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Great Britain and nuclear weapons: the academic inquest*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

David Carlton
David Carlton
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in History, The Polytechnic of North London
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Extract

When Harold Wilson first became British prime minister in 1964 the possession of an independent nuclear capability had for some years been a major political issue which divided the political parties from each other and within themselves. But few of those who so boldly entered into polemics on the subject had any detailed knowledge of the origins and the development of the project over the previous quarter century. For until 1964 the subject had not been one evoking much serious academic enquiry. A decade later the position has been strikingly reversed. Wilson, with masterly sleight of hand, used the abortive Atlantic Nuclear Force (A.N.F.) scheme to kill simultaneously the Multilateral Nuclear Force (M.L.R) plan and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (C.N.D.) with the result that nuclear weapons have not been a serious issue in any of the last four general elections; while during the same period there has been a flowering of academic interest, official and unofficial, to the point where it almost qualifies as a distinct new sub-branch of international studies.

Type
Review Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 1976 , pp. 164 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1976

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References

page 164 note 1. Gowing, Margaret, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939–1945 (London, 1964)Google Scholar.

page 165 note 1. Sherfield, Lord, ‘Britain's Nuclear Story, 1945–52: Politics and Technology’, The Round Table, no. 258, Apr. 1975, pp. 193–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 167 note 1. This is not the place to discuss the case for and against ‘official’ history. But it certainly cannot be assumed that ‘official’ historians will exercise discretion only where present-day security or the private lives of living persons are concerned. For example, the first version of the Official History of British Foreign Policy in the Second World War entirely lacked any account of the secret debate which took place in May 1940 about the possibility of reaching a compromise peace with Nazi Germany. (Sir Woodward, Llewellyn, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (London, 1961)Google Scholar.) Even the fuller version which appeared after the opening of the archives presented a rather misleading picture. In particular, no mention was made of the fact that in the Cabinet Minutes Lord Halifax reported Winston Churchill as having said that ‘…if he was satisfied that matters vital to the independence of this country were unaffected, he would be prepared to discuss terms’ and that Churchill had further said ‘…that he would be thankful to get out of our present difficulties, provided we retained the essentials and elements of our vital strength, even at the cost of some cession of territory’ (Cab 65/13, 142nd meeting). See Sir Woodward, Llewellyn, British Foreign Policy in the World War (vol. i, London, 1970), pp. 193–204Google Scholar.

page 167 note 2. Hewlett, Richard G. and Anderson, Oscar E. Jr., A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission: vol. i: The New World, 1939–1946 (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1962)Google Scholar; and Hewlett, Richard G. and Duncan, Francis, vol. ii: Atomic Shield, 1947–1952 (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1969)Google Scholar. A further volume is now also available: Hewlett, Richard G. and Duncan, Francis, vol. iii: Nuclear Navy, 1946–1962 (Chicago, 1974)Google Scholar.

page 168 note 1. Rosecrance, Richard N. (ed.), The Dispersion of Nuclear Weapons: Strategy and Politics (New York and London, 1964)Google Scholar. Apart from Rosecrance's own essays, there are also interesting, if brief contributions on the British aspect by Harvey A. DeWeerd.

page 168 note 2. Rosecrance, Richard N., Defense of the Realm: British Strategy in the Nuclear Epoch (New York and London, 1968)Google Scholar.

page 168 note 3. Snyder, William P., The Politics of British Defense Policy, 1945–1962 (Columbus, Ohio and London, 1964)Google Scholar.

page 168 note 4. Goldberg, Alfred, ‘The Atomic Origins of the British Nuclear Deterrent’ and ‘The Military Origins of the British Nuclear Deterrent’, International Affairs, xl (1964), 409–29, 600–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 169 note 1. Pierre, Andrew, Nuclear Politics: the British Experience with an Independent Strategic Force, 1939–1970 (London, 1972)Google Scholar.

page 169 note 2. Avon, Lord, Full Circle (London, 1960)Google Scholar and The Reckoning (London, 1965)Google Scholar. Macmillan, Harold, Tides of Fortune (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Riding the Storm (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Pointing the Way (London, 1972)Google Scholar; and At the Find of the Day (London, 1973)Google Scholar.

page 169 note 3. Attlee, C. R., As it Happened (London, 1954)Google Scholar and Williams, Francis, A Prime Minister Remembers: The War and Post-War Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Earl Attlee (London, 1961)Google Scholar. From neither book, for example, would the reader gather how unsatisfactory his visit to Washington was in 1950 when he tried to obtain in writing the right to be consulted before American use of the atomic bomb. See Gowing, , Independence and Deterrence, i, 312–14.Google Scholar

page 170 note 1. Wilson, Harold, The Labour Government, 1964–1970 (London, 1971)Google Scholar.

page 170 note 2. Grossman, Richard, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister: vol. iGoogle Scholar: Minister of Housing, 1964–66 (London, 1975)Google Scholar.

page 170 note 3. See R. H. S. Grossman's introduction to a new edition of Bagehot, Walter, The English Constitution (London, 1963)Google Scholar; and correspondence in Nejp Statesman, 10, 17, 24, 31 May and 7 June 1963.

page 170 note 4. Howard, Michael, The Sunday Times, 8 Dec. 1974Google Scholar reviewing Gowing, Independence and Deterrence.

page 172 note 1. See Pierre, , Nuclear Politics, pp. 323–342Google Scholar; Smart, Ian, Future Conditional: The Prospects for Anglo-French Nuclear Co-operation (Adelphi Paper no. 78, Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1971)Google Scholar; and the present reviewer's ‘The British Independent Nuclear Deterrent and the Future of European Security’ in Carlton, David and Schaerf, Carlo (eds.), International Terrorism and World Security (London and New York, 1975), pp. 277–94Google Scholar. For some technical aspects see Kemp, Geoffrey, Nuclear Forces for Medium Powers (Adelphi Papers, nos. 106 and 107, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1974)Google Scholar.