Nato's Nuclear Dilemma

...Macmillan tried to take the sting out of these conditions for his own backbenchers in Parliament by demanding that Britain should be free to withdraw its V-bombers or submarines from NATO control in cases of supreme national emergency...

...He followed this up by signing the Franco-German Treaty in circumstances clearly intended to present the Bonn-Paris Axis as a rival to the special relationship between London and Washington...

...A further addition to the West's strategic nuclear strength is, after all, militarily unnecessary...

...AFTER THE OTTAWA CONFERENCE Nato's Nuclear Dilemma By Denis Healey London The Ottawa meeting of the NATO Council has come and gone without making any serious contribution toward solving the central problem of the Western alliance: how to share control of its nuclear armory...

...In short, the Nassau Agreement bore all the marks of an uneasy compromise to meet a temporary crisis...

...So Macmillan fought desperately for the rival idea of a "multinational" deterrent which would be set up by the stroke of a pen...

...Though fully justified under earlier Anglo-American agreements, McNamara's decision produced an explosion of anti-American jingoism among British Conservatives just at the moment when the Government's popularity was collapsing in any event...

...In fact, the final communique of the Ottawa meeting had to be drafted in Paris a week before it took place...

...Here, in fact, is the essential error of the American proposal: It might commit Germany to a nuclear role just at the moment when leadership in Bonn is passing to people who recognize the immense diplomatic dangers of seeking atomic weapons for Germany...

...Both the British and American proposals, then, share the same dangerous weakness: They are unsound military expedients to cope with political problems...

...Britain's V-Bombers, for example, could be used as an independent national deterrent only if targeted on Soviet cities...

...The German Navy would prefer to have Polaris submarines on the same basis as Britain...

...Many experts believe that mixed crews are impracticable and that surface ships would be hopelessly vulnerable to a Soviet attack—particularly since in this form the Polaris missile would be useful only for hitting Soviet cities, the very last phase in nuclear war under the McNamara doctrine...

...decision to cancel further development of the Skybolt missile on which Britain was depending to prolong the effective life of its V-Bombers as an independent nuclear deterrent...

...The NATO commanders, however, fear the diversion of European effort from badly needed conventional forces, and would prefer land-based missiles for use in an interdiction role which is relevant to their prime responsibility of defending Western Europe against land attack...

...Moreover, experience with the ill-fated European Defense Community has already shown that support for a supranational force which ultimately proves unworkable may be the easiest way for the Federal Republic to acquire its own national force...

...Now that the panic produced by de Gaulle in January has somewhat subsided, it can be seen that the pressure in the rest of Europe for atomic independence is much less than was feared...

...Partly, this is because the French Government made clear in advance that it was not prepared to accept either the U.S...

...Indeed, the conflict between British support for a multinational nuclear force and America's preference for a multilateral force appears to be imposing greater strains on the relationship between London and Washington than anything since Suez...

...On the other hand, the British proposal for multinational force is irrelevant to European pressure for nuclear weapons, for it does not increase the power or influence of the non-nuclear allies in the fields where they really want it...

...Nevertheless, the German Government, after some delay, has now decided to support the multilateral deterrent in principle, partly to demonstrate its continued loyalty to the United States despite de Gaulle's temptations, and perhaps partly because this proposal offers Germany much earlier entry to the nuclear club than it could otherwise expect...

...State Department...

...What is more, internal political changes in both Britain and Germany are likely to make the problem far easier to handle in a year or two...

...He was able to obtain a further extension of the special atomic relationship between Britain and the United States through a 10-year program for the supply of Polaris missiles and their control mechanisms for British nuclear submarines...

...But there is good reason to believe that this appetite will die away in time simply through the intolerable cost and difficulty of feeding it from France's own resources...

...That is why the Council in Ottawa did not put the American proposal on the agenda, and robbed the British proposal of any political attraction it might have had by treating it as an unimportant modification of the existing command arrangements (France had refused in advance to permit use of the phrase "interallied or multinational force...

...In addition, he insisted that Britain immediately assign its V-bomber force to NATO and integrate its Polaris submarines into a collective NATO force which should be set up during the five years before the British received their first Polaris missiles...

...There was little enthusiasm for this proposal anywhere outside the U.S...

...There are, to be sure, many potential advantages to concentrating control of nuclear forces in Europe under the NATO Supreme Commander...

...The tragedy is that this conflict would never have arisen if all parties had stuck to the approach unanimously agreed on by the previous NATO Council meeting a year ago in Athens...

...Under this arrangement, all the existing forces in Europe which have a nuclear capability would be assigned to the command of General Lemuel Lemnitzer—but with the politically allimportant proviso that each country would remain free to withdraw its forces from SACEUR control whenever it so desired...

...The first was the U.S...

...Meanwhile, the only urgent appetite for atomic independence remains in Paris, and this demand will only be exacerbated by the offer of multilateral or multinational alternatives...

...In seeking to render this agreement more acceptable to the rest of Europe, President Kennedy made a similar offer to General de Gaulle...

...Later, Dean Rusk was persuaded to write a public letter to Lord Home in which he accepted America's obligation to continue supplying Polaris missiles to Britain, even if the proposed collective NATO force came to nothing...

...At Nassau, Prime Minister Macmillan successfully exploited American concern at the apparent threat to the alliance...

...No doubt fearing that this might involve Germany in cooperation with France for the production of atomic weapons, America immediately sought to commit Bonn to support a hastily contrived proposal for a "multilateral" NATO deterrent composed of Polaris missiles on surface ships with mixed crews from all the contributing countries...

...The Athens meeting concluded that the best way to start reducing the pressures on the alliance brought about by the Anglo-Saxon monopoly of nuclear weapons was to break down the barriers of unnecessary secrecy surrounding the whole issue...

...Then they could be given an increasing influence over planning, in the hope that an intimate familiarity with the various aspects of the nuclear arsenal would reduce the importance of a share in the actual decision to use it to the level where the problem became politically negotiable...

...For Macmillan the multilateral force appears as a threat to the boasted independence of Britain's deterrent, since if ever it were set up the pressure to commit the British nuclear forces to it irrevocably might prove irresistible...

...Moreover, since each involves structural changes in the organization of the alliance, it might be possible for France to veto both...

...This approach was making good progress until two events knocked the American and British Governments off balance and sent them in different and incompatible directions...

...or the British approach to the problem...

...Denis Healey is the British Labor parly's Spokesman for Defense...

...But these advantages disappear if the forces are liable to revert to national control in a crisis...

...It is suggested that America and Germany should pay 80 per cent of the costs of the multilateral force, so that Germany would be by far the most important European member...

...But in any case there had been no sign that Britain and America were able to agree with one another...

...But the NATO Commander would probably require these bombers for military targets in Eastern Europe, and if Britain withdrew them for national use the whole of his interdiction program would be wrecked...

...This was to be done by giving the European governments more knowledge of the physical facts about the atomic armory available to the alliance, as well as its various delivery systems...

...Yet its immediate result was to provoke de Gaulle into breaking off the Brussels negotiations for Britain's entry into the Common Market and to present the French atomic striking force as an alternative to reliance on the Anglo-Saxon powers who had so brutally demonstrated their essential separateness from Europe...