Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom
Polaris Sales Agreement
Polaris Sales Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the United States of America
The Polaris Sales Agreement was a treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom which began the UK Polaris programme. The agreement was signed on 6 April 1963. It formally arranged the terms and conditions under which the Polaris missile system was provided to the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom had been planning to buy the air-launched Skybolt missile to extend the operational life of the British V bombers, but the United States decided to cancel the Skybolt program in 1962 as it no longer needed the missile. The crisis created by the cancellation prompted an emergency meeting between the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, which resulted in the Nassau Agreement, under which the United States agreed to provide Polaris missiles to the United Kingdom instead.
The Polaris Sales Agreement provided for the implementation of the Nassau Agreement. The United States would supply the United Kingdom with Polaris missiles, launch tubes, and the fire control system. The United Kingdom would manufacture the warheads and submarines. In return, the US was given certain assurances by the United Kingdom regarding the use of the missile, but not a veto on the use of British nuclear weapons. The British Resolution-class Polaris ballistic missile submarines were built on time and under budget, and came to be seen as a credible deterrent.[1]
Along with the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the Polaris Sales Agreement became a pillar of the nuclear Special Relationship between Britain and the United States. The agreement was amended in 1982 to provide for the sale of the Trident missile system.
Britain's nuclear weapons armament was initially based on free-fall bombs delivered by the V bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF), but the possibility of the manned bomber becoming obsolete by the late 1960s due to improvements in anti-aircraft defences was foreseen. In 1953, work began on a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) called Blue Streak,[11] but by 1958, there were concerns about the vulnerability of this liquid-propellant-missile to a pre-emptive nuclear strike.[12] To extend the effectiveness and operational life of the V bombers, an air-launched, rocket-propelled standoff missile called Blue Steel was developed,[13] but it was anticipated that the air defences of the Soviet Union would improve to the extent that V bombers might still find it difficult to attack their targets.[14] A solution appeared to be the American Skybolt missile, which combined the range of Blue Streak with the mobile basing of the Blue Steel, and was small enough that two could be carried on an Avro Vulcan bomber.[15]
An institutional challenge to Skybolt came from the United States Navy, which was developing a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the UGM-27 Polaris. The US Chief of Naval Operations, AdmiralArleigh Burke, kept the First Sea Lord, Lord Mountbatten, apprised of its development.[16] By moving the deterrent out to sea, Polaris offered the prospect of a deterrent that was invulnerable to a first strike, and reduced the risk of a nuclear strike on the British Isles.[17] The British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group (BNDSG) produced a study that argued that SLBM technology was as yet unproven, that Polaris would be expensive, and that given the time it would take to build the boats, it could not be deployed before the early 1970s.[18] The Cabinet Defence Committee therefore approved the acquisition of Skybolt in February 1960.[19] The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, met with the President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in March 1960, and secured permission to buy Skybolt. In return, the Americans could base the US Navy's Polaris ballistic missile submarines in the Holy Loch in Scotland.[20] The financial arrangement was particularly favourable to Britain, as the US was charging only the unit cost of Skybolt, absorbing all the research and development costs.[21] With this agreement in hand, the cancellation of Blue Streak was announced in the House of Commons on 13 April 1960.[15]
The subsequent American decision to cancel Skybolt created a political crisis in the UK, and an emergency meeting between Macmillan and President John F. Kennedy was called in Nassau, Bahamas.[22] Macmillan rejected the US offers of paying half the cost of developing Skybolt, and of supplying the AGM-28 Hound Dog missile instead.[23] This brought options down to Polaris, but the Americans would only supply it on condition that it be used as part of a proposed Multilateral Force (MLF). Kennedy ultimately relented, and agreed to supply Britain with Polaris missiles, while "the Prime Minister made it clear that except where Her Majesty's Government may decide that supreme national interests are at stake, these British forces will be used for the purposes of international defence of the Western Alliance in all circumstances."[24] A joint statement to this effect, the Nassau Agreement, was issued on 21 December 1962.[24]
