This thesis seeks to demonstrate that, during the post war and early Cold War years, the US Federal government, and in particular the Executive branch, was inspired to increase the role which it played in the US Education system. It also seeks to chart the methods it utilised in order to do so. One inspiration was the desire to direct the US education system towards a curriculum which better benefitted the nation’s Cold War effort, including placing a greater emphasis upon scientific education and training, more tightly regulating the discussion over democratic vs. communist ideologies in the classroom and the pursuit of a greater equalisation in opportunity for African American students. Further inspiration was provided by both the widespread expansion of centralised government programs and the increased importance of education to social progress witnessed across the world after the Second World War, and both President Truman’s own personal commitment to the equalisation of education opportunity, and the Democratic Party’s pursuit of black votes during the Truman Administration. This thesis charts the Executive and Judicial branches’ innovative and unorthodox usage of the powers available to them in order to garner greater influence over the education system, and assesses the varying rates of success of these programmes in order to demonstrate the significant and irrevocable shift in the relationship between the US Federal government and the US education system which occurred during the early Cold War.

Numerous studies, books, and articles have been written on Britains retreat from its former empire in the 1960s. Journalists wrote about it at the time, many people who were involved wrote about it in the immediate years that followed, and historians have tried to put it all together. The issues of foreign policy at the strategic level and the military operations that took place in this period have been especially well covered. However, the question of military strategic alternatives in this important era of British foreign policy has been less studied. This dissertation discusses such high-profile projects as the TSR.2 and F.111, prospective VTOL aircraft and not least the CVA-01 fleet carrier, but most of all it focuses on the issue of military strategy. The rivalry between the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force was largely about the questions of carrier aviation versus land-based air power – and which strategic option would best answer the British need to maintain influence as the garrisons were being scaled down. The Royal Navy argued for replacement fleet carriers for their mobile seaborne strategy, while the Royal Air Force argued that land-based air power would be as effective and far less costly. By using this underlying strategic debate as the framework for understanding more specific debates on aircraft, ships and weapon systems, this dissertation aims to bring new light to our understanding of the dramatic restructuring and altered priorities these two military services saw during the 1960s. The story may be divided into three broad periods: From 1960 until mid 1963, it was a conceptual debate on ‘Carrier Task Forces’ and a concrete alternative ‘Island Strategy’. This ended in July 1963 with a Cabinet decision in favour of new fleet carriers. However, the Royal Air Force and the Treasury kept fighting this decision. Their continued resistance, together with the new Labour Government with Denis Healey as Secretary of State for Defence, changed the decision of 1963. The highpoint of the debate on carrier aviation and land-based air power came during 1965-66, ending with the decision of February 1966 to cancel the CVA-01 and gradually phase out the existing carrier fleet. Denis Healey then used the arguments for land-based air power as a rationale for the decision. The dissertation rounds off with a discussion of the planned phase-out of the existing carrier fleet. However, the story saw a different end than planned, as new strategic challenges in home waters came about and the evolving VTOL Harrier aircraft and the ‘through-deck cruisers’ gave new possibilities. This is a historical study of the British debate about maritime air power and strategic alternatives in the 1960s. However, the detailed story and arguments used for and against both alternatives should clearly have relevance to any conceptual debates on carrier and land-based air power.

This thesis reconstructs and explains the arms relationship that successive U.S. administrations developed with the Shah of Iran between 1950 and 1979. This relationship has generally been neglected in the extant literature leading to a series of omissions and distortions in the historical record. By detailing how and why Iran transitioned from a low order military aid recipient in the 1950s to America’s primary military credit customer in the late 1960s and 1970s, this thesis provides a detailed and original contribution to the understanding of a key Cold War episode. By drawing on extensive declassified archival records, the investigation demonstrates the not only the importance of the arms relationship but also how it reflected, and contributed to, the wider evolution of U.S.-­‐ Iranian relations from a position of Iranian client state dependency to a situation where the U.S. became heavily leveraged to the Shah for protection of the Gulf and beyond -­‐ until the policy met its disastrous end in 1979 as an antithetical regime took power in Iran.

