NOTICE
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened August, 1982
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

WILSON: The first thing, I think, would be to get down on tape that substitution for AMGOT. I mustn't forget that. That was Amateur Military...

MAKINS: AMGOT, Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories, was known facetiously in the Mediterranean as Amateur Military Gentlemen on Tour.

WILSON: That's very good.

Perhaps the first question, resulting from our discussion at luncheon, would be to have you briefly review the effects of the preparations, the planning fox the occupation, given your experience. How did these relate to what happened in the immediate post-

[2]

war period? Did they make any difference at all, the occupations in North Africa, and...

MAKINS: You mean the civil affairs preparations?

WILSON: Yes, right.

MAKINS: Well, they were done, of course, as part of the military plan, and, therefore, the administration was drawn up by special departments in the War Department and in the War Office, as military operations. They were very quietly prepared; very detailed instructions were given to these officers, many of whom were retired officers who had been brought out because they had some special qualification. They were meticulously trained, but of course, like so often happens in war, a great number of the situations with which they were confronted were not those for which they had been specifically trained. I think it's perhaps a fair comment to say that the administration was rather too carefully worked out. In fact, as things turned out it was really top-heavy and didn't

[3]

really have enough flexibility or elasticity to adapt itself quickly to the situation on the ground.

I would say that was probably truer of Italy than it was in Germany, of which I have really no direct experience.

WILSON: Would you say that the American preparation reflected a much too optimistic approach to the conditions which they would find?

MAKINS: In some respects in the case of Italy, I think it was too pessimistic, because after all the Italians were on our side by the time we got there.

WILSON: Yes. You were also, after you came to Washington as Minister, on the UNRRA Council. In our analysis of all these programs, how much importance should we give to UNRRA? Was it viewed to be very temporary?

MAKINS: Well, in the early stages, of course, it was the principal arm of relief to war torn territories in the whole of Europe, on all sides and in all places. The UNRRA Council met mainly at official level under

[4]

the Director General, first Lehman and then La Guardia, and it was really a typical example of negotiating with the Russians. We had a small group, British, Americans, Canadians, and our Russian friends. The meetings and discussions were typical of the discussions which were held in that type of group at that time. They went on almost interminably; the progress within the groups was extremely slow.

WILSON: There is some documentation that in this twilight period, when there was the change from the Rooseveltian policy of faith that the United States, the West, could cooperate with the Russians, that American business, which was contributing to UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] shipments, took a very hard-headed position. Their attitude seemed to be, "Why should we send tractors to Czechoslovakia when they don't know how to use tractors, and besides they're Communists. Let us send tractors to Americans, or to British

[5]

subjects who know how to use tractors and then perhaps we can send the food to Czechoslovakia." Did you have much of this sort of attitude?

MAKINS: Well, personally, I didn't come across that particular kind of situation, which would have been much more visible to those who were actually working on it, at what you might call the supply level, the receiving end. I don't recall any particular occasion of that kind.

WILSON: Yes. The most publicized problem in UNRRA was, of course, the Ukrainian business, with Russian refusals to allow any publicity. That was very difficult, I gather, and I wonder if you have any comments on this. Did it come up often in the Council itself?

MAKINS: Not in my time, as I recall.

WILSON: You were in Washington as Minister in the crucial period when there was this gradual change in the American attitude, of the public, the

[6]

administration, and the Congress. Did you come to believe that there would be such a change, that it would occur? The year 1947 is pivotal, of course.

MAKINS: Well, I left Washington at the very beginning of '47.

WILSON: February, I think.

MAKINS: And the swing, or change around, in American policy really came at the point of aid to Greece and Turkey, which would be in February, March, April, May of '47.

I don't recall being particularly surprised. I think probably we felt that the logic of the situation, which we were very well aware of, was bound to have its effect on American policy. But, of course, we didn't know when and how, nor did we anticipate the extraordinary speed and ability with which the Americans acted when they finally re-appreciated the situation, when they found that it was not, in fact, possible, or practical, to

[7]

collaborate with the Russians. They then decided that if they did not change their policy, the economic situation of Western Europe was such that there might be not only serious economic, but also serious political, consequences.

WILSON: You were in the Embassy at the time the British Government presented the note stating that it could no longer maintain...

MAKINS: As a matter of fact I had just left. I had just left; I think it was in February or March, but I had left.

