Cripps resigned in October 1950 and died two years later Bevin died in April 1951, a month after leaving the Foreign Office Dalton’s portfolio was changed from Town and Country Planning

to Local Government and Planning in February 1951. Attlee was in hospital during the Cabinet crisis over NHS charges and has been criticised for failing to give a lead in this matter. See Morgan, op.cit., p.456 and Philip M. Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (Jonathan Cape, London, 1979), p.267.

was the party strategist and electoral planner, Herbert Morrison. When he replaced Bevin as Foreign Secretary in March 1951 he seemed the only possible successor to Attlee. Yet it was from this moment that Morrison’s career went into decline. He was regarded both by his contemporaries and by his future biographers as a poor Foreign Secretary. The consequence of Bevin’s frailty and then Morrison’s weakness was that German policy became the subject of numerous indecisive squabbles between ministers. In this atmosphere Attlee, responding to the concerns of the Parliamentary Labour Party and hopeful of some sort of rapprochement with the Soviet Union, guided the government towards a policy of delaying German rearmament. Though it is possible that even if Bevin had still been the vigorous, autocratic figure of the 1940s he would have pursued a similar policy, he would never have allowed his decision to become the subject of a prolonged governmental dispute of this kind.

The Chiefs of Staff, who were in the process of reassessing the Soviet threat during early 1951, were eagre to begin the process of German rearm am ent as rapidly as possible. As we shall see there was a certain inconsistency about their views as to the effect this would have on Soviet policy, but despite this it is clear that during this period the British military were making a serious attem pt to assist in the construction of an effective conventional defence for western Europe. Indeed, in December 1950 the Chiefs had their most series clash yet with the Foreign Office over the issue of German rearmament. They sought to downplay suggestions from the diplomatic corps that it might provoke a dangerous Soviet reaction. The strategy developed by Eisenhower at NATO headquarters called for a defence east of the Rhine and if this was to be successfully implemented then a German contribution seemed essential. During 1951 the Chiefs remained among the most radical and persistent advocates of measures designed to achieve a substantial German contribution to defence at an early date, but there was

3. Dalton recorded: "HM doesn’t work at Foreign Affairs and doesn’t know about them." Acheson claimed Morrison "knew nothing of foreign affairs and had no feeling for situations beyond the sound of Bow Bells". Dirk Stikker, the Dutch Foreign Minister, complained in June 1951 that "inspirational" British leadership in foreign affairs "disappeared from the Labour Government with the departure of Cripps and the death of Bevin." See the Hugh Dalton Diaries, part 1 vol.42, 4 June 1951; Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (W.W. Norton, New York, 1969), p.505; Louis Galambos (ed.), The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: NATO and the Campaign of 1952, vol. 12, (John Hopkins Press, London, 1989), Eisenhower to Harriman, 12 June 1951, p.346; Bernard Donoughue and G.W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1975), ch.36.

increasing concern about how soon the alliance would have the resources available to rearm the Germans. The Chiefs were generally more pessimistic than the other allies about the length of time required to develop effective German arm ed forces and were sceptical about the likelihood of the continental powers meeting their obligations to NATO. German rearmament was an obvious solution to the problem of closing at least part of the projected gap between the force requirement prescribed by NATO and the actual contribution which the continental powers were likely to make.

Foreign Office officials were, in general, less convinced than the military of the need to achieve early German rearmament, but were also highly suspicious of the attempts of the politicians to bargain with the Soviets over Germany’s future. Though there was a great deal of hostility to Germany in the Foreign Office, by 1951 this did not match the pessimism with which the Soviet Union was regarded. The Russians were seen as implacable enemies. A global settlement was believed to be wholly unrealistic and any partial settlement was likely to be exploited by Moscow. The diplomats were particularly anxious that the achievements of German policy since 1948 should not be prejudiced. The failure of the London conference of Foreign Ministers in December 1947, followed by the Soviet withdrawal from the Allied Control Commission in March 1948 and the imposition of the Berlin Blockade allowed Bevin to proceed with the policy, formulated by the British in 1946, of tying the western zones of Germany into the West.^ A process of gradual liberalisation began with currency reform, proceeded with the abolition of the Military Government and continued with the reform of the Occupation Statute. Though even in 1951 the ultimate fate of West Germany remained unclear, the Foreign Office were unwilling to sacrifice the substantial achievements of the previous three years to embark on a risky new policy based on the possibility of achieving an agreement with the quarrelsome

4. There is general agreement that 1948 was a watershed for British and western policy in