Antelope, Poseidon or a Hybrid: The Upgrading of the British Strategic Nuclear Deterrent, 1970–1974

Abstract

It is the purpose of this article to illustrate how the British government reached its decision to upgrade the Polaris strategic nuclear deterrent in 1973. Using British and American documentation it is demonstrated that the strategic imperatives for upgrading Polaris were fundamental to the project. Existing accounts of the Polaris Improvement Project, however, have not given the appropriate attention to the wider US–UK political differences in this period. By doing so it is shown how in addition to the wider economic, strategic and political factors, this was of paramount significance in the Heath government opting for the ‘Super Antelope’ method in upgrading Polaris.1

Key Words:

• Nuclear Weapons
• Nixon
• Kissinger
• Heath
• Anglo-American

Notes

¹‘Super Antelope’ was the codename for the upgrade of Polaris. This was eventually changed to ‘Chevaline’. Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (Oxford: OUP 2007), 28–9.

²See Andrew Pierre, Nuclear Politics: The British Experience with an Independent Strategic Force 1939–1970 (London: OUP 1972); John Baylis, Anglo-American Defence Relations 1939–1980: The Special Relationship (London: Macmillan 1981); John Simpson, The Independent Nuclear State: The United States, Britain and the Military Atom (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan 1983); Timothy J. Botti, The Long Wait: Forging the Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance, 1945–1958 (London: Greenwood Press 1987); Jan Melissen, The Struggle for Nuclear Partnership: Britain, the United States and the Making of an Ambiguous Alliance, 1952–1959 (Groningen, Neth.: Styx 1993); Ian Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship: Britain's Deterrent and America, 1957–1962 (Oxford: OUP 1994); G. Wyn Rees, Anglo-American Approaches to Alliance Security, 1955–1960 (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan 1996); Stephen Twigge and Len Scott, Planning Armageddon: Britain, the United States and the Command of Western Nuclear Forces, 1945–1964 (Amsterdam: Harwood 2000); John Baylis, ‘Exchanging Nuclear Secrets: Laying the Foundations of the Anglo-American Nuclear Relationship’, Diplomatic History 25/1 (Winter 2001), 33–61; Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3rd ed. (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2003); Andrew Priest, Kennedy, Johnson and NATO: Britain, American and the Dynamics of Alliance, 1962–68 (London: Routledge 2006).

³Lawrence Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan 1980); Peter Hennessy, Muddling Through: Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Postwar Britain (London: Victor Gollancz 1996), 99–129; John Baylis and Kristan Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project: The Hidden Nuclear Programme’, Journal of Strategic Studies 26/4 (Dec. 2003), 124–55; John Baylis, ‘British Nuclear Doctrine: The “Moscow Criterion” and the Polaris Improvement Programme’, Contemporary British History, 19/1 (2005), 53–65; John Dumbrell, A Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations from the Cold War to Iraq (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2006), 179–81.

⁴By ‘Moscow Criterion’ it is meant that Britain had the independent ability to destroy the Soviet Union's capital with a sufficiently high probability. This was deemed necessary in order to deter Soviet aggression as destroying the capital city would likely make a centrally commanded state like the Soviet Union cease to function. Moreover, a British independent ability was required to guard against the possibility of the United States nuclear deterrent being ‘de-coupled’ from Europe. For previous historians who have suggested the ‘Moscow Criterion’ was the foundation of British strategic nuclear policy and more detailed explanation, see Lawrence Freedman, ‘British Nuclear Targeting’, in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson (eds), Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1986), 121–3, Hennessy, Muddling Through, 119–20, Baylis, ‘The “Moscow Criterion”’, 57–8.

