The initial stages of my research were funded by the Research Foundation of the State University of New York, for which I am grateful, as I am, in greater measure, to the State University of New York at Buffalo for sabbatical leaves which enabled me to pursue the research and writing of this book. Among debts incurred while in the United Kingdom, I am pleased to acknowledge the co-operation of the staff of the Public Record Office, then housed in Chancery Lane under daunting conditions; I trust that the removal of the Cabinet records to Kew has eased their burdens. In Cambridge, the staff of the Churchill College Archives Centre provided a full measure of support, as did the director, A. J. P. Taylor, and his able associates at the Beaverbrook Library in London. The authorities of the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library and of the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, bore with my inquiries for a shorter period of time but with the same consideration. I would like also to acknowledge the assistance given me by the University Library, Cambridge; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the University of Birmingham Library; the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; and the Library of the London School of Economics. In a different, but no less important, vein I am indebted to the continuing hospitality shown me on my sojourns in London by Val and Elizabeth Lewthwaite.