Abstract
The leadership of the new Heath government regarded achieving entry into the EEC as one of its major policy objectives, with a closer nuclear relationship with France as one of the actions that might facilitate this. However, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) were aware that there were other key defence issues that needed to be urgently addressed. One was the need to establish understandings with France about the future role of its military forces in NATO plans and strategy, and a second to clarify the future nuclear relationship between the UK and the US at a time of rapid technological changes in both offensive and defensive nuclear delivery systems. This latter subject was to increasingly dominate the thinking of UK officials dealing with nuclear security issues as policy making within the new administration progressed.
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Notes
TNA, PREM 15/299, R.J. Andrew to R.T. Armstrong Anglo-French Nuclear Collaboration, 19 March 1971. John Campbell, Heath’s official biographer, described Armstrong as a handpicked appointment, ‘skilful, sympathetic and famously discreet’. Heath came to rely heavily on him and his civil service team for advice in this area. Armstrong went on to become Secretary to the full Cabinet under Margaret Thatcher. John Campbell, Edward Heath: A Biography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), pp. 488–489.
John Baylis, ‘British Nuclear Doctrine: The “Moscow Criterion” and the Polaris Improvement Programme’, Contemporary British History, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 53–65.
For the amount of damage required see John Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence: British Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 220–362.
TNA, DEFE 13/752, Ministry of Defence UK Strategic Nuclear Force — Short Term Working Party Report, 3 June 1971. See also Kristan Stoddart, ‘The Wilson Government and British Responses to Anti-Ballistic Missiles, 1964–1970’, Contemporary British History, Vol. 23, No. 1 (March 2009), pp. 1–33. The other cities on the list have not been released, but they would have been based on population, which changed over time. Kiev, Kharkov, Gor’Kiy, Baku, Kuybyshev, Minsk, Odessa, Tbilisi and Denepropetrovsk could well have featured on this list.
Kristan Stoddart, Losing an Empire and Finding a Role: Britain, the United States, NATO and Nuclear Weapons 1964–1970 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), pp. 18–36.
For a further discussion of Super Antelope see John Baylis and Kristan Stoddart, ‘Chevaline: The Hidden Nuclear Programme, 1967–1982’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (December 2003), pp. 128–131.
Graham Spinardi, From Polaris to Trident: The Development of US Fleet Ballistic Missile Fleet Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 108.
John Baylis and Kristan Stoddart, ‘Chevaline: Britain’s Hidden Nuclear Programme’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3 (December, 2003), pp. 141–142.
Colin McInnes, Trident: The Only Option (London: Brassey’s, 1986), p. 5.
Nixon Library, NSC Files, Box 808: Phil Odeen, Memorandum for Dr. Kissinger, Senator Brooke Letter on First Strike Policy, 10 August 1972. See also Thomas B. Cochrane, William M. Arkin and Milton M. Hoenig, Nuclear Weapons Databook Volume 1 U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (Cambridge MA: Natural Resources Defense Council, 1989). The author is indebted to Dr Bill Burr for providing these two sources. See also http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab5.asp, accessed 21 January 2010 and http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmdfence/986/986we12.htm, accessed 21 January 2010. There was also a plan to increase the yield of the W-68 to 100 kt. However, it would appear this development programme was never applied to Poseidon but was transferred to provide an additional capability for the Trident I C-4. Instead, the W-76 replaced the W-68 on 12 of the 31 Poseidon SSBNs.
Frank Panton, ‘Polaris Improvements and the Chevaline System 1967–1975–6’, Prospero, No. 1 (Spring 2004), p. 116.
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© 2014 Kristan Stoddart
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Stoddart, K. (2014). The ‘Special Nuclear Relationship’ under Heath, 1970–1974. In: The Sword and the Shield. Nuclear Weapons and International Security since 1945. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313508_3
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