⁵The sub-Cabinet discussions and the advice proffered to the Prime Minister which called for the maintenance of the ‘Moscow Criterion’ can be viewed in the following, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, UK (hereafter TNA), PREM 15/1359, Lord Carrington to Prime Minister, 15 May 1972; TNA, DEFE 13/752, ‘UK Strategic Nuclear Force Short Term Working Party’, 1 June 1972; TNA, PREM 15/1359, ‘Annex A’, attached to Robert Armstrong to Robert Andrew, 15 April 1972; TNA, DEFE 13/752, C [Lord Carrington] to the Prime Minister, 11 April 1972; TNA, DEFE 13/752, ‘Questions related to the Effectiveness of the UK Nuclear Deterrent’, attached to Louis [unreadable] to Sir Stewart Crawford, 16 May 1972; PREM 15/1359 Burke Trend to the Prime Minister, 10 Nov. 1972; TNA, PREM 15/1359, ‘Extract from Note of a Meeting of Ministers’, 14 Nov. 1972. The only dissenting voice was that of Solly Zuckerman, the former Chief Scientific Adviser. See TNA, PREM 15/1361, Solly Zuckerman to the Prime Minister, 16 Feb. 1972. On Heath's relationship with his officials and Cabinet colleagues, see Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon, The Powers behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence of Number Ten (London: HarperCollins 1999), 77–8.

⁶Poseidon, a fully Multiple Independently Re-Targetable (MIRV) system, along with ‘Option M’ a de-MIRVed Poseidon fitted with the Super Antelope warhead, were the main contenders. For further discussion see: Graham Spinardi, From Polaris to Trident: The Development of US Fleet Ballistic Missile Technology (Cambridge: CUP 1994), 86–163.

⁷Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 46–51; Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 135; Niklas H. Rossbach, Heath, Nixon and the Rebirth of the Special Relationship: Britain, the US and the EC, 1969–74 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2009), 118–21.

⁸On the ‘Year of Europe’ see, Catherine Hynes, The Year That Never Was: Heath, The Nixon Administration and the Year of Europe (Dublin: Univ. College Dublin Press 2009); Keith Hamilton, ‘Britain, France and America's Year of Europe, 1973’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 17/4 (2006), 871–95.

⁹Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 50; Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’.

¹⁰The United States had announced publicly in 1966 that the Soviet Union had begun to deploy an ABM system, designated as ‘Galosh’, around its major cities. The Soviets had earlier deployed an ABM system codenamed ‘Griffon’ since 1962 but Western intelligence had wrongly designated ‘Griffon’ as a Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) system. The US responded with its own announcement in Sept. 1967 to deploy an ABM system. See, Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 127.

¹¹Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland, USA (hereafter NPMP), ‘NSSM–123: US-UK Nuclear Relations, Analytical Summary’, undated, National Security Council Institutional (H) Files (hereafter NSCIHF), Study Memorandums, Box H-182.

¹²Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 128–33; Hennessy, Cabinet and the Bomb, 27–9.

¹³See TNA, PREM 15/1359, ‘Atomic Artificer’, 16 July 1970.

¹⁴It appears from US documentation that the Pentagon had already notified its agreement to the British before a Presidential decision had been reached. Thus a negative answer would entail the possibility of British accusations of the US going back on its word. NPMP, ‘National Security Study Memorandum’, Henry A. Kissinger to the Secretary of State et al., undated (c. July 1971), NSCIHF, Study Memorandums, Box H-182, See NPMP, ‘Memorandum for Mr Kissinger from Helmut Sonnenfeldt’, 10 July 1971, NSCIHF, Study Memorandums, Box H-182; NPMP, ‘Memorandum for Mr Henry A. Kissinger from Theodore L. Eliot’, 9 July 1971, ibid.

¹⁵Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 338, 391–7; Raymond Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, rev. ed. (Washington DC: Brookings Institute 1994), 175–7. See the National Security Archive, Washington DC, briefing book on the creation of the ABM Treaty here, <www.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB60/index.html>, accessed 12 Sept. 2009.

¹⁶For an example of such thinking, see TNA, CAB 164/936 GEN (70), ‘International Aspects of Nuclear Defence Policy: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, Report to Ministers’, 29 June 1970.

¹⁷See TNA, PREM 15/1361 PMV (BER)(71)9, ‘Brief by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Nuclear Matters’, undated; TNA, PREM 15/1361, Burke Trend to the Prime Minister, 14 Dec. 1971.

¹⁸Gerard Smith, DoubleTalk: The Story of SALT I (New York: Doubleday 1980), 200–79.

¹⁹Jussi Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (Oxford: OUP 2004), 17–31; Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (London: Little Brown 1979), 24–48.

²⁰NPMP, ‘Memorandum for the President from Henry A. Kissinger’, undated (c. July 1971), NSCIHF, Study Memorandums, Box H-182.

