HISTORY

LORDS OF THE DESERT

by James Barr (Simon & Schuster £20, 416pp)

Conventional wisdom has it that Soviet Russia swiftly became Britain’s most deadly enemy after 1945, while our great ally was the United States.

This version of history, according to James Barr’s magnificently researched new book, is in urgent need of reassessment. He demonstrates that the U.S. was just as determined, if not more so, to destroy Britain’s global power and influence as Joseph Stalin’s Russia.

The United States wanted to establish itself as the new global hegemon — which meant subverting Britain at every turn and, as this book shows, it was prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to do so.

James Barr explores records of attempts to destroy Britain's global power in a new history book which shares an account of Churchill (pictured) misjudging U.S. relations

So the poor old Brits had an official enemy in the shape of Russia and — much more insidious — an unofficial enemy in the U.S.

This process culminated in Britain’s total humiliation when the United States pulled the plug on Britain’s failed attempt to seize back the Suez Canal in 1956.

Five years earlier the U.S. had sabotaged a carefully-planned attempt by MI6 to take control of Iranian oil production — a move which sent the message round the Arab world that British influence was doomed.

American contempt for Britain started even before World War II was over, with a disastrous visit to Egypt in 1942 by Wendell L Willkie, the Republican opponent to Franklin D Roosevelt for the Presidency two years earlier.

Willkie arrived in Cairo full of admiration for the British. Then he had dinner with a senior British official and was filled with horror: ‘What I got was Rudyard Kipling, untainted even with the liberalism of Cecil Rhodes,’ he recorded.

These men, executing policies made in London, had no idea the world was changing. And Willkie had no doubt that Winston Churchill was to blame.

His hostility was increased by a disastrous mix-up when Churchill paid a brief visit to Washington after the United States joined the war in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

Willkie wanted to meet Churchill to establish his credentials as an international statesman, ahead of the 1944 presidential elections.

Churchill, in turn, was eager to meet Willkie, then the favourite for the Presidency. So he rang up Willkie to arrange a clandestine meeting.

Unfortunately the switchboard operator put him through to the wrong number.

‘I am so glad to speak to you,’ gushed Churchill.

‘Whom do you think you are speaking to?’ came the reply.

LORDS OF THE DESERT by James Barr (Simon & Schuster £20, 416pp)

‘To Wendell Willkie, am I not?’

‘No,’ came the answer. ‘You are speaking to the President . . . Franklin Roosevelt.’

The President then banned Churchill from meeting Willkie, who was mortally offended when the event was cancelled.

This was just one of a series of mishaps and misunderstandings which set the tone for Britain’s post-war relationship with the U.S.

At bottom, both countries were determined to get access to oil, already known to exist in vast qualities on the Arabian peninsula.

In a sneaky move, the U.S. tried to hire Wilfred Thesiger, the famous British explorer, to guide them in finding oil reserves. Thesiger stayed loyal to the British: he was in fact hard at work on their behalf, at one stage carrying out oil exploration under fake cover for an organisation called the Anti-Locust unit.

This is a splendid book. It demonstrates the early perspicuity of a young Tory researcher called Enoch Powell who sought out Anthony Eden (then a highly regarded former foreign secretary) shortly after the war to give him advice.

‘I want to tell you that in the Middle East our great enemies are the Americans,’ the young Powell told the elder statesman.

Eden looked at him as if he was mad. But Powell had the last laugh. Eden was later to reflect: ‘I had no idea what he meant. I do now.’