Callaghan, the British Government and the N-Bomb Controversy

Abstract

The essay focuses on the ERW controversy in the context of NATO modernisation of tactical nuclear weapons and Soviet deployment of SS-20s. The rationale of a low-yield warhead supposedly tailor-made for the European theatre enabled the Americans to ask their allies for a prior commitment on deployment, while the Europeans retorted that the process of decision making should be triggered by a US previous determination of whether to produce the neutron bomb. Consultations were essentially a FRG-US-UK affair. Against this background British inability to properly assess the genuine German position was a very important factor, resulting in a persistent climate of uncertainty. Bonn's decision not to inform the British that on 20 January 1978 they agreed to give the Americans a qualified green light to deploy ERWs on German soil represents a blunder in this sense. It kept the UK government wary, instead of possibly precipitating a solution of the controversy by hammering out the terms of an arms control offer to the Soviets according to a ‘dual track’ approach.

Notes

¹ Leopoldo Nuti, ‘The Origins of the 1979 Dual Track Decision – A Survey’, in The Crisis of Détente in Europe. From Helsinki to Gorbachev 1975–1985 (London: Routledge, 2009), 57–71.

² Ivo Daalder, The Nature and Practice of Flexible Response: NATO Strategy and Theater Nuclear Forces since 1967 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 224–225.

³ Sherri Wasserman's seminal study The Neutron Bomb Controversy. A Study in Alliance Politics (New York: Praeger, 1983) is still very much useful, as well as the relevant chapter in Olav Njølstad's Peacekeeper and Troublemaker. The Containment Policy of Jimmy Carter 1977–78 (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Defence, 1995). One should see also Vincent Auger, The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Analysis. The Carter Administration and the Neutron Bomb, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996).

⁴ Kristina Spohr Readman, ‘Germany and the Politics of the Neutron Bomb, 1975–1979’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 21 (2010), 259–285.

⁵ On the offensive nature of the Warsaw Pact war planning see Vojtech Mastny and Malcolm Byrne, eds., A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955–1991 (Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2005).

⁶ Kristan Stoddart, Losing an Empire and Finding a Role: Britain, the USA, NATO and Nuclear Weapons, 1964–70 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 79–117.

⁷ Lawrence Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1980), 108.

⁸ Stoddart, Losing an Empire, 199–226.

⁹ Christoph Bluth, Britain,Germany and Western Nuclear Strategy, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 179–195. Kristan Stoddart, The Sword and the Shield: Britain, America, NATO and Nuclear Weapons, 1970–1976 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014), 83–137.

¹⁰ William Burr, ‘The Nixon Administration, the “Horror Strategy,” and the Search for Limited Nuclear Options, 1969–1972’, Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 7 (2005): 34–78.

¹¹ Bluth, Britain,Germany and Western Nuclear Strategy, 201–210. Stoddart, The Sword and the Shield, 225.

¹² Stephen Mayer, ‘Soviet Theatre Nuclear Forces. Part II: Capabilities and Implications’, Adelphi Paper no. 188 (1984): 1–36.

¹³ Stoddart, The Sword and the Shield, 172–216.

¹⁴ Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 110–113.

¹⁵ Bluth, Britain,Germany and Western Nuclear Strategy, 219.

¹⁶ Samuel Cohen, The Neutron Bomb: Political, Technological and Military Issues (Washington: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, 1978).

¹⁷ Facer to Cartledge, 27 Feb. 1977; ‘Enhanced Radiation Warheads’, note by MoD officials, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

¹⁸ Walter Pincus, ‘Neutron Killer Warhead Buried in ERDA Budget’, Washington Post, 4 June 1977.

¹⁹ Killick to FCO, tel. 287, 22 Jul. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 11/810. See Auger, The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Analysis, 41–47.

²⁰ Bullard to Moberly, 30 Aug. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 24/1656.

²¹ See Spohr Readman, Germany and the Politics of the Neutron Bomb, 268–274.

²² Killick to FCO, tel. 310–12, 2 Sep. 1977, Owen to Washington, tel. 2401, 6 Sep. 1977, Jay to FCO, tel. 2401, 7 Sept. 1977, MODUK to UKDEL NATO, 12 Sep. 1977, Killick to FCO, tel. 321, 13 Sep. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 11/810.

²³ St. John to the APS, 2 Aug. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 11/810.

