Col. 1128, 3.3.1964. 199. FO-371/178157, UN-1011/1(22546). ‘United Nations: Annual Review for 1963’, para. 8, 6.4.1964. 200. DO-220/109, paper on Cyprus, para. 35, 10.10.1964; FO-371/183521, UP1011/1, Lord Caradon, ‘United Nations: Annual Review for 1964’, para. 6, 27.1.1965. 201. FO-371/179990, C-1201/2. Note, 23.12.1964. 202. Parsons, From Cold War to Hot Peace, p. 168. 203. Carver, Out of Step, p. 338. 204. FO-371/178214, UN-2284/1. Telegram, NY-FO, 31.3.1964. 205. DEFE-11/461, Carver, Report, p. 36. 206. Ibid., p. 35. 207. UN Doc. S/11052/Rev. 1, 27.10.1973. 208. FO-371/174750, C-1015/1261. ‘Reflections on the Cyprus Crisis at the United Nations’, para. 5, 6.4.1964.

8 Promoting and Defending Peacekeeping, 1964–67 1. Although, technically, Rhodesia’s formal title remained Southern Rhodesia, the former is used here in line with convention. 2. The end of the India–Pakistan conflict led to the creation of the United Nations India–Pakistan Observer Mission (UNIPOM), which existed for six months from September 1965–March 1966. Its task was to supervise the ceasefire along the common border except in Jammu and Kashmir (for which UNMOGIP was briefly expanded) and to oversee the withdrawal of all armed personnel to the positions held by them before the conflict. The United Nations ran UNIPOM as an administrative adjunct of UNMOGIP. It was an uncontroversial operation and raised no new issues of relevance for this book. It is therefore not treated here. 3. HC Debs., Vol. 692, Cols 650–2, 26.3.1964. 4. FO-371/178214, UN-2284/24. Note, 22.4.1964. 5. FO-371/178215, UN-2284/33. Memoranda, Thorneycroft to Butler and vice versa, 8.5.1964 and 25.5.1964. 6. FO-371/183574, UP-2284/16. Note, UN (Political) Department, 16.12.1964. In 1964, the Foreign Office’s UN Department was split into UN (Political) and UN (Economic and Social). 7. FO-371/178214, UN-2284/1. Letter, Falle to Campbell, 2.4.1964. 8. FO-371/178214, UN-2284/20. Letter, Campbell to Falle, 16.4.1964. 9. FO-371/178214, UN-2284/23. Letter, 23.4.1964. 10. FO-371/178216, UN-2284/51. Letter to Falle, 11.6.1964. 11. This idea was also developed in July 1964 in a paper entitled Britain and the United Nations by Hugh Hanning, former defence correspondent of The Observer. He noted the fact that many of the Commonwealth countries had already

270 Notes

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

contributed contingents to UN operations (including India, Nigeria, Ghana, Malaysia, Pakistan and Canada): ‘Collectively, they have given cohesion to UN operations by virtue of those very links which some would have us believe no longer exist: common practices and traditions, couched in a common language, and a sense of comradeship between contingents.’ Hanning also discussed the connections established through common training, not only at Sandhurst, but also through bilateral arrangements between Commonwealth members: Australians training Malays, Indians and Canadians training Ghanaians and Pakistanis training Nigerians. Hugh Hanning, Britain and the United Nations: Proposals for Peacekeeping, Including a Commonwealth Force (London: Bow Group, July 1964). In FO-371/178216, UN-2284/70. FO-371/178216, UN-2284/68. Note on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, 5.6.1964. DO-181/157, Doc. 23A, 12.6.1964. DO-181/157, Doc. 33A, 15.7.1964. In contrast to the upbeat Foreign Office brief on UN peacekeeping for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting, a Colonial Office paper on ‘The United Nations and Colonialism’ complained that Commonwealth members had taken the lead in anti-colonial criticism of Britain: in 1963, Ghana had forced the issue of Rhodesia onto the Security Council’s agenda and India and Tanganyika had joined in sponsoring ‘an objectionable’ General Assembly resolution against Britain over the issue of Aden. FO-371/178199, UN-2251/40. Although, technically, Rhodesia’s formal title remained Southern Rhodesia, the former is used here in line with convention. FO-371/178227, UN-2302/43. Meeting note, 23.7.1964. UN Doc. A/5721-S/5811. Frances Boyd suggests that even though Article 43 falls within Chapter VII of the Charter, there is no apparent constitutional barrier to using it for negotiating agreements to provide forces for peacekeeping, rather than peace enforcement, under the Security Council. Frances Boyd, The Peacekeeping Experiment (London: United Nations Association, 1968), pp. 18–19. PREM-11/5186. Brief for Butler’s meeting with U Thant, 22.7.1964. FO-371/183576, UP-2284/54. Note, 2.3.1965. UN Doc. A/5726-S/5853, 5.8.1964. These were that: (1) all peacekeeping proposals should be dealt with first by the Security Council and should be referred to the General Assembly only if the Council was unable to act; (2) the General Assembly would establish a peacekeeping finance committee, to include the permanent members of the Security Council; and (3) the committee would consider a number of alternative schemes for peacekeeping financing. Ibid., para. 8. An early instance was the 1951 Norwegian Fisheries Case. F.S. Northedge, Descent from Power: British Foreign Policy, 1945–1973 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974), p. 317. UN Doc. A/5729-S/5964, 11.9.1964. UN Doc. A/5739, 8.10.1964. UN Doc. A/5777. UN Doc. A/5821-S/6070, 26.11.1964. FO-371/178386, UP-2251/3. In a separate analysis Dean assessed the quality of senior Secretariat officials, whom he considered generally good. U Thant was ‘determined not to get himself into a position of controversy if he can possibly

Notes 271

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56.

57.

avoid it … he is a careful man, a kind of Burmese Scot’. FO-371/189798, Letter to R.A. Butler, 15.10.1964. Harold Wilson, The Relevance of British Socialism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964), p. 81. PREM-13/100, December 1964. London: HMSO, 1965. CAB-128/39, CC11(64). HC Debs., Vol. 704, Cols. 423–4. British Defence Policy East of Suez, p. 285. Indeed, Denis Healey’s complaints that the Government had inherited over-stretched and under-equipped armed forces, combined with his references to the obligations of international peacekeeping, gave the notion of the white man’s burden a contemporary flavour. For example, Cmnd. 2592, paras. 1 and 5. Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1965 (London: HMSO, February 1965). In due course, the Government withdrew one-third of British forces overseas, opted to build no more aircraft carriers and reduced the Territorial Army. Paul Kennedy, The Realities Behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980 (London: Fontana Press, 1981), p. 376. HC Debs., Vol. 704, Cols 424–5. HC Debs., Vol. 707, Col. 1338, 3.3.1965. Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1965, Cmnd. 2592 (London: HMSO, February 1965), para. 19. HC Debs., Vol. 703, Cols 1123, 1126, 7.12.1964. DEFE-4/177, COS-3407/26/11/64. GA Res. 2006 (XIX). Denis Greenhill, Superintending Under-Secretary responsible for UN issues, recorded that the idea of a committee had been British and, with Western backing, had been passed to the Secretary-General. FO-371/183560, UP2251/31. Note, 5.2.1965. FO-371/183560, UP-2251/8. ‘British Policy at the United Nations’, 8.1.1965. FO-371/183574, UP-2284/4. Letter, 15.1.1965. FO-371/183574, UP-2284/8. Letter to Falle, 20.1.1965. FO-371/183575, UP-2284/21. Chiefs of Staff meeting, 2.2.1965. HC Debs., Vol. 707, Col. 235. The Guardian, 18.2.1965. The Times, 24.2.1965. HC Debs., Vol. 707, Col. 237. UN Archives, DAG-1/2.3, Box 42, File 402. Letter, 6.4.1965. HC Debs., Vol. 707, Cols 1339–40, 3.3.1965. FO-371/183576, UP-2284/51. Meeting note, 5.3.1965. UN Doc. A/5801/Add. 1. FO-371/183579, UP-2284/131. Letter to Falle, 29.4.1965. FO-371/183582, UP-2284/180. Meeting note, 26.5.1965. Urquhart explains that ‘we were being extremely cautious, because we were not at all clear how far Mountbatten was putting forward UK policy and how far he was simply ventilating his own particular ideas’. Letter to the author, 26.2.2003. Cmnd. 2855 (London: HMSO, 1965), para. 16. Also in FO-371/189874, UP 2284/71. This reading is confirmed by Britain’s appeal in 1967 for other countries to ‘follow its lead’ in earmarking forces for use in peacekeeping operations. Yearbook of the United Nations, 1967, p. 67. The British, who favoured the PRC assuming the seat (which did not happen until 1971), now routinely referred to the ‘four’ permanent members of the Council.

