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Abstract
Written on the 50th anniversary, this article focuses on the negotiations between Britain and the United States which led to the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement and the beginning of the ‘special nuclear relationship’ which has lasted down to the present day. It is argued that the eventual success of the negotiations had a lot to do with the key roles of Eisenhower and Macmillan but that a transatlantic ‘advocacy coaltion’ of nuclear scientists, defence and intelligence officials also played an important part at the operational level in achieving and subsequently shaping the kind of relationship which developed. Attention is also given to the longer term significance of the agreement, especially in terms of the arguments about its impact on nuclear proliferation.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the following individuals for interviews and correspondence relating to issues raised in this article: Dr Frank Panton, Sir Michael Quinlan, Sir Frank Cooper, Mr P.G.E. Jones, Mr Denis Fakely, Mr Peter Hudson, Major-General Eric Younson, Rear Admiral J.S. Grove, Lorna Arnold, Professor John Simpson, Professor Marc Trachtenberg, Dr Richard Hewlett, Dr Arnold Kramer, Dr Jan Melissen, Katherine Pyne, and Dr Robert S. Norris. The author would also like to thank the staffs of the Eisenhower Library, the US National Archives and the UK National Archives (Public Record Office) at Kew for their help with the research for the paper.
Notes
1Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm: 1956–1959 (London: Macmillan 1971), 323.
2This study supports some of the revisionist accounts of the Eisenhower administration. See Richard Immerman, ‘Confessions of an Eisenhower Revisionist: An Agonising Reappraisal’, Diplomatic History 14/3 (Summer 1990); Stephen G. Rabe, ‘Eisenhower Revisionism’, Diplomatic History 17/1 (Winter 1993), 97–115; Charles J. Patch, Jr and Elmo Richardson, The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 1991); and F. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (New York: Basic Books 1982).
3This ‘advocacy coalition’ or ‘epistemic community’ involved an informal grouping of like-minded individuals (politicians, service personnel, defence and foreign office officials, intelligence officers and nuclear scientists) who favoured greater nuclear collaboration between Britain and the United States. Because of the MacMahon Act which made nuclear collaboration illegal, ‘on pain of imprisonment or even death’, it is not easy to identify US nationals who formed part of this coalition prior to the 1958 Act. British officials, however, who were part of this like-minded group have told the author that there were significant numbers of US nuclear scientists, defence and intelligence officials, as well as politicians, who supported Eisenhower's view that the MacMahon Act had been a mistake and who worked with their British counterparts to achieve its repeal. (See note 115). Confidential Correspondence.
4See John Baylis, ‘Exchanging Nuclear Secrets: Laying the Foundations of the Anglo-American Nuclear Relationship’, Diplomatic History 25/1 (Winter 2001), 33–63. In this article I describe the 1958 Agreement as ‘one of the most remarkable agreements ever reached between two sovereign states’.
5For a study of the Anglo-American nuclear relationship during World War II see M. Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939–1945 (London: Macmillan 1964).
6For a discussion of the British decision to develop nuclear weapons see M. Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy 1945–1952, Volume I Policy Making (London: Macmillan 1974).
7Under the agreement the US was to receive all the supplies of raw materials from the Belgium Congo for the two years and would receive of the British stockpile, up to 2,547 tons, if the Belgium Congo amount was not enough. As far as information exchanges were concerned, the US and Britain agreed to cooperate in nine areas. These included: topics for immediate declassification; health and safety; radioisotopes; fundamental nuclear and extra-nuclear properties; detection of a distant nuclear explosion; design of natural uranium reactors; and general research experience with named low-power reactors. See Gowing, Independence and Deterrence, 248–9.
8Michael Goodman, ‘With a Little Help from My Friends: The Anglo-American Atomic Intelligence Partnership, 1945–1958’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 18/1 (March 2007), 155–83. Contrary to many interpretations, Goodman sees the Modus Vivendi as being a very important agreement. He describes it as ‘the greatest single event in Anglo-American atomic intelligence relations, because every subsequent development can be traced back to it’, 156.
9‘Anglo-Canadian-United States Tripartite Talks on Atomic Energy’, Dec. 1949. PRO: FO 115/4476. See also Goodman, ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’, 164.