This thesis examines the role of the Northern Department of the British Foreign Office and its perception of, and attitude towards, the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1953. In these formative years after World War II many assumptions and policies were shaped that proved decisive for years to come. The Northern Department of the Foreign Office was at the centre of British dealings with the Soviet Union after 1945 in an atmosphere of cooling diplomatic relations between both camps. Keeping channels of communications open in order to exploit every opportunity for negotiation and the settlement of post-war issues, officials built up an extensive expertise of Soviet domestic and foreign policy. Their focus on all aspects of Soviet life accessible to them, for example, Soviet domestic and international propaganda, revealed in their view a significant emerging future threat to British interests in Europe and worldwide. This view provided the basis of the analysis of new information and the assessment of the best possible policy options for the British government. The Northern Department tried to exploit those traits of Soviet policy that could persuade the USA and Western Europe to follow British foreign policy initiatives vis-à-vis the Soviet Union in the early Cold War while attempting to balance those weaknesses that could harm this effort. The focus of the Department often varied as a result of Soviet action. Some issues, like the Cominform were of momentary importance while other issues, like the Communist threat and the issue of Western European defence remained on the agenda for many years. A realistic approach to foreign policy allowed officials to exploit and counter-act those Soviet foreign policies seen as most threatening to Britain and those most likely to aid Britain’s recovery of her much desired world role. While the initial optimism after 1945 soon faded and consolidation on both sides was followed by confrontation, officials in London and the embassy in Moscow tried to maintain diplomatic relations to aid Western recovery efforts and support the new foreign policy doctrine of containment. When by the early 1950s entrenchment was speeding up in East and West, the Northern Department nevertheless utilised the available information to support British foreign policy worldwide as well as strengthen the domestic effort to explain the increasing international tension to the British people. Realism on the part of officials, and awareness of the information and options available to them meant that a Britain closely allied to the USA but one that continued to talk to the Kremlin was seen as the best way to achieve a continued world role for Britain and a safe Europe.

This thesis investigates UK-US relations with regard to the South Asian Crisis of 1971. Through a focus on an understudied point of disagreement within the relationship between Prime Minister Edward Heath and President Richard Nixon, the thesis sheds further light on Anglo-American relations in the early 1970s. Through analysis of archival documents on both sides of the Atlantic, this thesis contributes to the growing revisionist literature that has moved away from a focus upon Heath’s pro-Europeanism as the cause of problems in the Anglo-American relationship at the time. Rather, a more nuanced approach that also investigates the impact of the secretive foreign policymaking style of the Nixon White House is taken into account. The thesis reveals the issues in communication and differences of interests that, in December 1971, led the UK and US delegations at the UN Security Council to tacitly advocate for opposite sides of a hot war in South Asia. The thesis assesses the effect that these heated disagreements had upon the Anglo-American relationship going into 1972 and 1973.

No description available.

This study used an oral history (OH) and reminiscence work (RW) approach to explore childhood memories of Merseyside, England, United Kingdom, in the period following the Second World War. Interviews were conducted with ten volunteers between 60 and 70 years of age from communities across Merseyside, collecting unique reminiscences. The researcher used a qualitative research approach to obtain and analyse the findings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on a one-to-one basis and findings were analysed thematically according to emergent themes. Firstly, the interview transcripts were analysed to identify the social conditions which impacted on childhood experiences. Then, the researcher created a Memory Tree Model (MTM) and revisited the same participants to focus on the reflective aspect of the reminiscence process itself; thus, each participant was interviewed twice, allowing adequate scope for reflection. The researcher wrote a series of memoir chapters to present and discuss the research findings in a way that captured the essence of childhood and adequately represented the impact of reminiscence. This thesis explores the social conditions of childhood during the post war years in Merseyside and in doing so has prompted the researcher to develop a tool to support the reminiscence process. Overall, the participants found the experience to be a positive one, with therapeutic benefits, even when recalling negative memories. The majority of the participants (n=9) found the Memory Tree Model and reflective reminiscence work interview easier and more supportive than the open-microphone oral history interview. Each of the participants continued to reminisce in the months between the first and second phase of interviews and had started to engage in reminiscence with their families. The results were linked to the research and practice outcomes of a heuristic model of reminiscence to explain the impact that reminiscence had on those who took part. In theorising the use of both an oral history and reminiscence work approach, this thesis informs others working with reminiscences, in better understanding the impact on those who are engaging in this type of research. It also demonstrates an understanding of the relationship between social research and community engagement. The researcher was given the opportunity to disseminate the findings in a public forum via an exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool Life (MLL); this established that both OH and RW can be a positive experience for participants and enrich the wider community. Recommendations for future practice include increasing access to public reminiscence workshops, enabling people of all ages to benefit from its qualities. This would be an enriching practice in society, not only facilitating the process of reminiscing, but also bridging gaps between generations and cultures, building networks and bringing communities closer together. The research contributes to the body of knowledge by providing insight into the social conditions of childhood in post-war Merseyside through a set of unique and candid childhood memories. The researcher achieved this by opting to use a multi-method participatory approach for gathering the research findings; a pictorial tool was created and used to support the participants in this process. Furthermore, a collaborative approach fostered community engagement in the form of an interactive museum event which provided a platform for public engagement and additional memory sharing.