272 Notes 58. HC Debs., Vol. 707, Col. 235, 23.2.1965. 59. The British believed that the renewed Soviet interest in Article 43 agreements was a red herring, but that it would do no harm if it was pushed into the Military Staff Committee and did not distract the Committee of 33. FO-371/183579, UP2284/126. Telegram, NY-FO, 28.4.1965. 60. This constituted an important concession to the USSR, which would thereby be permitted not to pay its arrears to UNEF and ONUC. 61. FO-371/183577, UP-2284/92. 62. UN Doc. A/5915. 63. On this latter point, the French and Russians refused to distinguish between enforcement operations and more traditional peacekeeping operations. FO371/183581, UP-2284/158. Telegram, NY-FO, 24.5.1965. 64. UN Doc. A/5915, para. 52. 65. FO-371/183583, UP-2284/216 and 217. Letter, Greenhill to Caradon, 26.5.1965. Note, Roger du Boulay, 10.6.1965. 66. A/5915 and Add.1. 67. The donation, made in June, was presented as having three purposes: (1) to demonstrate the Government’s faith in the future of the United Nations; (2) to encourage other UN members to do the same; and (3) to create an atmosphere conducive to constructive progress in the Committee of 33. FO-371/183584, UP-2284/242. Telegram, FO to various missions, 18.6.1965. 68. A/5915 and Add.1, A/5916 and Add.1. 69. FO-371/183562, UP-2251/84. Note, 8.7.1965. 70. CAB-128/39(2), CC33(65), 15.6.1965; HC Debs. Vol. 716, Col. 1142, 19.7.1965. 71. HC Debs., Vol. 714, Col. 1192, 21.6.1965. 72. HC Debs., Vol. 716, Col. 1142, 19.7.1965. 73. Statement, 16.8.1965, reproduced in A Positive Policy, Vol. 2, p. 9. 74. HC Debs., Vol. 707, Col. 235. The ‘experts’ included a group established by the David Davies Institute. 75. FO-371/183553, UP-16413/1. Telegram, FO-NY, 18.8.1965. 76. FO-371/183553, UP-16413/1. Telegram, FO-NY, 19.8.1965. 77. Harold Wilson, Britain and the UN (London: UN Association, 1967), p. 5. 78. Northedge, Descent from Power, p. 320. 79. FO-371/183553, UP-16413/1. Telegram, FO-NY, 19.8.1965. 80. FO-371/183553, UP-16413/4. Telegram, Washington-FO, 19.8.1965. 81. FO-371/183553, UP-16413/12. Brief, September 1965. 82. Statement by Caradon to the Special Political Committee of the General Assembly, 13.12.1965, reproduced in A Positive Policy, Vol. 2, p. 35. 83. FO-371/183555, UP-16413/54 and UP-16413/55. Telegrams, NY-FO, 16.12.1965 and 17.12.1965. 84. CAB-128/39(3), CC(65)49, 23.9.1965. 85. FCO-27/33. Information Telegram, 12.5.1967. 86. Statement on the Defence Estimates, Cmnd. 2901 (London: HMSO, 1966), Section 2, para. 4. 87. FO-371/189871, UP-2284/8. Note, Roger du Boulay, 25.1.1966. 88. FO-371/189871, UP-2284/17, Briefing note, 18.2.1966. 89. FO-371/189873, UP-2284/58. 6.5.1966. 90. FO-371/189874, UP-2284/75. Note, 15.7.1966. 91. FO-371/189873, UP-2284/58, 6.5.1966. FO-371/183593, UP-2285/2. Telegram, FO-NY, 30.12.1965.

Notes 273 92. FCO-27/13, UP-3/2. ‘The Question of “Peacekeeping” at the XXIst General Assembly Session’. Report by Caradon, para. 7, 10.1.1967. 93. Ibid., para. 13. The British learned that the Russians and the French were now coordinating their tactics on peacekeeping and other important UN matters. FCO-58/248, Doc. 1. Note, P. Hayman, 25.1.1967. 94. UN Doc. A/6301/Add.1, 15.9.1966. 95. FO-371/189875, UP-2284/107. Letter to Falle, 19.9.1966. 96. FO-371/189876, UP-2284/130. Brief for Steering Committee on International Organisations, para. 6, 4.11.1966. 97. PREM-13/655. ‘The XIXth Session of the UN General Assembly: Reflections and Conclusions’, para. 8. 98. Background information is contained in Robert Rhodes James, Britain’s Role in the United Nations (London: UN Association, 1970), p. 44 ff. 99. Evan Fountain, The Purposes of Economic Sanctions: British Objectives in the Rhodesian Crisis, 1964–1966, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Oxford University, 2000, pp. 118–19. 100. CAB-128/39(3), CC50(65), 7.10.1965. 101. Fountain, The Purposes of Economic Sanctions, p. 84; Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 332. 102. HC Debs., Vol. 720, Col. 637. 103. The General Assembly had been seized with the issue since 1962 and, even before UDI, called on Britain to use all necessary measures, including military force, to prevent it. GA Resolution 2022(XX), 5.11.1965. 104. Resolution 217. 105. FO-371/188059, JR-2281/58. Report, 11.8.1966. 106. FO-371/182053, JR-2281/5. Telegram, NY-FO, 13.12.1965. 107. FO-371/188051, JR-2251/8. Note, 17.2.1966. 108. CAB-148/25, OPD(66)25th, 18.5.1966. 109. Resolution 221. 110. CAB-130/284, MISC-111(66)1, 22.5.1966. 111. FO-371/188061. Draft paper, 14.11.1966. 112. Ibid. 113. FO-371/188061, JR-2281/168. Note, Maclehose to Gore-Booth, 19.11.1966. Note by Falle, 16.11.1966. 114. Resolution 232. 115. FCO-58/134, Doc. 9, para. 12. Brief for meeting between Caradon and Minister of State Eirene White, 9.1.1967. 116. FCO-27/13. Letter to du Boulay, 14.1.1967. 117. UN Doc. A/6641-S/7841. 118. HC Debs., Vol. 746, Col. 1908, 12.5.1967. 119. UN Doc. A/PV. 1520, paras 23–4, 22.5.1967. 120. FCO-58/31, Doc. 34, paras 10 and 12, 27.7.1967. 121. FO-371/189872, UP-2284/21. Brief for Anglo-US talks, para. 5, 1.3.1966. 122. Even after its split with Syria Egypt did not formally relinquish the title UAR until 1971. However, in line with convention, it is referred to here as Egypt. 123. The Blue Helmets, p. 54. 124. U Thant, View from the UN, p. 225. 125. A detailed account of British policies during the crisis is contained in Frank Brenchley, Britain and the Arab–Israel War, 1967, unpublished doctoral thesis, Oxford University, 2000.

