Anthony Eden in the context of "Harold Macmillan"

Appeasement, in an international context, is a diplomatic negotiation policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power with intention to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy between 1935 and 1939 of the British governments of Prime Ministers Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and most notably Neville Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Under British pressure, appeasement of Nazism and Fascism also played a role in French foreign policy of the period but was always much less popular there than in the United Kingdom.

In the early 1930s, appeasing concessions were widely seen as desirable because of the anti-war reaction to the trauma of World War I (1914–1918), second thoughts about the perceived vindictive treatment by some of Germany in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and a perception that fascism was a useful form of anti-communism. However, by the time of the Munich Agreement, which was concluded on 30 September 1938 between Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, the policy was opposed by the Labour Party and by a few Conservative dissenters such as future Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for War Duff Cooper, and future Prime Minister Anthony Eden. Appeasement was strongly supported by the British upper class, including royalty, big business (based in the City of London), the House of Lords, and media such as the BBC and The Times. However, it would be mistaken to say that the policy was not similarly supported amongst the working and middle classes as well, who were not enthusiastic about another war until popular opinion changed following events like Kristallnacht and Hitler’s invasion of rump Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939, and that at the time of Munich elite endorsement rang in concordance with popular opinion.

The Potsdam Conference (German: Potsdamer Konferenz) was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from 17 July to 2 August 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They were represented respectively by General Secretary Joseph Stalin, prime ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. They gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had agreed to an unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier. The goals of the conference also included establishing the postwar order, solving issues on the peace treaty, and countering the effects of the war.

The foreign ministers and aides played key roles: Vyacheslav Molotov, Anthony Eden and Ernest Bevin, and James F. Byrnes. From 17 July to 25 July, nine meetings were held, when the Conference was interrupted for two days, as the results of the British general election were announced. By 28 July, Attlee had defeated Churchill and replaced him as Britain's representative, with Britain's new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ernest Bevin, replacing Anthony Eden. Four days of further discussion followed. During the conference, there were meetings of the three heads of government with their foreign secretaries, as well as meetings of only the foreign secretaries. Committees that were appointed by the latter for precursory consideration of questions before the conference also met daily. During the Conference, Truman was secretly informed that the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb on 16 July had been successful. He hinted to Stalin that the U.S. was about to use a new kind of weapon against the Japanese. Though this was the first time the Soviets had been officially given information about the atomic bomb, Stalin was already aware of the bomb project, having learned about it through espionage long before.

The Churchill war ministry was the United Kingdom's unity coalition government for most of the Second World War from 10 May 1940 to 23 May 1945. It was led by Winston Churchill, who was appointed prime minister of the United Kingdom by King George VI following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in the aftermath of the Norway Debate.

At the outset, Churchill formed a five-man war cabinet which included Chamberlain as Lord President of the Council, Clement Attlee as Lord Privy Seal and later as Deputy Prime Minister, Viscount Halifax as Foreign Secretary, and Arthur Greenwood as a minister without portfolio. Although the original war cabinet was limited to five members, in practice they were augmented by the service chiefs and ministers who attended the majority of meetings. The cabinet changed in size and membership as the war progressed but there were significant additions later in 1940 when it was increased to eight after Churchill, Attlee, and Greenwood were joined by Ernest Bevin as Minister of Labour and National Service; Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary, replacing Halifax who was sent to Washington as Ambassador to the United States; Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production; Sir Kingsley Wood as Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Sir John Anderson as Lord President of the Council, replacing Chamberlain who died in November (Anderson later became chancellor following Wood's death in September 1943).

The formation of the European Advisory Commission (EAC) was agreed on at the Moscow Conference on 30 October 1943 between the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Anthony Eden, the United States, Cordell Hull, and the Soviet Union, Vyacheslav Molotov, and confirmed at the Tehran Conference in November. In anticipation of the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies this commission was to study the postwar political problems in Europe and make recommendation to the three governments, including the surrender of the European enemy states and the machinery of its fulfillment. After the EAC completed its task it was dissolved at the Potsdam Conference in August 1945.

The Geneva Summit of 1955 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. Held on July 18, 1955, it was a meeting of "The Big Four": President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Britain, Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Edgar Faure of France. They were accompanied by the foreign ministers of the four powers (who were also members of the Council of Foreign Ministers): John Foster Dulles, Harold Macmillan, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Antoine Pinay. Also in attendance was Nikita Khrushchev, de facto leader of the Soviet Union.

This was the first such meeting since the Potsdam Conference ten years earlier.

Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath also served for 51 years as a Member of Parliament from 1950 to 2001. Outside politics, Heath was a yachtsman, a musician, and an author.

Born in Broadstairs, Kent, Heath was the son of a chambermaid and carpenter. He attended Chatham House Grammar School in Ramsgate, Kent, and became a leader within student politics while studying at Balliol College at the University of Oxford. During World War II, Heath served as an officer in the Royal Artillery. He worked briefly in the Civil Service, but resigned in order to stand for Parliament, and was elected for Bexley at the 1950 election. He was promoted to become Chief Whip by Anthony Eden in 1955, and in 1959 was appointed to the Cabinet by Harold Macmillan as Minister of Labour. He later held the role of Lord Privy Seal and in 1963, was made President of the Board of Trade by Alec Douglas-Home. After the Conservatives were defeated at the 1964 election, Heath was elected as Leader of the Conservative Party in 1965, becoming Leader of the Opposition. Although he led the Conservatives to a landslide defeat at the 1966 election, he remained in the leadership, and at the 1970 election led his party to an unexpected victory.

Field Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer (11 September 1898 – 25 October 1979) was a senior British Army officer. He fought in both the world wars and was involved in the British response to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. As Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the professional head of the British Army between 1955 and 1958, Templer was Prime Minister Anthony Eden's chief military adviser during the Suez Crisis. He is also credited as a founder of the United Kingdom's National Army Museum.

Templer is best known for implementing strategies that heavily contributed to the defeat of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) during the Malayan Emergency. Some historians have described his methods as a successful example of a "hearts and minds" campaign, while other scholars have dismissed this as a myth due to his over-reliance on population control and coercion. Templer also oversaw, ordered, and personally approved of many controversial policies and numerous atrocities committed by his troops. These including the use of internment camps called "New Villages", the forced relocation of ethnic minorities, forced conscription, collective punishment against civilians, the hiring of specialist Iban-headhunters to decapitate suspected communists, pioneering the use of Agent Orange (later used in Vietnam), and the use of scorched earth policies deprive the MNLA of resources.

Hans Wild (1912–1969) was a British photographer who worked for Life magazine from 1938 to 1946. Some of his best known work appeared on the cover of Life including a photo of historian Charles Seltman in 1943 and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill while painting with an easel in 1946.

Wild became a professional photographer at 24 years old in 1936, and worked for Life in various capacities in the United States, England, France and Italy. He took numerous photos documenting World War II, as well as portraits of famous people including John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Vivien Leigh, Mary Welsh Hemingway, Bing Crosby, actress Pat Kirkwood, the painter Thomas Hart Benton, E. V. Knox editor of Punch, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Rupert Neve, fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, Laurence Olivier, Daphne du Maurier, C. S. Lewis, Alexander Fleming, Chinese Ambassador Guo Taiqi, Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, Benjamin Britten, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and American diplomats Jefferson Caffery and Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr., Louis II, Prince of Monaco with Ghislaine Dommanget and Rainier III, Robert Anthony Eden, David Lloyd George, Thomas Beecham.