The Trident Sales Agreement and Cold War Diplomacy

Anthony Eames

In the years leading up to the Trident Sales Agreement of 1982, serious doubt lingered over the continuation of the nuclear partnership between the United

States and the United Kingdom. Without the transfer to Britain of the Ohio-class submarine and Trident C-4/D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile technology to ensure nuclear collaboration, the most important strategic and symbolic cornerstone of the Atlantic alliance’s defensive posture would have withered into a state of obsolescence. Overcoming these doubts with a new agreement on nuclear sharing, on the other hand, offered a chance to strengthen the foundations of Western security through a reassertion of Anglo-American nuclear power and control. These foundations had undergone a decade of tension due to changing priorities amongst allies. However, by the close of the 1970s a series of international crises once again signaled the importance of nuclear

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AbstractThe U.S. sale of Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile technology to Britain in 1982 resolved doubts that had emerged in the 1970s about the importance, durability, and strength of the Anglo-American nuclear partnership. But the Trident Sales Agreement did more than bring the “special relationship” out of the doldrums. It became an integral part of an Anglo-American agenda that bolstered North Atlantic Treaty Or-ganization (NATO) unity in the face of Soviet efforts to undermine the alliance’s nuclear objectives.

Anthony Eames is a Ph.D. candidate at Georgetown University, where he specializes in the nu-clear history of the late Cold War era. He has published on other aspects of the Anglo-American nuclear and diplomatic relationship during the period. His interest in Anglo-American nuclear history emerged while he was earning a jointly conferred M.A. degree from King’s College Lon-don and Georgetown University.

The Journal of Military History 81 ( January 2017): 163-186.Copyright © 2017 by The Society for Military History, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or trans-mitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing from the Editor, Journal of Military History, George C. Marshall Library, Virginia Military Institute, P.O. Drawer 1600, Lexington, VA 24450. Authorization to photocopy items for internal and personal use is granted by the copyright holder for libraries and other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 121 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 USA (www.copyright.com), provided the appropriate fee is paid to the CCC.

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cooperation. The Soviet Union’s mounting nuclear pressure and Third World interventionism, a new direction in American foreign policy, British economic constraints, a breakdown in the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) negotiations, and shifting Western European political interests converged to create a sense of urgency that reversed the gloomy outlook on nuclear cooperation previously held by policy makers in Washington and London. Beginning in 1978, Anglo-American leaders grappled with the task of recapturing the spirit of nuclear cooperation that twice before had invigorated their “special relationship.” By 1982, London and Washington succeeded in negotiating a sales agreement that received the blessing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), circumvented Soviet disarmament rhetoric, and provided much needed financial incentives to the British.

Anglo-American nuclear collaboration dates from before American entry into World War II in December 1941. The British-sponsored MAUD (Military Application for Uranium Detonation) report submitted to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in October 1941 set a precedent for nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and the U.K.1 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Roosevelt reaffirmed postwar nuclear cooperation at Quebec in August 1943 and at Hyde Park in September 1944, but as the allies emerged from the shadow of war, American congressional opposition conspired to produce the McMahon Act in 1946.2 The legislation barred British access to all nuclear technology and knowledge jointly developed by the scientists and engineers from the U.S., U.K., and Canada throughout the Manhattan Project. The government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (1957–1963) revived nuclear cooperation within the Atlantic alliance only after significant political maneuvers and a host of threatening international crises.3 On 3 July 1958, the U.S. and the U.K. agreed to the Mutual Defense Agreement (MDA), followed in April 1963 by the Polaris Sales Agreement that established the Polaris nuclear submarine force as Britain’s and NATO’s primary deterrent by 1968–1969.4

1. Philip Cantelon, Richard Hewlett, and Robert Williams, The American Atom: A Docu-mentary History of Nuclear Policies from the Discovery of Fission to the Present (Philadelphia: Uni-versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1992).

2. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, better known as the McMahon Act, prohibited the sharing of nuclear technology with other states, including Britain and Canada. The act also placed the nuclear energy program under the purview of civilian control as opposed to military.

3. Ian Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 77–106. The Manhattan Project led to the development of the first two atomic bombs during World War II: Little Boy and Fat Man. U.S. General Leslie Groves led the effort that employed over 130,000 workers, cost 2.2 billion dollars, and drew together many of the world’s most renowned physicists.