274 Notes 126. U Thant, View from the UN, p. 232; letter from Urquhart to the author, 26.2.2003. 127. Public Papers of the Secretary-General, Vol. 7, p. 18. Urquhart explains that U Thant could not refer the matter to the General Assembly (which had created UNEF) because there was no hope of obtaining the two-thirds majority of the membership required to convene an emergency session. Letter to the author, 26.2.2003. 128. UNCRP, MS.Eng.c.6041, Interview, folio 194, 17.10.1984. 129. UN Docs. A/6669 (18.5.1967), S/7896 (19.5.1967), A/6672 (12.7.1967), and ‘Notes on the Withdrawal of UNEF’ (quoted in Public Papers of the SecretaryGeneral, Vol. 7, p. 443); see also Rikhye, The Sinai Blunder: Withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force Leading to the Six-Day War of June 1967 (London: Frank Cass, 1980), which argues that U Thant should have convened the Security Council; U Thant, View from the UN; and Urquhart A Life in Peace and War. 130. PREM-13/1617. Telegram 963, NY-FO, 17.5.1967; Telegram 1967, FO-NY, 18.5.1967. 131. PREM-13/1617. Telegram 1976, FO-NY, 18.5.1967. 132. PREM-13/1617. Telegram 995, NY-FO, 18.5.1967. 133. PREM-13/1617. Telegram 996, NY-FO, 18.5.1967. 134. PREM-13/1617. Telegram 1996, FO-NY, 18.5.1967. 135. PREM-13/1617. Telegram 997, NY-FO, 18.5.1967. 136. CAB-128/42(2), CC(67)32, 25.5.1967. 137. Note by Bunche of meeting between U Thant and Caradon, 22.5.1967. UN Archives, S-370, Box 43, File 5. 138. The Sunday Times, 4.4.1971. 139. Interview, 9.8.2001. 140. Harold Wilson, The Labour Government, 1964–1970: A Personal Record (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), p. 395. 141. George Brown, In My Way: The Political Memoirs of Lord George-Brown (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 127. Brown’s criticisms were rebutted in a published letter by Bunche as ‘grotesque distortions and misstatements of fact’. UN Press Release, 3643, 2.11.1970. 142. HC Debs., Vol. 747, Cols 111–209, 31.5.1967. 143. FCO-27/14, Doc. 81. 144. Ibid. 145. UNEF II (1973–79) supervised the ceasefire between, and disengagement of, Egyptian and Israeli forces after the 1973 Arab–Israeli war; UNDOF (1974–) performed similar functions between Syrian and Israeli forces and continues to monitor their border; UNIFIL (1978–) was created to confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Southern Lebanon and to help the Lebanese Government restore its authority there. 146. Rhodes James, Britain’s Role in the United Nations, p. 29.

9 Conclusions 1. Britain and the United Nations (London: Central Office of Information, 1955), para. 3. 2. FO-371/178208, UN-2258/4.

Notes 275 3. FCO-58/31, UP-2/6, Doc. 34, paras 13, 16. Report on the Fifth Special Session of the General Assembly. 4. Brian Urquhart, ‘UN Peacekeeping: From Observers to the Peace Prize’, in Erik Jensen and Thomas Fisher (eds), The United Kingdom. The United Nations (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990), p. 70. 5. Interview, 7.12.1999.

Bibliography Section 1 of the bibliography is general and lists primary and secondary material cited in, or relevant to, more than one chapter. Section 2 lists material used only in individual chapters. No title is listed more than once in the bibliography.

Section 1: general Unpublished primary sources British Government documents in the Public Record Office, Kew. Dag Hammarskjöld’s papers in the Royal Library Stockholm. Papers in the UN Career Records Project, Bodleian Library, Oxford. United Nations records in the UN Archives, New York.

Published primary sources Britain and the United Nations, UK Central Office of Information, London, 1955. Butler, Rohan, and Pelly, M.E., eds, Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series 1, Vol. 1, HMSO, London, 1984. Cordier, Andrew, and Max Harrelson, eds, Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations, Columbia University Press, New York. Foot, Sir Hugh, A Start in Freedom, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1964. Foreign Relations of the United States, Government Printing Office, Washington, USA. Goldsworthy, David, and Hyam, Ronald, eds, British Documents on the End of Empire, 7 Vols, HMSO, London, 1992–94. Goulding, Marrack, Peacemonger, John Murray, London, 2002. League of Nations Official Journal, Geneva. Parliamentary Command Papers, HMSO, London. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), Fifth Series, HMSO, London. United Nations Documents 1941–1945, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1968. United Nations official documents, New York. United Nations Yearbooks, United Nations, New York, 1946–67. Thant, U, View from the UN, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1978. The Blue Helmets: A Review of United Nations Peacekeeping, Third Edition, United Nations, New York, 1996. Urquhart, Brian, A Life in Peace and War, Harper and Row, New York, 1987. Wider Peacekeeping, UK Ministry of Defence, HMSO, London, 1995.

Secondary sources: books Bailey, Sydney D., How Wars End: The United Nations and the Termination of Armed Conflict, 1946–1964, 2 Vols, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1982. Bloomfield, Lincoln, International Military Forces: The Question of Peacekeeping in an Armed and Disarming World, Little, Brown, Boston, 1964.

276

Bibliography 277 Bowett, D.W., United Nations Forces: A Legal Study of United Nations Practice, Stevens and Sons, London, 1964. Claude, Inis L., Jr., Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, Third Edition, Revised, Random House, New York, 1964. Darby, Phillip, British Defense Policy East of Suez, 1947–1968, Oxford University Press for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1973. Darwin, John, Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-War World, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1988. Durch, William J., ed., The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping: Case Studies and Comparative Analysis, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1993. Fabian, Larry L., Soldiers Without Enemies: Preparing the United Nations for Peacekeeping, The Brookings Institution, Washington, 1971. Frankel, Joseph, British Foreign Policy, 1945–1973, Oxford University Press for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1975. Goodrich, Leland M., and Anne P. Simons, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1955. Goodwin, Geoffrey L., Britain and the United Nations, Oxford University Press, London, 1957. Harbottle, Michael, The Blue Berets, Rev. edn., Leo Cooper, London, 1975. Hennessy, Peter, Muddling Through: Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Postwar Britain, Indigo, London, 1996. Higgins, Rosalyn, The Administration of UK Foreign Policy Through the UN, Maxwell School of Syracuse University, USA, 1966. –––– United Nations Peacekeeping: Documents and Commentary, 4 Vols, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1969–81. James, Alan, Peacekeeping in International Politics, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1990. –––– The Politics of Peacekeeping, Chatto and Windus, London, 1969. Jensen, Erik, and Thomas Fisher, eds, The United Kingdom – The United Nations, Macmillan Press Ltd., Basingstoke, 1990. Luard, Evan, ed., The Evolution of International Organizations, Thames and Hudson, London, 1966. –––– A History of the United Nations, 2 Vols, Macmillan, London, 1982. Ovendale, Ritchie, ed., British Defence Policy Since 1945, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1994. Padelford, Norman J., and Leland M. Goodrich, eds, The United Nations in the Balance: Accomplishments and Prospects, Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1965. Parsons, Anthony, From Cold War to Hot Peace: UN Interventions, 1947–1995, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1995. Porter, A.N., and Stockwell, A.J., British Imperial Policy and Decolonization, 1938–64, 2 Vols, Macmillan Press, Basingstoke, 1987. Reynolds, David, Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century, Longman, Harlow, 1991. Rikhye, Indar Jit, The Theory and Practice of Peacekeeping, Hurst and Co., London, 1984. Rikhye, Indar Jit, Michael Harbottle and Björn Egge, The Thin Blue Line: International Peacekeeping and its Future, Yale University Press, London, 1974. Roberts, Adam, and Benedict Kingsbury, eds, United Nations, Divided World, Second Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993. Sked, Alan, and Chris Cook, Post-War Britain: A Political History, 1945–1992, Fourth Edition, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1993.

