When the Conservatives returned to power, the new chancellor Rab Butler would get the balance of payments back into surplus in 1952 by cutting overseas spending, a measure which Dell suggests Gaitskell had not wanted to irritate the Americans by taking. In his memoirs ("Art of the Possible", p. 163) Butler later called him "a political mouse who, confronted with a gigantic deterioration in the balance of payments, responded by cutting a sliver off the cheese ration". After the Conservatives cut the armament plans in 1952 Crosland told people that Gaitskell had made him look like "a complete idiot" for supporting the budget in public. However, even by the end of 1951 there was less likelihood of the Korean War turning into a general war (the front line had stabilised, with the US administration being clear that they did not wish to escalate hostilities against China), so any government might have pared back defence spending in 1952.