most cases, to serve themselves, except in an advisory capacity, they filled their chief
fiefs with their younger associates. In most cases, these were recruited from All Souls,
but occasionally they were obtained elsewhere.
We have already indicated how the Research and Press Department of Chatham
House was made into the Research and Intelligence Department bf the Foreign Office, at
first unofficially and then officially. This was dominated by Lionel Curtis and Arnold
Toynbee, the latter as director of the department for the whole period 1939-1946. Others
who were associated with this activity were B. H. Sumner (Warden of All Souls), C. A.
Macartney, A. E. Zimmern, J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, and most of the paid staff from
Chatham House. Zimmern was deputy director in 1943-1945, and Wheeler-Bennett was
deputy director in 1945.
Of even greater significance was the gathering of Milner Group members and their
recruits in Washington. The Group had based most of their foreign policy since 1920 on
the hope of "closer union" with the United States, and they realized that American
intervention in the war was absolutely essential to insure a British victory. Accordingly,
more than a dozen members of the Group were in Washington during the war, seeking to
carry on this policy.
Lord Lothian was named Ambassador to the United States as soon as the war began. It
was felt that his long acquaintance with the country and the personal connections built up
during almost fifteen years as Rhodes Secretary more than counteracted his intimate
relationship with the notorious Cliveden Set, especially as this latter relationship was
unknown to most Americans. On Lothian's unexpected and lamented death in December
1940, the position in Washington was considered to be of such crucial importance that
Lord Halifax was shifted to the vacant post from the Foreign Office. He retained his
position in the War Cabinet. Thus the post at Washington was raised to a position which
no foreign legation had ever had before. Lord Halifax continued to hold the post until
1946, a year after the war was actually finished. During most of the period, he was
surrounded by members of the Milner Group, chiefly Fellows of All Souls, so that it was
almost impossible to turn around in the British Embassy without running into a member
of that select academic circle. The most important of these were Lord Brand, Harold
Butler, and Arthur Salter.
Lord Brand was in America from March 1941 to May 1946, as head of the British
Food Mission for three years and as representative of the British Treasury for two years.
He was also chairman of the British Supply Council in North America in 1942 and again
in 1945-1946. He did not resign his position as managing director of Lazard Brothers
until May 1944. Closely associated with Brand was his protege, Adam D. Marris, son of
Sir William Marris of the Kindergarten, who was employed at Lazard Brothers from
1929 to the outbreak of war, then spent a brief period in the Ministry of Economic
Warfare in London. In 1940 he came to the Embassy in Washington, originally as First
Secretary, later as Counselor. After the war he was, for six months, secretary general of
the Emergency Economic Committee for Europe. In February 1946 he returned to Lazard
Brothers.
Harold Butler (Sir Harold since 1946) came to Washington in 1942 with the rank of
minister. He stayed for four years, being chiefly concerned with public relations. Sir
Arthur Salter, who married a Washington lady in 1940, came to America in 1941 as head
of the British Merchant Shipping Mission. He stayed until UNRRA was set up early in
1944, when he joined the new organization as Senior Deputy Director General. A year
later he joined the Cabinet as Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster. Sir Arthur was well
qualified as a shipping expert, having been engaged intermittently in government
shipping problems since he left Brasenose College in 1904. His close personal relations
with Lord Halifax went back to an even earlier period, when they both were students at
Oxford.
Among the lesser persons who came to Washington during the war, we should
mention four members of All Souls: I. Berlin, J. G. Foster, R. M. Makins, and J. H. A.
Sparrow. Isaiah Berlin, one of the newer recruits to the Milner Group, made his way into
this select circle by winning a Fellowship to All Souls in 1932, the year after he
graduated from Corpus Christi. Through this connection, he became a close friend of Mr.
and Mrs. H. A. L. Fisher and has been a Fellow and Tutor of New College since 1938. In
1941 he came to New York to work with J. W. Wheeler-Bennett in the Ministry of
Information's American branch but stayed for no more than a year. In 1942 he became
First Secretary in the Embassy in Washington, a position but recently vacated by Adam
Marris. After the war he went for a brief period of four months to a similar post in the
British Embassy in Moscow. In 1949 he came to Harvard University as visiting lecturer
on Russia.