4. The Mutual Defense Agreement (MDA) provided for technological sharing, secrecy restrictions, cooperation in nuclear propulsion and weapons development, and material provi-sions. The December 1962 Nassau Agreement guaranteed the U.S. would provide the U.K. with the Polaris nuclear weapon system (submarine and ballistic missile technology). The Polaris

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The developments of the early 1970s resulted in less active nuclear collaboration. The recurring failures of the Richard Nixon administration (1969–1974) and British overtures to Europe designed to win entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) produced significant political distance between the U.S. and the U.K.5 Anglo-American political estrangement encouraged the Edward Heath government (1970–1974) and its successors in the 1970s to pursue indigenous nuclear upgrades rather than chase collaboration and dependency on Washington, resulting in the costly Chevaline program.6 Other states, notably China, France, West Germany, and Japan, offered alternative geopolitical advantages, which complicated U.S. designs to combat Soviet expansion.7 For much of the 1970s Washington and London courted the loyalties of these allies separately, leaving the Anglo-American relationship and corresponding nuclear cooperation on the back burner as a result of their policies to appeal to other states.8

Washington and London both struggled to adjust their relationships with allies to match the new political and economic realities.9 A highly confidential retrospective analysis produced in 1981 for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by the influential political adviser Alfred Sherman on the “Potential snags in Anglo-American Relations” suggested that during the 1970s, “the feeling is widespread that America’s allies let her down. Whether justified or not.” Sherman reasoned that “West Germany’s ostpolitik [or engagement with the Eastern European states] and rejection of Cruise [the basing on European soil of U.S. Cruise missiles],

Sales Agreement on 6 April 1963 formalized the supply of the weapon system on exceptionally beneficial terms, creating a precedent for the Trident Sales Agreement.

5. James Cronin, Global Rules: America, Britain and a Disordered World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2015), 22–24. Also see Robert M. Hathaway, Great Britain and the United States: Special Relations since World War II (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990); Christopher J. Bar-tlett, The Special Relationship: A Political History of Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (London: Longman Group, 1992); John Dickie, Special No More: Anglo-American Relations: Rhetoric and Reality (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994); Ritchie Ovendale, Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).

6. John Baylis and Kristan Stoddart, “Britain and the Chevaline Project: The Hidden Nu-clear Programme, 1967–1982,” Journal of Strategic Studies 4 (2003): 131–33. The British govern-ment decided on the Chevaline Project to counter Soviet advances in ballistic missile defense; it added penetration aids to submarine-launched ballistic missiles fired from Polaris submarines to increase survivability odds.

7. David M. Malone, ed., The UN Security Council: From the Cold War to the 21st Century (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004).

8. John Baylis, Anglo-American Relations since 1939: The Enduring Alliance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 168–97.

9. Peter Kenen, Managing the World Economy: Fifty Years after Bretton Woods (Washington: Peterson Institute, 1994); Barry Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998); Klaus Larres, Churchill ’s Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002).

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10. Alfred Sherman to Margaret Thatcher, 8 February 1981, THCR 1/10/19 f3 (Thatcher Correspondence), The National Archives of the U.K. (TNA), Kew, United Kingdom.

11. Jim Thomson to Zbigniew Brzezinski, “US National Security Council NSC 1.13(a): UK and French Nuclear Programs,” 29 May 1980, Box 23, Brzezinski Papers, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, Georgia.

12. Helmut Schmidt, “1977 Alistair Buchan Memorial Lecture,” Survival 20 (1978): 3–4.13. “Long-term profile of Gross Domestic Product in the UK,” 23 August 2013, TNA,

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/elmr/explaining-economic-statistics/long-term-profile-of-gdp-in-the-uk/sty-long-term-pro-file-of-gdp.html; Cronin, Global Rules, 23–24, 41–42.

14. Cronin, Global Rules, 22–24.15. James Callaghan to Gerald Ford, 30 July 1976, Box 4, National Security Adviser Files,

Gerald Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

France’s double dealing and arms sales, Britain’s renewed cultural negotiations with the Soviet Union, [and] Britain’s reluctance to support U.S. Latin-American and African policies” were all to blame for the growing distance between America and its allies in the West. Washington bore part of the blame as well. Sherman argued that weak and ineffective presidents followed the failed Nixon administration, leading to a pullback from America’s “positive mission of leadership in the free world.”10