With the Nassau Agreement in hand, it remained to work out the details. Vice AdmiralMichael Le Fanu had a meeting with the United States Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, on 21 December 1962, the final day of the Nassau conference. He found McNamara eager to help, and enthusiastic about the idea of Polaris costing as little as possible. The first issue identified was how many Polaris boats should be built. While the Vulcans to carry Skybolt were already in service, the submarines to carry Polaris were not, and there was no provision in the defence budget for them.[25] Some naval officers feared that their construction would adversely impact the hunter-killer submarine programme.[26] The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John, denounced the "millstone of Polaris hung around our necks" as "potential wreckers of the real navy".[27]
The number of missiles required was based on substituting for Skybolt. To achieve the same capability, the BNDSG calculated that this would require eight Polaris submarines, each of which would have 16 missiles, for a total of 128 missiles, with 128 one-megaton warheads.[28] It was subsequently decided to halve this, based on the decision that the ability to destroy twenty Soviet cities would have nearly as great a deterrent effect as the ability to destroy forty.[29] The Admiralty considered the possibility of hybrid submarines that could operate as hunter-killers while carrying eight Polaris missiles,[30] but McNamara noted that this would be inefficient, as twice as many submarines would need to be on station to maintain the deterrent, and cautioned that the effect of tinkering with the US Navy's 16-missile layout was unpredictable.[25]The Treasury costed a four-boat Polaris fleet at £314 million by 1972/73.[31] A Cabinet Defence Committee meeting on 23 January 1963 approved the plan for four boats, with Thorneycroft noting that four boats would be cheaper and faster to build.[32]
A mission led by Sir Solly Zuckerman, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, left for the United States to discuss Polaris on 8 January 1963. It included the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Sir Varyl Begg; the Deputy Secretary of the Admiralty, James Mackay; Rear Admiral Hugh Mackenzie; and physicist Sir Robert Cockburn and F. J. Doggett from the Ministry of Aviation. That the involvement of the Ministry of Aviation might be a complicating factor was foreseen, but it had experience with nuclear weapons development. Mackenzie had been the Flag Officer Submarines until 31 December 1962, when Le Fanu had appointed him the Chief Polaris Executive (CPE). As such, he was directly answerable to Le Fanu as Controller of the Navy. His CPE staff was divided between London and Foxhill, near Bath, Somerset, where Royal Navy had its ship design, logistics and weapons groups. It was intended as a counterpart to the United States Navy Special Projects Office (SPO), with whom it would have to deal.[33]
The principal finding of the Zuckerman mission was that the Americans had developed a new version of the Polaris missile, the A3. With a range extended of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600km), it had a new weapons bay housing three re-entry vehicles (REBs or Re-Entry Bodies in US Navy parlance) and a new 200-kilotonne-of-TNT (840TJ)W58 warhead to penetrate improved Soviet anti-missile defences expected to become available around 1970. A decision was therefore required on whether to purchase the old A2 missile or the new A3. The Zuckerman mission came out in favour of the new A3 missile, although it was still under development and not expected to enter service until August 1964, as the deterrent would remain credible for much longer.[34] The decision was endorsed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Carrington, in May 1963, and was officially made by Thorneycroft on 10 June 1963.[35]
The choice of the A3 created a problem for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston, for the Skybolt warhead that had recently been tested in the Tendrac nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site in the United States would require a redesigned Re-Entry System (RES) in order to be fitted to a Polaris missile, at an estimated cost of between £30 million and £40 million. The alternative was to make a British copy of the W58. While the AWRE was familiar with the W47 warhead used in the A2, it knew nothing of the W58. A presidential determination was required to release information on the W58 under the MDA, but with this in hand, a mission led by John Challens, the Chief of Warhead Development at the AWRE, visited the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory from 22 to 24 January 1963, and was shown details of the W58.[34]
The Zuckerman mission found the SPO helpful and forthcoming, but there was one major shock. The British were expected to contribute to the research and development costs of the A3, backdated to 1 January 1963. These were expected to top $700 million by 1968.[36] Skybolt had been offered to the UK at unit cost, with the US absorbing the research and development costs,[21] but no such agreement had been reached at Nassau for Polaris. Thorneycroft baulked at the prospect of paying research and development costs, but McNamara pointed out that the United States Congress would not stand for an agreement that placed all the burden on the United States.[37] Macmillan instructed the British Ambassador to the United States, Sir David Ormsby-Gore, to inform Kennedy that Britain was not willing to commit to an open-ended sharing of research and development costs, but, as a compromise, would pay an additional five per cent for each missile. He asked that Kennedy be informed that a breakdown of the Nassau Agreement would likely cause the fall of his government.[38] Ormsby-Gore met with Kennedy that very day, and while Kennedy noted that the five per cent offer "was not the most generous offer he had ever heard of",[39] he accepted it. McNamara, certain that the United States was being ripped off, calculated the five percent on top of not just the missiles, but their fire control and navigation systems as well, adding around £2 million to the bill. On Ormsby-Gore's advice, this formulation was accepted.[39]
