In Churchill, Roosevelt and India, Auriol Weigold has produced a detailed diplomatic history of a little-known episode in Britain's propaganda strategy during World War II. Unlike many other accounts of the period, Weigold, does not concentrate on the overt propaganda battles with Nazi Germany or in the Far East, but, instead, uncovers an intricate series of encounters between Britain and her closest ally, the United States. At the heart of these encounters were the issues of colonialism and Britain's Indian Empire, while the ‘prize’, according to Weigold, was “the support of President Roosevelt and American public opinion for maintaining the status quo in India” (p. 2). In the context of wartime and late-imperial geopolitics this was a significant diplomatic ambition, and one that invites critical academic attention.

America had, by 1941, a longstanding interest in the political future of India and the British Empire. President Wilson (1913–21) had condemned the European culture of imperialism as central to the geopolitical tensions that sparked the Great War: “people and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were chattels or pawns in a game, even the great game”, Wilson declared in 1918 (p. 21). Roosevelt closely identified with his Democratic forbear's principles and sentiments, and sought to enshrine them in the Anglo-American ‘Atlantic Charter’ of 1941. As Weigold explains, Clauses ‘3’ and ‘4’ (which talked of self-determination being extended to oppressed countries), in particular, sparked speculation in London and New Delhi about India's future within the Empire. But US interest in India was not solely rooted in democratic and/or anti-imperial ideology. The Lend-Lease Act, published in March 1941, recognised that India's defence was vital to the strategic interests of the United States, and strongly implied that direct US-Indian diplomatic relations should be strengthened, to the potential exclusion of the Churchill government in London.

As Weigold recognises, it would not be until 1942 – following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' formal entry into the war – that the ‘threat’ of American intervention in the Indian subcontinent became an inescapably ‘live’ issue for Churchill and his India Committee. Roosevelt's advisors had persistently “raised and reraised the matter of self-government for India” and had forewarned the British Government of the possibility of “intervention in its Empire” (pp. 38–39). The British Prime Minister was, it is argued, left with little room for political manoeuvre; his options limited to (a) the introduction of a package of reforms to meet the demands of the Indian Congress, or, (b) stepping up the propaganda campaign in the United States in order to convince the American public that India was not yet fit for self-government. Churchill elected for the second option, confident that his high standing with the American press and public would – to use modern media vocabulary – come to dominate the ‘news cycle’ and stifle anti-British comment. But Churchill also knew that reform negotiations had to be seen to be held and, as Weigold goes on to explore, the ill-fated Cripps' Mission of late-March 1942 was as much an initiative in political propaganda as it was a legitimate attempt to satisfy the demands of the Indian independence movement.

Weigold's book is formed into eight chapters, each connected by a broadly (although not strictly) chronological narrative that leads us from the ‘Genesis of the Propaganda Game’ (Chapter One) to the reception of that propaganda within the United States (Chapter Seven). In between, there are detailed chapters on the ‘reasons’ for British propaganda (Chapter Two), the ‘evolution’ of the propaganda campaign (Chapter Three) and the ‘preparations’ for propaganda (Chapter Four), while Chapter Five is a consideration of how the United States formalised its representation to (and information gathering from) India. Chapter Eight sits somewhat outside the established structure by considering the intricate diplomatic and propaganda-related discussions prompted by the ‘Quit India’ movement in mid-1942. Each chapter is packed with diplomatic nuance, and gives an almost ‘real-time’ sense of the negotiations and stand-offs that beset Anglo-American relations over the issue of continued British rule in the Indian subcontinent. It is in the careful reconstruction of these discussions, debates and encounters that Weigold really flourishes, with an eye for detail and an impressive grasp of primary sources drawn from archives in Britain, the United States and India. Newspaper reports and personal correspondence are interwoven with policy documents and published diaries. These are, in turn, set alongside a range of secondary literatures, drawn mainly from diplomatic history and, what might be termed, ‘propaganda studies’.

Chapter Four, which explores the development of British propaganda infrastructure in the United State, is undoubtedly the most successful single component of the book. As Weigold explains, the British propaganda effort was under the direct control of the British Information Service (BIS), which, in turn, fell under the purview of the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax (formerly Viceroy off India) and the delightfully named Ronald Tree. During the early years of the war, the BIS had developed a wide range of media ‘assets’ in the US. By March 1942, there were some nine hundred radio stations and thirty-two ‘commentators’ presumed sympathetic to the British view on India, heard by an estimated 46 million people on any one night (p. 74). Such was the apparent success of British propaganda, the American press was, in general, “loud in its praise of British sincerity” and “critical of Indian intransigence” (p. 78). Even the most staunchly anti-imperial newspapers in the United States carried editorials critical of the Indian nationalists. Despite this detail, much more could be said here (and throughout) about the role of radio in Britain's propaganda effort. It is also surprising that Nicholas Cull's excellent Selling War (2005), which deals with the issue of British ‘propaganda’ aimed at the United States between 1939–41, receives no mention.

The book is not without problems. Most seriously, there is a striking gap between the ambition and scope implicit in the title and the somewhat different achievement that unfolds between the covers. While Weigold does unquestionably deal with the issue of ‘propaganda during World War II’, the book's real achievement is in using the specific events of 1942 – in particular the Quit India campaigns and the diplomatic mission by Sir Stafford Cripps – to explore the British Government's deployment of both traditional diplomatic channels and new forms of ‘public diplomacy’ to achieve their strategic aims within the United States. It is clear that neither approach was attempted in isolation. Rather, the Churchill government reached out to the American population – via British and American broadcasting networks and newspapers – to ferment public approval for their formal diplomatic initiatives in Delhi and Washington DC (and disapproval for the Indian nationalist campaign). Given the rise of, so called, ‘smart power’ in the lingua franca of International Relations scholarship since 2004, it is surprising that Weigold did not seize this opportunity to additionally examine the events of 1942 from this nuanced and potentially enlightening perspective.

There are also some more minor issues concerning the book, including the occasional typographical error, missing and/or incomplete references in the endnotes and bibliography. This latter point is well made on p. 62: Weigold quotes K.C. Sharma, the former Director-General of All India Radio (AIR), who goes unmentioned in the bibliography. More problematically, though, Sharma's comments about the BBC's projection of the “seamy side” of India – used by Weigold in reference to the period between 1939–45 – are, in reality, directed towards the “post-freedom period” (Sharma, 1994: 82). None of these small faults detract however from the achievement of this work, which will appeal to anyone interested in Anglo-American relations between 1939–45, and scholars of international relations, communications and propaganda. Weigold's eye for detail should also ensure that this book is a key reference for those interested in the Cripps' Mission of 1942, and its wider diplomatic context and implications.