Though relations between the U.S. and the U.K. grew progressively acrimonious, the French and others in Western Europe still harbored suspicions about the Anglo-American “special relationship.” A sales agreement in the vein of Polaris would rouse European criticism. The U.K.’s entry into the European Economic Community in 1973 after failed attempts to join in the preceding decade made Whitehall particularly mindful of potential European backlash over the perception of Anglo-American diplomatic collusion. London feared that the sale of Trident might reinforce Anglo-American ties in European eyes, thereby making negotiations with the EEC more difficult due to concerns that the U.K. would serve primarily as a vector for American interests in the community.11 At the same time, European leaders worried the U.S. might offer to pull back its nuclear umbrella during SALT II negotiations with the U.S.S.R., placing the burden of European security on the British and French nuclear deterrents.12

In the mid-1970s economics overtook the Anglo-American nuclear relationship. The 1973 oil embargo by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) damaged a British economy already battered by union wage disputes and an inefficient aging British industrial capacity. These blows produced a recession from 1973 to 1975, marked by a steep drop in the Gross Domestic Product and a sharp 24 percent rise in inflation.13 The American and West German refusal to aid the Labour government’s quest to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund in 1976 poisoned diplomatic relations between the allies.14 James Callaghan, who served as prime minister from 1976 to 1979, soon declared that the economic downturn might force Britain to scrap deterrence unless the U.S. and West Germany supplied 9 billion dollars in financial assistance.15 The move made it appear that at best, the prime minister was playing fast and loose with alliance strategic policies, and

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16. Dominic Casciani, “Crisis Threatened Nuclear Weapons,” British Broadcasting Com-pany, 29 December 2006; Tom Kelly, “Callaghan Threaten to Scrap Nuclear Deterrence,” Daily Mail, 28 December 2006.

17. Ultimately the U.S. maneuvered for an International Monetary Fund rescue package of $3.9 billion.

18. Peter Malone, The British Nuclear Deterrent (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1984), 75.19. British Foreign Office, “PS\PUS: Future of the British Strategic Nuclear Deterrent,”

22 September 1977, in Nuclear Papers, by David Owen (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009), 84.

20. British Foreign Office, “PS\PUS: Military Nuclear Issues meeting minutes,” 25 Octo-ber 1977, in Owen, Nuclear Papers, 97.

at worse, blackmailing London’s closest allies.16 Callaghan’s threat to U.S. President Gerald Ford to cut the British nuclear deterrence in 1976 suggested not only the weakness of the British economy, but also the financial vulnerability of the U.K.’s strategic arsenal.17 In his final two years in office amidst the “winter of discontent,” a period of such financial hardship that basic government services came to a standstill, Callaghan’s distress over the cost of deterrence underpinned the critical debate in London over Britain’s nuclear role.

Concerns over the limits of American technological assistance were largely driven by bilateral arms negotiations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. At the start of Callaghan’s second year in office in 1977, the future of the Anglo-American nuclear partnership looked bleak. Three arguments underpinned the rationale for a break in Anglo-American nuclear cooperation. First, the accelerated decline of the U.K. would erode the political framework for nuclear collaboration. Second, America’s technical assistance to Britain was an obstacle to current arms control negotiations and could undermine systemic stability. Lastly, British forces were incompatible with the American strategic interest of centralized command, while the intimacy of the Atlantic alliance and joint stewardship of NATO’s nuclear forces would jeopardize London’s political interests in Western Europe.18 In 1977, a British Defence Department report circulated throughout the Foreign and Commonwealth Office concluded, “it seems very unlikely that the Americans would feel able to give us MIRV systems or technology. This would almost certainly appear too contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of SALT Agreements.”19 In October of the same year these concerns manifested themselves in British policy considerations. In a meeting within the office of the foreign secretary, officials agreed, “It was out of the question for Britain to contemplate acquiring a sophisticated and expensive system like Trident, even in the unlikely event that the Americans were prepared to supply it.”20 The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s concerns over Washington’s willingness to update and supply Britain’s nuclear arsenal coincided with questions about the life cycle of the nuclear submarine force, bringing Callaghan to reconsider the U.K’s commitment to nuclear deterrence.

With chief military advisers urging deliberations on the replacement to Polaris in 1978, Callaghan established the Nuclear Planning Group in January and took

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21. Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 323. 22. Philip Bolsover, The CND Story: The First 25 Years of CND in the words of the people

involved (London: Allison and Busby, 1983), 56–57; Paul Byrne, Social Movements in Britain (London: Routledge, 2013), 88–109; Frank Parkin, Middle Class Radicalism: The social bases of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1968).

23. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, 106. 24. British strategic expenditures on internal projects remained untracked and completely

in the hands of the prime minister. Strategic expenditures remained opaque throughout much of the Cold War, even after the Cabinet commissioned Defence Reviews and Statements on Defence Estimates in the early 1980s.

25. By 1980 the cost of the program was placed at 1 billion pounds sterling. See “Nuclear Weapons Policy 1967–1998,” November 2005, OSP11, Operational Selection Policy, TNA. Also, Baylis and Stoddart, “Britain and the Chevaline Project,” 124–55.

precautions to limit the number of Cabinet members included.21 Past divisions in the Labour Party on the disarmament issue justified Callaghan’s decision to restrict political access to nuclear issues. In its early years, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) gained enough political support to momentarily succeed in making unilateral disarmament a plank in the Labour Party platform. Antinuclear activists successfully allied with powerful union interests to bring about a successful vote on unilateral disarmament in October 1960. The motion failed a year later only after Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell promised to “fight, and fight, and fight again” to defeat unilateral disarmament.22

The historical divisiveness of the disarmament issue and the U.K. government’s need to prove its dependability to the U.S. concealed British nuclear decision-making in a shroud of secrecy that even outstripped that of their counterparts across the Atlantic. Sir Paul Lever, the assistant to the foreign secretary, explained to a colleague in March 1978, “successive British Governments have maintained a rigid refusal to discuss the details of our military nuclear programmes, because of the fears of the political sensitivity of the issue and an apparent belief that it is not one which lends itself to the normal process of political debate.”23 By the 1970s, this culture of secrecy allowed prime ministers to pursue nuclear agendas that otherwise might have been aborted in early development due to pressure from political allies and enemies alike.

Free from the constraints of parliamentary budget approval and public outcry over costs, nuclear expenditures in the 1970s exceeded reasonable limits for a state of Britain’s size.24 As foreign secretary under Harold Wilson from 1974 to 1976, Callaghan’s exposure to the financial drain created by Britain’s effort to develop its own indigenous nuclear program, codenamed Chevaline, led him to search for alternatives to a domestically bankrolled nuclear project.25 Nuclear secrecy allowed for the runaway costs of programs like Chevaline, but London’s commitment to secrecy is one of the chief reasons Washington trusted the British government to collaborate on nuclear issues, resulting in substantial savings from shared nuclear economies. Callaghan upheld secrecy to maintain further cooperation with the U.S. and Labour Party unity on nuclear issues. He noted “that these matters were so sensitive and so

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26. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, 325.27. Ibid., 325.28. Ibid., 323. 29. Kristan Stoddart, “The Special Relationship and the 1980 Trident Decision,” in U.S.-

UK Nuclear Cooperation after 50 Years, ed. Jenifer Mackby and Paul Cornish (Washington: CSIS Press, 2008), 92.

30. Ronald Reagan credited Jimmy Carter with the renewed focus on defense that is fre-quently associated with Reagan’s first term (1981–1985). See Ronald Reagan, “Radio Address to the Nation on Defense Establishment Reforms” (speech, Washington, D.C., 5 April 1986), http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/40586a.htm.

secret that they ought to be kept to a small number of people; and that arose from our relationship with the United States, because they were giving us information that should not be conveyed to the French.”26 Domestic political rivalries had their own place in the culture of secrecy. Callaghan worried nuclear disarmers in his own party, specifically Members of Parliament Michael Foot and Tony Benn, might stifle deliberations on Anglo-American nuclear cooperation.27 Upholding secrecy assumed paramount importance. Secrecy guaranteed the U.K. a unique relationship with the U.S. compared to other allied states and freed decision-makers from the constraints of political and public resistance to nuclear weapons development.

The acute financial situation facing the U.K., the massive research and development effort of Chevaline, and the growing instability of superpower relations hastened Callaghan’s search for options other than native nuclear programs. In 1978, senior diplomat Sir Anthony Duff and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence Sir Ronald Mason were commissioned to report on the future of the British nuclear deterrent. The study concluded that the only viable option for Britain to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent, a necessity for diplomatic leverage and the maintenance of prestige, was to once again seek an agreement with the U.S. Mason reported:

It [Chevaline] left an indelible mark on my own mind and that is the tremendous resources you have to call into play if you develop a major strategic programme unilaterally . . . My feeling was that all opportunities for commonality—particularly, of course, with the United States—ought to be seen through before one really faced up again to an independent national program.28

By December 1978, Callaghan and his nuclear advisers agreed the best course of action was to look for an opening with the Jimmy Carter administration (1977–1981) to hint at Whitehall’s interest in Trident.29 With a meeting in Guadeloupe on the books for early 1979, Callaghan prepared to approach the subject of a Tri-dent exchange. He hoped President Carter would see the agreement as a fortifica-tion of the Western nuclear bulwark that, in the minds of Cold Warriors, kept the Soviets at bay. Just a year and a half earlier, Whitehall considered such an approach a long shot, but beginning in 1978 Carter’s administration underwent a rapid militarization due to a breakdown in Soviet-American relations.30 The breakdown justified another generation of Anglo-American nuclear collaboration.

