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Abstract
Previous historical accounts have simplified the Labour government's decision to commission a four-boat strategic nuclear deterrent, or ‘Polaris force’, in early 1965. Utilising previously classified sources, this article shows that a number of key strategic concerns led the decision-making process. Nevertheless, broader economic and diplomatic considerations were also important in determining the size of the Polaris force. A tremendous balance of payments deficit and ongoing debates regarding levels of conventional and nuclear involvement in NATO certainly influenced the government's final decision. Moreover, competing strategic and economic interests resulted in continued debate throughout the decision-making process.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the comments of Professor Len Scott, Dr Andrew Priest, Dr Patrick Finney, Thomas Robb, Gemma Lamble and the anonymous referees on earlier drafts of this article. Any error of fact or judgement is entirely my own.
Notes
1M. Quinlan, Thinking about Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects (Oxford: OUP 2009), 129–30.
2A. Pierre, Nuclear Politics: The British Experience with an Independent Strategic Force, 1939–1970 (London: OUP 1972), 231–42; J. Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence: British Nuclear Strategy, 1945–64 (London: OUP 1995), 319–58.
3L. Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (London: Macmillan 1980), 33.
4Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence, 352–3.
5Ibid., 353.
6Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 33.
7Kew, The United Kingdom, The National Archives, Public Records Office (Hereafter TNA, PRO), CAB 128/39, Cabinet Minutes, 26 Nov. 1964.
8TNA, PRO, CAB 130/212, MISC. 16/1: Atlantic Nuclear Force, 11 Nov. 1964; P. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (Oxford: OUP 2007), 167.
9TNA, PRO, PREM 13/26, Burke to Wilson, Atlantic Nuclear Force, 10 Nov. 1964.
10TNA, PRO, CAB 130/212, MISC 16, Atlantic Nuclear Force, Wed. 11 Nov. 1964.
11TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, The case for 5 SSBNs, 19 Oct. 1964.
12Ibid.
13TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Chief of the Naval Staff to the Secretary of State, 6 Nov. 1964.
14See, for example, J. Young, ‘Killing the MLF? The Wilson Government and Nuclear Sharing in Europe 1964–66’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 14/2 (2003), 295–324; S. Schrafstetter and S. Twigge, ‘Trick or Truth? The British ANF Proposal, West Germany, and US Non-proliferation Policy’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 11/2 (2000), 161–84, J. Ellison, The United States, Britain and the Transatlantic Crisis: Rising to the Gaullist Challenge, 1963–68 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2007), 18–20.
15S. Dockrill, ‘Britain's Power and Influence: Dealing with Three Roles and the Wilson Government's Defence Debate at Chequers in November 1964’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 11/1 (2000), 229. Dockrill rightly suggests that the ‘gist of a rather complex strategy to deal with the current MLF impasse’ was agreed on during this Cabinet Committee.
16TNA, PRO, PREM 13/26, Record of meeting between the FS and the US Secretary of State, at the State Dept., 4 PM Monday 26 Oct. 1964 and 27 Oct. 1964; PREM 13/26, Note of Meeting with the Danish Foreign Minister, 11 Nov. 1964.
17See, for example, Pierre, Nuclear Politics, 283; C.J. Bartlett, The Long Retreat: A Short History of British Defence Policy (London: Macmillan 1972), 248; Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 23; D. Dimbleby and D. Reynolds, An Ocean Apart: The Relationship between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (London: Hodder 1988), 246; J. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response: NATO's Debate over Strategy in the 1960s (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan 1988), 163.
18See, for example, H. Wilson, The Labour Government, 1964–1970: A Personal Record (London: Weidenfeld/Michael Joseph 1971), 49–50; D. Healey, The Time of My Life (London: Michael Joseph 1989), 304–5; S. Zuckerman, Monkeys, Men and Missiles (New York: W.W. Norton 1989), 374–5; D. Owen, The Politics of Defence (London: Jonathan Cape 1972), 180.
19Schrafstetter and Twigge, ‘Trick or Truth’, 161–84; A. Priest, Kennedy, Johnson, NATO: Britain, America and the Dynamics of Alliance, 1962–68 (London: Routledge 2006), 93–4; Dockrill, ‘Britain's Power and Influence’, 224–6; Ellison, Transatlantic Crisis, 19.
20Young, ‘Killing the MLF’, 318–19.