278 Bibliography Urquhart, Brian, Hammarskjöld, Harper and Row, New York, 1972. –––– Ralph Bunche: An American Life, W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 1993. Wainhouse, David W., International Peace Observation: A History and Forecast, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1966. –––– International Peacekeeping at the Crossroads: National Support – Experience and Prospects, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1973.

Secondary sources: articles and chapters Berdal, Mats, ‘Fateful Encounter: The United States and UN Peacekeeping’, Survival, Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 1994. Claude, Inis, ‘The United Nations, the United States and the Maintenance of Peace’, International Organization, Vol. XXIII, No. 3, 1969, pp. 621–36. Goulding, Marrack I., ‘The Evolution of United Nations Peacekeeping’, International Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 3, July 1993, pp. 451–64. Higgins, Rosalyn, ‘UN Peacekeeping: Political and Financial Problems’, The World Today, Vol. 21, August 1965, pp. 324–36. Hoffmann, Stanley, ‘Erewhon or Lilliput?’, International Organization, Vol. XVII, No. 2, Spring 1963, pp. 404–24. –––– ‘International Organization and the International System’, International Organization, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, Summer 1970, pp. 389–413. Mackinlay, Lt. Col. John, ‘Why the British Army Should Take Peacekeeping More Seriously’, British Army Review, No. 98, August 1991, pp. 11–17. Morgenthau, Hans J., ‘The Political Conditions for an International Police Force’, International Organization, Vol. XVII, No. 2, Spring 1963, pp. 393–403. Roberts, Adam, ‘Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and Human Rights’, International Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 3, July 1993, pp. 429–50. –––– ‘The United Nations and International Security’, Survival, Vol. 35, No. 2, Summer 1993, pp. 3–30. –––– ‘The Crisis in UN Peacekeeping’, Survival, Vol. 36, No. 3, Autumn 1994, pp. 93–120. –––– ‘From San Francisco to Sarajevo: The UN and the Use of Force’, Survival, Vol. 37, No. 4, Winter 1995–96, pp. 7–28. Thornton, Rod, ‘The Role of Peace Support Operations Doctrine in the British Army’, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 7, No. 2, Summer 2000, pp. 41–62. Urquhart, Brian ‘United Nations Peace Forces and the Changing United Nations: An Institutional Perspective’, International Organization, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 1963, pp. 338–54. –––– ‘1986 Alastair Buchan Lecture: The Role of the United Nations in Maintaining and Improving International Security’, Survival, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5, September–October 1986, pp. 387–98. –––– ‘UN Peacekeeping: From Observers to the Peace Prize’, in Erik Jensen and Thomas Fisher (eds), The United Kingdom. The United Nations, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1990, pp. 69–89.

Section 2: additional sources for individual chapters Antecedents and early UN observer missions Adamthwaite, Anthony, ‘Britain and the World, 1945–9: The View from the Foreign Office’, International Affairs, Vol. 61, No. 2, Spring 1985, pp. 223–35.

Bibliography 279 Ahire, Philip Terdoo, Imperial Policing: The Emergence and Role of the Police in Colonial Nigeria, 1860–1960, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1991. Attlee, Clement, The Rt. Hon. Earl, Purpose and Policy: Selected Speeches, Hutchinson and Co. Ltd., London, 1947. –––– Collective Security Under the United Nations, David Davies Institute of International Studies Memorial Lecture, Aberystwyth, 1958. British Information Services, Twenty-Five Facts About Britain and the United Nations, New York, 1946. Bullock, Alan, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945–1951, W.W. Norton and Co., London, 1983. Cohen, Michael J., Palestine to Israel: From Mandate to Independence, Frank Cass, London, 1988. Dilks, David, ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, OM, 1938–1945, Cassell, London, 1971. Fitzsimons, M.A., The Foreign Policy of the British Labour Government, 1945–1951, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, USA, 1953. Grove, Eric, ‘UN Armed Forces and the Military Staff Committee: A Look Back’, International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4, Spring 1993, pp. 172–82. Hilderbrand, Robert C., Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security, University of North Carolina Press, London, 1990. Hughes, E.J., ‘Winston Churchill and the Formation of the United Nations Organisation’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 9, No. 4, October 1974, pp. 174–94. Jebb, Gladwyn, The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1972. –––– ‘Founding the UN: Principles and Objects’, in Erik Jensen and Thomas Fisher (eds) The United Kingdom. The United Nations, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1990, pp. 21–47. Johnson, Edward, ‘British Proposals for a United Nations Force, 1946–48’, in Deighton, Anne (ed.), Britain and the First Cold War, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1990, pp. 109–29. Lie, Trygve, In the Cause of Peace: Seven Years with the United Nations, Macmillan and Co., New York, 1954. Macauley, C.A., ed., Survey of International Affairs, 1925, Oxford University Press, London, 1928, Vol. 2. Reynolds, P.A., and Hughes, E.J., The Historian as Diplomat: Charles Kingsley Webster and the United Nations, 1939–1946, Martin Robertson, London, 1976. Royal Institute of International Affairs, United Nations Documents 1941–1945, London, 1968. United Nations Information Organizations, Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, 1945, London and New York, 1946. Wambaugh, Sarah, Plebiscites since the World War, 2 Vols, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, USA, 1933. –––– The Saar Plebiscite, First published 1940, Reprinted Greenwood Press, Connecticut, USA, 1971. Webster, Charles, ‘The Making of the Charter of the UN’, History, Vol. XXXII, March–September 1947, pp. 16–38. Wehberg, Hans, Theory and Practice of International Policing, Constable and Co., London, 1935. Wilkinson, Philip, ‘Sharpening the Weapons of Peace: The Development of a Common Military Doctrine for Peace Support Operations’, in Joint Warfare Publication 3–50, Ministry of Defence, London, 1998, Appendix 1.

280 Bibliography Wirsing, Robert G., India, Pakistan and the Kashmir Dispute: On Regional Conflict and its Resolution, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1994.

The creation of the UN Emergency Force, 1956 Adamthwaite, Anthony, ‘Suez revisited’, International Affairs, Vol. 64, No. 3, Summer 1988, pp. 449–64. Bell, Coral, ‘From Britain’s Angle’, United Nations News: Journal of the United Nations Association, Vol. 10, No. 1, January–March 1955, pp. 6–8. Bowie, Robert R., Suez 1956, Oxford University Press, London, 1974. Dixon, Piers, Double Diploma: The Life of Sir Pierson Dixon, Don and Diplomat, Hutchinson, London, 1968. Eden, Anthony, The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden: Full Circle, Cassell, London, 1960. Foot, Michael, and Jones, Mervyn, Guilty Men, 1957, Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, 1957. Kirkpatrick, Ivone, The Inner Circle, Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London, 1959. Kyle, Keith, ‘Britain and the Crisis, 1955–1956’, in Wm. Roger Louis, and Roger Owen, Suez 1956: The Crisis and its Consequences, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989, pp. 103–30. Lloyd, Selwyn, Suez 1956: A Personal Account, Jonathan Cape, London, 1978. Nutting, Anthony, No End of a Lesson: The Story of Suez, Constable, London, 1967. Pearson, Lester, Memoirs 1948–1957, Volume 2: ‘The International Years’, Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, 1974. Shuckburgh, Evelyn, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951–6, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1986.