²¹NPMP, ‘Memorandum for the President's Files from Brigadier General A.M. Haig’, 10 Aug. 1971, White House Special Files, President's Office Files, Memoranda for the President, Box 85. See also Richard Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (London: Sidgwick 1978), 415–18, Nicholas Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan and the History of the Cold War (New York: Henry Holt 2009), 230–6.

²²Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, 213–23.

²³In 1974 the number was reduced by half. The United States never deployed its ABM site. See Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 391–7.

²⁴Nixon, Memoirs of Richard Nixon, 617.

²⁵This is especially so given some assessments the Americans received as to the likelihood of an American ABM system actually working. Bell Laboratories who were assigned the task of building the ‘Safeguard’ ABM system notified the Nixon administration that they believed it was unworkable. See NPMP, Memo for Dr Kissinger from Laurence E. Lynn, 14 April 1970, NSCF, ABM/MIRV, Box 841.

²⁶NPMP, ‘Report of the United States Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks’, 16 Feb. 1972, NSCF, SALT, Box 882; TNA, CAB 164/937, V.H.B. Macklen to C.M. Rose, 8 June 1971.

²⁷Jeremy Stocker, The United Kingdom and Nuclear Deterrence, Adelphi Paper 386 (London: Routledge for IISS Feb. 2007), Ch. 1 ‘A Nuclear Legacy’, 19.

²⁸US and UK officials have differed drastically on the capability of Soviet ABMs and their potential to prevent Polaris from hitting the Soviet capital. See, NPMP, ‘Intelligence Brief by the Director of Intelligence and Research [CIA]’, attached to Ray S. Cline to Dr Henry Kissinger, 26 March 1971, Mandatory Review Opening 2007, Temporary Box 17; NPMP, ‘Intelligence Brief’, attached to Ray S. Cline to Henry Kissinger, 26 March 1971, Mandatory Review Opening 2007, Temporary Box 22; NPMP, ‘Intelligence Brief’, attached to Ray S. Cline to Henry Kissinger, 26 March 1971, Mandatory Review Opening 2007, Temporary Box 22; NPMP, ‘National Security Study Memorandum’, Henry A. Kissinger to Secretary of State et al., undated (c. April 1971); NSCIHF, Study Memorandums, Box H-182, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland, USA (hereafter NAII), ‘Memorandum of Conversation’, 4 June, 1970, RG 59 General Records of the Department of State, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–73, Political and Defense, Box 2650; NPMP, ‘Memorandum for Dr Kissinger from Walter B. Slocombe’, 6 March 1970, NSCF, ABM-MIRV, Box 841; NPMP, ‘ABM Definition: By the Office of Secretary of Defense’, 16 March 1970, Mandatory Review Opening 2007, Temporary Box 17; NPMP, ‘Memorandum for Dr Kissinger from K. Wayne Smith’, 18 March 1971, Mandatory Review Opening 2007, Temporary Box 4; NPMP, ‘Memorandum for the President from Melvin Laird’, 9 March 1971, NSCF, SALT, Box 880; NPMP, ‘Intelligence Brief’, attached to Ray S. Cline to Henry Kissinger, 26 March 1971, Mandatory Review Opening 2007, Temporary Box 22.

²⁹Baylis, “Moscow Criterion”, 59, Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 44–5.

³⁰See footnote 6.

³¹Hybrid was given the codename of ‘Stag’. British officials often intermixed between the two names when discussing the Polaris upgrade.

³²For a fuller discussion on the various options available, see Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 128–31.

³³TNA, PREM 15/1359, Lord Carrington to the Prime Minister, 6 Nov. 1972.

³⁴Ibid.

³⁵TNA, PREM 15/1359, ‘Extract from Note of a Meeting of Ministers’, 14 Nov. 1972.

³⁶Ibid. On Carrington's influential role in the Heath government, see Kavanagh and Seldon, The Powers behind the Prime Minister, 77–8.

³⁷TNA, PREM 15/1359, ‘Record of a Discussion’, 1 Feb. 1973.

³⁸See TNA, PREM 15/1359, ‘Summary Record of a Conversation between HM Ambassador and Dr Kissinger’, 1 March 1973; PREM 15/1359, Lord Carrington to the Prime Minister, 21 Feb. 1973.

³⁹On the ‘Year of Europe’, see Hynes, Year That Never Was; Hamilton, ‘Britain, France and America's Year of Europe, 1973’, 871–95.

