Abstract
The Anglo-American Military Agreement for Cooperation of 1958 had two substantive articles. Article II concerned the exchange of classified information, which was now to extend beyond the limits specified in the 1955 Agreement and was to include the data required to allow existing and future British delivery systems to be fitted with American nuclear weapons. Exchanges of information on military reactors were now incorporated into the military agreement, while paragraph 13 specified that all types of classified information on atomic weapons could be exchanged if the communicating state believed that this was necessary to improve the recipient’s atomic weapon design, development and fabrication capability. Article III specified the terms under which the submarine reactor and a ten-year supply of replacement fuel were to be transferred to Britain. The United States was also to supply information on methods of reprocessing nuclear submarine fuel elements, including information on the design, construction and operation of appropriate facilities. The only other substantive elements in the agreement were that there could be no transfer of fully-assembled atomic weapons between the two states, and that any information received under it was to be used exclusively for defence purposes and was not to be communicated to third parties without mutual consent.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
For a discussion of the procedures for the exchanges and their nature see Amending the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, pp. 171 and 179, and Exchanges of Military Information and Material with the United Kingdom, pp. 63–4.
Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p. 560.
Ibid., pp. 561–2.
American weapon designers had been aware of this possibility since at least 1953, when the Russian nuclear tests Joe 5–7, which were not publicly recorded, revealed the probability that the USSR’s chemical explosive technology for implosion devices was in advance of that used by the US. At the time Rabi, chairman of the General advisory Committee stated that ‘the gains to be obtained from success in this direction are enormous both in the reduction in size of large fission weapons and even more importantly in the possibility of making smaller fission weapons of simple design and great economy of fissionable material. It is well known that both the Russians and the British are very expert in the field of chemical explosives. It is conceivable to us that they may have made significant advances in this field.’ Minutes of the Thirty-Seventh Meeting of the General Advisory Committee. Letter to Strauss dated 7 November 1953.
Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p. 500. He also noted (p. 564) that ‘in some respects we are as far, and even further, advanced in the art than our American friends … They are keen that we should complete our series [of tests] especially the last megaton, the character of which is novel and of deep interest to them.’
Exchanges of Military Information and Material with the United Kingdom, pp. 49–51. The UK agreement was stated to be the model for the one with France which is discussed in detail. Each submarine core contained 40 kilograms of U-235, and 300 kilograms allowed for seven years of full power operation (i.e. for 14 cores), with a burn-up of 112 kilograms of U-235, reprocessing losses on 6 cores of 18 kilograms and 4 cores in stock at the end of the 10-year period.
For details of the performance of this aircraft see Janes, All the World’s Aircraft, 1963–64 (Sampson, Low, Marston, London, 1964) pp. 119–20. It had a range without bomb-load and with maximum fuel of 3630 miles compared with the Valiant’s operational range of 3430 miles if it carried a Blue Danube bomb over half this distance, and 4500 miles without this bomb-load.
For a description of this process see Campbell, ‘Wings of the green parrot’ op. cit., p. 12.
Between 80 and 100 Scimitars were built, and a limited number were adapted for the nuclear strike role with additional external fuel tanks and bomb-aiming equipment. Jane’s, All the World’s Aircraft, 1963–64, p. 156.
Exchange of Military Information and Material with the United Kingdom, p. 64.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 66.
Report of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 86th Congress, 2nd Session HR672- Proposed Amendments to the Agreement for Cooperation with the United Kingdom, and Proposed Agreements for Cooperation with the Republic of France, Canada and the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany and Greece, on the Uses of Nuclear Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes, 15 July 1959, p. 12.
HC Debs 607 — Oral Answer 22.6.59 Col 849. This episode led to objections from Labour MPs over the moral and practical consequences of using these civil facilities for military purposes. In addition, there was considerable adverse comment in the technical press as it was believed to undermine the commercial prospects for magnox power stations by implying that they were only economically viable if the plutonium they produced was sold for military purposes. See, for example Nuclear Engineering, August 1958, p. 318 and September 1958, pp. 362 and 400.
HC Debs 630, 21 November 1960, Col 774–778. Debate on Electricity Amendment Bill. This bill amended section 2(7) of the 1957 Electricity Act.