10‘Interview with Arneson by Niel M. Johnson, 21 June 1989 (Washington DC)’ HST: Papers of R. Gordon Arneson. Box 1. The Dept. of Defense supported what was known as the ‘Kiefer Plan’ under which the UK would send plutonium to the US for manufacture into weapons. Correspondence with Eric Younson, 31 March and 1 April 2007. It does appear that the intelligence relationship was largely unaffected by the Fuchs Affair. See Goodman, ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’, 165.
11Goodman, ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’.
12See Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 315–16. Some American officials argued that the Soviet test in August 1953 was not a true thermonuclear test. As a result it is often argued that the first real Russian H-bomb test did not take place until Nov. 1956 (‘Joe 19’). It seems likely, however, that the 1953 was a true thermonuclear weapon test, but not the same type that the Americans were testing. Confidential Correspondence, 25 Aug. 1998.
13For a detailed discussion of ‘Project E’ and Anglo-American cooperation in the mid-1950s see S. Twigge and L. Scott, Planning Armageddon: Britain the United States and Command and Control of Western Nuclear Forces, 1945–1964 (Reading, UK: Harwood Press 1999) and J. Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence: British Nuclear Strategy 1945–1964 (Oxford: OUP 1995).
14See T. Botti, The Long Wait: The Forging of the Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance, 1945–1958 (New York: Greenwood Press 1984).
15Strauss was an Anglophobe and a supporter of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
16Memorandum for Chairman JCS, Washington, 22 March 1956, CCS 381 (Military Strategy and Posture), RG 218, Chairman's File, Admiral Radford, 1953–1957, Modern Military Branch, National Archives (NA).
17In Jan. 1956 the US Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, ruled that the administration could legally negotiate to transmit nuclear submarine propulsion information to the British. Hearings before Subcommittee, JCAE, 1958, 516–19; Botti, The Long Wait, 160.
18Hearings before Subcommittee, JCAE, 1958, 513–19.
19554 HC Deb. 5s., 1406.
20Melissen has argued that during this period ‘British negotiators were forced to swallow one deception after another’. J. Melissen, The Struggle for Nuclear Partnership: Britain, the United States and the Making of an Ambiguous Alliance, 1952–1959 (Groningen: STYX Publications 1993), 9.
21 Hearings before Subcommittee, JCAE, 1958, 513–19.
22To make matters worse the President had to go into the Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland on 8 June 1956 for an emergency operation for intestinal inflammation.
23Botti, The Long Wait, 164.
24Britain's nuclear relationship with Australia is dealt with in some detail in Lorna Arnold and Mark Smith, Britain, Australia and the Bomb (London: Palgrave 2006). British tests were conducted in Australia, in part, to signal to the US that Britain was determined to be an independent nuclear power. This use of Australia in the broader strategic pursuit of a closer nuclear relationship with the US has been the subject of some criticism of Britain.
25See J. Baylis, ‘The Development of Britain's Thermonuclear Capability 1954–61: Myth or Reality?’, Contemporary Record 8/1 (Sept. 1994), 954–61.
26Telegram from Washington to Foreign Office, 1 Jan. 1957, Public Record Office (PRO), FO 371/126682, AU 1051/26.
27Botti, The Long Wait, 171–5. See also an excellent article by J. Melissen ‘The Restoration of the Nuclear Alliance: Great Britain and Atomic Negotiations with the United States, 1957–8’, Contemporary Record: The Journal of Contemporary British History 6/1 (Summer 1992), 72–106.
28Eden's government fell on 9 Jan. 1957 and on 22 Jan. Eisenhower directed the US Embassy in London to invite the new Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan to a conference on 21–24 March in either Washington or Bermuda. See Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 240–2.
29Logan to Forward, Jan. 23, 1957, PRO, FO 371/126707, AU 11913/1. See also Telegram from Sandys to Macmillan and Lloyd, Jan. 28, 1957, PRO, FO 371/126683, AU 1051/28G.
30For a discussion of inter-service rivalry in Britain at this time see Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence, Chapter 8. Boyle was, nevertheless, very interested in developing close ties with the USAF, especially in the field of nuclear targeting.