An American mission now visited the United Kingdom. This was led by Paul H. Nitze, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and included Walt W. Rostow, the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, and Admiral Ignatius J. Galantin, the head of the SPO. The Americans had ideas about how the programme should be organised. They foresaw the UK Polaris programme having project officers from both countries, with a Joint Steering Task Group that met regularly to provide advice. This was accepted, and would become part of the final agreement.[40] However, a follow-up British mission under Leslie Williams, the Director General Atomic Weapons at the Ministry of Aviation, whose members included Challens and Rear Admiral Frederick Dossor, was given a letter by the SPO with a list of subjects that were off limits. These included penetration aids, which were held to be outside the scope of the Nassau Agreement.[41]
One remaining obstacle in the path of the programme was how it would be integrated with the MLF. The British response to the MLF concept "ranged from unenthusiastic to hostile throughout the military establishment and in the two principal political parties".[42] Apart from anything else, it was estimated to cost as much as £100 million over ten years. Nonetheless, the Foreign Office argued that Britain must support the MLF.[42] The Nassau Agreement had invigorated the MLF effort in the United States. Kennedy appointed Livingston T. Merchant to negotiate the MLF with the European governments, which he did in February and March 1963.[43] While reaffirming support for those parts of the Nassau Agreement concerning the MLF, the British were successful in getting them omitted from the Polaris Sales Agreement.[44]
A Polaris missile is fired from the submerged British nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine HMSRevenge on 9 June 1983.
The British team completed drafting the agreement in March 1963, and copies were circulated for discussion.[45] The contracts for their construction were announced that month. The Polaris boats would be the largest submarines built in Britain up to that time, and would be built by Vickers Armstrong Shipbuilders in Barrow-in-Furness and Cammell Laird in Birkenhead. For similar reasons to the US Navy, the Royal Navy decided to base the boats at Faslane, on the Gareloch, not far from the US Navy's base on the Holy Loch.[46] The drawback of the site was that it isolated the Polaris boats from the rest of the navy.[47] The Polaris Sales Agreement was signed in Washington, D.C., on 6 April 1963 by Ormsby-Gore and Dean Rusk, the United States Secretary of State.[48]
The two liaison officers were appointed in April; Captain Peter la Niece became the Royal Navy project officer in Washington, D.C., while Captain Phil Rollings became the US Navy project officer in London. The Joint Steering Task Group held its first meeting in Washington on 26 June 1963.[49] The shipbuilding programme would prove to be a remarkable achievement, with the four Resolution-class submarines built on time and within the budget.[50] The first boat, HMSResolution was launched in September 1966, and commenced its first deterrent patrol in June 1968.[51] The annual running costs of the Polaris boats came to around two per cent of the defence budget, and they came to be seen as a credible deterrent that enhanced Britain's international status.[50] Along with the more celebrated 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the Polaris Sales Agreement became a pillar of the nuclear Special Relationship between Britain and the United States.[52][53]
The Polaris Sales Agreement provided an established framework for negotiations over missiles and re-entry systems.[52] The legal agreement took the form of amending the Polaris Sales Agreement through an exchange of notes between the two governments so that "Polaris" in the original now also covered the purchase of Trident. There were also some amendments to the classified annexes of the Polaris Sales Agreement to delete the exclusion of penetrating aids.[54] Under the Polaris Sales Agreement, the United Kingdom paid a five per cent levy on the cost of equipment supplied in recognition of US research and development costs already incurred. For Trident, a payment of $116 million was substituted.[55] The United Kingdom procured the Trident system from America and fitted them to their own submarines, which had only 16 missile tubes like Polaris rather than the 24 in the American Ohioclass. The first Vanguard-class submarine, HMSVanguard, entered operational service in December 1994, by which time the Cold War had ended.[56]
Notes
↑ Priest, Andrew (8 August 2006). "In American Hands: Britain, the United States and the Polaris Nuclear Project 1962–1968". Contemporary British History. 19 (3): 353–376. doi:10.1080/13619460500100450. S2CID144941756.