⁴⁰TNA, FCO 59/931, Rowley Cromer to Denis Greenhill, 19 Jan. 1973; TNA, FCO 59/930, ‘Draft Brief’, attached to Private Secretary to Lord Bridges, undated (c. Jan. 1973); TNA, CAB 164/1234, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Prime Minister, 18 June 1973.

⁴¹TNA, PREM 15/1359, Sir Burke Trend to the Prime Minister, 5 March 1973; TNA, DEFE 13/1038, W.F. Mumford to Secretary of State [Carrington], 11 June 1973.

⁴²TNA, PREM 15/1359, Sir Burke Trend to the Prime Minister, 5 March 1973.

⁴³TNA, PREM 15/1359, R.J. Andrew to Sir Burke Trend, 14 March 1973.

⁴⁴Hynes, Year that Never Was, 100–40.

⁴⁵TNA, DEFE 13/1038, ‘Improvement of the Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: Memorandum by the Ministry of Defence’, undated (c. July 1973).

⁴⁶Baylis, “Moscow Criterion”, 59; Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 44–5; Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 135.

⁴⁷UK Poseidon was projected to cost twice the amount of Option M. Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 49. On the wider economic difficulties, see Alec Cairncross, ‘The Heath Government and the British Economy’, in Stuart Ball and Anthony Seldon (eds), The Heath Government 1970–1974: A Reappraisal (London: Longman 1996), 107–38.

⁴⁸Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 135.

⁴⁹See TNA, PREM 15/1360 C.M. Rose to Cromer, within Douglas-Home to Washington DC, 9 July 1973. This point should not be overblown however. The Chiefs of Staff for instance believed that UK Poseidon would fulfil the ‘Moscow Criterion’ against any contingency in Soviet ABM development. Also the Royal Navy was still keen to purchase Poseidon so as to keep uniformity with the US Navy, see Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 135.

⁵⁰TNA, PREM 15/1360, ‘Notes of a Meeting held in the Pentagon’, 29 Aug. 1973.

⁵¹On Watergate, see Fred Emery, Watergate: The Corruption and Fall of Richard Nixon (London: Jonathan Cape 1994).

⁵²Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 46–51; Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 134–5; Rossbach, Rebirth of the Special Relationship, 114–21.

⁵³On Nixon's relationship with Congress, see Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (London: Allen Lane 2007), 457–8.

⁵⁴See TNA, PREM 15/1360, EH [Edward Heath] to Lord Bridges, 10 June 1973.

⁵⁵TNA, PREM 15/1360, Sykes to Sir Burke Trend, 28 June 1973; TNA, PREM 15/1360, Sir Burke Trend to the Prime Minister, 11 June 1973.

⁵⁶Alistair Horne, Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year (New York: Simon & Schuster 2009), 89–105; Hanhimäki, Flawed Architect, 332; Stanley Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (New York: Norton 1990), 405–6.

⁵⁷TNA, PREM 15/1359, Lord Carrington to the Prime Minister, 21 Feb. 1973.

⁵⁸TNA, PREM 15/1360, Cromer to Burke Trend, 1 July 1973.

⁵⁹TNA, PREM 15/2038, C [Lord Carrington] to the Prime Minister, 10 Sept. 1973.

⁶⁰TNA, PREM 15/1360, Sir Burke Trend to the Prime Minister, 13 July 1973.

⁶¹Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 130.

⁶²Memorandum of Conversation, 3 Sept. 1973: File: Sept. 3, 1973 Kissinger, Schlesinger, National Security Adviser Memoranda of Conversations, Box 2, GFL. Kissinger would retrospectively claim in an interview that: ‘When … I was in office I urged my British counterparts to opt for the most modern system which we would have been willing to give them, and to urge our government to give the British our most modern system’. Such evidence would suggest that Dr Kissinger was being rather disingenuous. See Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 45.

⁶³TNA, DEFE 13/1038, ‘Aide Memoire’ attached to Private Secretary/Chief Scientific Adviser to Permanent under Secretary, 15 June 1973; TNA, PREM 15/2038, C [Lord Carrington] to the Prime Minister, 10 Sept. 1973.

⁶⁴TNA, PREM 15/2038, ‘Minutes of a Meeting held at 10 Downing Street on 30 Oct. 1973’. Freedman's claim that the choice of Super Antelope was essentially based on ‘negative’ criteria was essentially correct. See Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 50.