31The desire for interdependence was partly due to strategic considerations, to improve deterrence against the perceived growing Soviet threat, and partly due to economic considerations, given the severe financial difficulties facing the government at the time.
32Dulles calls Radford, 17 June 1957, Minutes of Telephone Conversations of John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter, 1953–1961 (Frederick, MD: Univ. Publications of America 1980), reel 6, 216–17; M.H. Armacost, The Politics of Weapons Innovation: Thor–Jupiter Controversy (New York: Columbia UP 1969), 183–85; Defence: Outline of Future Policy ( London: HMSO 1957), Cmnd. 124; M. Navias, Nuclear Weapons and British Strategic Planning 1955–1958, (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1991), 138.
33Hearings before subcommittee on Agreements for Cooperation, JCAE, Amending the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 – Exchange of Military Information and Material with Allies, 85th. Congress, 2nd. sess, 1958, 513–14. In a secret annex the two leaders also agreed to prior consultations on testing initiatives and a common policy towards French nuclear ambitions. See Lewis L. Strauss, Men and Decisions (London: Macmillan 1962), 369–74.
34Contrary to the view of Melissen, Dombey and Grove, Britain did explode a thermonuclear device in the Grapple test. Both ‘Short Granite’ and ‘Purple Granite’ detonated on 15 May and 19 June respectively were thermonuclear devices. The yields of 0.3 Mt. and 0.2 Mt. were disappointing, but these were only the first tests and others were scheduled in Nov. (Grapple X) to improve the yield. See Melissen, The Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 35; N. Dombey and E. Grove, ‘Britain's Thermonuclear Bluff’, London Review of Books 14, 22 Oct. 1992, 8–10; and Baylis, ‘The Development of Britain's Thermonuclear Capability’; Botti, The Long Wait, 187.
35570 HC Deb. 5s., 567–9, 575–6, 1035–9.
36Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 301–4; Dulles calls Strauss, 17 June 1957, Minutes of Telephone Conversations of John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter, 1953–1961, reel 6, p. 220.
37Stassen had acted on his own initiative without the knowledge of the President or Dulles. See Memorandum for Dulles by Eisenhower, 4 June 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (DDEL), Eisenhower's Papers as President/Ann Whitman File (AWF) Dulles-Herter series, Box 7; and Macmillan, Riding the Storm.
38I. Clark and D. Angell, ‘Britain, the United States and the Control of Nuclear Weapons: The Diplomacy of the Thor Deployment, 1957–1958’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 2/ 3 (Nov. 1991) [AQ3]; Botti , Long Wait, 194–5.
39Armacost, Politics of Weapons Innovation, 58–9.
40See Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 63–92.
41J.R. Killian, Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower. A Memoir of the First Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1982), 7.
42Telegram from Washington to Foreign Office, 7 Oct. 1957, PRO, PREM 11/2554.
43Telegram from Foreign Office to United Kingdom Embassy in Washington, Oct. 10, 1957, PRO, PREM 11/2554; Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 315–16. Shortly after Macmillan wrote to Eisenhower a major fire broke out in the nuclear reactor at Windscale in NW England. Macmillan's diary reveals that he played down the dangers of the fire because he feared that ‘complete disclosure of the nuclear disaster might have alerted Congress and jeopardized his historic chance to secure atomic secrets from the United States’. Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 45; A. Horne, Harold Macmillan, Vol. II: 1957–1986 (New York: Viking 1989), 53–5.
44L. Arnold, Windscale1957: Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident (London: Macmillan 1992).
45Dulles calls Merchant, 17 Oct. 1957, Telephone Conversations of John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter, 1953–1961, 722.
46Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 199. Macmillan argues in his memoirs that he would have preferred the title ‘Declaration of Inter-Dependence’, but it was considered ‘too dramatic’. See Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 324.
47Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 320–3.
48Memorandum of Conversation, Macmillan Talks, by Dulles, 24 Oct. 1957, DDEL, AWF, International Series, Box 20; Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 44; Botti, Long Wait, 201–2. Nine technical subcommittees were set up covering the following areas: nuclear materials exchange; nuclear warheads; nuclear propulsion; delivery systems; biological warfare, chemical warfare, and radiological defence; defence against ballistic missiles; aicraft and aero-engines; and electron tubes and infrared. At their Washington meeting, Macmillan and Eisenhower decided to adopt a neutral position on French attempts to develop nuclear weapons. This was a delicate issue, especially with the French seeking British, as well as Italian and West German, cooperation. The Anglo-American position was ‘neither to assist nor to actively hinder the French programme’.
