Wilson and Washington continued, He. aspires to mediate between President Johnson and his European allies, to be the inventor of a formula of reconciliation that will render everyone content, preserving and re-inforcing NATO, The same fundamental Situation explains the other striking aspect of Labour' foreign polisy: the extraordinary emphasis upon the United Nations, as the key to world peace and disarmament, The real powers in the world know that UNO is a battlefield. But the British are compelled to shut their eyes and pretend it is something more: their own weakness is sublimated in the mystical vision of UNO as the perfect, neutral resolver of international problems, The Rationalization of Innerialien.
The particular British problems which Wilson carried to Washington can be briefly described. Firstly, the disposal of the British nuclear force, to which Labour is pledged in some form or other, Secondly, the need for a radical reduction in military costs in order to relieve Britain's economic crisis and help the re-organization of British capitalism,
In other words, the Labour government affirms itself as the principal agent ir that world-wide "rationalization" of capitalist forces desired by the Americans; and in return asks for a less exacting role, a role more commensurate with its means, within. this more rational system. This was the essence of the Washington talks,
No accord could possibly emerge from them, no definite results with a clear label on them, The reform of NATO and the rationalization of imperialism are enormous tasks, requiring hundreds of negotiations across many years; and Britain's particular problems - quite secondary in relation to the grand perspectives of American action - will have to be fitted into this develonins process where it is possible to do so. Wilson cannot insist on their solution, or unon anything else; he can only ask, putting "the British point of view" and seeking for each small possibility of action in the interstices of American hegemony.
Some idea of what the process - and so the Washington talks really signifies can easily be obtained by glanding at the situatian in South-East Asia. Immediately before Wilson's departure a story exploded in the British press. President Johnson was going to ask for British participation in the war in Viet-Nam! The stories embroidered on the theme can be imagined: alarm, horror, doubt, indignation were everywhere, But why did it occur to the Americans to make suth an impossible request, a request which they must have known Wilson could not agree to, given his tiny parliamentary majority and the certainty of intense opposition within his party ? Almost certainly, because they knew a refusal was inevitable. A British refusal to touch Viet-Nam makes it much easier for them to refuse to touch the Malaysia-Indonesia conflict - they obviously suspected that Britain would ask for more support in the fight against Indonesia, in order to reduce her military costs. From the American point of view, Indonesia is the country that really counts, and they want to nothing which would permanently