Conceptualizing and delimiting peacekeeping, 1957–60 Barraclough, Geoffrey, Survey of International Affairs, 1959–60, Oxford University Press, London, 1964. Eisenhower, Dwight D., The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956–1961, Heinemann, London, 1966. Federal Union Commission, Proposals for a Permanent United Nations Force, Federal Union, London, 1957. Johnson, Edward, ‘A Permanent UN Force: British Thinking after Suez’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 17, 1991, pp. 251–66. King, Gillian, ed., Documents on International Affairs, 1959, Oxford University Press, London, 1963. Pearson, Lester, ‘Force for the UN’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 35, No. 3, April 1957, pp. 395–404. Urquhart, Brian, ‘For a UN Volunteer Military Force’, New York Review of Books, 10 June 1993, Vol. XL, No. 11, pp. 3–4. US Department of State, American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, Washington, DC, 1958.

The UN Operation in the Congo, 1960–64 Abi-Saab, Georges, The United Nations Operation in the Congo: 1960–64, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978. Alexander, Major-General Henry T., African Tightrope: My Two Years as Nkrumah’s Chief of Staff, Pall Mall Press, London, 1965. Bloomfield, Lincoln P., ‘Headquarters–Field Relations: Some Notes on the Beginning and End of ONUC’, International Organization, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 1963, pp. 377–89.

Bibliography 281 Gavshon, Arthur, The Last Days of Dag Hammarskjöld, Barrie and Rockliff, London, 1963. Gibbs, David N., ‘Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations, and the Congo Crisis of 1960–1: A Reinterpretation’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1993, pp. 163–74. –––– ‘The United Nations, International Peacekeeping and the Question of “Impartiality”: Revisiting the Congo Operation of 1960’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3, 2000, pp. 359–82. Gordon, J. King, The United Nations in the Congo: A Quest for Peace, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, 1962. Hoffmann, Stanley, ‘In Search of a Thread: The UN in the Congo Labyrinth’, International Organization, Vol. 16, No. 2, Spring 1962, pp. 331–61. Home, Earl of, ‘Speech to the Berwick-on-Tweed UN Association’, reproduced in United Nations News, Vol. 17, No. 2, April/June 1962, pp. 1–4. –––– The Way the Wind Blows: An Autobiography, Collins, London, 1976. Hoskyns, Catherine, The Congo since Independence: January 1960–December 1961, Oxford University Press, London, 1965. House, Arthur H., The UN in the Congo: The Political and Civilian Efforts, University Press of America, Washington, DC, 1978. James, Alan, Britain and the Congo Crisis, 1960–63, Macmillan Press Ltd., Basingstoke, 1996. Kalb, Madeleine G., The Congo Cables: The Cold War in Africa – From Eisenhower to Kennedy, Macmillan, New York, 1982. Kay, David A., ‘The Politics of Decolonization: The New Nations and the United Nations Political Process’, International Organization, Vol. 21, No. 4, Autumn 1967, pp. 786–811. Lawson, Richard, Strange Soldiering, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1963. Lefever, Ernest W., Crisis in the Congo: A United Nations Force in Action, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1962. Legum, Colin, Congo Disaster, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1961. Macmillan, Harold, Pointing the Way, 1959–1961, Macmillan, London, 1972. Mezerik, A.G., ed., Congo and the United Nations, International Review Service, New York, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1963. Nicholas, Herbert, ‘UN Peace Forces and the Changing Globe: The Lessons of Suez and Congo’, International Organization, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 1963, pp. 321–37. O’Brien, Conor Cruise, To Katanga and Back: A UN Case History, Hutchinson, London, 1962. –––– Memoir: My Life and Themes, Profile Books, London, 1998. O’Donovan, Patrick, ‘The UN in the Congo’, United Nations News, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 7–11. Rikhye, Indar Jit, Military Adviser to the Secretary-General: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Congo Crisis, Hurst and Co., London, 1993. Scott, Ian, Tumbled House: The Congo at Independence, Oxford University Press, London, 1969. von Horn, Carl, Soldiering for Peace, Cassell, London, 1966.

Strengthening peacekeeping, 1961–64 Crabb, Cecil V., Jr., The Elephants and the Grass: A Study of Nonalignment, Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1965. Douglas-Home, Sir Alec, Peaceful Change: A Selection of Speeches, Arthur Baker Ltd., London, 1964.

282 Bibliography Gott, Richard, ‘The Kuwait Incident’, Survey of International Affairs (1961), Oxford University Press, London, 1965. Hewins, Ralph, A Golden Dream: The Miracle of Kuwait, W.H. Allen, London, 1963. Higgins, Terence, ‘The Politics of United Nations Finance’, The World Today, Vol. 19, No. 9, September 1963, pp. 380–9. James, Alan, ‘UN Action for Peace: Barrier Forces’, The World Today, Vol. 18, No. 11, November 1962, pp. 478–86. Macmillan, Harold, At the End of the Day, Macmillan, London, 1973. Manderscheid, Ginette, The British Military Intervention in Kuwait in 1961, unpublished M.Phil. thesis, Oxford, April 1993. Rhodes James, Robert, Britain’s Role in the United Nations, UN Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, London, 1970. Rikhye, Indar Jit, Preparation and Training of United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, Adelphi Paper No. 9, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1964. United Nations Association (UK), What Kind of Peace Force, London, 1965. Wyllie, James, The Influence of British Arms: An Analysis of British Military Intervention Since 1956, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1984. Younger, Kenneth, ‘Conference on UN Peacekeeping’, The World Today, Vol. 21, No. 8, pp. 319–21.

The creation and early operation of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, 1964–67 Ball, George W., The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs, W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 1982. Boyd, Andrew, Fifteen Men on a Powder-Keg: A History of the UN Security Council, Methuen and Co., London, 1972. Boyd, James M., ‘Cyprus: Episode in Peacekeeping’, International Organization, Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 1966, pp. 1–17. Carver, Michael, ‘Peacekeeping in Cyprus’ in John T.A. Toumoulides (ed.), Cyprus in Transition, 1960–1985, Trigraph, London, 1986, pp. 20–37. –––– Out of Step: Memoirs of a Field Marshal, Hutchinson, London, 1989. Castle, Barbara, Fighting All the Way, Macmillan, London, 1993. Cooper-Key, Major E.A., ‘Some Reflections on Cyprus’, British Army Review, No. 5, September 1957, pp. 40–3. Crawshaw, Nancy, ‘Cyprus: Collapse of the Zurich Agreement’, The World Today, August 1964, pp. 338–50. Gordon, J. King, ‘The United Nations in Cyprus’, International Journal, Summer 1964, pp. 326–47. Harbottle, Michael, The Impartial Soldier, Oxford University Press, London, 1970. Higgins, Rosalyn, and Michael Harbottle, United Nations Peacekeeping: Past Lessons and Future Prospects, David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies, London, 1971. Hitchens, Christopher, Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger, Verso, London, 1997. Holland, Robert, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954–1959, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998. James, Alan, Keeping the Peace in the Cyprus Crisis, 1963–64, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2002. Johnson, Edward, ‘Britain and the Cyprus Problem at the United Nations, 1954–1958’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 28, No. 3, Autumn 2000, pp. 113–31.

Bibliography 283 Kitson, Frank, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peacekeeping, Faber and Faber, London, 1971. –––– Bunch of Five, Faber and Faber, London, 1977. Laipson, Ellen B., ‘Cyprus: A Quarter Century of US Diplomacy’, in John T.A. Toumoulides (ed.), Cyprus in Transition, 1960–1985, Trigraph, London, 1986, pp. 54–67. Stegenga, James A., The United Nations Force in Cyprus, Ohio State University Press, Columbus, Ohio, 1968. Stephens, Robert, Cyprus: A Place of Arms. Power, Politics and Ethnic Conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean, Pall Mall Press, London, 1966. Toumoulides, John T.A., ed., Cyprus in Transition, 1960–1985, Trigraph, London, 1986. Verrier, Anthony, ‘Cyprus: Britain’s Security Role’, The World Today, March 1964, pp. 131–7. Wilson, A.J., Some Principles for Peacekeeping Operations: A Guide for Senior Officers, Monograph No. 2, International Information Center on Peacekeeping Operations, Paris, 1967. Windsor, Philip, NATO and the Cyprus Crisis, Adelphi Paper No. 14, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1964.