²⁴ The Secretary of Defence to the Foreign & Commonwealth Secretary, 19 Sep. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

²⁵ On Quinlan's doctrine of deterrence and LRTNF see part two of Tanya Ogilvie-White, On Nuclear Deterrence. The Correspondence of Sir Michael Quinlan (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).

²⁶ Owen to the Secretary of Defence, 22 Sep. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

²⁷ David Owen, Nuclear Papers, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009), doc. 8, 123.

²⁸ Ibid., 125.

²⁹ Facer to Cartledge, 19 Jan. 1978, ‘minute by Hunt to the Prime Minister’, 20 Jan. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1576. Quinlan to the APS, 26 Oct. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 11/810.

³⁰ Len Scott, ‘Labour and the Bomb: The First 80 Years’, International Affairs, vol. 82 (2006): 685–700.

³¹ See Hansard 1803–2005 at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/.

³² Minute by Callaghan’, 24 Sep. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

³³ ‘Prime Minister's visit to Rome – plenary session on 22 September 1977’, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1354.

³⁴ Owen to Washington, tel. 2596, 23 Sep. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 11/810. Jay to FCO, tel. 4161, 23 Sept. 1977, Jay to FCO, tel. 4173, 24 Sep. 1977, Owen to UKDEL NATO, tel. 196, 26 Sep. 1977, Killick to FCO, tel. 332, 27 Sep. 1977 UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

³⁵ ‘Extract of meeting record: Brzezinski's call on the PM on 27 September 1977’, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1576. ‘Meeting with Dr. Brzezinski, brief no. 3: ERW’, 23 Sep. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1911.

³⁶ ‘Note of a meeting between the Defence Secretary and the US Secretary of Defence at Bari on 11 October 1977’, 13 Oct. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 19/143.

³⁷ ‘Note of a meeting between the Defence Secretary and the German Minister of Defence at Bari on 10 October 1977’, 13 Oct. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 19/143.

³⁸ Owen, Nuclear Papers, doc. 2, 97–103.

³⁹ ‘SoS meeting on military nuclear matters: 27 January 1978’, n.d., UKNA, FCO 46/1812.

⁴⁰ ‘Enhanced radiation warheads’, n.d., Cartledge to Jackling, 24 Oct. 1977, Hunt to the Prime Minister, 26 Oct. 1977; Jackling to Cartledge, 26 Oct. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

⁴¹ Wright to FCO, tel. 882, 26 Sep. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

⁴² Owen, Nuclear Papers, doc. 43, 271–273.

⁴³ Killick to FCO, tel. 332, 27 Sep. 1977; Killick to FCO, tel. 333, 27 Sep. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576. Quinlan to the APS, 26 Oct. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 11/810. In his memoirs, Brzezinski claims that the idea of exchanging ERWs with a reduction of Soviet armoured forces in Central Europe was first mooted by himself, but Schmidt's speech at Chatham House would later focus attention on SS-20s. See Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 303.

⁴⁴ Linda Brady, ‘Negotiating European Security: Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR)’, International Security Review, 1 (1981): 189–208; Lothar Rühl, ‘MBFR: Lessons and Problems’, Adelphi Paper no. 176 (1982); Christoph Bluth, ‘Arms Control as a Part of Strategy: The Warsaw Pact in MBFR Negotiations’, Cold War History, 12 (2012): 245–268.

⁴⁵ See Détente, Diplomacy and MBFR, FCO Occasional Paper no. 17 (2002),

⁴⁶ Cartledge to Facer, 24 Oct. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576. Bryars to Jackling, 1 Nov. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 19/143.

⁴⁷ Helmut Schmidt, ‘The 1977 Alistar Buchan Memorial Lecture’, Survival, vol. 20 (1978): 2–10.

⁴⁸ Bullard to FCO, tel. 933, 13 Oct. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1278. Cartledge to Facer, 6 Dec. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576. ‘Record of a meeting between the Secretary of Defence and the French and German Ministers of Defence on 3 November 1977’, n.d., UKNA, DEFE 13/1328. Wright to Moberly, 2 Dec. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 19/143. ‘Minute by Quinlan’, 10 Nov. 1977 UKNA, DEFE 11/810. Killick to FCO, tel. 430, 5 Dec. 1977, UKNA, FCO 46/1511.

⁴⁹ Cartledge to Fergusson, 4 Nov. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1908. Cartledge to Prendergast, 17 Jan. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1811.

