The Sword and the Shield

Britain, America, NATO and Nuclear Weapons, 1970-1976

Kristan Stoddart

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780230300934
• eBook ISBN: 9781137313508
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Kristan Stoddart reveals for the first time discussions that took place between the British, French and US governments for nuclear cooperation in the early to mid 1970s. In doing so it sets the scene for the upgrade to Britain's Polaris force codenamed Chevaline and how this could have brought down Harold Wilson's Labour government of 1974-1976.

1

The Heath Government, France, and the Not So Special Relationship, 1970–1974

When Edward Heath came to power in June 1970 he was looking for a fresh start for Britain’s nuclear policy.¹ As long ago as 1966 he had publicly advocated a pooling of effort between France and Britain in the nuclear field. He has been described as ‘an autocratic Prime Minister, intolerant of dissenting advice and rigid in his ways’.² In a series of lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1967 (the Godkin Lectures), Heath had called for ‘a nuclear force based on the existing British and French forces which could be held in trusteeship for Europe as a whole’.³ In his considered view, this pooling of effort would form the basis of ‘an eventual European defence system’.⁴ Two years later, in an issue of the international journal Foreign Affairs, he expanded on this proposal by calling on the:

non-nuclear countries of Europe ... [to join] with Britain and France in a Consultative Committee which would have exactly the same relationship to the Joint Anglo-French Deterrent as the so-called McNamara Committee [this became the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG)] has to the U.S. deterrent ... A scheme of this kind would not in any sense be anti-American; indeed because of the provisions of the various British agreements with the U.S. in this field it could not be implemented without American support.⁵

Heath continued:

The U.S. under different administrations has shown remarkable far-sightedness in being willing to make concessions of its immediate interests in order to further the creation of a European unity ... Equally there is little argument in Britain about British membership of the Alliances to which she now belongs, and in particular of the importance of the connexion with the United States. Here again much of the rhetoric of the past has vanished, leaving behind a realisation that a special relationship does not mean special privileges.⁶

Pointedly, Heath added that:

It means a recognition that the two countries still hold interests in common across the world to an extent which goes well beyond the normal dealing between friendly states and peoples. This relationship will continue to the extent, and only to the extent, that each country contributes effectively to the furthering of those common interests.⁷

When Heath arrived in office in 1970 the ‘Special Relationship’ between the United States and Great Britain was on the wane. Under Harold Wilson’s Labour government there had been some high-profile disagreements over foreign and defence policy, particularly over the lack of British endorsement of US policies in Vietnam. More specifically, Labour’s indecision over how to improve Polaris to combat Soviet ABMs and its termination of new nuclear weapon development had led to a drying up of the bipartisan sharing of nuclear information established through the 1958 Anglo-American Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA).

In parallel, France’s withdrawal from NATO’s integrated military structure in 1966 had made it more difficult to find solutions to some key military and political dilemmas confronting the UK and the alliance. These included how to give other NATO members an input into what had been strictly US–UK bilateral arrangements, both for the development of nuclear weapons systems and C³I (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence) arrangements for the use of nuclear weapons. Membership of NATO remained the cornerstone of British defence policy, intra-alliance politics mattered greatly, and the ‘special nuclear relationship’ was the fulcrum for its contribution to NATO’s force structure and strategy, but also an ongoing cause of intra-alliance friction.

Heath had played a major role in the attempt in 1963 by the previous Conservative government of Harold Macmillan to join the European Economic Community (EEC), and he continued to regard membership as a priority political and economic objective for the UK. This was in line with a broader movement of British policy towards closer European integration in the years following the French rejection of Britain’s applications, both then and again in 1967.⁸ The 1963 veto by De Gaulle following the Nassau Agreement suggested to many analysts that the future price of entry would include closer collaboration with France on nuclear weapons. Peter Carrington, who served in Heath’s government as Defence Secretary, recalled Heath as having a ‘vision and sense of history’ and found him both courageous and able, although also ‘abrasive’ and ‘autocratic’.⁹ Peter Hennessy evocatively records that too many people saw him as ‘a rigid, humourless Easter-Island-statue of a politician’ with, conversely, twin passions for sailing and music.¹⁰

The vision and sense of history Carrington saw were aimed at producing a renewed sense of commonality with Europe, particularly France and West Germany, through a visible loosening of Britain’s dependence on the United States; his autocracy was shown by his decision to maintain close personal control over the government’s nuclear weapons policy.¹¹ When Anglo-American nuclear collaboration had been restored in 1958, it had been described by Harold Macmillan as ‘The Great Prize.’¹² Macmillan had been a strong advocate of close political ties with America. Heath, by contrast, was an equally active advocate of a relative loosening of the bonds that tied Britain and America together in defence and foreign policy: bonds that Churchill and his successors had forged and maintained, particularly under Macmillan.

Yet the need to improve Polaris, and in the process lay the groundwork for its eventual replacement, was for many politicians, senior civil servants, and military leaders an overriding priority if the deterrent was to remain both survivable and credible. As the national strategic deterrent, it represented the last line of British defence. It was also a unique UK military contribution to the NATO alliance, as well as demonstrating the strength of British commitment to the defence of the West, and was part of the price both main UK political parties felt was required to keep a seat at the top table of nations.