21TNA, PRO, DEFE 7/2028, Washington to FO, 31 Jan. 1964 originally located in: Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence, 331; Schrafstetter and Twigge, ‘Trick or Truth?’, 166–7. The Labour government formally acknowledges this threat later that same month: TNA, PRO, CAB 130/213, MISC. 17/3, Defence Policy, 21 Nov. 1964.
22P. Hennessy, Muddling Through: Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Postwar Britain (London: Victor Gollancz 1996), 116.
23TNA, PRO, CAB 130/212, MISC 16/1, Atlantic Nuclear Force, Wed. 11 Nov. 1964; Wilson, Labour Government, 39; Pierre, Nuclear Politics, 278–9.
24TNA, PRO, CAB 148/10, Cabinet DOPC Long-Term Study Group, 23 Oct. 1964.
25Austin, Texas, USA, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library (Hereafter LBJL), National Security File (Hereafter NSF), Security File, Box 34, American Embassy London to Dept. of State, 21 Oct. 1964.
26Hennessy, Muddling Through, 253; S. Dockrill, ‘Forging the Anglo-American Global Defence Partnership: Harold Wilson, Lyndon Johnson, and the Washington Summit’, Journal of Strategic Studies 23/4 (Dec. 2000), 107.
27P. Ziegler, Wilson: The Authorised Life (London: Weidenfeld 1993), 228–9. Frank Cousins was General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union seconded as Minister of Technology 1964–66.
28TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Modification of the Polaris Programme, 19 Oct. 1964; TNA, PRO, T 225/2587, Correspondence between C.S. Bennett, Treasury Chambers, P.D. Nairne and A.A. Pritchard, Ministry of Defence, 8–18 Nov. 1964.
29Wilson, Labour Government, 39.
30N. Woodward, ‘Labour's Economic Performance, 1964–1970’, in R. Coopey, S. Fielding and N. Tiratsoo (eds), The Wilson Governments, 1964–1970 (London: Pinter 1995), 72–99.
31TNA, PRO, CAB 130/212, MISC 16/1, Atlantic Nuclear Force, Wed. 11 Nov. 1964.
32Disarmament had become the rock upon which the Labour Party had repeatedly foundered in the early 1960s. Indeed, several senior party members note these divisions as a dark time for the party. See, for example, T. Benn, Out of the Wilderness, Diaries 1963–7 (London: Hutchinson 1987), 64; Healey, Time of My life, 150; B. Castle, Fighting All the Way (London: Macmillan 1993), 326; M. Williams, Inside Number 10 (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan 1972), 118. This preoccupation with the Bomb was as much a manifestation of internal divisions as it was an ideological commitment to disarmament. To be sure, these ‘nuclear divisions’ somewhat obscured and, at times, exacerbated the broader and more subtle conflicts within the party: L. Scott, ‘Labour and the Bomb’, International Affairs 82/4 (2006), 689; B. Pimlott, Harold Wilson (London: HarperCollins 1992), 235.
33P. Gordon Walker, The Cabinet (London: Jonathan Cape 1970), 90.
34TNA, PRO, CAB, 130/213, MISC. 17/1–4 Meeting(s), Defence Policy, Minutes of Meetings Held at Chequers on Saturday 21 Nov. 1964 and Sunday 22 Nov. 1964; Williams, Inside Number 10, 38. An excellent account of this meeting can be seen in Dockrill, ‘Britain's Power and Influence’, 211–40.
35Gordon Walker, Cabinet, 90. By their nature, such meetings were highly selective. At least one cabinet minister was wholly unaware of this ‘inner cabal’ at the time: Castle, Fighting All the Way, 350.
36Healey, Time of My Life, 302–4.
37Ibid.
38TNA, PRO, CAB 130/213, MISC. 17/4, Defence Policy, 22 Nov. 1964.
39Ibid.
40Pierre, Nuclear Diplomacy, 293; Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 33–4; C. Ponting, Breach of Promise: Labour in Power 1964–1970 (London: Hamish Hamilton 1989), 86.
41B. Reed and G. Williams, Denis Healey and the Policies of Power (London: Sidgwick 1971), 169.
42TNA, PRO, T 225/2587, Departmental drafts c. Nov. 1964; TNA, PRO, T 225/2587, Polaris, 3 Dec. 1964.
43J. Callaghan, Time & Chance (Glasgow: Collins 1988), 172–3.
44TNA, PRO, CAB 130/213, MISC. 17/1, Defence Policy, 21 Nov. 1964.
45S. Dockrill, Britain's Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice between Europe and the World? (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2002), 80.