WILSON: That's right, yes. The first note was in late January, I think. I wonder, was there the assumption that the United States Government would take over the sort of commitment which Great Britain had had in the Mediterranean and particularly in Greece?

MAKINS: I, of course, was not really a party to the policymaking at that particular moment, and

[8]

therefore, I can't really give you any worthwhile opinion on that. Since the British Government gave the American Government the opportunity to take over the commitment, there must have been at least some sort of expectation that they might be willing to do so.

WILSON: This is a question of opinion and something that we've come across again and again. How much attention, how much importance, should we give in this period to anti-British, anti-Imperial sentiment on the part of the United States? There was some criticism at the time the United States gave support to Greece and Turkey, that we were merely saving the British Empire. This also had been of some importance during the war -- the problem of don't give support to the British in the Mediterranean, give support to the Soviets in the Eastern front -- this kind of anti-imperialist sentiment.

MAKINS: Well, of course, as you know, all through that period there was latent in many American minds --

[9]

this feeling about colonialism -- and how it was something that was quite contrary to American ideas, and couldn't be supported. Roosevelt's attitude toward the French colonies is the most striking example of that, but there were many others. One often had the feeling that some Americans always saw a budding George Washington in every dissident or revolutionary movement. So there was undoubtedly that feeling. I think, in many cases subconsciously, rather than consciously, it colored a good deal of American policy and thinking throughout that period. I think it was much more subconscious, or instinctive, rather than worked out or thought out. I think it would be difficult to gauge the precise effect it had, but that it was there I have no doubt whatsoever.

WILSON: One of the French officials whom I interviewed said, rather smugly, but perhaps justly, that only now has the United States, or the American administration with its problems in Vietnam, begun to understand the difficulties of being involved in

[10]

a colonial situation.

MAKINS: The only public statement which I can recall, made by any really prominent American statesman, which had anything good to say, and which really praised the British colonial administration, was a statement that was made by the now-President Nixon about ten years ago.

WILSON: Very interesting.

We talked at lunch as well about some of the problems resulting from the proliferation of agencies, particularly on the American side. This was true during the war; it was also true after the war, and at the time the Marshall plan was developed. I wonder how much attention should we give to the fact that there was a State Department interest, there was the interest of ECA -- as it was developed -- there was the Treasury, there was Agriculture, Commerce and all of these. How much difficulty did that cause?

MAKINS: Well, I think what you say is quite true. All

[11]

through the period from the war on, this was a matter of some concern to America's allies and partners. One of the most entertaining passages to me in Dean Acheson's book, was his account of the interdepartmental warfare up and down Pennsylvania Avenue at the beginning of the war, between all the agencies concerned with economic policy. And this went on. When I came to have direct contact with it in North Africa in 1943 and '44, one of our problems was not so much that there were a number of agencies, because they were all represented in the Allied discussions, but there was a very rapid turnover of personnel. Somebody would come out to represent the Treasury, or the Lend-Lease Administration, or whatever it was, and he would be there just long enough to understand what it was all about, and then he was off again, and somebody else arrived. Whereas, the British, and later the French were much more inclined to send somebody out for the duration. So there was some inequality of expertise, in the local sense,

[12]

between British and Americans at various times in that period.

Well, to go on, later in the Marshall plan period the same kind of thing tended to persist, but I would have said that it was much less, I mean much less bad. As far as this country was concerned, we had one or two administrators that were sent out at the beginning of the Marshall plan of the very highest quality. I would have said that the difficulty was much less, as far as my experience goes, which was confined really to Paris and to the United Kingdom.

WILSON: Very good.

Speaking of a sort of British Government reaction, did you find it difficult to adjust to the situation which existed in the State Department in this period where this State Department seemed to have only one economic horse to ride -- that is, that of world liberalization of trade? It also seems that, either because of the existence of these other agencies which dealt with implementation

[13]

of policy, or because it was not allowed to, it was not interested in the more practical realm of economic foreign policy. There seems to be an ethereal quality in the State Department approach, in this period. Is that fair, or...

MAKTNS: Well, I think this is certainly true of all the sort of postwar thinking which went on during the war -- Bretton Woods, the trade policies, and so on. This, I think, was true of the State Department perhaps and I think it persisted into peacetime. But I think it ceased to have that ethereal quality as soon as the policy changed to one of aid of various sorts.