Nuclear cooperation and entry into the EEC

An integral part of Heath’s political vision was that the ‘Special Relationship’ should not hinder Britain’s proposed entry into the EEC for a third time. He also wanted to see Britain reclaim more room for manoeuvre in its foreign and defence policy, and a nuclear rapprochement with France suited these wider political and economic aspirations. When Pompidou’s government lifted the French veto on UK entry at the Hague Summit in 1969, the door was once again open for a renewed application to the EEC.¹³ With President de Gaulle now out of office in France and with Richard Nixon having replaced Lyndon Johnson as US President, some in the new Heath administration regarded it as a favourable time for change. Heath had warm relations with Nixon throughout his premiership, but in his first official visit to Washington prior to Christmas 1970 spoke not of a ‘special relationship’ but of a ‘natural relationship’.¹⁴

However well-intentioned and sincere Heath’s wider European vision was, he soon became aware of just how closely bound to the United States the British nuclear programme had become, and the difficulties his proposals presented. This dependency was starkly indicated by a 1972 memorandum by the Ministry of Defence, which stated that ‘without US technical data and spares support, the UK force could cease to become effective in a matter of months’.¹⁵

Under Harold Macmillan, Britain had abandoned its own programme for a fully independent nuclear deterrent in favour of using the American Polaris delivery system. Macmillan believed that a fully independent deterrent was no longer in the country’s best interests, and instead Britain would evolve an interdependent, bilateral relationship with the United States. Both countries increasingly came to share information, and the Americans gave Britain privileged access to US resources, including, among other things, nuclear testing data, flight trials, vulnerability assessments on missiles and warheads, and intelligence on Soviet nuclear weapons programmes.¹⁶ The US also provided Britain with a considerable amount of information on the bilateral Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) which had started in 1969.¹⁷

Britain in return, despite devoting far less resources proportionally, was able to offer the United States its own data from a range of high-level research, much of which related to the vulnerability of the Polaris missile and its warheads to Soviet ABMs. This included the effects of X-rays, radar blackout of Soviet ABMs, and re-entry system data.¹⁸ The research and development programmes of the various UK nuclear establishments were well regarded by their US counterparts.¹⁹ Britain had tested a fission device at the Hurricane trials in 1952, and the thermonuclear tests in 1957 and 1958 (codenamed Grapple) confirmed Britain as an independent nuclear power. These tests had been accomplished without American assistance.²⁰

France, by contrast, had first exploded a fission device in 1960, and it was 1968 before it produced a successful thermonuclear design (possibly following UK ‘negative guidance’²¹) after testing a successful device in the atolls of the Pacific.²² However, successfully testing a nuclear device was only the first step to turning it into a weapon capable of being delivered by either bomb or missile. In particular, France had problems obtaining a delivery system capable of reaching the Soviet Union from bases in France, eventually having to rely on an American offer to purchase KC-135 tanker aircraft to refuel their Mirage IV bombers in-flight, which might have meant refuelling over Hungary (i.e. over Warsaw Pact territory).²³

The British were at least five years ahead of the French²⁴ and had extensive experience of both warhead design and a range of tried and tested delivery methods, including small free-fall bombs with variable yields and stand-off missiles. Data on these was of great interest to the French, as it would save them considerable time and expenditure. So, too, would information on re-entry systems and penetration aids capable of defeating Soviet ABMs. However, due to the agreements with the United States, any bilateral arrangement with France would have to be fully endorsed by the Nixon administration. This was due to the fact that the British had ‘no information of wholly and demonstrably British origin in this area’.²⁵ Also, the British appear to have initially interpreted their obligation under Article I.2 of the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) to refrain from ‘causing, encouraging, or in any way participating in, the carrying out of any nuclear test explosion’ as preventing exchanges of nuclear weapon information with the French, unless they ceased atmospheric testing (and they showed no signs of doing this).²⁶

Soon after Heath came into office in June 1970, discussions began at ministerial level regarding possible collaboration with the French on various aspects of nuclear weapons. Even at this early stage, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) was concerned that any policy statements by the Prime Minister similar to those delivered at Harvard should not offend the Americans. The FCO was eager to indicate to the Americans that there would be consultation before any discussions would begin, in order to safeguard the information and assistance the British were continuing to receive from the US. This was in line with assurances made by Harold Wilson and President Nixon at their meeting at Mildenhall in 1969, prior to the five-year extension of the 1958 MDA.²⁷ However, apparently unknown to the UK, France was also in a dialogue with the US at this time over nuclear issues, and this triangular relationship was to play a considerable role in subsequent Anglo-French and Anglo-American dialogues.

The US and requests for nuclea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  The Heath Government, France, and the Not So Special Relationship, 19701974
• 2  The Special Nuclear Relationship under Heath, 19701974
• 3  Britain, NATOs Evolving Military Doctrine, and Its Nuclear Planning Group: The Balance between the Sword and the Shield, 19701974
• 4  National Strategy and Multilateral Priorities: British Tactical Nuclear Operations, 19701974
• 5  The Last Wilson Governments and Strategic Nuclear Deterrence, 19741976
• 6  Nuclear Testing and the Practicalities of Moving Chevaline to Completion, 19741976
• 7  Britain, America, and NATO Modernisation, 19741976
• 8  Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Operational Employment, and Conventional Defence, 19741976
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index