46TNA, PRO, CAB 130/213, MISC 17/3, Defence Policy, 21 Nov. 1964.
47TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, 5 Boat Polaris force, Note to the Secretary of State, 17 Nov. 1964. NB Healey announced, five days before, that Field Marshal Sir Richard Hull would be Chief of Defence Staff in succession to Lord Mountbatten from July 1965.
48TNA, PRO, DEFE 69/449, Operation of a three-boat Polaris force, 18 Nov. 1964.
49Ibid.
50TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Size of the British Polaris force, 19 Nov. 1964.
51TNA, PRO, CAB, 164/713, Deployment of UK Polaris Submarines, Solly Zuckerman to Burke Trend, 20 Nov. 1964 (referencing minute to Healey, 18 Nov. 1964).
52TNA, PRO, CAB, 130/213, MISC. 17/1–4 Meeting(s), Defence Policy, Minutes of Meetings Held at Chequers on Saturday 21 Nov. 1964 and Sunday 22 Nov. 1964.
53TNA, PRO, DEFE, 13/350, Note to Secretary of State, Polaris Submarines, 20 Nov. 1964.
54 Foreign Relations of the United States Online[FRUS hereafter], Vol. XII [Western Europe], Doc. 233: Message from Prime Minister Wilson to President Johnson, London, 19 Nov. 1964; Vol. XII, Doc. 234: Message from President Johnson to Prime Minister Wilson, Washington, 19 Nov. 1964 (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office 2001). See <www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xii/2278.htm>, last accessed 25 March 2009.
55TNA, PRO, DEFE, 13/350, Correspondence between APH and Healey, 20 Nov. 1964.
56TNA, PRO, CAB 21/6047, Mottershead to Rogers, Atlantic Nuclear Force and attached drafts, 3 Nov. 1964.
57TNA, PRO, CAB 21/6047, Laskey to Trend, Atlantic Nuclear Force, 17 Nov. 1964.
58TNA, PRO, CAB 21/6047, Rogers to Trend, Atlantic Nuclear Force, 17 Nov. 1964.
59Wilson, Labour Government, 20; Pimlott, Wilson, 622–3; Ziegler, Wilson, 184–5; B. Castle, Diaries: 1964–1970 (London: Weidenfeld 1984), 115; E. Pearce, Denis Healey: A Life in Our Times (London: Little Brown 2002), 350.
60TNA, PRO, CAB 128/39, Cabinet Meeting, 26 Nov. 1964.
61S. James, British Cabinet Government, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge 1999), 97.
62R. Crossman, The Myths of Cabinet Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1970), 57.
63Healey, Time of My Life, 302. This is in contrast to the Prime Minister's recollections: Wilson, The Labour Government 1964–70, 40–1. Healey's admission is curious. As Barbara Castle brusquely remarks, Healey's ‘autobiography is a masterly piece of work and, as I read it, I chuckled over the cunning way he skates over his confessions of past mistakes, leaving the impression that they did not adversely affect events, though of course they did’. Castle, Fighting All the Way, 155.
64See, for example, Pierre, Nuclear Politics, 284–5; Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 32; P. Hennessey, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War, rev. ed. (London: Penguin Books 2003), 72.
65Castle, Dairies, 356.
66TNA, PRO, T 225/2587, C.S. Bennett to A.A. Pritchard, 8 Nov. 1964.
67TNA, PRO, T 225/2587, C.S. Bennett to Henry Hardman, Chequers: Polaris Costs, c. Nov. 1964.
68TNA, PRO, T 225/2587, MISC 17/7: Atlantic Nuclear Force, 20 Nov. 1964.
69Pierre, Nuclear Politics, 287.
70Dockrill, ‘Forging the Anglo-American Global Defence Partnership’, 107–29; J. Colman, A ‘Special Relationship’? Harold Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Anglo-American Relations ‘at the Summit’, 1964–68 (Manchester: Manchester UP 2004), 21–2; Priest, Kennedy, Johnson and NATO, 87.
71FRUS, Vol. XII, Doc. 237: Off-the-record meeting of the President with Prime Minister Wilson, 7 Dec. 1964, <www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xii/2279.htm>, last accessed 25 March 2009; Dockrill, ‘Forging the Anglo-American Global Defence Partnership’, 119; TNA, PRO, PREM, Trend to Wilson, 11 Dec. 1964.
72FRUS, Vol. XII, Doc. 236: Memorandum of Conversation, 7 Dec. 1964.
