Empire Lost - Andrew Stewart [65]
To some perhaps less than objective writers in Britain it was never in doubt that the US would help, an article in the Empire Review in February 1941 being typical of such sentiment: 'American ideals and interests are as deeply involved as are those of Britain in the threat of Nazi domination. If Britain goes under the United States faces the loss of the most important single source of her strategic raw materials, her overseas trade and investment, the ruin of her prosperity and the end of her traditional way of living and thinking. A war to decide the fate of the British Empire cannot, therefore, be a matter of indifference to America.'53 Watching from his vantage point in Canada House, which he used to augment the information he gained from his many connections within British society, Charles Ritchie was probably more accurate with his assessment. As he wrote in his sometime scandalous diary: 'How the English hate being rescued by the Americans. They know they must swallow it, but God how it sticks in their throats. The Americans are thoroughly justified in their suspicions of the English, and the English I think are justified in their belief that they are superior to the Americans. They have still the steadiness, stoicism and self-discipline that make for a ruling race, but what will these qualities avail them if the tide of history and economics has turned against them?'54
The Atlantic Charter was another challenge, a 'flop' that went down like a proverbial lead balloon in London and in large parts of the Empire but its significance in terms of Anglo-American relations and the position of the British Empire was undoubtedly greater than any of the British delegation could ever have imagined.55 Welles, in competition with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, had been a leading force behind the idea of producing a joint declaration in which Imperial Preference would be violently censured. The actual proposal for the Charter was apparently sprung upon Churchill on the opening day of the conference by his host. Despite the leading role Sir Alexander Cadogan played in drafting the final document, it lacked any significant oversight by the Whitehall mandarins who specialized in dissecting such agreements.56 Oliver Harvey noted in his diary that Eden 'feels FDR had bowled the PM a very quick one'.57 The cricketing metaphor would have been lost on the American hosts; as would become more apparent later the Charter was in fact more akin to a 'Beanball thrown to cause the opposition injury for it certainly had a considerable negative impact on the British imperial position. Article 3, which affirmed that the two governments 'respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live', was 'perhaps the most explosive principle of all'.58 Churchill told the Cabinet following his return that he believed this referred to 'the restoration of the sovereignty, self-government and national life of the States and nations of Europe now under the Nazi yoke'. What it definitely did not refer to was the position of any of the many subject peoples of the British Crown. Roosevelt apparently, however, saw it as much more than just this, his understanding being that the specific promise outlined in the third article 'applied to all humanity'.59
Writers such as Viscount Samuel were able to gloss over the question of what the United States was actually trying to achieve during the meeting held at Placentia Bay off the Newfoundland coast in August 1941, arguing that the finer details were something to be examined at a later stage, part of a process which it was inferred would take a very long time to complete.60 Others preferred to focus on the wider economic aspects of the document, and what was seen as the abandonment of the restrictions of Ottawa and the embracing of a more open, advantageous and international system of post-war trade.61 Upon reading the newspaper accounts of the signing Leopold Amery, who was eminently well qualified