[Ads-l] Antedating of "Special Relationship" (U.S.-U.K.)

[Shapiro, Fred]

special relationship (OED, U.S.-U.K. relationship, 1945)

Wikipedia has the following antedating information about the specific subsense of the U.S.- U.K. alliance.  Wikipedia footnotes the 1944 citation: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 35: 113-133.

Fred Shapiro

Churchill's mother<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Randolph_Churchill> was a US citizen, and he keenly felt the links between the two English-speaking peoples. He first used the term "special relationship" on 16 February 1944, when he said it was his "deepest conviction that unless Britain and the United States are joined in a special relationship... another destructive war will come to pass".[26]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship#cite_note-26> He used it again in 1945 to describe not the Anglo–American relationship alone but Britain's relationship with both the Americans and the Canadians<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_relations>.[27]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship#cite_note-Special_relationship-27> The New York Times Herald quoted Churchill in November 1945:
We should not abandon our special relationship with the United States and Canada about the atomic bomb and we should aid the United States to guard this weapon as a sacred trust for the maintenance of peace.[27]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship#cite_note-Special_relationship-27>
Churchill used the phrase again a year later, at the onset of the Cold War<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War>, this time to note the special relationship between the US and the English-speaking nations<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglosphere> of the British Commonwealth<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Commonwealth> and the Empire<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire>. The occasion was his "Sinews of Peace<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinews_of_Peace> Address", delivered in Fulton, Missouri<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton,_Missouri>, on 5 March 1946:
Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organization will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples... a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States. Fraternal association requires not only the growing friendship and mutual understanding between our two vast but kindred systems of society, but the continuance of the intimate relationship between our military advisers, leading to common study of potential dangers, the similarity of weapons and manuals of instructions, and to the interchange of officers and cadets at technical colleges. It should carry with it the continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all Naval and Air Force bases in the possession of either country all over the world. There is however an important question we must ask ourselves. Would a special relationship between the United States and the British Commonwealth be inconsistent with our over-riding loyalties to the World Organisation? I reply that, on the contrary, it is probably the only means by which that organisation will achieve its full stature and strength.


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