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ABSTRACT
This article draws on recently declassified documents on both sides of the Atlantic to reveal the depth of the disagreements between Britain and the United States over adherence to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty during the 1980s. In the context of the radical Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the Thatcher government feared that the dismissive attitude of the Reagan administration towards the ABM Treaty would undermine the role of arms control in providing mutual security and would have harmful consequences for the viability of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Some British officials also suspected that the Reagan administration was manipulating alleged Soviet non-compliance with the Treaty as a pretext for abandoning it. The tensions between London and Washington on this issue were fundamental, as the Reagan administration perceived it as an obstacle which constrained the progress of SDI.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Iwan Morgan and Dov Zakheim for their comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript. We are also very grateful for the perspectives, critiques and recommendations of the two anonymous reviewers. All the feedback received has proved invaluable in bringing this article to fruition.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Ken Adelman, Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours that Ended the Cold War (NY: Broadside Books 2014), 62.
2 Richard Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship (NY: WW Norton 2012). Frances Fitzgerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War (NY: Simon and Schuster 2000) James E. Cronin, Global Rules: America, Britain and a Disordered World (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press 2014).
3 Lawrence Freedman & Jeffrey Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2019) 522.
4 Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown and Company 1979), 204–749.
5 Cronin, Global Rules, 153.
6 Jeremy Stocker, Britain and Ballistic Missile Defence 1942–2002 (London: Frank Cass 2004), 138.
7 ’Ballistic Missile Defence’, Strategic Survey, 82/1 (1981), 13–19.
8 [Kew, United Kingdom, The National Archives, hereafter TNA], PREM (Prime Minister’s Office Files), 19/1759 f159, CD Powell to CR Budd, 14 October 1986. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/143839.
9 Ronald Reagan, An American Life (London: Arrow Books 1991), 13, 257.
10 Freedman & Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 519–21; Trevor Taylor, ‘Britain’s Response to the Strategic Defence Initiative’, International Affairs 62/2 (Spring, 1986), 217; Fitzgerald, Way Out There in the Blue, 356.
11 Cronin, Global Rules, 157–8.
12 Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher, 177–8.
13 Freedman & Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 519–21.
14 [Ronald Reagan Library, hereafter RRL] Kraemer Collection, Box 90718, White House Memorandum of Conversation: Meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, 28 December 1984.
15 Paul Lettow, Ronald Reagan and his Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (NY Random House 2005), 174.
16 Ibid., 235–6.
17 Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck, ‘The British Response to SDI: Seminar Transcript’, in Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), The British Response to SDI (London: Centre for Contemporary British History 2005), 68.
18 Stocker, Britain and Ballistic Missile Defence, 152. The arguments relating to the adverse implications of SDI for Britain’s nuclear deterrent is discussed in more detail on pages 7 and 17–18.
19 TNA/PREM 19/1188 f46, Heseltine & Howe to Thatcher, 11 October 1984. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/134072.
20 Caspar Weinberger, Fighting for Peace (London: Michael Joseph 1990), 205–23.
21 Correspondence with Lord Charles Powell, 21 July 2020.
22 TNA/PREM 19/1188 f149, P Cradock to CD Powell, 2 July 1984. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/134064.
23 Ivo Daalder, The SDI Challenge to Europe (Cambridge, Mass: Ballinger 1987), 3.
24 Holger Nehring, ‘The British Response to SDI: Introductory Paper’, in Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), The British Response to SDI (London: Centre for Contemporary British History 2005), 23.
25 Stocker, Britain and Ballistic Missile Defence, 137.
26 Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (London: Pan Books 1995), 389.
27 TNA/PREM 19/1188 f149, P Cradock to CD Powell, 2 July 1984.
28 Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher, 55–8.
29 Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography. Volume Two: Everything She Wants’ (London: Allen Lane 2015), 467–613.
30 Taylor, Britain’s Response to the Strategic Defence Initiative, 217–8.
31 Discussed in more detail on 19.
32 Fitzgerald, Way Out There in the Blue, 353.
33 Taylor, Britain’s Response to the Strategic Defence Initiative, 229.
34 John Prados, ‘The Strategic Defence Initiative: Between Strategy, Diplomacy and US Intelligence Estimates’, in Leopoldo Nuti (ed.), The Crisis of Détente in Europe: From Helsinki to Gorbachev 1975–1985 (London: Routledge 2009), 89.
35 RRL, Kraemer Collection, Box 90718, White House Memorandum of Conversation: Meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, 28 December 1984.
36 Prados, ‘The Strategic Defence Initiative: Between Strategy, Diplomacy and US Intelligence Estimates’, 89.
37 RRL, European & Soviet Affairs Directorate, Box 90902, Camp David Declaration, NSC: Records, Thatcher Visit – Dec. 84 [1], Undated.
38 Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher, 174–82.
39 Correspondence with Lord Powell.
40 Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, 391.
41 Kandiah & Staerck, The British Response to SDI, 34.
42 TNA/PREM 19/1444 f100, LV Appleyard to CD Powell, 28 February 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/146825.
43 Ibid.
44 Freedman & Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 522.
45 George Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons 1993), 578.
46 Kandiah & Staerck, The British Response to SDI, 61.
47 Michael Krepon, ‘Lost in Space: The Misguided Drive toward Antisatellite Weapons’ Foreign Affairs 80/3 (May – June 2001), 2–8. Thomas Karako & Ian Williams, ‘Missile Defense 2020: Next Steps for Defending the Homeland’, Center for Strategic and International Studies (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield April 2017), 32.