WILSON: One of the latent conflicts was that the aid programs resulted in the possible creation of a regional approach to trade liberalization, whereas GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] and some of the other programs, which the State Department had supported, were based upon a global approach to trade liberalization. Other people have told me that that didn't really matter once aid started

[14]

coming, because the people who dealt with giving aid were the people who really set policy.

MAKINS: The people who dealt with commercial policy at that time were, I think, regarded by some of the operators as rather a race apart.

WILSON: Very good.

MAKINS: You see, I think the problem started to be intensified with the cutoff of lend-lease. Well, there was plenty of trouble there, but that compounded the trouble and came as a very great shock to everybody concerned. And I think that that was merely an extreme manifestation of the fact that the American administration of that time hod completely underestimated the extent to which the war had disrupted the economies of the European countries, and particularly the economy of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom was regarded for a long time as a kind of equal partner who would be able to share equal burdens, whereas, of course, in fact it had almost exhausted its resources in the four years of war. It took a little time

[15]

before realization of the extent to which the situation was being under-appreciated came to the American administration. When it did come, then the administration acted with great speed and with great ability and force. The short period in which the Truman Doctrine was established and put into effect was very remarkable I think.

WILSON: How do you explain the educational process? Was it just a gradual growth of information about the crisis, and did the British Government play a large part in educating their American counterparts?

MAKINS: Well, I have just read Dean Acheson's book and it is fairly fresh in my mind. There was a very interesting passage there, in which he describes the return of Will Clayton from Europe. He had spent some little time, traveling around in Europe, and came back and dictated a memorandum saying just that: "We've got this wrong. We've misjudged this situation. It's much more serious

[16]

than we supposed." I think that like all these things, it was a combination of disillusion with the policy of collaboration with the Soviet Union, a growing awareness of the seriousness of what was going on in Western Europe, and the conclusion emerging that if Russian influence in Western Europe was going to be contained, then it was essential that American assistance should be given on a very large scale.

WILSON: As you might expect, some of the persons that I've interviewed on the Continent have portrayed Great Britain as the "evil genius" of this period. That is, there is rather some anti-British sentiment, particularly on the issue of the efforts for European integration. One of the things that some of them have said was that the British themselves, the British Government themselves, underestimated its own problems in the period. Is that a fair...

MAKINS: Well, that may well be. I think that probably the policies which the British Government pursued at that time were based on an optimistic view of

[17]

what the economic strength of the country would be. But that wasn't done out of ill-will; it was done out of goodwill. If the British had been more realistic they would have done much less to help Europe and the underdeveloped countries, and the various occupied countries. They would have done much less to help than they, in fact, did. They probably tried to do too much. I think, in the light of hindsight, that it's probably a fair criticism. But to say that the British were pursuing some kind of selfish far-reaching policy to "do down" their European neighbors...

WILSON: No. Perhaps I have given a mistaken impression. The words that have been used are such things as "the myth of the pound sterling," that the British Government really could not fully face the necessity -- again this is from the continental point of view -- of working completely, cooperating completely, with the European countries, because of some innate sense of superiority.

MAKINS: Well, it depends on what period you're talking

[18]

about. It certainly couldn't have been true of the period immediately after the war.

WILSON: Very good.

How much emphasis should we give to American support, American pressure, for unity in this period? I suppose I'm talking now about the period when you were Assistant Under Secretary of State and also Deputy Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. How crucial was this in the aid programs? Was it of secondary importance, coming rather far behind getting European economies back on their feet?

MAKINS: Well, I think the important element, the new element there, was the insistence, on the American side, that the European countries, the recipients of aid, should themselves work out a coordinated program which would enable the United States to gauge the amount of support, and so on.

This was a very important element in the Marshall program, and it was a challenge that was immediately picked up. I think, really, there

[19]

were three crucial stages. The first was that Mr. [Ernest] Bevin, who was then Foreign Secretary, was waiting for, was anticipating, the kind of move which General Marshall made in his Harvard speech, and therefore he was ready to pick up the ball and run with it.