49Memorandum for the President by Dulles, 21 Oct. 1957, DDEL, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series, Box 7, folder Dulles Oct, 1957 (1).
50American officials were particularly concerned by the President's ‘overly liberal attitude’ towards cooperation with Britain and feared that legislation might be opposed by the JCAE.
51Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 12. For a discussion of the broader alliance context of Anglo-American negotiations see Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britiain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (London: Macmillan 1997).
52See M. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of a European Settlement, 1945–1963, (Princeton Univ. Press 1999). For a discussion of Plans for Franco-Italian-German (FIG) nuclear cooperation see Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 149–50.
53See the Lewis L. Strauss Papers, 1914–74, Atomic Energy Commission Series, Box 2 at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, West Branch, Iowa, USA.
54It appears that the US representatives at the Washington Conference were making policy ‘on the hoof’. The meeting to clarify what information should be given to the British took place on 25 Oct. Dulles calls Quarles, 25 Oct. 1957; Dulles calls Strauss, 25 Oct. 1957. Telephone Conversations of John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter, 1953–1961, 674–5; Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 45. When Eisenhower met Macmillan on 24 Oct. he told him that ‘there were a few, about four, applications of such high secrecy that very few people in his own government knew about them and he did not think these could be the subject of joint pooling unless and until we were satisfied that the Soviets themselves knew about them. He said he thought there were about two of these the Soviets knew about now, which reduced to only about two the data which would continue to be restricted’. Memorandum of Conversation, 24 Oct. 1958, DDEL, Papers of John Foster Dulles, General Correspondence and Memoranda, Box 1.
55Botti, Long Wait, 203.
56Telegram by Powell to Hood, Nov. 11, 1957, PRO, PREM 11/2554; Telegram by Hood to Powell, 15 Nov. 1957, PRO, PREM 11/2554; Memorandum for the Files by Spiegel, 2 Dec. 1957, Dept. of State, S/AE File (microfiche), frame 20; Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 45; Botti, Long Wait, 206.
57 New York Times, 2 June 1957. During Rickover's visit from 27–30 May the US hoped to persuade the British to discuss the technology of their Calder Hall reactor and other developments in the commercial nuclear power field. The British, however, continued to demand that US companies, using the technology, should pay royalties to the government.
58R.G. Hewlett and F. Duncan, Nuclear Navy, 1946–1962 (Univ. of Chicago Press 1974); Hearings before Subcommittee, JCAE, 1958, 164.
59These difficulties had included attempts by American officials to link the deployment of Thor missiles in Britain with NATO plans (agreed in Dec. 1957) for an IRBM under Supreme Allied Commander Europe's control. The British remained determined to retain a bilateral agreement but they were prepared to accept a vague commitment to link the missiles to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. For a discussion of the alliance discussion to the negotiations see Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership.
60Dulles calls Quarles, 4 Nov. 1957, Telephone Conversations of John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter p. 223. The US eventually deployed seven squadrons of Thor and Jupiter IRBMs in NATO countries, including Britain, Italy and Turkey. Despite criticisms by the Chief of the Air Staff in Britain that the missiles were ‘highly vulnerable’ the government accepted the agreement because of its political symbolism. See I. Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship: Britain's Deterrent and America 1957–1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994), 53–4; S.J. Ball, The Bomber in British Strategy: Doctrine, Strategy, and Britain's World Role, 1945–1960 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1995).
61Strauss to Eisenhower, 19 Dec. 1957, DDEL, AWF, Administration series, Box 4, folder AEC 1957(1), enclosure: Interim Report to the President and the Prime Minister from Strauss, Quarles, Plowden and Powell.
62The Soviet Government had just completed a series of tests and Britain still had important tests planned in April, August and September.
63D. Campbell, The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier: American Military Power in Britain (London: Michael Joseph 1984), 55–7.