⁶⁵TNA, PREM 15/2038, RA [Robert Armstrong] to the Prime Minister, 26 Oct. 1973.

⁶⁶See for instance, Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 48–51; Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 131–5.

⁶⁷Ibid.

⁶⁸Cairncross, ‘The Heath Government and the British Economy’, in Ball and Seldon, The Heath Government 1970–1974, 107–38; William D. Rubinstein, Twentieth Century Britain: A Political History (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2003), 298.

⁶⁹TNA, PREM 15/2038, ‘Minutes of a Meeting held at 10 Downing Street on Wednesday 12 Sept. 1973’, 14 Sept. 1973; TNA, PREM 15/1360 ADH [Douglas-Home] to the Prime Minister, 30 Aug. 1973.

⁷⁰TNA, DEFE 13/1039, ‘Budgetary Factors’, A.P. Hockaday to Private Secretary/Secretary of State, 13 July 1973.

⁷¹Carrington was convinced of the new political importance of conventional forces in an age of nuclear parity between the superpowers. For that matter, so were President Nixon and Henry Kissinger. See Lord Carrington, Reflect on Things Past (London: Fontana 1989), 233–9; TNA, DEFE 13/880, C [Lord Carrington] to Chief of Defence Staff [Hill-Norton] 17 May 1971; TNA, PREM 15/1360 Lord Carrington to the Prime Minister, 17 Aug, 1973. For US pressure to sustain or improve British conventional forces, see ‘Memorandum of Conversation’, 5 March, 1973, Doc. 131, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976: European Security, Vol. 39 (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office 2007), 401–8.

⁷²TNA, DEFE 13/1038, ‘Record of a Discussion in the Secretary of State's [Lord Carrington] Room’, 23 July 1973.

⁷³Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 50.

⁷⁴Baylis and Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project’, 135.

⁷⁵TNA, FCO 59/931, Rowley Cromer to Denis Greenhill, 19 Jan. 1973; TNA, FCO 59/930, ‘Draft Brief’, attached to Private Secretary to Lord Bridges, undated (c. Jan 1973); TNA, CAB 164/1234, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Prime Minister, 18 June 1973.

⁷⁶Which, in turn, is based in large measure upon Henry Kissinger's own memoirs. See Kissinger, White House Years, 932–3. For an example of scholarship accepting the Kissinger thesis, see Alan P. Dobson, Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century: Of Friendship, Conflict and the Rise and Decline of the Superpowers (London: Routledge 1995), 124–41; John Dumbrell, ‘Sentiment and the US-UK Relationship, 1960–1990’, in Antoine Capet and Aïssatou Sy-Wonyu (eds) The ‘Special Relationship’: La Relation Spéciale Entre le Royaume et les Étas-Unis, (France: Université de Rouen 2003), 134–5. For a reassessment, see Alex Spelling, ‘Edward Heath and Anglo-American Relations 1970–1974: A Reappraisal’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 20/4 (Dec. 2009), 638–58, Hynes, Year That Never Was.

⁷⁷Most notably this was done during the Oil Crisis of 1973–74. Heath also agreed to keep Britain's EEC partners uninformed of US–UK bilateral discussions regarding the formulation of the ‘Declaration of Principles’ in 1973 despite informing the EEC that he would not sanction such bilateral contact. Spelling, ‘Anglo-American Relations’, 653; Hynes, Year That Never Was, 196–222.

⁷⁸TNA, FCO 82/311, ‘Record of a Meeting’, 30 July 1973; Telcon: James Schlesinger–Henry A. Kissinger, 28 Aug. 1973, HAKTELCONS, Box 21, NPMP; Memorandum of Conversation, 9 Aug. 1973: File: 9 Aug. 1973 Kissinger–Schlesinger, Memorandum of Conversation, 9 Aug. 1973: File: 9 Aug. 1973 Kissinger–Schlesinger, NSAMC, Box 2, Gerald Ford Library (hereafter GFL), Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

⁷⁹NPMP, Telcon: James Schlesinger–Henry A. Kissinger, 28 Aug. 1973, Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts (hereafter HAKTCT), Chronological File, Box 21, Kissinger also ordered for intelligence cooperation between the two countries to be halted in Aug. 1973. See NPMP, Telcon: The President–HAK, 9 Aug. 1973, HAKTELCONS, Box 21, NPMP, NAII, CPMUSA. See also, Spelling, ‘Anglo-American Relations’, 649.

