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

The Bomb and Europe 85
ideological objections to British accession to the EEC and suggests that there was
never much room for a bilateral deal: from the very beginning de Gaulle's private
remarks to Macmillan and others were discouraging. In mid-July 1961 he said to
Dixon that although British EEC membership was perhaps desirable in principle, it
would take "a very long time". 89 At that stage de Gaulle still seems to have hoped
that a British application for full membership, because of the political problems over
home agriculture and the Commonwealth, would not be forthcoming for some time
to come. After he had then been informed of the planned British initiative less than
two weeks later, he let it be known to Macmillan through ambassador Chauvel that
it came as "an unpleasant surprise". 90 De Gaulle clearly does not seem to have looked
forward to a British EEC application in order to negotiate a wider package deal.
Despite his evident interest in Anglo-French nuclear cooperation to speed-up the
development of the force de frappe nothing in the British sources suggests that he
was prepared to accept British EEC membership as the inevitable quid pro quo. On
the contrary, on several occasions during 1962 de Gaulle actually indicated to Macmillan
through Dixon that the best solution would be for the British to withdraw
their application. 91 This does not exclude the possibility that de Gaulle may eventually
have granted EEC membership under certain conditions, but he never gave
the British the impression that he would ever feel under any obligation to do so.
However, even if de Gaulle was prepared to accept a trade-off between the British
government's European interests and his nuclear ambitions – and at least in
1960/61 Macmillan strongly believed that he would –, it is now abundantly clear
that no basis for such a package deal ever existed either before or during the EEC
entry negotiations. The British Prime Minister had initially thought in terms of a
trilateral nuclear deal, involving US assistance for the force de frappe without any
preconditions attached to it. However, as a result of Kennedy's refusal to cooperate,
this plan collapsed even before the British EEC application which was then launched
nonetheless largely in order to appease the Americans into continuing the
"special relationship" as well as for domestic political reasons. Thereafter, anything
the Americans would be prepared to do, such as the Polaris offer after Nassau, was
always unlikely to be of interest to de Gaulle, who was aiming to increase French
independence from the US, and equally unlikely to result in his consent to British
EEC membership. On the other hand, the alternative option, involving bilateral
Anglo-French nuclear cooperation, was only advocated by a small minority within
the British government. No such offer to de Gaulle was ever seriously considered
during 1961/62. The Anglo-American nuclear partnership, re-established in 1957/
58, was still sacrosanct. Whatever de Gaulle's intentions, therefore, the conclusion
is inevitable that because of its intrinsic transatlantic character the British EEC
application of 1961 was doomed to failure from the very beginning.
Wolfram Kaiser
89. Dixon to Heath: PRO PREM 11/3557 (14 July 1961).
90. PRO PREM 11/3559 (25 July 1961).
91. Dixon to Home and Macmillan: PRO PREM 11/3775 (22 May 1962); Dixon to Foreign Office:
PRO FO 371/164839/142 (1 October 1962).