64Denis Healey quoted in the House of Commons a statement made by Dulles on 19 Nov. 1957 in which he said that there was ‘no question of a veto on the use of [American] nuclear weapons being exercised by other countries. No government could legally cast a veto against a decision of another government taken for its own defense’. 578 HC Deb. 5s., cols. 1152–4; 579 HC Deb. 5s., cols. 212–17, 371–3.
65Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 474–5; Botti, Long Wait, 223.
66When Macmillan visited Washington on 7 June 1958 he raised the issue once again about the use of American bases in Britain. As a result, a new agreement was initialled by the prime minister and the president which replaced ‘the loose arrangement made by Attlee and Churchill’. This agreement, however, has never been made public. Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 494.
67By this stage the President had convinced the Chairman of the JCAE, Senator Carl Durham, of the need to cooperate more effectively in the nuclear field with America's allies.
68 Hearings before the Subcommittee on Agreements for Cooperation, JCAE, Amending the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 - Exchange of Military Information and Materials with Allies, 85th. Congress, 2nd., Sess., 1958, 102. Emphasis added. See also R.W. Dyke and F.X. Gannon, Chet Hollifield: Master Legislator and Nuclear Statesman (Washington DC: Univ. Press of America 1996).
69The Calder Hall reactors in Cumberland (NW England) were primarily for producing military plutonium but they were also dual-purpose reactors which, as a by-product, would generate electricity for the national grid. They would also serve as prototypes for the civil nuclear power stations Britain planned to build.
70The US position was undermined by splits between the different agencies involved in the negotiations. The Pentagon, in particular was opposed to introducing a ‘civilian consideration’ into an essentially military agreement. Hearings before Subcommittee, JCAE, 1958, 501–3. According to Eric Younson most of the Washington/BJSM British negotiations leading to the 1958 Agreement were handled by Lt.-Col. Walkling. Younson took over from Walkling in July 1958. Correspondence, 31 March and 1 April 2007.
71Public Law 479, 85th Congress, 68 Stat. 276.
72 Agreement between Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Government of United States of America for Cooperation on Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes, Washington DC, 3 July 1958, US Dept. of State, United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, 9, 1028.
73 Amendment to 1958 Atomic Energy Agreement, Washington, 2 May 1959, US Dept. of State, United States Treaties and Other International Agreements 10, 1274.
74Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 201–2.
75The author has been told that Penney, in particular, frequently dined with former collegues on the Manhatten Project on vists to the United States and, on the basis of these informal conversations, was able to learn a great about the US nuclear programme. Confidential Correspondence.
76Presidential Determinations were still needed but this ‘advocacy coalition’ of nuclear scientists identified the key areas of possible collaboration which significantly influenced what emerged from these directives from the President.
77Sir Frederick Brundrett was Scientific Adviser to the MOD, Sir William Penney was Director of Aldermaston between 1954 and 1959, Sir William Cook was UKAEA Board Member for Engineering and Production and E.F. Newley was to become Director of AWRE. Penney was not convinced that the American team would be very helpful to Britain. In this he was to be mistaken.
78The ‘Halliard’ devices were triple bombs.
79The British were planning to test the ‘Halliard 3’ device but the US were more interested in the ‘Halliard 1’ device. It was decided subsequently to test ‘Halliard 1’.
80Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 563.
81‘Quarterly Progress Report: Part 111, Weapons: July–Sept. 1958, USDOE archives. Quoted in Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 206. The JCAE were told that Britain had been given information on nine devices: Marks 7, 15/39, 19, 25, 27, 28, 31, 33, and 34.
82The British delegation consisted of Cook, Macklen, Corner, Challens, Hopkins, Bomford, Younson and some other AWRE personnel. The US delegation was led by Loper and Sarbird, and included Bradbury and Henderson.
83After Cook gave details of ‘Pendant’ and ‘Burgee’, the US called a recess. It appears the US delegates were surprised by British knowledge of boosting, together with ‘the electronics work described by Challens, and … our claim to have (at least as a design) a six inch shell [at this point the US had only produced eight inch designs (280mm) designs and one of their tests of a six inch LRL design had resulted in a “fizzle”]’. The Butternut device was the primary component for the Mk28. Correspondence with Eric Younson, 31 March and 1 April 2007.
84Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 207. There was a lot of discussion about the fact that the US used a cylindrical second stage while Britain, because of its lack of computing power, used spherical secondaries.
85Program Status Report to the JCAE, Part III - Weapons, 13 Dec. 1958, DOE/NOO, Progress Reports on Selected Programs, No. 73756. See ‘Record of the Second meeting of the Technical Experts held pursuant to Section 11 of the Technical Annex to the ‘Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes, DDEL, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 5.
86The anglicised version was to become ‘Red Snow’. The US design of the Mk 28 was not approved by the British Ordnance Board for adoption and had to be converted to UK safety requirements. Correspondence with Eric Younson, 31 March and 1 April 2007.
87Again it appears that the anglicised version had to deal with safety issues.Younson argues that: ‘In the case of Polaris, studies by Dr Stewart at AWRE revealed a significant likelihood of predetonation when submerged’, Correspondence with Eric Younson, 31 March and 1 April 2007.
88Telegram from Washington to Foreign Office, 25 Sept. 1958, PRO 371/135506,ZE 13/74.
89Record of the Second Meeting of the Technical Experts held pursuant to the section 11 of the Technical Annex to the ‘Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Cooperation on the uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes’, DDEL, White House Office, Office of Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 5.
90This information has been obtained from Lorna Arnold, the official historian of the British H-Bomb project.See Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb. This book is based on the extensive use of UKAEA and AWRE files. Many of the quotations that follow are taken from this source.
91Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 195–220.
92Ibid., 211–12. Discussions took place on a range of technical, scientific and engineering issues, including weapon electronics; uranium and plutonium fabrication; high explosives; tritium; beryllium; solid fusion materials; plastics; rubber and adhesives; engineering; and weapons assembly.
93Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 52. See Program Status Report to the JCAE, Part III–Weapons, 31 Dec. 1958.
94Correspondence, 31 March and 1 April 2007.
95Quarterly Progress Report to the JACE, Part III - Weapons, Jan.–March 1959, DOE, NOO, Progress Reports on Selected Programs, No. 73762; Quarterly Progress Reports to the JCAE, Part III - Weapons, April–June 1959, DOE/NOO, Progress Reports on Selected Programs, No. 73764; Quarterly Progress Report to the JCAE, Part III - Weapons, July–Sept. 1959, DOE/NOO, Progress Reports on Selected Programs, No. 73766; Progress Report on Selected Programs to the JCAE, Part III–Weapons, May 1960, DOE/NOO, No. 73768.
96Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 214.
97Lord Plowden was Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority from 1954 to 1959.
98Quoted in Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 212.
99The ‘Stocktake Meetings’ were scheduled for six monthly intervals. Day to day procedures for exchanges, however, were also developed. The US set up a Joint Atomic Information Exchange Group, located in the Pentagon, staffed by a mix of Department of Defense and AEC personnel. Restricted data went to Eric Younson's office in the BJSM and he would pass it on to Macklen in the MOD. Macklen then set up accession lists, code named ‘Principal’ and ‘Conifer’, run by R.W. Fisher at Storey's Gate (the old MOD) London. Correspondence, 31 March and 1 April 2007.
100Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb.
101The W47 warhead was used on the Polaris A1 and A2 SLBMs. AEC, Progress Report on Selected Programs to the JCAE, May 1960, Part 111- Weapons, 15.
102Quoted in Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, 216.
103In Oct. 1959 a second Stocktake took place to review the JOWOGS and EIVRs. Both were believed to be operating successfully.
104Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb. Other topics discussed included hydrodynamics and shock relations for problems with spherical and cylindrical symmetry, cross-sections, radiochemistry, atomic demolition munitions, warhead hardening, asymmetric detonations, terrorist nuclear threat response, nuclear weapons accidents and waste management.
105See Richard H. Ullman, ‘The Covert French Connection’, Foreign Policy 75 (Summer 1989), 3–33.
106G. Ball, The Discipline of Power (London: Bodley Head 1968), 93, 102. For a discussion of the problems caused by the Anglo-American nuclear partnership for alliance cohesion see Melissen, Struggle for Nuclear Partnership, 109–14.