73For a more detailed account of this meeting, see Dockrill, ‘Forging the Anglo-American Global Defence Partnership’, 107–29. Colman, ‘A Special Relationship?’, 37–52.
74Ellison, Transatlantic Crisis, 19.
75FRUS, Vol. XIII [Western Europe Region], Doc. 16: Memorandum of Discussion on the MLF at the White House, 10 April 1964 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office 1995), 35–7.
76Ellison, Transatlantic Crisis, 20.
77LBJL, NSF, Country File, Box 214, Memorandums of Conversation, 5–6 Dec. 1964.
78TNA, PRO, PREM 13/686, Record of Meeting, 16 Dec. 1965.
79J.W. Young, The Labour Governments 1964–1970 (Manchester: Manchester UP 2003), 118.
80A. Morgan, Harold Wilson (London: Pluto Press 1992), 271; Young, ‘Killing the MLF?', 314–15.
81FRUS, Vol. XIII, Doc. 61, Attachment: ‘US Comments on the UK Proposal of a Project for an Atlantic Nuclear Force’, 8 Dec. 1964, 154.
82Healey later remarked that a major factor in deciding to keep the Polaris force ‘was that McNamara, and some other Americans, were so anxious we should get rid of it’. Hennessy, Muddling Through, 116.
83TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Denis Healey to Harold Wilson, 21 Dec. 1964.
84Ibid.
85TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, The Polaris Submarine Building Programme, 4 Jan. 1965.
86TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Notes, 5 and 7 Jan. 1965.
87TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Patrick Gordon Walker to Wilson, The Polaris Submarine Building Programme, 11 Jan. 1965.
88TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Note to Healey, 11 Jan. 1965.
89Ibid.
90TNA, PRO, CAB 148/19, Polaris Submarine Building Programme, Memorandum by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 12 Jan. 1965.
91TNA, PRO, T 225/2570, Dodd to Bell, 11 Jan. 1965.
92See, for example, G.M. Dillon, Dependence and Deterrence: Success and Civility in the Anglo-American Special Nuclear Relationship, 1962–1982 (London: Gower Publishing 1983), 18–19 and Hennessy, Muddling Through, 116.
93TNA, PRO, T 225/2670: Correspondence between 4 Oct. and 9 Nov. 1964 ably highlights the Treasury's growing anxiety. A particularly revealing correspondence would emerge later that year, regarding the need for additional expenditure for Project TORPOR and the purchase of Electronic Warfare Equipment for the SSBNs. Not only is this upswing seen as a ‘disturbing’ and ‘a lamentable affair’ but underlines a very real fear of further cost escalations at the beginning of the project: TNA, PRO, T 225/2670, Project TORPOR, 20 Oct. 1965 and 25 Oct. 1965.
94TNA, PRO, CAB 148/19, Polaris Submarine Building Programme, Memorandum by the Secretary of Sate for Defence, 12 Jan. 1965.
95TNA, PRO, T 225/2586, Construction of Polaris Submarines, 13 Jan. 1965.
96Healey, Time of My Life, 327.
97Young, Labour governments, 34–8.
98S. Schrafstetter, ‘Preventing the “Smiling Buddha”: British-Indian Nuclear Relations and the Commonwealth Nuclear Force, 1964–68’, Journal of Strategic Studies 25/3 (Sept. 2002), 87–108; Young, Labour Governments, 64–5; Dockrill, Britain's Retreat from East of Suez, 80.
99TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Polaris Submarines – Deployment East of Suez, 13 and 14 Jan. 1965.
100G. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley/Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press 1999), 87.
101Pearce, Denis Healey, 350.
102TNA, PRO, CAB 148/18, 29 Jan. 1965.
103TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Size of the Polaris force, 4 Feb. 1965.
104Ibid.
105See, e.g., TNA, PRO, PREM 13/222, ‘Government to Cancel Fifth Polaris’, The Times, 11 Feb. 1965.
106TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/350, Christopher Mayhew [Minister for the Navy] to Sir Burke Trend, Ordering the next Submarine, 15 Feb. 1965.
107TNA, PRO, DEFE 69/449, Size of the Polaris force, 3 Feb. 1965.
108Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, 219–40.
109Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 33–6.
110TNA, PRO, DEFE 13/752, Chief of Defence Staff to Secretary of State, 22 Dec. 1971.
111Aislinn Simpson, ‘Nuclear subs collide in Atlantic’, Daily Telegraph, 16 Feb. 2009.