Letter from chairman of JCAE to acting chairman of AEC, 13 March 1959. Exchange of Military Information and Materials with the United Kingdom, pp. 58–9. The contents of this letter are difficult to unscramble, but they suggest that negotiations had taken place in 1958 to allow the AEC both to purchase plutonium from British civil reactors for unrestricted use and to exchange 20 per cent enriched uranium for plutonium on a gram-for-gram basis. In the second part of the letter it is stated that the uranium was to be used ‘in production reactors for reactor materials for military use’. This appears to be a garbled interpretation of a proposal that it would be fed into the Capenhurst enrichment plant to produce U-235 for use in submarine fuel and weapons.
This assessment is based on a table of separative work and input figures for various levels of U-235 enrichment contained in Uranium Enrichment Services Criteria and Related Matters, Hearings before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 88th Congress, 2nd Session, August 1966 (USGPO, 1966) p. 352. The key figures are that ‘to produce 1 kg of 20% enriched uranium from natural requires 41.35 Separative Work Units (SWUs), while to produce 1 kg of 90% from natural requires 206.992 SWUs’. Using slightly different figures (those found in V. V. Abagian and A. M. Fishman, ‘Supplying enriched uranium’, Physics Today (August 1973) p. 23), A. Wohlstetter et al., op. cit., p. 39 estimate the output of the Capenhurst plant, using a natural uranium feed, as 1586 kilograms of highly enriched uranium per year. On this basis, 18 years of operations would have yielded 28 500 kilograms, but such an estimate may be discounted as Wohlstetter’s figures appear to be based on data for the later civil plant.
For an explanation of the technical reasons for this see SIPRI — Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation, p. 400.
Exchange of Military Information and Materials with the United Kingdom, p. 145. Letter from AEC to President, 2 May 1959.
Ibid., pp. 60–1, and Atomic Energy Act — Amendment, p. 2826.
Ibid., p. 66.
Amendment to the Agreement… for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes of July 3, 1958, Treaty Series no. 72 (1959) Cmnd 859 (HMSO, 1959).
Pringle and Spigelman, op. cit., pp. 202–4 and 506–7.
Imber, op. cit., pp. 126–31.
COCOM, the Coordinating Committee for Export Controls to Communist Countries, included the NATO states and Japan, and harmonised the export restrictions of the Western allies towards the Communist Bloc. Pringle and Spigelman, op. cit., p. 507.
Ibid., p. 546.
Ibid., p. 526. This states that there was a meeting of the club in February 1963 in South Africa and another in February 1967 at the United States Embassy in London.
E.g. Campbell, ‘Wings of the green parrot’, p. 12.
For example the 1958 Report on Defence, Cmnd 363, stated that ‘British megaton bombs are now in production and deliveries to the RAF have begun’ (para. 6) but in the February 1959, Progress on the Five Year Defence Plan, Cmnd 662, it was merely reported that ‘the production of British megaton weapons is proceeding steadily’ (para. 3).
G. Wilmer, ‘TSR–2: Yesterday’s answer to tomorrow’s problem’, Air Enthusiast, no. 14, 1981, pp. 24–6, states that the concept of carrying two Blue Water missiles, each with a 1000 lb (450 kg) one megaton warhead, on TSR–2 aircraft was studied in depth up to the missile’s cancellation in August 1962.
These weapons were revealed publically in the 1963 Statement on Defence, Cmnd 1936, p. 67, para. 5, which recorded ‘the further development of a tactical nuclear weapon which was intended in the first place for tactical operations by the Buccanneer and TSR–2 … In addition, it has now been found that the weapon can be adapted speedily and cheaply to give a strategic nuclear punch. This weapon will make it possible to continue to operate the V bombers in a variety of ways, and can be used tactically as the complement to Blue Steel.’
Wilmer, op. cit., pp. 24 and 25, discusses nuclear bombing techniques in detail, and states that there was a development programme during the 1960s to meet the RAF requirement OR 1177 for a modification kit which would enable both the low- and high-yield nuclear weapons to be dropped at low level. Once this was completed, the V bombers and Canberras adopted low-level flight as the preferred method of penetrating hostile airspace.
H. Macmillan, Pointing the Way (Macmillan, 1972) pp. 251–5.
The precise nature of the link between the Skybolt purchase, the setting up of the US submarine base in Holy Loch, and the acquisition of Polaris at a later date has always been rather obscure. For a perceptive discussion of this linkage, see J. Baylis, Anglo-American Defence Relations, 1939–1980 (Macmillan, 1981) pp. 67 and 68, also Brookes op. cit., p. 115.
