"This study re-examines the relationship between Britain and the United States on the question of the Italian colonies from 1945 to 1952 and its contribution to the onset of the Cold War. New insights are provided into the Soviet and American initiatives and the British response on this first test of postwar great power cooperation at the London and Paris Council of Foreign Ministers in 1945-6. There is a reassessment of British and American policies on the Italian colonies between July 1946 and September 1948, as a result of the crisis in the eastern Mediterranean and Europe. There is a reappraisal of the process by which British and US officials eventually reached agreement on this question and its relation to the passing of the UN resolutions on Libyan independence, Italian trusteeship of Somalia and the federation of Eritrea with Ethiopia. There are also new revelations about how Britain and the US finally secured strategic facilities in Libya and Eritrea. "--BOOK JACKET.