Who was the British war time prime minister?

Answer 1

There were several PM's who were in office during the Cold War, not just one- you have to remember that the Cold War went on for 46 years, from 1945 to '91!

The first Cold War Premier was Labour MP Clement Attlee, who was in office at the end of WW2 in the Far East and during the Berlin Airlift, as well as during the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948. He signed Britain into NATO membership and presided over it's inclusion in the United Nations security Council.

He was voted out in the 1950 General election and replaced by Winston Churchill, who returned to office as a peacetime leader. He was in office during the Korean War and sent some British military support to help the Americans. However, although he served his full term, he resigned from politics at the election of 1955 due to failing mental health.

He was replaced by his Chancellor, Anthony Eden- Eden effectively CAUSED one of the most dangerous episodes of the Cold War in '56 by instigating the Suez Crisis. The military leader of Egypt, Colonel Nasser, did not think it fair that the Suez Canal should be used by International Shipping free of charge, and believed that the shipping companies should pay a toll fee for use of it. He thus closed the Canal to all maritime traffic unless they paid to pass through it. Eden was enraged, and sent a british invasion force in to sieze the Canal Zone by force, hoping to bring it under international control. He had some support from Israel, but the Soviet Union then threatened to intervene to support Egypt if the fighting escalated- this would have obliged all NATO countries to support Britain, and would probably have resulted in WW3. The US president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, talked Eden into withdrawing from Suez, saying that Eden risked plunging the world into nuclear holocaust and also stating that the USA would find it very difficult to support the UK if the Russians did get involved.

Eden resigned in disgrace in January '57 and was replaced by his Chancellor, Harold MacMillan. He was in office when the Soviet Union was ahead in the 'space race' and during the Berlin and Cuba Crises of '61 and '62, and was responsible largely for resolving the latter, as US President John F. Kennedy was an inexperienced leader and being dominated by hardline Pentagon Generals. He relied heavily upon MacMillan's advice about what to do. The two leaders signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in Nassau the following year, which eased international tensions considerably.

MacMillan resigned in October '63 due to a wrong diagnosis of terminal cancer (in fact, he lived for another 23 years!!) and was replaced by his Chancellor, Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Douglas-Home was Prime Minister when Kennedy was assassinated, but lost the General Election of '64 to Labour leader Harold Wilson.

Wilson was Prime Minister during the first part of the Vietnam War, and sent a small contingent of non-combatant RAF personnel to assist the Americans in planning war strategy. He was also in office during the Arab-Israeli Six Day War of 1967, although this never seriously threatened to become more than a regional conflict, and during the first American lunar landings in July 1969.

He was voted out in the General Election of 1970 and replaced by the Conservative leader, Edward Heath. He was in office during another dangerous Cold War crisis, the Middle Eastern Yom Kippur War of October 1973 when Egypt and Syria launched a joint attack on Israel to try and regain the land lost to them six years earlier. This was never in the same league as Cuba or Suez, but threatened to become so for a while when the USSR threatened to intervene and the Nixon Administration declared a nuclear alert in response, and international tensions were very high for about a week. He also took Britain into the EEC, and was in office during the latter years of the Vietnam conflict.

He was voted out after calling an early election in April '74, and Harold Wilson returned once again as Labour Prime Minister. He was in office when Richard Nixon resigned over Watergate, and also when Turkey invaded Cyprus in July '74. This, again, was never more than a regional conflict, but could have become more dangerous if Britain (which has two huge military bases on the island) had become involved in support of the Greeks and the Soviet Union had sought to take advantage of the situation. He was also in office when the Vietnam War finally ended.

Wilson resigned due to ill-health in early April '76 and was replaced by his Chancellor, James Callaghan. He was in power when the Iranian Revolution began in early '79, but was voted out in the May General Election to be replaced by Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first (and only) female Prime Minister.

Thatcher's role in the Cold War was considerable- she was a close ally of US President Ronald Reagan, and presided over one of the most dangerous periods of the Cold War in the early 1980s. She stood by Reagan during the general increase in tension between the Superpowers during this time, allowed the United States to base Cruise missiles at American air bases in England, and generally permitted the UK to be used as a gigantic 'aircraft carrier' by the US military. This meant that if war had broken out, Britain would have been far more of a target by the USSR than it would have been previously, and to some cynical Pentagon Chiefs of Staff this was precisely the idea, to reduce the extent to which the USA would be targeted (although Reagan himself genuinely believed that the policy was helping to protect the UK). Thatcher was in power during the Falklands War, when the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina in April 1982, and sent a massive military taskforce to liberate them from Argentine rule. She was also in office during the 'Able Archer' crisis of November 1983, which was another one of the Cold war's most dangerous moments- NATO countries conducted a huge military communications and command & control excercise to test their defences in the event of Soviet invasion, but The Kremlin thought that this was a cover for a REAL pre-emptive strike against the USSR, and placed it's forces in Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany on high alert, also recalling all it's Western Embassy staff after they had destroyed confidential documents. The excercise ended before matters got any worse, but Reagan was horrified upon learning that the Soviet Union had thought it was the 'real thing'. At the time, the whole crisis was kept secret, and the Western public was in blisssful ignorance of it until the saga emerged 10 years later.

Thatcher took to President Mikhail Gorbachev when he came to office in March 1985, delcaring him to be a man that 'the West can do buisness with'. At the Rejkjavik Summit in Iceland in '86, she urged Reagan to accept Gorbachev's offer of a cut in all nuclear forces by a third in return for Reagan abandoning his 'star wars' project, but Reagan refused.

Thatcher was in office when the 'Velvet Revolution' took place across Eastern Europe in late 1989; the Berlin Wall came down, and most former Warsaw Pact countries overthrew Communist rule. She was also in power when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, but resigned in November of that year due to domestic unpopularity.

She was replaced by her Chancellor, John Major. He saw the Uk through the Gulf War in early 1991, and was in office during the failed coup against Gorbachev in August that year which resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the year. He was the last Cold War Prime Minister.

All the above leaders are now dead with the exception of Thatcher and Major- Thatcher is 87 years old now and has dementia, so is rarely seen in public.

Answer 2

Harold Wilson (Labour) and Edward Heath (Conservative) were both Prime Minister during the Vietnam War.

Although Harold Wilson vocally supported the war in Vietnam, gaining much ire from the British Public, privately he told American President Lyndon Johnson that Britain would not send British troops to Vietnam and did not buckle under increasing pressure from the US.

Edward Heath followed Wilson's position and did not send British Troops to Vietnam, despite his friendly relationship with Richard Nixon.

For Britain, there was a more pressing issue than the Vietnam War - there was escalating violence in Northern Ireland and Britain would not be able to afford having troops in both Vietnam and Northern Ireland.

Answer 3

Sir Winston Churchill. One of the greatest wartime leaders ever, he served King George VI.

Answer 4

It depends on which war you are referring to.

Answer 5

Winston Churchill from 1951 to 1955.