⁵⁰ SS-20s represented the Soviet answer to the obsolescence of older weapon systems in front of the growing importance of the theatre dimension and had added a sense of urgency to the relevant debate already under way in NATO. See Jonathan Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons in Europe 1969–87: The Problem of the SS-20 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), 58–62.

⁵¹ Jay to FCO, tel. 4993, 22 Nov. 1977, Jay to FCO, tel. 5107, 30 Nov. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576. Jay to FCO, tel. 5010, 23 Nov. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 11/810. BDS to MODUK, 4 Nov. 1977, UKNA, DEFE 19/143.

⁵² Killick to FCO, tel. 433, 7 Dec. 1977, UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

⁵³ ‘Minute by Hunt’, 29 Nov. 1977; ‘Extract from a meeting of Nuclear Defence Policy on 1 December 1977’, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1576. ‘Minute by Bryars’, 30 Nov. 1977. UKNA, DEFE 19/143. ‘Ministerial meeting of the NAC 8–9 December 1977 – brief 7: ERWs’, n.d., UKNA, FCO 46/1490.

⁵⁴ Spohr Readman, Germany and the Policy of the Neutron Bomb, 276–277.

⁵⁵ Carledge to Facer, 24 Jan. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1812.

⁵⁶ Wright to FCO, tel. 46, 19 Jan. 1978, Wright to FCO, tel. 101, 8 Feb. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1576. Wright to FCO, tel. 73, 30 Jan. 1978, Bullard to Wilberforce, tel. 74, 30 Jan. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 11/810.

⁵⁷ ‘Extract from records of Anglo-US consultations on military nuclear matters on 31 January 1978’, 8 Feb. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1812.

⁵⁸ ‘Note of a conversation between the prime minister and Mr. Peter Jay on 1 February 1978’, n.d., Owen to Bonn, tel. 43, 3 Feb. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1576. Hansard, HC, 21 Feb. 1978, vol. 944, cc. 1205–1208. ‘PM to go to disarmament talks’, The Times, 22 Feb. 1978.

⁵⁹ Owen to UKDEL NATO, tel. 35, 21 Feb. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1576.

⁶⁰ ‘Extract from a conversation between Owen and Vance on 12 February 1978’, n.d., Robinson to FCO, tel. 635, 15 Feb. 1978, Wright to FCO, tel. 145, 23 Feb. 1978, Cartledge to Prendergast, 27 Feb. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1576. ‘Minute by Hunt’, 7 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. ‘Summary record of a private talk between Owen and Vance on 8 March 1978’, n.d., ‘minute by Figgis’, 10 Mar. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1814. Killick to FCO, tel. 67, 28 Feb. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 11/810. Killick to FCO, tel. 56, 20 Feb. 1978, Mendelsohn to Jung, 27 Feb. 1978, Killick to FCO, tel. 66, 27 Feb. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 24/1656.

⁶¹ Fergusson to Cartledge, 3 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. Bryars to the Private Secretary to the Secretary of State, 16 Feb. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 11/810. Homer to Moberly, 8 Feb. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 24/1656.

⁶² Wright to FCO, tel. 168, 3 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. ‘Minute by Bullard’, 6 Mar. 1978; ‘Minute by Bullard’, 7 Mar. 1978 UKNA, FCO 46/1814.

⁶³ On the problem of ‘singularisation’ for the FRG see Helmut Schmidt, Menschen und Mächte, Italian translation Uomini al potere, (Milan: SugarCo, 1987), 70.

⁶⁴ Wright to FCO, tel. 179, 10 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. ‘Record of a meeting at the Auswärtiges Amt on 9 March 1978’, n.d., UKNA, FCO 46/1816.

⁶⁵ Jay to FCO, tel. 1054, 13 Mar. 1978, Jay to FCO, tel. 1074, 14 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. Owen to Washington, tel. 580, 8 Mar. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1814. ‘Minute by Killick to Hawtin’, 7 Mar. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 24/1656.

⁶⁶ ‘Extract from meeting with Chancellor Schmidt on 12 March 1978’, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1577.

⁶⁷ Owen to Washington, tel. 663, 15 Mar. 1978, Jay to FCO, tel. 1105, 15 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. ‘Minute by Fergusson’, 15 Mar. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1815.