The second crucial point was the refusal of the Russians to participate. It was obviously necessary and right that the Russians should be given an opportunity to participate in the Marshall program, and if not themselves, then the satellites. The acceptance and subsequent withdrawal of Czechoslovakia from the Marshall program, and the refusal of Russia to allow her satellites to participate, of course, made a great difference to the situation. One wonders how the program of aid would ever have been worked out in time, if it hadn’t been for that event.

The third important stage was the meeting in Paris at which, under the leadership of Oliver Franks, the European countries were brought

[20]

together and it was possible to present a coordinated program in Washington. From that point of view, the pressure of the Marshall program for the unification of Europe was an essential element, a very important and very significant element in it. But one must here distinguish between a collaborative program, and -- if you like -- supranational programs, because there was no question at that time of a community, in the terms that the community came to be talked about.

This was an operating program in which everybody participated, everybody disclosed their figures, and accepted their distribution of assistance and resources between the receiving nations. So the OEEC [Organization for European Economic Cooperation] operation was always, I think, different in kind than the EEC [European Economic Community] type of operation. The urge for unity was in the OEEC sense, and was exceedingly successful, and remained successful to this day.

WILSON: It was a remarkable achievement. That's one

[21]

of the bits of perspective that I've gotten -- how difficult the problem was in getting this sort of collaboration, and how remarkable the achievement was. You're suggesting then that one should not, as is often done, automatically link in a progression, OEEC and EEC. That is, at the time there was not serious thinking either in the United States or in Europe that the OEEC would, or could, or should develop into the kind of semi-supranational...

MAKINS: I don’t think so. I dare say Monnet had some hopes in that respect, but of course, it was really quite a separate initiative. The Schumann plan was really quite separate. I mean it was done at the time when the OEEC was in full swing, and it was launched without any consultation with the British Government.

WILSON: Yes. Yes.

MAKINS: It was really quite a separate operation on a new line of thinking.

WILSON: Yes, some of the persons I've interviewed have

[22]

said that they viewed the Schumann plan as a great mistake, at least from the point of view of achieving some kind of supranational cooperation in Europe.

MAKINS: Rather, it was a misjudgment of the situation in Britain, because it was thought that by springing it on the British Government, which is what was done, that it would be possible to make the British Government come in on the basis of what was essentially a document drawn up by Monnet and which insisted that you could only negotiate the working out of the Schumann plan if you accepted a prior commitment to work for a supranational Europe. And when the British Government said, "We can't accept this; no British Government can accept this, but we, of course, will be very glad to participate in the negotiations," they were in fact, refused on the grounds that because they hadn't accepted the pre-condition, the premise, they therefore couldn't take part in the negotiations.

WILSON: Yes, that's very good.

[23]

MAKINS: Of course, it's said now that a great mistake was made, and that we shouldn't have paid any attention to the premise; that it was just a lot of words, and nobody else paid much attention to then and the British Government was foolish to take them so seriously. But then the British Government is inclined to take that kind of commitment very seriously, and they certainly did in that case. British opinion, in the Government, in the opposition, and in the country, was simply not ready to say that they were in favor of a supranational Europe.

WILSON: Very good, yes. This is corroboration of a view that I've gotten from many people. The question that comes up very often, and one that we have some difficulty with, is whether there was, particularly as regards these matters of cooperation and the American attitude toward economic integration in Europe, some special relationship between the United States and Great Britain; and whether the British Government could

[24]

anticipate, or could rely upon a special relationship in its activities in Europe. I'm not sure I'm making myself entirely clear. Some people have suggested that...

MAKINS: Well, of course, this question of the "special relationship" is talked about, and a great deal of what is talked about in my judgment is a good deal of nonsense. There has always been a special relationship between the United States and Great Britain; it's based on our common language, our common literature, our common goals, our common origins, and our social contacts at every kind of level, so no doubt there is a special relationship. But then there is also a special relationship between the United States and France. It is very special, dating back from Lafayette. There is also a very special relationship between the United States and, say, Canada. There's a special relationship, particularly since the war, with Germany. There's a special relationship with Japan, since the occupation. The United States

[25]

has a special relationship of one sort or another, not only with this country, but with a whole lot of other countries. Just as we have a special relationship, particularly with the countries of the Commonwealth. So, to talk about the special relationship as if it was in itself policy, it seems to me to be in a way not really very relevant.

