Robert William Seton-Watson - Second World War

Second World War

As a long-established partisan of Czechoslovakia, Seton-Watson was naturally a firm opponent of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. In Britain and the Dictators: A Survey of Post-War British Policy (1938), he made one of the most devastating attacks on this policy. After Chamberlain's resignation, Seton-Watson held posts in the Foreign Research and Press Service (1939-1940) and Political Intelligence Bureau of the Foreign Office (1940-1942). However he had little influence on policy, partly because he did not have the access to decision makers that he had during the First World War, and partly because he was not allowed to publish his writings.