Promoting and defending peacekeeping, 1964–67 Bailey, Sydney, D., Four Arab-Israeli Wars and the Peace Process, Macmillan, London, 1990. Boyd, Frances, The Peacekeeping Experiment, United Nations Association, London, 1968. Brown, George, In My Way: The Political Memoirs of Lord George-Brown, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, 1972. Fountain, Evan, The Purposes of Economic Sanctions: British Objectives in the Rhodesian Crisis, 1964–1966, unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 2000. Hanning, Hugh, ‘Britain and the United Nations: A Bow Group Memorandum’, London, July 1964. Northedge, F.S., Descent from Power: British Foreign Policy, 1945–1973, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1974. Ovendale, Ritchie, The Origins of the Arab–Israeli Wars, Third Edition, Longman, London, 1999. Rikhye, Indar, The Sinai Blunder: Withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force Leading to the Six-Day War of June 1967, Frank Cass, London, 1980. United Kingdom Government, A Positive Policy Towards the United Nations, 2 Vols, HMSO, London, 1965. Wilson, Harold, Britain and the UN, UN Association, London, 1967. –––– The Labour Government, 1964–1970: A Personal Record, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1971.

UNEF I, August 1957 (First United Nations Emergency Force)

UNOGIL, July 1958 (United Nations Observation Group in Lebanon)

ONUC, June 1961 (United Nations Operation in the Congo)

UNFICYP, December 1965 (United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus)

Index Adoula, Cyrille, 125, 126 African Governors Conference (November 1947), 35, 41 Aldrich, Winthrop, 53 Alexander, General Henry, 95, 108–12, 226–7 conclusions from ONUC, 127 Arab League, Security Force in Kuwait (1961), 136 Aswan High Dam project, 42 Atlantic Charter (1941), 16 Attlee, Clement, 21–2 Awbery, Stan, 149

General Alexander, 109, 111 on earmarking British troops for UN, 196 on Trygve Lie, 242n.58 ONUC, 105 UNEF, withdrawal of, 221 UNFICYP, 180, 182 Burns, General E.L.M. UNEF, 45, 47, 52 UNOGIL, 75 Butler, Rab earmarking British troops for UN, 196 UNEF, 53 UNFICYP, 157, 177, 178, 181

Balewa, Abubakar, 104 Ball, George, 159–61 Barco, James, 76 Beeley, Sir Harold, 73–4, 81 ONUC, 108 Belgium Congo, 94, 98, 99, 100, 101, 129 UNTSO, 29 Bell, Coral, 40 Bermuda Conference (1957), 66–71 Bernadotte, Folke, 29–30 see also Palestine, UN mediator Bevan, Aneurin, 46 Bevin, Ernest, 22–3, 26, 29–30 Boothby, Basil, 100, 124 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 238n.6 Bowett, Derek, 173 Brahimi Report (2000), 250–1n.107, 255n.83 Brenchley, Frank, 222, 251n.128 Brind, General John, 15–16, 36 Britain, see United Kingdom Britain and the United Nations (pamphlet, 1955), 229 British Commonwealth, see Commonwealth Brown, George, 203 UNEF, withdrawal of, 221, 222–3 Bunche, Ralph, 76, 99, 143, 145, 207, 212, 245n.53, 260n.62

Caccia, Sir Harold, 138, 142 Cadogan, Sir Alexander, 16, 19, 27, 28, 31 Callaghan, James, 72 Cambodia, 31 Campbell, Alan, 142, 143, 196–8, 200, 205 Caradon, Lord Hugh, 202–3, 210, 213, 218–9, 229 see also Sir Hugh Foot Rhodesia, 216 UNEF, withdrawal of, 221, 222 Carrington, Lord Peter, 158, 163, 179 Carver, General Richard, 162, 166, 169, 170, 175–6, 178, 181, 184–5, 188, 189, 190 Chamoun, Camille, 74, 78, 79, 80, 82, 89 Chiefs of Staff (UK), 26, 188 post-War planning, 18, 21 strengthening peacekeeping, 139–40, 204–5 UN force under Article 43, 24, 25, 33 UNMOGIP, 31, 32 Churchill, Sir Winston, 17, 18, 38, 39, 40 Clark, Sir Arthur, 171, 172 Cleveland, Harlan, 140, 182, 207 colonial policing, 11, 12–14, 36 Congo, 128 Commonwealth, 39, 41, 148 force for Cyprus, 160 standby contingent, 197, 269n.11 UN standing force, 88–9

Index 289 Commonwealth Relations Office, 63, 124, 153, 188 Congo, constitutional crisis, 112–14 Congo Club, 255n.80 consent, host government, 90 constitutionality of peacekeeping, British views on, 198–202 Cordier, Andrew, 112 Creech Jones, Arthur, 27 Crosthwaite, Moore, 63–4, 73 Cyprus British intervention, 148 British Sovereign Base Areas, 155, 156, 158, 166, 179, 189 Treaty of Guarantee, 155 Czechoslovakia, 201 Darby, Phillip, 203–4 Dayal, Rajeshwar, 112 Dean, Sir Patrick, 96, 170, 197 ONUC, 107, 114, 116; verdict on, 127 Rikhye, General Indar, 144–5, 189 Thant, U, 270–1n.28 UNFICYP, 157, 162, 168, 177, 180, 182–3, 188–9, 193 UN standing force, 60, 61 valedictory, 202 Declaration on Independence of Colonial Peoples, 98 Declaration Regarding NonSelf-Governing Territories, 19–20 decolonization, British, 39–41, 97–8, 148–9 Dixon, Sir Pierson, 66, 96, 97, 245n.52 Jordan, British intervention in, 81 ONUC, 100, 106 UNEF, 46, 48–9, 52, 55 UNOGIL, 75, 76, 77 Douglas-Home, Sir Alec, 204 see also Home, Lord Commonwealth, 148 earmarking British troops for UN, 198 logistics support for UN, 206 neo-colonialism, 149 UNFICYP, 157, 160, 163, 175, 178, 188, 195 Dulles, John Foster, 41, 70, 78, 80 Dumbarton Oaks conference (1944), 19, 20, 21 Dunnett, Denzil, 118

earmarking, forces for UN service, 141, 195–6, 206, 259–60n.39 see also standby forces ‘East of Suez’ role, 203, 204 East Timor, 31 Eden, Anthony, 17–18, 38, 39–40, 61 Suez Crisis, 41, 42 UNEF, 45, 47, 49, 50, 52, 55 Egypt Suez Crisis, 38, 39, 41–3 UNEF, 47, 51, 219 UNTSO, 29 Egypt Committee (UK Cabinet), 48, 50–1 Eisenhower, Dwight Lebanon, US intervention in, 82, 83 standby UN force, 73, 74 Suez Crisis, 42, 43, 44, 52, 53 UNEF, 48 EOKA, 154–5, 156, 185 Ethiopia, 119, 257n.127, 258n.151 Falle, Sam, 142, 145, 147, 195–6, 205, 212, 217 Federal Union Commission, 72–3 Foot, Sir Hugh, 156 see also Caradon, Lord force, use of, 115–16, 266n.111 see also peace enforcement Four Power Plan (1942), 17 France, 16, 17, 209 Lebanon, 249n.66 ONUC, 119, 129 peacekeeping funding, 146 Suez crisis, 42–4, 48, 52, 55 UN arrears, 205, 209 UNFICYP, 164 UNTSO, 29 Gaitskell, Hugh, 46 Gavshon, Arthur, 118–19 General Assembly Resolution 998 (UNEF), 46 Resolution 1000 (UNEF), 47 Resolution 1002 (UNEF), 47 genocide, Congo, 113, 236 Germany, 15 Ghana, 254n.55 Gizenga, Antoine, 115 Glubb, General John, 42 Godber, Joseph, 140