What is true, of course, is, particularly at that time, that the two governments were working very closely together in a number of fields. They were working not as closely, indeed, as they should, but they had worked very closely in atomic energy matters. They were running a joint zone in Germany, the Anglo-American zone. Well, that was a large part of the European problem at that time. So, naturally there was a special relationship there, and in other ways too. There was a special relationship arising from the actual work which the two governments were doing together in a whole range of matters. So the working arrangements were still there in the immediate postwar period, when the

[26]

joint Anglo-American grouping in terms of military, economic and administrative matters, the joint machinery, was to a large extent still in operation. So it's very true that there was a special relationship at that time, and it was something on which both governments could rely.

WILSON: Very good. I think that the comments which have been made are perhaps incorrect, or as you put it, irrelevant, because they balance an -- American commitment to the OEEC -- to the idea of the OEEC -- as against what actually happened. Several of the persons whom I've interviewed in Europe have said that perhaps the death of the OEEC came at the time of the Korean war, when the United States and Great Britain revived this arrangement which had been a wartime arrangement, on the allocation of raw materials at the Truman-Attlee conversations in, I think, December of 1950. They say that this was a death blow to the hopes of many persons in Europe about what the OEEC could become. What you have been suggesting is...

[27]

MAKINS: I would have thought that that was an example of hindsight myself, but I can't put myself into my own mind at that time very easily and certainly not in the minds of others. But I would not have thought that that was something which occurred to people generally at that time.

WILSON: It was what seemed, from what I gathered, a necessary operation without consideration of the effects.

MAKINS: I think the Korean war was a crisis, and certain measures were taken to deal with it, and one of them was that the British Government entered into a large rearmament program which they probably couldn't afford. In return for that the Americans gave certain facilities, one sort or another, to assist us.

WILSON: Yes, very good.

Another problem which has come up, partly from reading the documents and partly from what persons I've interviewed have said, has been the

[28]

relationship between American support of NATO and the OPEC. Perhaps there was some confusion at the time about what NATO should be, whether it should take over certain of the economic activities...

MAKINS: This is certainly a fairly good point, because after all there was a section -- whatever it was, Article II, of the NATO treaty -- that did provide for economic collaboration between the NATO powers. I suppose, by definition, it was supposed to be going to be something different from the OPEC. There's been continual difficulty in giving any real life to Article II of the NATO treaty, partly because of the difficulty between distinguishing a NATO economic operation from what in fact was the OPEC economic operation. In other words, it was rather difficult to take out of the OPEC the NATO powers, and set up separate economic collaboration.

So I think that that's true. I think that paragraph II or section II, or whatever it was called of the NATO treaty, was put in, I'm sure,

[29]

with very good reason. But in fact it proved difficult, if not impossible, to give it any real life, in view of the existing economic machinery of collaboration which had been set up previously.

WILSON: Yes. Yes.

Some of the proposed solutions of the American side are perhaps, in retrospect, somewhat ludicrous. There was the idea that you could solve these problems by perhaps shifting the OEEC to London, and maintaining the NATO structure in London, or that you shift NATO to Paris and get everyone together. It wouldn't have worked, I don't think, just by putting agencies in the same geographic locale. These were talked about at the time, but...

MAKINS: Well, there would have been always a difficulty in enabling the non-NATO members of the OEEC to work on exactly the same footing as the NATO members.

WILSON: Yes. Sweden and Switzerland, in particular.

[30]

MAKINS: Apart from that, of course, it probably would have been easier if everybody had been together, to work out a more sensible method of collaboration or coordination.

WILSON: On this matter of organization, were there difficulties because of the maintenance of a British delegation to the OEEC in Paris, and, of course, the Foreign Office guidance or direction of that delegation in London? Some of the persons with whom I've talked have suggested that the British delegation to the OEEC, though composed of extremely good men, did not reflect a kind of commitment, because these people were relatively junior at that time. They did not reflect the sort of commitment to the OEEC which other nations in Europe made. Is that a fair statement?

MAKINS: I would have thought that was not true. Actually, we were represented at a very high level in Paris, a high official level, and certainly as high as the others. I think one of the differences between British practice in this respect, or what was

[31]

then the difference -- not necessarily now -- was that we tended to put in Ministers to come and discuss and negotiate, whereas the European countries tended to rely on high officials, and the Ministers kept in the background. But I wouldn't have thought that there was anything in that at all. The Foreign Office people, of whom I was one, were constantly going to Paris. The delegations were constantly coming home. It was really one operation. There was always bound to be a certain polarization between the delegation and the home office. I mean this is true of any organization, but it was of no significance.

