The Year that Never Was

Catherine Hynes’s monograph, adapted from her PhD dissertation, presents one of the first forays based on documentary evidence into the intriguing diplomacy of the relationship between the USA, Britain, and the newly enlarged European Community (EC). Hynes’s book, based primarily on British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Prime Ministers’ files (PREM) documents from the British National Archives, and also including some interesting glimpses from the British Treasury and the American National Security Council files, charts the development of Anglo-American relations from Edward Heath taking office in June 1970 until Henry Kissinger’s Year of Europe initiative had breathed its last in 1974. Hynes’s main focus is on Heath’s policies towards the USA and the EC. Chapter 1 establishes that Heath favoured British relations with the EC to the traditional ‘special relationship’, and demonstrates that Heath refused to participate as the Americans proposed a multilateral summit meeting to deal with the worsening international monetary climate in October 1971. Chapter 2 deals with the Bermuda summit, and demonstrates the difficulties the British perceived in President Richard Nixon’s and Kissinger’s private styles of diplomacy. Chapter 3 talks about potential divergences between the USA and Europe as they vied as to whether to link defence, finance, and trade issues

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