Macmillan, Eisenhower and the Cold War

When Harold Macmillan became prime minister in 1957 he promised to restore Britain’s pride after the humiliations of the Suez crisis. ‘The British people’, he declared, ‘would never accept the position of a second rate power.’ No one seemed better equipped for the task. The first prime minister to master the sound bites and photo opportunities of the television age, Macmillan had a penchant for the dramatic and flamboyant. During the Second World War, he had been dazzled by the summits between Churchill and Roosevelt – ‘the emperor of the east and the emperor of the west’. Macmillan now set out to follow in their footsteps as a latterday emperor. This important book follows Macmillan on his Churchillian quest, from the theatrical ‘voyage of discovery’ to Moscow, via the U2 crisis, to the acrimony of the 1960 Paris summit.