WILSON: No way of saying that...

MAKINS: I don't really see the point in that.

WILSON: Yes, well, some of these people have said, and I have no way of judging it, that what in fact occurred was that the British delegation in Paris became more European in its approach than did the Foreign Office. And, in part, they

[32]

suggested this because these people were more likely drawn from other fields than the "traditional diplomatic training."

MAKINS: Yes, but you see in terms of organization, the British delegation in Paris, which consisted of representatives in a number of departments, was instructed on the ministerial authority by a committee in London, composed of representatives of all the same departments. So it wasn't a case of the Foreign Office instructing a composite delegation in Paris. It was a case of a composite committee in London instructing a composite delegation in Paris. So the same influences took part in the instructions as would take part in the carrying out of the discussions.

As to whether the delegations became more European minded than the home people, well, that is a familiar phenomenon. As I said, there is always bound to be an element of polarization, just as an Ambassador is inclined to see the point of view of the country where he is rather

[33]

more clearly, as he thinks, than the people instructing him at home. The same applies in every organization I've ever had anything to do with.

WILSON: Yes; going back, from my point of view, to the American revolution and Richard Oswald and Benjamin Franklin.

MAKINS: Yes.

WILSON: Yes, that's very good.

One of the questions, final questions, I could ask you would be, how much importance should we give to the role of the United States Congress? How aware were you in the Foreign Office and in Europe generally about the participation, the constant review, of these aid programs which went on in the Congress? How much concern and adjustment was there in order to make

MAKTNS: Well, I would say, knowing the United States Congress fairly well, that I was acutely and constantly aware of it. And I think that goes for the administrators here in London who were

[34]

dealing with the matter.

Quite apart from that, if we hadn't been aware of it, we would have been made continually aware of it by the continuous stream of Congressmen and Senators who came through London and Paris at that time, and who we were constantly called upon to meet. I can recall many sessions of very hard work, too, in trying to answer some of the questions of Congressmen. They were really very hard to answer because they were based on such a totally erroneous conception of what the situation was.

WILSON: That's very good. We have, of course, all of the documentation on these junkets or jaunts, and one does get the impression that the level of information was shockingly low, in general, as a general kind of statement.

MAKINS: Well, there was a good deal of built-in prejudice in the Congressional mind, based indeed on a complete unawareness of the situation. There were

[35]

the rather time-honored attitudes, such as the one you mentioned about the British being colonialist, and therefore not worthy of support.

WILSON: To pursue this a moment, in meeting these people, did you find that many Congressmen were rather single-minded advocates of special interests? That is, would they insert the matter of business involvement -- that such and such a Senator was concerned only in making sure that American tobacco was sold in Germany, or in England?

MAKINS: I suppose you could say we were aware of special interests, but I don't recall them being particularly obtrusive.

WILSON: What about the atmosphere of rather emotional anti-communism as characterizing Congress, and particularly these people who came over? Were they so taken with...

MAKINS: I don't remember that very particularly. I think it's no doubt true that the support fear aid in general at that time, from quarters in American politics that would not normally be at all disposed to

[36]

approve that kind of policy, was due to the fact that they thought that by giving aid they would contain communism in some way.

In other words, it was a way of carrying out the policy of containment. No doubt, there's a lot in that, and no doubt that was a very persuasive factor for those who would otherwise be quite strongly opposed to "give away" programs of this kind.

WILSON: Did you have the impression that once Americans became aware of the crisis, the critical problems, of Europe, that perhaps they overcompensated? One may get this impression from Dean Acheson's book -- the things he said, the difficulties he had, and others had, in seeing European problems as a part of a global problem. Perhaps Americans in some ways became obsessed with Europe and forgot, to a certain extent, or wished to forget perhaps, about the rest of the world. I may be anglophile in asking this question, in suggesting that Great Britain, at least in this period, still was quite aware of

[37]

general problems.

MAKINS: I think that is certainly true. I suppose possibly some Americans became particularly involved, if you like, to the exclusion of other things. But I think that's quite common of people who are engaged on a difficult and very intense job. I wouldn't have thought that it was a charge which could be generally sustained. I don't think I really know enough to give a judgment on this.

