number 1 - Centre d'études et de recherches européennes Robert ...

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Wolfram Kaiser
1962. 37 However, what they were looking for as a suitable quid pro quo from de
Gaulle was not British EEC membership, but a more constructive French defence
and security policy within NATO. 38
American economic self-interest was another problem. If there was going to be
cooperation with the French, then the Americans would of course prefer to deal with
de Gaulle directly in order to sell their own weapons. This became abundantly clear
in 1962 when the French government placed an order for a heat exchanger for use in
a future French nuclear submarine with the British firm Foster Wheeler. Even though
this device did not even contain classified information under the Anglo-American
nuclear agreement, the British government still preferred to obtain American consent
before allowing the sale to go ahead which, however, was not forthcoming during the
summer. 39 At that stage Macmillan's Private Secretary and adviser on foreign policy,
de Zulueta, already bitterly complained that "there is a marked contrast between the
high principles which the Americans express when they are dealing with our interests
and the brutal self-interest with which they deal with their own". 40 Then, only one
month after the Americans had declared the planned Foster Wheeler sale undesirable,
the British heard rumours, later confirmed to Thorneycroft by Messmer, 41 that the US
government was itself now offering not a heat exchanger, but complete nuclear hunter
submarines of the Nautilus class to the French, and had of course decided to do so
without consulting the British government. 42
II
Even though during 1961/62 Macmillan continued to flirt with his initial plan for a
trilateral nuclear deal in the hope that a fundamental change in the American attitude
to de Gaulle might occur, it became progressively clearer after his consultations
with Kennedy in Spring 1961 that this preferred option could never form a
suitable basis for successful EEC entry negotiations, if only because of de Gaulle's
resolute determination to increase French independence from the United States.
This still left the obvious alternative strategy to be explored, i.e. the possible pooling
of British and French resources in order to develop some kind of common
deterrent. Arguably, such an offer, representing a general "reorientation of British
security policy towards Europe", was what de Gaulle was waiting for and might
have accepted as the British contribution to a package deal over Europe. 43
37. See Macmillan's meeting with Kennedy: PRO PREM 11/3783 (28 April 1962).
38. Accordingly, Kennedy explained to the British ambassador to Washington, Ormsby-Gore, that if
his government was to assist the French, "something really spectacular" had to be obtained in
return, meaning not just British EEC membership. See Ormsby-Gore to Macmillan: PRO PREM
11/3712 (17 May 1962).
39. Ormsby-Gore to Foreign Office: PRO PREM 11/3712 (11 September 1962).
40. PRO PREM 11/3712 (12 September 1962).
41. Thorneycroft to Macmillan: PRO FO 371/163516/24 (24 October 1962).
42. De Zulueta to Macmillan: PRO PREM 11/3712 (18 October 1962).