The Second World War: The Anglo-American Alliance

The wartime alliance between Britain and the United States was for many years viewed through the vision Winston Churchill presented of it in his memoirs of the Second World War, published between 1948 and 1954 at the time of the joining of the Cold War and the revival of the Anglo-American special relationship in what many statesmen considered its close and effective partnership, apparently evidenced during the Second World War. Churchill’s memoirs reflect perhaps more the desired state of the Anglo-American relationship during the Cold War than what it was actually like between 1940 and 1945. In public, in the postwar era, Churchill spoke of the relationship in terms of a cultural unity shown by the English Speaking peoples, of this being the natural force for the peace and order of the world. Often he included the old ‘White’ Dominions in this grouping. It was this alliance which was seen as being the only one able to stand up to the Soviet menace.