WILSON: Maybe, as a final question, what elements would you point out as being most important in explaining the success of these programs? I think we both agree that they were remarkably successful in doing what they were intended to do: provide for European recovery and achieve a balanced Europe as a bloc against communism.

MAKINS: Well, I think partly because obviously they were sensible policies. They were policies which were demanded by the situation. I would bring in the human element here to a certain extent,

[38]

and I think on the American side the programs were devised and administered by an exceptionally able and intelligent group of men. Further, I think they met on the European side, a group of Ministers, particularly officials, of similar caliber, who were able to grasp what was involved and to put programs into operation. I think one is entitled to give the credit to those, particularly on the American side, who were involved in these programs.

WILSON: Very good.

I'm impressed by this, particularly in, say, the first two years of the Marshall plan, and later.

MAKINS: Well, you see, there were Acheson, Lovett, Clayton, and [W. Averell] Harriman; there were [George] Kennan and [Paul] Nitze in the State Department; there was [Thomas K.] Finletter who was here in London for a time. There was [John .I.] McC1oy and Lew Douglas, concerned with Germany. There was Paul Hoffman, with all his enthusiasm, drive and energy. There was a remarkable fellow in the War Department -- partly in

[39]

the War Department and partly in the State Department, called Hilldring, General [John H.] Hilldring. There was Chip [Charles] Bohlen at that time. I've just thrown out a few names; but by any standards that's a remarkable group of people.

WILSON: Yes, people such as David Bruce, who of course has come back. There was a considerable element of idealism in this. I've gotten this, although the documents don't reflect it well. Persons such as you have indicated at that time believed that they had a job worth doing and that it could be done.

MAKINS: I know it was reciprocated on the British side, because I was heavily involved in it myself. People like Oliver Franks did an outstanding job of work in responding to the American initiative in a manner which carried conviction, I think.

WILSON: Thank you very much.

Acheson, Dean, 15, 36, 38
Agriculture, Department of, 10
Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories, 1
Attlee, Clement, 26

Bevin, Ernest, 19
Bohlen, Charles, 39
Bretton Woods Conference, 13
Bruce, David, 39

Canada, 24
Clayton, Will, 15-16, 38
Colonialism, 8-10
Commerce, Department of, 10
Congress, U.S., 33-36
Czechoslovakia, 4-5, 19

Douglas, Lewis, 38

European Cooperation Administration, 10
European Economic Community, 27
European integration, 18-19

Finletter, Thomas K., 38
France, 11, 24
Franklin, Benjamin, 33
Franks, Oliver, 19, 39

General Agreements on Trade and Tariff, 13
Germany, 3, 24, 25, 35, 38
Greece, 6, 7

Harriman, W. Averell, 38
Harvard University, 19
Hilldring, John H., 39
Hoffman, Paul G., 38

Italy, 3

Japan, 24

Kennan, George F., 38
Korean War, 26, 27

LaGuardia, Fioxello, 4
Lehman, Herbert, 4
Lend-lease, 14
Lend-Lease Administration, 11
London, England, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34
Lovett, Robert A., 38

McCloy, John J., 38
Makins, Roger:

and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 3
and Washington, D.C., 5-6
Marshall, George C., 19
Marshall plan, 10, 12, 18, 19, 20, 38
Monnet, Jean, 21, 22

Nitze, Paul, 38
Nixon, Richard M. , 10
North Africa, 2, 11
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 28-29

Organization of European Economic Cooperation, 20-21, 26, 28, 29, 30
Oswald, Richard, 33

Paris, France, 12, 19, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., 11

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 9

Schumann plan, 21, 22
State, Department of, 10, 12-13, 39
Sweden, 29
Switzerland, 29

Treasury, Department of the, 10, 11
Truman, Harry S., 26
Truman Doctrine, 15
Turkey, 5, 8

Ukraine, 5
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 4, 5, 7, 8, 16, 19
United Kingdom, 4-5, 11-12, 14, 16-18, 21, 22-23, 26, 35, 36-37

and Greece, 7
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 3, 5
United States, 23, 24
and colonialism, 8-10

Vietnam, 9

War, Department of, 2, 38-39
Washington, D.C., 5-6
Washington, George, 9, 20

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