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The Allies: After Nassau

5 minute read
TIME

In December 1960. the U.S. first proposed to help NATO develop its own nuclear strike force. But Europe made no attempt to devise a plan. Last week, as they studied the Nassau accord between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan. Europeans saw emerging the first outlines of the nuclear NATO that the U.S. wants and will support.

It all sprang from the Anglo-U.S. crisis over cancellation of the bug-ridden Skybolt missile, and the U.S. offer to supply Britain and France with the proved Polaris (TIME, Dec. 28). The one Allied leader who unreservedly welcomed the Polaris offer was Harold Macmillan, who by thus keeping a separate nuclear deterrent for Britain had saved his own neck.

Back from Nassau, the Prime Minister beamed that Britain now had a weapon that “will last a generation. The terms are very good.” Many other Britons were not so sure. Though the government will shoulder none of the $800 million development cost of Polaris, it has already poured $28 million into Skybolt and will have to spend perhaps $1billion more for a fleet of missile-packing submarines. At best, the British will not be able to design, build and prove its nuclear fleet before 1970, three years after Britain’s bomber force has presumably become obsolete.

Then what? Tory backbenchers are loudly skeptical of what they call “the small type” in the Nassau pact, which stipulates that Britain’s Polaris submarine fleet, except when “supreme national interests intervene, must be committed to a truly multilateral NATO force. Does that mean that Britain will eventually have no strike force of its own? Who will decide when or whether national interests justify withdrawal of submarines from NATO, particularly if those national interests conflict with U.S. policy? The biggest question of all is whether France’s inclusion in the offer was a deliberate ploy by Jack Kennedy to end or at least downgrade Britain’s prized “special relationship” with the U.S. The cartoonists went even farther. They not only showed Supermac jumping to Superjack’s commands, but De Gaulle and Adenauer as well.

Unswerving Conviction. The French, who got no help from the U.S. in developing their force de frappe, were quick to crow that Britain’s ties with the U.S. had brought it nothing but humiliation. By contrast, bragged French officials, the Skybolt fiasco only vindicated France’s decision to develop its own bombs and delivery systems. Thus, though Charles de Gaulle promised to “reflect” on the Polaris offer, there was little likelihood that he would accept any offer that would subject a French force to Allied control.

It is De Gaulle’s unswerving conviction that if the Russians were actually to invade Western Europe, no nation that was not directly attacked—meaning the U.S.—would invite nuclear devastation by helping its allies. Thus, unlike Britain’s bomber force, which all along has been pledged to “the Western strategic deterrent,” France’s force de frappe will be responsible only for France’s defense.

At the same time, De Gaulle has long argued that the Atlantic alliance could be run most efficiently by a triumvirate that would include France as an equal of the U.S. and Britain. This is one of his major, if unspoken, conditions for British membership in the Common Market; and De Gaulle suggested pointedly to Macmillan that it would help if Britain were to share its advanced missile technology with France. When Macmillan replied noncommittally that he would have to discuss this with Kennedy, De Gaulle told his guest with hauteur that France in that case could do nothing to ease Britain’s entry into Europe.

Go-it-Alone Grandeur. Konrad Adenauer, on the other hand, is fearful that De Gaulle will snap up the Polaris offer and in this way achieve his goal of a three-nation NATO directorate. Though his government vowed in 1954 not to manufacture nuclear weapons, Adenauer has become increasingly apprehensive that without them, and with no say in their use. West Germany will be relegated to second-class citizenship in the alliance. Last week an official bulletin even revived the old. bitter cry that U.S. pleas for greater reliance on conventional forces are aimed at raising German “cannon fodder” for U.S. “atomic knights.” A frosty letter from the Chancellor to President Kennedy suggested that Germany, which already supplies almost 50% of NATO ground strength, does not intend to raise any more divisions for conventional warfare.

Yet U.S. strategic planners reason that the only credible deterrent to Soviet attack is a strong army on the ground, backed by the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal. Fact is, the British and French nuclear weapons could never be used independently of the U.S. against Russia without inviting devastating Soviet retaliation. After all their efforts, the British and French will have managed to create a nuclear capacity that represents only 4% of U.S. nuclear power. “It is just a damned nuisance,” said a State Department official last week. “It means nothing militarily except that we will be expected to bail out the first country that throws the first pea at the Russians or anyone else.” Charles de Gaulle could hardly be expected to agree, at least until his force de frappe becomes obsolete. For Britain and Germany, the multilateral deterrent makes immediate sense. Eventually, France too, may well find a NATO-controlled Polaris fleet, or its possible successor, a European Minuteman arsenal, the only answer to the spiraling cost and diminishing value of go-it-alone grandeur.

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