⁸⁰TNA, FCO 82/311, Richard Sykes to Thomas Brimelow, 13 Aug. 1973; TNA: PREM 15/1766, Lord Cromer to Secretary of State [Douglas-Home], 20 Oct. 1973.

⁸¹Matthew F. Ferraro, Tough Going: Anglo-American Relations and the Yom Kippur War of 1973 (London: iUniverse 2007), 73–118.

⁸²Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, 450; NPMP, Telcon: Secretary Schlesinger–Secretary Kissinger, 13 Oct. 1973, HAKTELCONS, Chronological File, Box 23.

⁸³Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 50–1.

⁸⁴See for instance, TNA, DEFE 13/1038 V.H.B. Macklen to Permanent Under Secretary, 15 June 1973; TNA, PREM 15/1360, Sir Burke Trend to the Prime Minister, 4 May 1973.

⁸⁵See for instance: Edward Heath, Old World, New Horizons: Britain, the Common Market, and the Atlantic Alliance (London: OUP 1970), 73–4; Edward Heath, ‘Realism in British Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs 48/1, (Oct. 1969), 46–7; TNA, PREM 15/1360, C [Lord Carrington] to the Prime Minister, 2 May 1973. For an overview, see Kristan Stoddart, ‘Nuclear Weapons in Britain's Policy towards France, 1960–1974’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 18/4 (Dec. 2007), 719–44; Rossbach, Rebirth of the Special Relationship, 120–1.

⁸⁶See TNA, PREM 15/2038, Cromer to FCO, 17 Jan. 1974.

⁸⁷TNA, PREM 15/1767, Rowley Cromer to Sir Alec Douglas-Home, 15 Nov. 1973.

⁸⁸TNA, PREM 15/2038, John Hunt to the Prime Minister, 6 Nov. 1973; TNA, PREM 15/2038, John Hunt to the Prime Minister, 4 Dec. 1973.

⁸⁹The Diego Garcia matter can be followed in TNA, PREM 15/2178; TNA: PREM 15/15/2038.

⁹⁰On Heath's reluctance, see TNA, PREM 15/2038, Douglas-Home to Washington, 12 Jan. 1974.

⁹¹NPMP, Telcon: Secretary Schlesinger–Secretary Kissinger, 26 Dec. 1973, HAKTELCONS, Chronological File, Box 24.

⁹²TNA: PREM 15/2038, Cromer to FCO, 17 Jan. 1974.

⁹³Memorandum of Conversation, 8 Jan. 1974, File: 8 Jan. 1974, Kissinger–Schlesinger, National Security Adviser Memoranda of Conversations Box 3, GFL.

⁹⁴Ibid.

⁹⁵See Francis J. Gavin, ‘Nuclear Nixon: Ironies, Puzzles, and the Triumph of Realpolitik’, in Fredrick Logevall and Andrew Preston (eds), Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations 1969–1977 (Oxford: OUP 2008), 138–40.

⁹⁶Jonathan Colman, ‘“What Now for Britain”? The State Department's Intelligence Assessment of the “Special Relationship”’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 19/2 (June 2008), 350–60. This is a view held by both former US and UK officials. See the oral history collection within Jennifer Mackby and Paul Cornish, US-UK Nuclear Cooperation after 50 Years (Washington DC: CSIS Press 2008), 259–367.

⁹⁷Memorandum for the President from Kenneth Rush, 17 Dec. 1973, NSCIHF, Study Memorandums, Box H-182, NPMP.

⁹⁸Mr Sonnenfeldt to the Secretary (Kissinger), 8 Nov. 1974, File: United Kingdom (3), National Security Adviser Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada, Box 15, GFL. Also see, Rossbach, Rebirth of the Special Relationship, 118.

⁹⁹Memorandum for the President from Kenneth Rush, 17 Dec. 1973, NSCIHF, Study Memorandums, Box H-182, NPMP.

¹⁰⁰ Indeed as ‘realists’ both Kissinger and Schlesinger well understood the advantages of US–UK nuclear cooperation.

¹⁰¹ TNA, PREM 15/2038, The President to the Prime Minister, undated, Jan. 1974.

¹⁰² Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 51.