48 Stuart Croft, The United States and Ballistic Missile Defence: ABM and SDI, Faraday Discussion Paper 10 (The Council for Arms Control, 1987), 15.
49 RRL, Kraemer Collection, Box 90718, Margaret Thatcher, 28 December 1984.
50 Moore, Margaret Thatcher, 259.
51 Editorial, The Times, 18 March 1985.
52 Ibid.
53 Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher, 190–192.
54 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 578–582.
55 RRL, Linhard Collection, RAC Box 9, Mrs Thatcher on SDI/ABM March 1986 [3 of 3], Ambassador Nitze’s Discussions with Foreign Secretary Howe, 4 March 1986.
56 RRL, Linhard Collection, RAC Box 9, Mrs Thatcher on SDI/ABM March 1986 [1 of 3], Extracts from Reporting Cable, Mrs Thatcher’s Discussion with Paul Nitze, 5 February 1986.
57 RRL, Linhard Collection, RAC Box 9, Mrs Thatcher on SDI/ABM March 1986 [1 of 3], Critique of PM Thatcher’s 11 Feb. Letter, Undated.
58 TNA/PREM 19/1693 f89, M Thatcher to R Reagan, 11 February 1986. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/200455.
59 Ibid.
60 RRL, Linhard Collection, RAC Box 9, Critique of PM Thatcher’s 11 Feb. Letter.
61 Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 223–4.
62 RRL, Linhard Collection, RAC Box 9, Critique of PM Thatcher’s 11 Feb. Letter.
63 Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher, 218–21.
64 Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London: Harper Collins 1993), 473.
65 Croft, The United States and Ballistic Missile Defence, 2.
66 Kandiah & Staerck, The British Response to SDI, 60.
67 TNA/PREM 19/1444 f100, LV Appleyard to CD Powell, 28 February 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/146825.
68 Prados, ‘The Strategic Defence Initiative’, 95.
69 Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher, 186.
70 TNA/PREM 19/1444 f87, M. Heseltine to M. Thatcher, 27 March 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/146822.
71 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 464–5.
72 RRL, Kraemer Collection, Box 90718, Margaret Thatcher, 28 December 1984.
73 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 464–5.
74 Freedman & Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 522.
75 Stocker, Britain and Ballistic Missile Defence, 139.
76 Freedman & Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 522.
77 TNA/PREM 19/1658 f152, British Embassy in Washington to Foreign Office, 21 February 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/148164.
78 TNA/PREM 19/1444 f87, Heseltine to Thatcher, 27 March 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/146822.
79 Kandiah & Staerck, The British Response to SDI, 30–31.
80 TNA/PREM 19/1693 f291, S. Cowper-Coles to J. Pitt-Brooke, 25 October 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/200492.
81 TNA/PREM 19/1445 f169, Heseltine-Weinberger Conversation, 22 July 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/146853.
82 TNA/PREM 19/1661 f15, M.Thatcher – C. Weinberger, 26 July 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/143057.
83 Philip Gordon, ‘Bush, Missile Defence and the Atlantic Alliance’, Survival, 43/1 (2001), 17–36.
84 Thomas K. Longstreth and John E. Pike, ‘U.S., Soviet Programs Threaten ABM Treaty’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 41/4 (April 1985), 11–15.
85 Taylor, Britain’s Response to the Strategic Defence Initiative, 230.
86 Stocker, Britain and Ballistic Missile Defence, 95.
87 RRL, Linhard Files (Folder: Geneva Summit Records, Nov 19–21 1985 [4 of 4]) OA 92178.
88 Taylor, Britain’s Response to the Strategic Defence Initiative, 229.
89 Adelman, Reagan at Reykjavik, 154–5.
90 TNA/PREM19/1188 f217, RC Mottram to AJ Coles, 29 March 1983. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/134056.
91 Moore, Margaret Thatcher, 107.
92 Kandiah & Staerck, The British Response to SDI, 31.
93 TNA/PREM 19/1660 f122, UK Embassy to Foreign Office, 21 October 1985. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/143036.
94 TNA/PREM 19/1693 f97, LV Appleyard to CD Powell, 10 February 1986. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/200458.
95 TNA/PREM19/1759 f246, UK Embassy in Washington Cable to FCO, 10 September 1986. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/144030.
96 Ibid.
97 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 871.
98 Ibid., 989.
99 Correspondence with Lord Powell.
100 TNA/PREM 19/1661 f15, M.Thatcher – C. Weinberger, 26 July 1985.
101 Daalder, The SDI Challenge to Europe, 76.
102 Cronin, Global Rules, 176–7.
103 Pavel Podvig, ‘Did Star Wars Help End the Cold War? Soviet Response to the SDI Program’, Science & Global Security 25/1 (January 2017), 3–27.
104 Freedman & Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 41–542.
105 Croft, The United States and Ballistic Missile Defence, 18.
106 Taylor, Britain’s Response to the Strategic Defence Initiative, 220.
107 Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (NY: Harper Collins 2002), 53–54.
108 Ibid.
109 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand (NY: Random House 2002), 376–90.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Wyn Rees
Wyn Rees is Professor of International Security in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, UK.
Azriel Bermant
Azriel Bermant is a historian and a lecturer in International Relations at Tel Aviv University and at the Rothberg International School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.