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

The Bomb and Europe 77
On the other hand there was also some support within the government for
replacing the close cooperation with the US in nuclear and defence matters with a
new "special relationship" with France. 53 This view had already been advanced in
1958 in connection with the Free Trade Area negotiations by Julian Amery who
believed that only as a result of close Anglo-French cooperation could Britain hope
to reconcile her European and Commonwealth interests. 54 Another influential
minister who at the time of the EEC entry negotiations advocated a substantial
commitment to a new British role in Europe was Thorneycroft. In fact, the Defence
Secretary would eventually have executed the final break with the Americans over
Skybolt and Polaris during the tense Nassau summit, if it had not been for Macmillan.
55 By 1962 a greater degree of independence from the United States also seemed
desirable to many British defence experts who were becoming increasingly
anxious about the future direction of American strategic thinking. The concept of
flexible response would involve higher expenditure on conventional forces which
the British government desperately wanted to avoid, but it also indicated that the
US government, because of the new threat of retaliation involving American cities,
could no longer be relied upon to the same extent as in the past to be prepared, if
necessary, to respond with nuclear weapons to a limited Soviet aggression in
Western Europe. 56 As de Gaulle put it to Macmillan at Champs, nobody could possibly
know how the Americans would react in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack
on, for example, Hamburg (or, for that matter, Birmingham or Marseille), in order
to blackmail Western Europe. 57
Nonetheless, the protagonists within the government of a reorientation of British
security and nuclear policy towards Europe and, more particularly, towards
France remained in a clear minority between 1960 and 1963. For most ministers,
including Macmillan and Foreign Secretary Home, and for the majority of leading
officials it was never more than the option of last resort should the US decide to put
an end to the existing bilateral nuclear partnership with Britain. As a result of a
joint approach by Europeanists and Multilateralists within the administration in
Washington this had been a distinct possibility ever since Kennedy was elected in
November 1960. It then developed into a more acute threat to the established British
defence and security policy when Kennedy himself told Macmillan privately in
February 1962 that the continuation of an independent British force was undesirable
in that it tended to encourage the French to speed up their plans for the force
de frappe further and increased the nuclear temptation for the Germans. 58 The Bri-
53. See also G. SCHMIDT, "Die politischen und die sicherheitspolitischen Dimensionen der britischen
Europapolitik 1955/56-1963/64", in: G. SCHMIDT (ed.), Großbritannien und Europa – Großbritannien
in Europa. Sicherheitsbelange und Wirtschaftsfragen in der britischen Europapolitik nach
dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, Bochum 1989, pp. 169-252 (248).
54. Amery was the first to suggest a nuclear bribe for de Gaulle: Amery to Macmillan: PRO PREM 11/
2695 (December 1958).
55. Thorneycroft to Macmillan: PRO PREM 11/4229 (19 December 1962). Cf.also Horne, Macmillan II,
p. 439.
56. Watkinson to Macmillan: PRO PREM 11/3712 (12 April 1962). See also Macmillan’s remarks to
de Courcel: PRO PREM 11/3775 (9 May 1962).
57. PRO PREM 11/3775 (3 June 1962).