290 Index Goldberg, Arthur, 211 Gordon Walker, Patrick, 166, 203, 205 Gore-Booth, Sir Paul, 70, 71 Great Britain see United Kingdom Greece, 155 Greek-Bulgarian incident, 15, 16 Guard Force see United Nations, Guard Force Gyani, General Prem Singh, 158, 166, 167, 172, 173, 185 Hailsham, Viscount, 44, 51 Hale, Edward, 133 Hammarskjöld, Dag, 66, 69, 96, 97, 244n.18 death of, 120, 136 neutrality, Macmillan’s concern, 233, 256n.112 on Selwyn Lloyd, 245n.52 on Sir Pierson Dixon, 245n.52 ONUC, 129; creation, 99, 100; composition, 103, 104; deployment, 105, 106, 108; General Alexander, 109 Suez Crisis, 43 UNEF, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 221 UNEF Study, see separate entry: UNEF, Study UNOGIL, 74–83 Harbottle, Michael, 185, 187, 188, 193 Hayter, Sir William, 77 Healey, Denis, 204, 206, 215 Heath, Edward, 96 ONUC, 122 UNEF, withdrawal of, 223 Higgins, Rosalyn, 164 Hilderbrand, Robert, 19 Home, Lord, 96 see also Douglas-Home, Sir Alec Berwick-on-Tweed speech, 123–4, 130, 137 Kuwait, British intervention (1961), 134 ONUC, 106, 107, 114, 117, 123, 257n.127; conclusions from, 127; weapons, 121–2 peacekeeping; funding of, 146–8; views on, 127, 141, 143 UNEF, 49 Hoyer Millar, Sir Frederick, 71, 137, 249n.66

ONUC, 102 Hull, Cordell, 17–18 Hull, General Richard, 144, 170 Hungary, 67 Hussein Ibn Talal, King, 79, 80, 82, 89 Iléo, Joseph, 112, 254n.71 impartiality, 63–4, 84, 236, 250–1n.107 imperial policing, see colonial policing Imperial Policing (handbook, 1949), 13–14 India, 30, 31 Israel Suez Crisis, 39, 43 UNEF, 44, 45, 46, 47 UNTSO, 27, 30 Jackling, Sir Roger, 206 James, Alan, 169, 251–2n.3, 256–7n.118, 262n.3 Jebb, Gladwyn, 17, 18, 20, 241n.14 Johnson, Edward, 62 Johnson, Lyndon B., 161, 172 Joint Services Staff College, 138–9 Jordan British intervention in (1958), 80–3 John Foster Dulles on, 249–50n.86 Kasavubu, Joseph, 95, 99, 100, 112–13, 252n.15 Kashmir see UNMOGIP Kassem, General Abdul Karim, 134 Katanga, 95, 98, 99 British policy, 105, 116 ONUC, 117–20, 125–6 Kaunda, Kenneth, 216 Kennedy, John F., 137 Kenya, 148 Khrushchev, Nikita, 114, 141, 160 Kirkpatrick, Sir Ivone, 52, 53, 60–1, 66–7 on justice, 248n.35 Kitson, Frank, 186–8 Küçük, Fazil, 155, 262n.6 Kuwait British intervention in (1961), 133, 134–6 Kyprianou, Spyros, 161 Lall, Arthur, 73 Lansdowne, Lord, 119–20

Index 291 League of Nations, 14, 19, 21, 27, 36 Conference on Disarmament, 16 Council, 15, 36 Covenant, 36 Lebanon, intervention in (1958), 74–83 Liddell Hart, Captain Basil, 72 Lie, Trygve, 12, 27, 33–4, 45, 242n.58 Linner, Sture, 122, 252n.17 Lloyd, Selwyn, 41, 61, 65–6, 73, 96, 245n.52, 248n.35 Jordan, British intervention in, 81 ONUC, 102, 105 on UN reform, 247n.25 standing force, 88 Suez Crisis, 42, 44 UNEF, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55 UNOGIL, 74, 75, 78, 79 Lodge, Henry Cabot UNEF, 50, 52, 53 UNOGIL, 80 London Conference Cyprus crisis, 158, 160 Suez Crisis, 42 Lovett, Robert, 27 Lumumba, Patrice, 95, 99, 100, 106, 108, 112–13, 252n.15 death, 114–15 Macmillan, Harold, 54, 57, 96, 97 Kuwait, British intervention in (1961), 135 Lebanon (1958), 74, 77, 79, 82, 83 on Hammarskjöld, 256n.96 ONUC, 99, 114, 119, 122, 123; personnel, 126–7 Suez Crisis, 42, 53 Makarios, Archbishop, 155, 156, 160–1, 165, 167, 172, 262n.6 Malaysia, 148 Menon, Krishna, 49 Military Staff Committee see United Nations, Military Staff Committee Mobutu, Colonel Joseph, 113 Mollet, Guy, 52 Mountbatten, Lord, 145, 261n.72 strengthening peacekeeping, 138, 151, 205–6, 207, 271n.54 Suez Crisis, 43–4, 55 Murray, Dalton, 58, 65, 67, 72, 86

Narasimhan, C.V., 179 Nasser, Gamal Abdel Lebanon, 75, 77, 78, 79, 91, 93 Suez Crisis, 42 UNEF, 49, 51, 55; withdrawal of, 220 NATO, 40, 65 Cyprus crisis, 159–60 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 120 neo-colonialism, 148–9 neutrality, 15 ONUC, 101–2, 103, 112–13, 114, 255n.85 UNEF, 56 UNOGIL, 77, 84 neutral zones (Congo), 255n.85 Nigeria, 12, 149 ONUC, 103–4, 118 Nkrumah, Kwame, 100, 109, 111, 114, 252n.15 Noel-Baker, Philip, 32–3 Nordic Standby Force, 260n.60 Northedge, Frederick S., 210–11 Nutting, Anthony, 43 O’Brien, Conor Cruise, 118–19, 121 observer missions, definition, 2 Ogmore, Lord, 140, 141 ONUC (UN operation in the Congo), 10, 94–131 composition, 102–4 creation, 99–102 deployment, 104–8 functions, 104–8 genocide, 113 jets, 119–20 neutral zones, 113 peace enforcement, 238n.2 protected areas, 113 use of force, 115–16, 117 weapons, 120–5 Operation Bluebat (Lebanon, 1958), 75, 79, 91 Operation Fortitude (Jordan, 1958), 80 Operation Morthor (Congo, 1961), 118 Operation Rumpunch (Congo, 1961), 118 Ormsby-Gore, Sir David, 159, 246n.2 pacific settlement of disputes, see peaceful settlement of disputes

