GREAT BRITAIN: Labor & the Bomb

Though it was Labor Prime Minister Clement Attlee who got Britain into the atom-bomb business back in 1945, left-wing British Laborites—some of them reformed fellow travelers, some of them churchly pacifists—have long called for total British renunciation of nuclear weapons. Last week, as party leaders began getting their policies set for the British general election expected possibly in October, Labor was being forced into an embarrassing re-examination of its nuclear conscience and stance.

In the eyes of most British politicians, Labor or Tory, the value of Britain’s H-bomb is more diplomatic than military. “It makes the U.S. pay greater regard to our point of view,” Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once frankly declared. And at a Labor Party conference in Brighton two years ago, Aneurin Bevan, in flat repudiation of his previous views, emotionally argued that for Britain to give up its H-bomb would be to send British foreign ministers “naked into the council chamber.” Bevan won the day in Socialist councils, proving himself “responsible” enough to be foreign minister if Labor came to power—but from that day he ceased to be the idol of Labor’s left.

Union Split. Three weeks ago left-wingers caught right-wingers napping at the annual convention of the General and Municipal Workers’ Union (Britain’s third biggest), and shoved through a resolution calling for an end to British production of nuclear weapons and, by implication, for a ban on the use of U.S.-made nuclear weapons from British territory. Worse yet, Britain’s biggest union, the 1,300,000-man Transport and General, seemed likely to follow suit. The unions are the core of Labor Party strength.

Determined to head off a fight that would split the party wide open, Labor’s leaders last week counterattacked. At a meeting of Labor M.P.s, Aneurin Bevan, inflamed by left-wing shouts of “Come off it, Nye,” made a table-pounding speech in which he echoed the opinion of most politically sophisticated Britons: if the Labor Party promises unilateral nuclear disarmament, it will suffer crushing defeat in the elections, lose the confidence of the British people for years to come.

Unspoken Advantage. But to keep peace in the party. Labor Party Chieftain Hugh Gaitskell last week was showing lively interest in committing Labor to the “nonnuclear club” gambit—a declaration that a Labor government would renounce the British H-bomb provided all other nations that do not now possess the bomb would agree not to try to make one. Such prominent left-wingers as Bertrand Russell and Michael Foot would give up the bomb even if no one else does. More practically, Liberal Party Leader Jo Grimond thinks Britain should concentrate on conventional forces, relying on the U.S. for nuclear protection.

The idea of the non-nuclear club is that Britain’s example might dissuade others, such as France’s De Gaulle, from building the H-bomb; and what if Nasser decided he wanted to make one too? Politically, the idea has a double advantage: it expresses distaste for nuclear warfare (and thereby appeals to Labor left-wingers), yet, since France, Red China and other ambitious powers seem to be in no mood to join such a club, it does not really commit Britain to abandonment of the bomb.