On the numbers of Skybolts see C. Gardener, British Aircraft Corporation (Bookclub Associates, 1981) p. 34. Skybolt was to be purchased instead of a developed version of the Blue Steel cruise missile, and was to be carried by about 50 Vulcan Mark II aircraft. This decision resulted in a reduction in the numbers of Mark II V bombers on order. Thus by the end of the decade it was envisaged that the dedicated strategic nuclear force would be reduced to less than 100 operational warheads.
On weights and dimensions see Campbell, ‘Wings of the green parrot’, p. 12. On the relationship between the two types of bomb see Statement on Defence, Cmnd 1936, p. 67, para. 5.
Pierre, op. cit., p. 156.
Jane’s, Weapon Systems, 1971–72 (Sampson, Low, Marston, London, 1971) p. 103, Brookes, op. cit., pp. 124–8, and Jackson, op. cit., pp. 90–4; both give succinct histories of the development of Blue Steel.
Cambell, ‘Digging up the Nuclear past’, states that Barnham, one of the two Blue Danube and Red Beard storage bases, was closed in 1965, but the other base, Faldingworth was extended ‘in the 1960s’ and an additional base was built at Machrihanish in South-west Scotland. Brookes, ibid., p. 107, states that Faldingworth continued to be the main storage base until the ‘early seventies’.
Statement on Defence, Cmnd 1936, p. 67, para. 5, and Morland, op. cit., pp. 18–19.
Jackson, op. cit., p. 35.
Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, p. 576.
For a short official description of the contemporary British delivery systems which rely on US nuclear ordnance and those using British bombs, see ‘Memorandum submitted by the Minister of Defence’ in The Future of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Weapons Policy, Sixth Report from the Expenditure Committee Session 1978–79, HC Paper 348 (HMSO, 1979) p. 293.
The most frequently cited set of figures for the size of the United Kingdom stockpile are those given by Leonard Beaton in Would Labour Give Up the Bomb? published by the Sunday Telegraph, August 1964, pp. 12–14. In this, he speculated that Britain possessed 300 thermonuclear and 1200 atomic bombs. No account was taken of American weapons available to British forces in these figures. They appear to have been a gross overestimate, as simple arithmetic demonstrates that had they been correct, each bomb would on average have contained less than 2 kilograms of plutonium. However, what was correct was that by 1964, the British had a very substantial stockpile of weapons in comparison with the situation four years earlier.
One particularly Machiavellian acquaintance has suggested that had CND not arisen spontaneously the Ministry of Defence might well have been forced to create it in order to convince the Russian leadership that Britain possessed a large arsenal of nuclear weapons at a time when, in fact, there were very few in its stockpile.
Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy, Fourth Report from the Defence Comittee, Sessions 1980/81, HC paper no. 36, 1981. Appendix to Minutes of Evidence, p. 179.
The announcement of the decision to terminate production at Capenhurst in 1963 led to a debate in the House of Commons during which some details were given of the Anglo-American arrangements. HC Debs 667, 1962–63, Cols 965–975, 19 November 1962. It is also referred to in the Report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, 1966–7, United Kingdom Reactor Programme, HC 381, XVII (HMSO, 1967) pp. 264–5, para. 1270.
Statement on Defence 1964, Cmnd 2270 (HMSO, 1964) para. 28.
Glen T. Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Test Ban (University of California Press, 1981) p. 104.
H. Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 1961–1963 (Macmillan, 1973), p. 121.
Ibid., p. 476.
Ibid., pp. 123 and 334–5.
Ibid., p. 335.
Ibid., pp. 180–220.
H. Kissinger, The White House Years (Weidenfeld and Nicolson/Michael Joseph, 1979) p. 90.
Seaborg, op. cit., pp. 108–9.
Ibid., pp. 111–15.
Ibid., pp. 117–19.
Ibid., p. 127.
Macmillan, At the End of the Day, p. 146.
Seaborg, op. cit., p. 126.
Ibid., pp. 134–5, and Macmillan, At the End of the Day, p. 154.
Macmillan, ibid., p. 168.
Seaborg, op. cit., p. 192.
Carter and Moghissi, op. cit., pp. 63–4.
Seaborg, op. cit., p. 157.
Ibid., p. 223 and Macmillan, At the End of the Day, p. 173.
Macmillan, ibid., p. 341.
Seaborg, op. cit., p. 110.
Macmillan, At the End of the Day, p. 343.
Ibid., pp. 534–5.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1983 John Simpson
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Simpson, J. (1983). The Nuclear Alliance in Operation, 1959–63. In: The Independent Nuclear State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17258-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17258-0_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-17260-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-17258-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)