The UGM-27 Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fueled nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). As the United States Navy's first SLBM, it served from 1961 to 1980.
The Resolution class was a class of four nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) built for the Royal Navy as part of the UK Polaris programme. Each submarine was armed with up to 16 UGM-27 Polaris A-3 nuclear missiles.
The Douglas GAM-87 Skybolt was an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) developed by the United States during the late 1950s. The basic concept was to allow US strategic bombers to launch their weapons from well outside the range of Soviet defenses, as much as 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from their targets. To do this in an air-launched form, a lightweight thermonuclear warhead was needed. Initially, the W47 from the Polaris missile was selected, but it was later replaced by the W59 from the Minuteman missile.
The "V bombers" were the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Main Force. The three models of strategic bomber, known collectively as the V class, were the Vickers Valiant, which first flew in 1951 and entered service in 1955; the Avro Vulcan, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1956; and the Handley Page Victor, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1957. The V Bomber force reached its peak in June 1964 with 50 Valiants, 70 Vulcans and 39 Victors in service.
The Vanguard class is a class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in service with the Royal Navy. The class was introduced in 1994 as part of the Trident nuclear programme, and comprises four vessels: Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance, built between 1986 and 1999 at Barrow-in-Furness by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering, now owned by BAE Systems. All four boats are based at HM Naval Base Clyde , 40 km (25 mi) west of Glasgow, Scotland.
Chevaline was a system to improve the penetrability of the warheads used by the British Polaris nuclear weapons system. Devised as an answer to the improved Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences around Moscow, the system increased the probability that at least one warhead would penetrate Moscow's anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defences, something which the Royal Navy's earlier UGM-27 Polaris re-entry vehicles (RV)s were thought to be unlikely to do.
The United Kingdom possesses, or has possessed, a variety of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The United Kingdom is one of the five official nuclear weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The UK renounced the use of chemical and biological weapons in 1956 and subsequently destroyed its general stocks.
The WE.177, originally styled as WE 177, and sometimes simply as WE177, was a series of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons with which the Royal Navy (RN) and the Royal Air Force (RAF) were equipped. It was the primary air-dropped nuclear weapon in the United Kingdom from the late 1960s into the 1990s.
The Nassau Agreement, concluded on 21 December 1962, was an agreement negotiated between President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to end the Skybolt Crisis. A series of meetings between the two leaders over three days in the Bahamas followed Kennedy's announcement of his intention to cancel the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile project. The US agreed to supply the UK with Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles for the UK Polaris programme.
In 1952, the United Kingdom became the third country to develop and test nuclear weapons, and is one of the five nuclear-weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The US–UK Mutual Defense Agreement, or 1958 UK–US Mutual Defence Agreement, is a bilateral treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom on nuclear weapons co-operation. The treaty's full name is Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Cooperation on the uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes. It allows the US and the UK to exchange nuclear materials, technology and information. The US has nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries, including France and other NATO countries, but this agreement is by far the most comprehensive. Because of the agreement's strategic value to Britain, Harold Macmillan called it "the Great Prize".
Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport, shortened to RNAD Coulport, on Loch Long in Argyll, Scotland, is the storage and loading facility for the nuclear warheads of the United Kingdom's Trident programme.
Trident, also known as the Trident nuclear programme or Trident nuclear deterrent, covers the development, procurement and operation of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom and their means of delivery. Its purpose as stated by the Ministry of Defence is to "deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, which cannot be done by other means". Trident is an operational system of four Vanguard-class submarines armed with Trident II D-5 ballistic missiles, able to deliver thermonuclear warheads from multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). It is operated by the Royal Navy and based at Clyde Naval Base on the west coast of Scotland. At least one submarine is always on patrol to provide a continuous at-sea capability. Each one carries no more than eight missiles and forty warheads, although their capacity is higher. The missiles are manufactured in the United States, while the warheads are British.
An air-launched ballistic missile or ALBM is a ballistic missile launched from an aircraft. An ALBM allows the launch aircraft to stand off at long distances from its target, keeping it well outside the range of defensive weapons like anti-aircraft missiles and interceptor aircraft. Once launched, the missile is essentially immune to interception. This combination of features allowed a strategic bomber to present a credible deterrent second-strike option in an era when improving anti-aircraft defences appeared to be rendering conventional bombers obsolete.
Project E was a joint project between the United States and the United Kingdom during the Cold War to provide nuclear weapons to the Royal Air Force (RAF) until sufficient British nuclear weapons became available. It was subsequently expanded to provide similar arrangements for the British Army of the Rhine. A maritime version of Project E known as Project N provided nuclear depth bombs used by the RAF Coastal Command.
Project Emily was the deployment of American-built Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in the United Kingdom between 1959 and 1963. Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command operated 60 Thor missiles, dispersed to 20 RAF air stations, as part of the British nuclear deterrent.
The United Kingdom's Polaris programme, officially named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System, provided its first submarine-based nuclear weapons system. Polaris was in service from 1968 to 1996.
Following the success of Operation Grapple in which the United Kingdom became the third nation to acquire thermonuclear weapons after the United States and the Soviet Union, Britain launched negotiations with the US on a treaty under in which both could share information and material to design, test and maintain their nuclear weapons. This effort culminated in the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement. One of the results of that treaty was that Britain was allowed to use United States' Nevada Test Site for testing their designs and ideas, and received full support from the personnel there, in exchange for the data "take" from the experiment, a mutual condition. In effect the Nevada Test Site became Britain's test ground, subject only to advance planning and integrating their testing into that of the United States. This resulted in 24 underground tests at the Nevada Test Site from 1958 through the end of nuclear testing in the US in September 1992.
The British hydrogen bomb programme was the ultimately successful British effort to develop hydrogen bombs between 1952 and 1958. During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys. At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, British prime minister Winston Churchill and United States president Franklin Roosevelt signed the Quebec Agreement, merging Tube Alloys into the American Manhattan Project, in which many of Britain's top scientists participated. The British government trusted that America would share nuclear technology, which it considered to be a joint discovery, but the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 ended technical cooperation. Fearing a resurgence of American isolationism, and the loss of Britain's great power status, the British government resumed its own development effort, which was codenamed "High Explosive Research".
The Italian nuclear weapons program was an effort by Italy to develop nuclear weapons in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Italian scientists like Enrico Fermi and Edoardo Amaldi had been at the forefront of the development of the technology behind nuclear weapons, but the country was banned from developing the technology at the end of the Second World War. After abortive proposals to establish a multilateral program with NATO Allies in the 1950s and 1960s, Italy launched a national nuclear weapons program. The country converted the light cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and developed and tested a ballistic missile called Alfa. The program ended in 1975 upon Italy's accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Currently, Italy does not produce or possess nuclear weapons but takes part in the NATO nuclear sharing program, hosting B61 nuclear bombs at the Aviano and Ghedi Air Bases.
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