⁶⁸ Jay to FCO, tel. 1151, 17 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. ‘Minute by Figgis to Moberly’, 16 Mar. 1978, Owen to Bonn, tel. 108, 16 Mar. 1978, Wright to FCO, tel. 202, 16 Mar. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 24/1656. Killick to FCO, tel. 90, 15 Mar. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 11/810. Wright to FCO, tel. 203, 17 Mar. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1815.

⁶⁹ Fergusson to Cartledge, 17 Mar. 1978, ‘Hand-written minute by Callaghan’, 19 Mar. 1978, ‘Minute by Cartledge’, 18 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. Wright to FCO, tel. 199, 15 Mar. 1978, Owen to UKDEL NATO, tel. 52, 18 Mar. 1978, UKNA, DEFE 11/810.

⁷⁰ Jay to FCO, tel. 1176, 20 Mar. 1978, Killick to FCO, tel. 100, 20 Mar. 1978, Jay to FCO, tel. 1203, 21 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. ‘DOP (78) 7, Enhanced Radiation/Reduced Blast Warheads’, 20 Mar. 1978, ‘Minutes of a DOP meeting held on 21 March 1978’, n.d., UKNA, CAB 148/172. ‘Brief for the Secretary of Defence for DOP (78) 3^rd meeting’, 20 Mar. 1978, UNKA, DEFE 11/810. Wright to Washington, tel. 2, 22 Mar. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1815.

⁷¹ ‘Signed hand-written note’, 29 Mar. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1912. ‘Note by the deputy clerk’, 7 Apr. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1578.

⁷² E-mail by Keith Shuler, Archivist at the Carter Library, to the author, 21 Dec. 2010.

⁷³ Jay to FCO, tel. 1256, 23 Mar. 1978, ‘Extract from minutes of Nuclear Defence Policy meeting of 3 April 1978’, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1577. ‘Conclusions of a meeting of the Cabinet of 6 April 1978’, n.d., UKNA, CAB 128/63. In his own memoirs Callaghan did not make reference to this meeting with Carter. On the contrary, the president remarked on the prime minister's willingness to support the N-bomb cancellation: ‘[Callaghan] said it would be the greatest relief in the world if we announced that we were not going ahead with it; that it would be a very difficult political issue for him to handle in Great Britain’. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith. Memoirs of a President (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1982), 227.

⁷⁴ ‘Conversation with Harold Brown on 17 April 1978’, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1913.

⁷⁵ ‘Extract from minutes of Nuclear Defence Policy meeting of 3 April 1978’, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1577. ‘Conclusions of a meeting of the Cabinet of 6 April 1978’, n.d., UKNA, CAB 128/63.

⁷⁶ Bullard to FCO, tel. 259, 11 Apr. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577.

⁷⁷ ‘Meeting with Vice-President Mondale on 28 March 1978’, n.d., UKNA, PREM 16/1912.

⁷⁸ Owen, Nuclear Papers, doc. 46, 278–280. ‘Minute by Cartledge’, 6 Apr. 1978, ‘Minute by Hunt’, 6 Apr. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. See Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Rebuilding a House Divided: A Memoir by the Architect of Germany's Reunification (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), 145–150.

⁷⁹ ‘Minute by Cartledge’, 4 Apr. 1978; ‘Minute by Hunt to Callaghan’, 5 Apr. 1978, UKNA, PREM 16/1577. Jay to FCO, tel. 1521, 11 Apr. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1816. ‘Minute by Robinson’, 13 Apr. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1816.

⁸⁰ Owen to UKDEL NATO, tel. 59, 7 Apr. 1978, UKNA, FCO 46/1816.

⁸¹ Jonathan Haslam, Russia's Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 303–310.

⁸² Owen, Nuclear Papers, 6–9.

⁸³ Helga Haftendorn, Coming of Age: German Foreign Policy Since 1945 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 246–247; Kristina Spohr Readman, ‘Conflict and Cooperation in Intra-Alliance Nuclear Politics. Western Europe, the United States, and the Genesis of NATO's Dual-Track Decision, 1977–1979’, Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 13 (2011): 39–89.

⁸⁴ See Kenneth Morgan, Callaghan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 622.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mauro Elli

Mauro Elli, PhD, is research fellow of the Centre for Foreign Policy and Public Opinion Studies of State University of Milan (Italy) and member of the Secretariat of the Commission of History of International Relations. He also holds a senior research grant at the University of Padua. Email: [email protected]