292 Index Pakenham, Lord, 72, 73, 141 Pakistan, 30, 31 Palestine, 26–30 Partition Plan, 26–7 Truce Commission, 28, 29 UN Mediator, 28, 29–30, see also Bernadotte, Folke Parliamentary Group for World Government, 141, 206 peace enforcement, 10, 24, 59, 130, 139, 140, 238n.2 peaceful settlement of disputes, 20, 21, 210–12, 213 peacekeeping, UN definition, 2 funding, 146–8 paternity, 45, 250n.104 peacekeeping forces, definition, 2 Pearson, Lester, 250n.104 UNEF, 45, 47, 55 permanent force, see standing force Permanent United Nations Force, A (pamphlet, 1957), 72–3 Pickard, Cyril, 162 Pineau, Christian, 51 Pink, Ivor, 65–71, 247n.28 Poland, 225 Poole, Oliver, 42, 46 Port Said, 43, 52, 54 Powell, Sir Richard, 64–5 Poynton, Sir Hilton, 61–3, 97–8 Rhodesia, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214–18 military intervention against, 216–17 possible UN force, 214–15, 216 sanctions against, 215–16, 218 Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), 211, 214, 215 Riches, Derek, 119 Rikhye, General Indar Jit, 9, 150, 207, 212–13, 239–40n.19, 261n.72 ONUC, 118 UK courting of, 143–6 UNEF, withdrawal of, 219–20 UNFICYP, 170, 182, 189, 192 Roberts, Adam, 239n.8 Robertson, General Brian (later Lord), 151, 152 Rikhye, General Indar, 144–6 views on peacekeeping, 141, 197

Rolz-Bennett, José, 158–9 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 17 Rose, Michael, 128 Rusk, Dean, 115, 134, 159, 172 Saar Force, see Saar Plebiscite Saar Plebiscite (1934), 15, 19 safe havens, 255n.85 St. Laurent, Louis, 49 Sandys, Duncan, 65 ONUC, 121 UNFICYP, 157, 158–9, 163, 165, 167, 169, 173, 177, 181, 183, 188 San Francisco Conference (1945), 20 Sargent, Sir Orme, 24 Scott, Ian, 114, 119 Scrivener, Ronald, 73 second-generation peacekeeping, 2, 5, 94 self-defence, 76, 84 Shehab, General Fouad, 82 Shone, Sir Terence, 31 Shuckburgh, Sir Evelyn, 159 Sisco, Joseph, 73 Smith, George Ivan, 52 Smith, Ian, 211, 214 Snelling, Sir Arthur, 159–61 South Africa, 212 Sovereign Base Areas, see Cyprus, British Sovereign Base Areas Soviet Union, 201, 209, 217, 218 Article 43: 24 constitutionality of peacekeeping, 198–201 ONUC, 100, 105, 111, 112, 115, 119, 129 peacekeeping funding, 146 strengthening peacekeeping, 212 UN arrears, 205, 209 UNFICYP, 164, 168 UN Military Staff Committee, 24, 25 UNTSO, 29, 30 Spinelli, Piero, 82 standby arrangements, 85 standby force, 60, 73, 133, 207, see also earmarking British initiative, 1957, 58–66 standing force, 12, 86, 133, see also United Nations, Guard Force Steering Committee on International Organisations (UK), 86–7

Index 293 Stegenga, James, 183 Stewart, Michael, 203, 206, 208, 210, 211, 216 Suez Canal, 26, 38, 51 Company, 38, 43 Treaty, 41–2 Suez Crisis, 41–4 Operation Musketeer Revise, 43 Suez Group, 42 Tahourdin, John, 137 Tanganyika, 148 Tanganyika Concessions Company, 98 Thant, U, 150 Committee of 33: 213 on earmarking British troops for UN, 196 ONUC, 120, 121, 123, 125, 129 permanent UN force, 143 standby units, 207 UNEF, withdrawal of, 220–1, 222, 225, 274n.127 UNFICYP, 158, 161–2, 163–4, 165, 166, 167, 171, 176, 180, 183, 184, 192 Thatcher, Margaret, 141 Thimayya, K.S., 183 Thomson, George, 204, 218 Thorneycroft, Peter, 149 earmarking British troops for UN, 196 UNFICYP, 155–6, 166 Timberlake, Claire, 99 Treaty of Versailles, 15 Tshombé, Moïse, 100, 105, 106, 117, 122, 125, 252n.18 Tuomioja, Sakari, 172 Turkey, 155 Uganda, 148 UNCIP (UN Commission for India and Pakistan), 33 UNEF (UN Emergency Force), 9, 38–56, 57 British conditions for Anglo-French withdrawal, 49–52 composition, 47–9 creation and functions, 44–7 impartiality, 63–4 Study of UNEF Experience, 83–9, 90 withdrawal, 219–24 UNEF II (Second UN Emergency Force), 191

UNFICYP (UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus), 10, 153–93, 215, 236 command and composition, 165–72 disarmament, 173–4, 175, 176 establishment, 163–5 force commander’s directive, 173–4, 175 mandate, 172–7 planning, 169–71 terms of reference, 177–9 use of force, 173–4, 175, 180 Union Minière, 98 United Kingdom Defence Review (1957), 65 Defence White Papers (UK); 1946, 25; 1956, 40; 1957, 65; 1965, 207 earmarking troops for peacekeeping, 206 initiatives to strengthen peacekeeping, 58–66, 136–8, 142–3 offer of logistics support to UN, 205, 206 United Nations Advisory Committees, 85–7 bonds, UK purchase of, 146 Charter, 16, 20, 36; Article 2(7): 59, 62; Article 19: 146, 209; Article 37: 20; Article 38: 20; Article 39: 27; Article 43: 11, 19, 20, 23–5, 31, 33, 199, 201, 208, 218, 270n.18; Article 45: 19; Article 51: 75, 78, 80; Article 99: 20, 27, (Congo) 100, (UNEF) 221; Article 106: 31; Chapter VII, 27–28, 164, 199–200, 216, 218, see also Articles 39–43 above Committee of 24: 98 Committee of 33: 205, 206, 207, 208–10, 213, 218 Field Reserve Panel, 34 Field Service, 34 Guard Force, 12, 33–4, 62 justice, 67, 68, 248n.35 military staff, 143–6, 212 Military Staff Committee, 18, 20, 21, 23–5, 199, 200 officer training college, UK proposal (1962), 140 Security Council; Resolution 39 (Kashmir), 31; Resolution 47

294 Index United Nations – continued (UNMOGIP), 31, 32; Resolution 50 (UNTSO), 28; Resolution 118 (Suez Crisis), 43; Resolution 128 (UNOGIL), 76; Resolution 143 (ONUC), 100–1; Resolution 146 (ONUC), 106; Resolution 161 (ONUC), 115; Resolution 169 (ONUC), 121; Resolution 186 (UNFICYP), 163–5, 167, 172, 174, 183; Resolution 193 (UNFICYP), 183, 199 Trusteeship Territories, 41 United States, 217 peaceful settlement of disputes, 211 relations with UK, 52–4 strengthening peacekeeping, 137–40, 142–3, 248n.54 UNEF, 44, 48 UN standby force, 73, 74 UNTSO, 29 ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution, 43, 58, 60, 62, 70, 201, 244n.23 UNMOGIP (UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan), 9, 30–3, 36 UNOGIL (UN Observation Group in Lebanon), 74–83, 84, 89, 91, 236, 251n.2 UNSCOP (UN Special Committee on Palestine), 26–7

UNTSO (UN Truce Supervision Organisation), 9, 27–30, 31 Urquhart, Sir Brian, 9, 207, 235, 236, 239–40n.19 ONUC, 110 UNEF, withdrawal of, 220, 221 UNFICYP, 165 USSR, see Soviet Union Vilna Plebiscite, 14–15, 16 von Horn, General Karl, 103, 109, 111 Waldheim, Kurt, 191 Waterhouse, Charles, 98 Webster, Charles, 17 Welensky, Roy, 99, 125 Wider Peacekeeping (1995), 188, 269n.197 Williams, Dudley, 149 Wilson, Duncan, 137 Wilson, James, 185–6, 188 Wilson, Harold, 195, 202, 210, 211 ONUC, 122, 142 peacekeeping, British role in, 204 Rhodesia, 215 UNEF, withdrawal of, 222 UNFICYP, 160, 169, 192 World Police Force, 141–2 Youde, Edward, 213, 218 Young, Major-General Peter, 157