Frank Thistlethwaite

The Citadel and the Caravan: Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century

MOST Englishmen at the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies find themselves, usually to their surprise, interpreting Americans to Europeans. In some respects Scandinavia may be nearer the United States; but the Janus-faced British, in their Atlantic islands, are the key to American relations with western Europe, and to an Atlantic community. By Atlantic community, I take it we mean a shared culture as opposed to the mutual interest of an Atlantic alliance against external threat. NATO has failed to generate an effective sense of common cultural inheritance. Some very brave young Hungarians, on the fringes of the western world, have reminded us that nationalism and religious tradition are still the most powerful challenge to alien tyranny. And the revival by the British of the forceful methods of nineteenth-century diplomacy once again defines the limits of extra-national collaboration. We should pay solemn tribute to these facts; and relearn the lesson that national societies are the ultimate entities of culture. Otherwise we, as well as the Russians, build on sand. As far as Anglo-American relations are concerned, politeness, sentimentality and complacence have led to an almost total breakdown in communication. The cliches of a common language, the common law, and representative institutions, excite no more than a perfunctory response. The common language, if by language we mean true communication, hardly exists. The story of civil liberties, from Sacco and Vanzetti to McCarthy, has convinced many English people that the spirit of the English common law has evaporated in this country. Although a Member of Parliament