journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

Our Man in Paris 55
“Our information is that the French do not yet know how to make a thermo-nuclear
bomb. If this is correct, the General faces the humiliating prospect of having a completely
useless nuclear submarine force on his hands in a few years’ time, unless the
French have made the breakthrough by then. In this situation, the General might be
tempted if we could offer to tell him how to make a thermo-nuclear bomb as soon as
we are safely in the E.E.C. with his help”. 60
Even though Reilly was supported by the government’s chief scientific
adviser, 61 the Foreign Office once again ignored his advice. Instead, deputy
under-secretary of state Roger Jackling wanted to hold out technological
co-operation as a bait until Britain had actually joined the EEC:
“It is an essential part of our present position that European countries, including
France, cannot expect full technological co-operation with us unless they take the
steps required to make such co-operation fully effective, by letting us into the
E.E.C.”. 62
There were three reasons for the Foreign Office’s hesitation about offering
technological collaboration with France. First, Foreign secretary Brown did not
want to alienate the Five by proposing a bilateral deal with France. 63 Second,
Foreign Office officials feared that the French could insist that establishing bilateral
technological co-operation was possible outside the EEC and had nothing to do
with the British application. 64 Third, the Foreign Office and the ministry of
Technology feared that technological collaboration with other European countries
would result in Britain having to share valuable information with her economic
competitors in fields where Britain enjoyed a considerable technological lead. 65
The Foreign Office and the ministry of Defence also regarded Reilly’s proposal
as a threat to Britain’s special relationship with the US. „It is essential,” an internal
FO paper argued,
“that any European defence arrangements should be within the framework of the
Atlantic alliance and should not weaken the commitment of the American nuclear
deterrent to the defence of Europe, on which our security rests. Nor must we weaken
our own links with the Americans in respect of nuclear know-how”. 66
Reilly’s views, one Foreign Office official wrote, were „not in accordance with
Whitehall thinking”. 67
60. UKNA: PREM13/1479, Reilly to Mulley, 20 April 1967.
61. See UKNA: PREM13/1521, Zuckerman to Wilson, 14 June 1967.
62. UKNA: HF2/21, Jackling to Reilly, 7 April 1967.
63. UKNA: PREM13/1850, Brown to Wilson, 24 November 1967.
64. UKNA: HF2/21, Jackling to Reilly, 7 April 1967.
65. Britain was ahead of most other European countries in computer technology and the nuclear and
aviation industries. See T. KAJIWARA, Britain’s Second Application for membership of the European
Economic Community (EEC) in 1966-7, M.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, Oxford,
2001, p.78. On the position of the ministry of Trade see UKNA: FCO55/41, ministry of Technology
paper ‘Technological Collaboration with Europe’, draft, December 1966.
66. UKNA: PREM13/1998, FO paper on European defence, May 1967.
67. UKNA: FCO33/57, Lush to Morgan, 23 August 1967.