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31. David Painter, The Cold War: An International History (New York: Routledge, 2002), 77.32. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (Fayetteville: University of Arkan-

sas Press, 1995), 218.33. Thomas M. Nichols, “Carter and the Soviets: The Origins of a US Return to a Strategy

of Confrontation,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 2 (2010): 23. 34. O. A. Westad, The Fall of Détente: Soviet-American Relations during the Carter Years

(Boston: Scandinavian University Press, 1997), 17.

President Carter arrived in Washington in January 1977 with a plan to insert morality into foreign policy. He hoped to reclaim the ideological prestige lost by the Vietnam War and the scandal-ridden Nixon years. Carter oriented his approach around humanitarian efforts in the Third World and an interdependent worldview that he hoped would advance U.S. interests and discard the bipolar framework that had characterized the previous thirty years of foreign policy calculations. Instead, Carter’s planned departure from containment and push toward humanitarian relief “provided a popular rationale for renewed U.S. involvement in the Third World and a more confrontational relationship with the Soviet Union.”31 In pushing for relief and superpower restraint in the Third World, Carter undermined his primary agenda of arms reduction between the Americans and the Soviets. The Soviets scoffed that Carter’s lectures on humanitarian efforts disrupted the SALT II negotiations. In this vein, Moscow opted to follow through with a qualitative arms development that threatened the West and brought the president back into the folds of Cold War rhetoric.

Carter knew that General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders were disenchanted with the American campaign to connect humanitarian efforts with nuclear arms reduction. On 14 February 1977, Carter unapologetically remarked, “It’s important that he [Brezhnev] understand the commitment I have to human rights first of all, and that it is not an antagonistic attitude of mine toward the Soviet Union—and that I’m very sincere about my desire to reduce nuclear armaments.”32 The Kremlin believed Washington was spreading moral propaganda to weaken international support for the U.S.S.R. and to justify American interventions in internal Soviet affairs. This interpretation directly jeopardized bilateral arms reductions. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko pilloried the Carter administration for pursuing an ungrounded policy of “linkage,” or cooperation with the Soviets based on meeting conditions in the Third World determined by the U.S. He later concluded, “a campaign was launched in the USA alleging that human rights were being violated in the USSR . . . Carter took a personal hand in the campaign. He seemed to think it was his duty to raise the matter of human rights every time he met a Soviet representative. I endured it myself.”33

The hostile Soviet response to Carter’s human rights advocacy dashed the president’s hopes for improved superpower relations.34 Following initial attempts to install humanitarian concerns at the center of superpower relations, Carter’s stance toward the U.S.S.R. grew increasingly belligerent. After railing about restraint in the Third World and nuclear arms equivalency at an address in Annapolis, Maryland, on 7 June 1978, the president warned, “The Soviet Union

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35. Jimmy Carter, “United States Naval Academy Address at the Commencement Ex-ercises,” (speech, Annapolis, Maryland, 7 June 1978), http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=30915.

36. Owen, Nuclear Papers, 84.37. Walt Slocombe, “U.S. National Security (PD/NSC-18),” 24 August 1977, Briefing

can choose either confrontation or cooperation. The United States is adequately prepared to meet either choice.”35 The speech notified world leaders of the rapidly closing window for effective bilateral arms reductions. Only a few months earlier, British Cabinet ministers had believed they had little chance of obtaining Trident from the Americans based on the belief that Moscow and Washington were moving closer to arms reductions.36 From a diplomatic perspective, degenerative relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. meant opportunity, investment, and leverage to the U.K. With the deterioration of détente, the time seemed right for Callaghan to seek renewed nuclear cooperation with Washington. As the SALT II talks stalled, questions concerning the continuity of Anglo-American nuclear cooperation quickly evaporated. The British concerns that the sale of Trident would violate a nontransference clause in SALT II subsided. In 1977, strategies endorsed by Presidential Directive (PD) 18 called for political negotiation, competition with the Soviet Union, and, most ominously, a reevaluation of targeting policy.37 Moscow’s subsequent intransigence affected

Figure 1: Technical Drawing of Trident D-5 and C-4 [Federation of American Scientists, http://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/d-5.htm]

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Book 390, Document 2A, National Security Archive, George Washington University Libraries, Washington, D.C.