107A. Pierre, Nuclear Politics: The British Experience with an Independent Strategic Force 1939–1970 (London: Oxford Univ. Press 1972), 316. Whether nuclear proliferation was encouraged and alliance cohesion undermined as a result of the 1958 Act remains very difficult to prove one way or the other.
108Confidential correspondence, Feb. 1998.
109Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace.
110The Anglo-American relationship was clearly a complex and multifaceted one which involved a range of mutual benefits in areas such as intelligence, strategy, weapons and delivery systems diplomacy, base rights and raw materials.
111Ball, Discipline of Power.
112See P. Sabatier, ‘An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change and the Role of Policy Oriented Learning’, Policy Sciences 21 (Autumn 1988), 129–68. For a discussion of ‘epistemic communities’ see Darryl Howlett, ‘Nuclear Proliferation’, in John Baylis and Steve Smith (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics (Oxford: OUP 2005), 508.
113In 1948 a treaty was agreed between the RAF and USAF to exchange intelligence.
114Correspondence, 2 March 2007. Dr Panton was the TRU/TAL representative in Washington in 1958. TRU was the Technical Research Unit in the MOD headed by Eric Welsh (until his death in 1954), while TAL was the covert Secret Intelligence Service arm of atomic intelligence. It is not clear if TAL referred to ‘Technical Atomic Liaison’ or ‘Tube Alloys Liaison’. Maj.-Gen. Eric Younson replaced Dr Panton shortly after the signing of the 1958 Agreement.
115Younson Correspondence, 2 March 2007. See also Michael S. Goodman, Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb (Stanford Univ. Press 2007). It appears that unofficial lines of access remained an important source of information for the British despite the McMahon Act. Dr Arnold Kramish, a senior AEC staff member with responsibility for intelligence liaison with Britain, has said that the British were ‘very good at getting stuff out of the (US) scientists'. Goodman, Spying on the Nuclear Bear, 160.
116Dr Willard Libby, Maj. Gen. Loper and Brig. Gen. Starbird were also very influential on the US side, as was Plowden on the British side.
117Statement by Mr Frederick Jandrey, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, before the Subcommittee on Agreements for Cooperation, JCAE, American Foreign Policy Current Documents, 1958, Western Europe ( Washington DC: Dept. of State Publications, 7522, 1962), 647.
118Frank Panton has written to the author saying the following: 'I can confirm that between 1965 and 1971/2 no new [Presidential] Determinations were given, and discussions under the JOWOGS and EIVRS dried up or were restricted on the US side to information permitted under existing determinations'. Correspondence, 2 March 2007.
119See P.G.E.F. Jones ‘Overview of History of UK Strategic Weapons’, in The History of the UK Strategic Deterrent, Proceedings of the Royal Aeronautical Society (London 1999).
120Dept. of State (Bureau of Intelligence and Research), US-UK Relationship Enters a New Era (partially declassified and released under the FOIA), Report No. 1125-AR, 10 July 1985.
121See Chapter 14 of Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb. I am grateful to Lorna Arnold for showing me her ‘Notes for a Talk at Sandia’, Nov. 1997. Much the same view is held by Dr Frank Panton, Correspondence, 2 March 2007.
122See N. Chamberlain, N. Butler and D. Andrews, ‘US-UK Nuclear Weapons Collaboration under the Mutual Defence Agreement: Shining the Light on the Darker Recesses of the “Special Relationship” (Basic Special Report 2004, 3 June 2004).
123See William Burr, ‘China, Pakistan and the Bomb: Declassified File on US Policy, 1977–1997’, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Note No. 114, 5 March 2004. See also N. Michishita ‘North Korea's “First” Nuclear Diplomacy, 1993–94’, Journal of Strategic Studies 26/4 (Dec. 2003), 47–92.
124See Chamberlain, Butler and Andrews ‘US-UK Nuclear Weapons Collaboration under the Mutual Defence Agreement’.
125FO 115/4618, Non-dissemination and non-acquisition of nuclear weapons, Foreign Office Telegram 11484 to Washington, 19 Dec. 1966. See John Walker, ‘British Nuclear Weapons, the ANF and the NPT 1965–1968’, UK Nuclear History Working Paper No.4 (Southampton, UK: Mountbatten Centre for International Studies 29 Nov. 2007).