During World War II, agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) infiltrated into Japanese-occupied Malaya. They worked with Malayan guerrilla groups, including the communist-sponsored Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). The MPAJA is regarded as the precursor of the communist insurgent army of the Malayan Emergency, and has been examined from that perspective, but its relationship with SOE and with other Malayan guerrilla groups remains poorly understood. Using SOE and related sources as a route into the Malayan interior during a pivotal period, this thesis traces the development of SOE’s Malayan operations, before analysing the interactions between SOE and the various guerrilla groups, and their relationships with each other. It explores the extent of Malay disillusionment with Japanese rule, and demonstrates how guerrilla service acted as a nursery for some later Malay leaders of the independent nation. Furthermore, it contributes to our knowledge of wartime Malaya by revealing the existence of a proto-state in northern Malaya ruled by guerrillas allied to the Chinese Nationalist Party. The destruction of this proto-state by the MPAJA, coupled with the communists’ acquisition of jungle-fighting weapons from SOE and their actions during the lawless period following the Japanese surrender, provides clear insights into the long-term ambitions of the Malayan Communist Party. However, the reports written about the MPAJA by SOE operatives just after the war failed to draw out the likely future threat posed by the communists to the returning colonial administration, foreshadowing the intelligence failure in the lead-up to the Malayan Emergency. In both cases, the British possessed a wealth of local information, but failed to catalyse it into active intelligence. This thesis leads us to re-assess the impact of SOE on Malayan politics, to reconsider the nature of Malayan communism’s challenge to colonial rule, and to rethink British post-war intelligence in Malaya.

This study addresses the history of the static holiday caravan site in Britain. Commercial holiday camps, such as Butlin’s and Warner’s, have been seen by many to be the epitome of UK post-war working-class holiday making. But despite some shared characteristics and developmental roots, it is argued that static caravan sites were and are essentially a separate phenomenon, and this study analyses how they quickly became a significant and substantial aspect of post-war domestic tourism. This study also demonstrates that unlike commercial holiday camps, they spawned organically as a result of the agency of the post-war working-class, who were empowered by a growing sense of confidence, assertion and economic security, against the vision of the state-approved holiday camp model. Arising as they did as an affordable and more individualistic alternative (despite strict planning legislation that in its formulation had no concept of their future development), it is shown that static caravan sites continued to develop (with the benefit of key legislation) in a way that was not in many respects typical of other aspects of UK domestic tourism in the second half of the twentieth century, but did reflect wider patterns of working-class consumerism. This study also argues that as a major aspect of domestic tourism, static caravan parks did not follow the well-documented pattern of decline experienced by many domestic resorts and holiday forms, but exhibited a distinct tendency to adapt and change in a way that allowed manufacturers and parks to offer an up-to-date and enticing product in times of economic growth as well as times of recession. This has resulted in the static holiday caravan park becoming a significant aspect of British domestic holiday making.

This thesis examines the experiences and political subjectivity of women who engaged in workplace protest in Britain between 1968 and 1985. The study covers a period that has been identified with the ‘zenith’ of trade-union militancy in British labour history. The women’s liberation movement also emerged in this period, which produced a shift in public debates about gender roles and relations in the home and the workplace. Women’s trade union membership increased dramatically and trade unions increasingly committed themselves to supporting ‘women’s issues’. Industrial disputes involving working-class women have frequently been cited as evidence of women’s growing participation in the labour movement. However, the voices and experiences of female workers who engaged in workplace protest remain largely unexplored. This thesis addresses this space through an original analysis of the 1968 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford, Dagenham; the 1976 equal pay strike at Trico, Brentford; the 1972 Sexton shoe factory occupation in Fakenham, Norfolk; the 1981 Lee Jeans factory occupation in Greenock, Inverclyde and the 1984-1985 sewing-machinists’ strike at Ford Dagenham. Drawing upon a combination of oral history and written sources, this study contributes a fresh understanding of the relationship between feminism, workplace activism and trade unionism during the years 1968-1985. In every dispute considered in this thesis, women’s behaviour was perceived by observers as novel, ‘historic’ or extraordinary. But the women did not think of themselves as extraordinary, and rather understood their behaviour as a legitimate and justified response to their everyday experiences of gender and class antagonism. The industrial disputes analysed in this thesis show that women’s workplace militancy was not simply a direct response to women’s heightened presence in trade unions. The women involved in these disputes were more likely to understand their experiences of workplace activism as an expression of the economic, social and subjective value of their work. Whilst they did not adopt a feminist identity or associate their action with the WLM, they spoke about themselves and their motivations in a manner that emphasised feminist values of equality, autonomy and self-worth.