Book Reviews : Survey of International Affairs, 1962, D. C. Watt. Documents on International Affairs, 1962. Selected and edited by D. C. Watt with the assistance of James Mayall and Cornelia Navari. Published for Chatham House by the Oxford University Press. £4.50 and £11
| Date | 01 December 1971 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711787100301214 |
| Published date | 01 December 1971 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
1033
extenuating
circumstances,
and
these
are
effectually
summed
up
in
the
pertinent
title
of
Miss
Barker’s
book.
As
a
one-time
expert
on
the
affairs
of
the
Balkans
(during
the
war
she
had
directed
the
Balkans
section
of
P.W.E.)
the
author
is
singularly
qualified
to
remind
us
that
the
Six
are
not
’Europe’;
that
too
much
attention
has
been
concentrated
on
Brussels
as
a
magnetic
centre;
and
that
throughout
the
period
developments
in
the
eastern
half
of
Europe
were -
and had
to
be - the
constant
preoccupation
of
British
Governments:
that,
in
short,
the
most
difficult
problem,
and
one
in
which
Britain
got
scant
help
from
the
United
States
was
to
keep
open
East-West
communications.
First,
there
was
the
rearguard
action
which
Attlee
and
Bevin
had
to
fight - when
the
Soviet
Union
sought
to
shut
the
West
out
of
Eastern
Europe
and
at
the
same
time
to
keep
the
right
to
intervene
in
Western
Europe.
Then,
from
about
1955,
when
the
second
prong
of
this
policy
was
to
all
intents
and
purposes
abandoned,
it
became
a
question
of
endless
patience,
of
settling
for
a
long
hard
slog,
which
has
now
at
last
reaped
its
reward
-
Sir
Alec
and
the
present
’little
local
difficulty’
notwithstand-
ing !
-in
Willy
Brandt’s
Ostpolitik
and
the
wary
preparations
for
a
Euro-
pean
Security
Conference.
Russian
proposals
for
such
a
Conference,
we
are
reminded
here,
date
back
to
1954.
But
the
great
change
in
the
intervening
period,
and
which
now
makes
it
a
viable
proposition,
has
been
in
the
conditions
and
the
attitudes
of the
East
European
satellite
States,
which
have
all
in
varying
degrees
regained
consciousness
of
their
national
identities
and,
specifically
in
the
case
of
Yugoslavia,
Romania
and
Hungary,
are
no
longer
disposed
to
accept
without
challenge
Russian
he.’3:emony.
Miss
Barker’s
book
is
admirably
structured.
Part
I
gauges
the
effects
of
the
way
things
happened
in
World
War
II
on
Britain’s
post-war
policies;
Part
II
shows
in
what
those
policies
consisted;
Part
III
analyses
the
main
issues
of
the
fifties;
and
Part
IV
takes
us
on
to
the
end
of
1969
and
the
Presidency
of
Georges
Pompidou.
The
author
is
going
over
familiar
ground
and
offers
no
startling
conclusions;
but,
throughout,
she
skilfully
maintains
the
balance
in
her
account
of
the
evolution
of
East
and
West
Europe.
W.
HORSFALL
CARTER.
Survey
of
International
Affairs,
1962,
D.
C.
Watt.
Documents
on
International
Affairs,
1962.
Selected
and
edited
by
D.
C.
Watt
with
the
assistance
of
James
Mayall
and
Cornelia
Navari.
Published
for
Chatham
House
by
the
Oxford
University
Press.
£4.50
and
£11.
The
current
volume
in
this
series,
with
its
accompanying
documenta-
tion
running
to
938
pages,
covers
the
year
1962.
But,
as
the
editor
acknowledges
in his
brief
foreword,
the
division
of
events
into
calendar
years
is
entirely
arbitrary
since
it
is
impossible
to
confine
the
genesis
and
implications
of
almost
any
given
event
to
a
particular
twelve-month
period.
Therefore
&dquo;Its
time
scale
stretches
from
varying
dates
in
1961
to
the
end
of
January
1963,
the
month
which
saw
the
final
wind-up
of
what,
in
this
editor’s
view,
was
the
most
outstanding
success
of
the
Kennedy
regime,
the
crisis
over
Berlin
and
the
stationing
of
Soviet
missiles
in
Cuba,
and
the
total
collapse
and
defeat
of
the
Kennedy
administration’s
policy
towards
Europe
at
the
hands
of
President
de
Gaulle&dquo;
who
was
implacably
opposed
both
to
a
further
extension
of
Anglo-American
economic
penetration
into
Europe
and
to
a
situation
which
meant
that
the
fate
of
Europe
lay
with
the
American
monopoly
of
nuclear
weapons.
Hence
the
failure
of
the
first
British
attempt
to
gain
entry
to
the
E.E.C.
The
work
is
divided
into
three
Sections.
Part
I
deals
with
the
Great
Powers
Conflict
and
Failure
(pp.
3-328);
Part
II
with
the
Great
Powers
and
the
Third
World
(pp.
339-438);
and
Part
III
with
The
Sub-Systems
of
the
Third
World
(pp.
465-509).
The
emphasis
is
throughout
on
the
pre-eminent
role
of
the
United
States
and
the
Soviet
Union,
the
super-Powers
which
then
dominated
the
international
field,
and
their
mutual
rivalries.
The
scene
was
enlivened
by
the
ebullience
and
unpredictability
of
Mr.
Khrushchev,
of
whom
Professor
John
Erickson,
dealing
with
the
Sino-
Soviet
crisis,
writes
&dquo;At
the
22nd
Congress
of
the
CPSU
in
October
1961
Mr.
Khrushchev
set
out
to
move
whole
mountains,
the
customary
reliance
on
faith
being
replaced
by
a
remarkable,
even
foolhardy,
trust
in
the
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