38. Harold Brown, “U.S. Department of Defense Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1981,” 29 Jan-uary 1980 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office). The Ottawa Declaration on 19 June 1974 formalized the British second-center role. See, Stuart Croft, “Britain’s Nuclear Weapons Discourse,” in Britain and Defence 1945–2000, ed. Andrew Dorman, Wyn Rees, and Matthew Uttley (London: Longman, 2001), 72.

39. CMND 7979, The British Strategic Nuclear Force (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1980); Jimmy Carter, US Presidential Directive “PD/NSC 62: Modification in US Na-tional Strategy,” 15 January 1981, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, accessed 10 February 2016, http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/pddirectives/pd62.pdf.

40. Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 234–35. 41. James Callaghan, Time and Chance (London: Politico’s Publishing, 2006), 555.42. Jimmy Carter, US Presidential Directive “PD/NSC 62: Modification in US Nation-

al Strategy,” 15 January 1981, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library; Jimmy Carter to Margaret Thatcher, 14 July 1980, PREM 19/417 f150 (Office of the Prime Minister), TNA.

the development of targeting policy. Officials placed increased importance on a second-center of nuclear decision-making38 and greater reliance on Britain in guaranteeing NATO security.39 As the only other fully committed nuclear power in NATO, Whitehall emerged as the prime candidate for the second-center option, especially considering questions concerning the French commitment to the Western alliance and Moscow’s attempts to seek out a special relationship of its own with Paris.40 From Washington’s perspective, the demise of détente and the continued reliability of the British nuclear partnership demonstrated the benefits of supplying Trident to the U.K.

With the increasingly alarming Soviet threat, Carter came to view the independent British nuclear deterrent as an essential strategic component in the Cold War. The Guadeloupe Summit from 4 to 9 January 1979 was Callaghan’s opportunity to request Trident as a replacement to Polaris. Recounting a conversation with the president, Callaghan wrote:

like Helmut Schmidt, he [Carter] also was glad that Britain possessed the nuclear deterrent . . . he hoped that Britain would . . . remain a nuclear power. In his view, it was better that there should be a shared responsibility in Europe, rather than that America should go it alone, as he would not wish the United States to be the only country in confrontation.41

Carter and Callaghan’s discussion left the British prime minister confident over the direction of Anglo-American nuclear cooperation. The added importance placed on London as the second-center of nuclear decision-making changed the nature of its nuclear relationship with Washington. The U.S. remained the unquestioned senior partner and the American security guarantee persisted as the most powerful diplomatic pawn in alliance politics, but the policy shift brought greater emphasis to Britain’s role in sharing the security burden of the Western alliance and a larger influence over NATO’s defense politics in the 1980s.42

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43. The Carter Doctrine announced that any hostilities in areas of the world where the U.S. maintained strategic interests would be considered an attack on the U.S. and would be met with force. Following up on PD 18, Presidential Directive 59 reordered nuclear strike priorities to ag-gressively target Soviet leadership. This is indicative of Carter’s growing belief that a protracted nuclear war could be won—a belief that became dogma in the Reagan administration. PD 59 is perhaps the most revealing document on the militarization of Carter’s foreign policy.

44. Lawrence Freedman, “Britain: The First Ex-Nuclear Power?,” International Security 2 (1981): 97.

45. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, 326. 46. The December 1962 Nassau Agreement guaranteed the U.S. would provide the U.K.

with the Polaris nuclear weapon system (submarine and ballistic missile technology). The Polaris Sales Agreement on 6 April 1963 formalized the supply of the weapon system on exceptionally beneficial terms, creating a precedent for the Trident Sales Agreement.

Soviet aggression, fear, and domestic criticism played a major role in changing the focus of Carter’s foreign policy from humanitarian concerns to a more robust defensive posture. The Red Army’s incursion into Afghanistan in December 1979 on the heels of upgraded SS-20 theater nuclear force deployment in Eastern Europe did much to reverse Carter’s early intentions to cultivate détente and focus on humanitarian concerns. In the latter half of his presidency, Carter encouraged NATO members to increase their defense budgets by a real rate of 3 percent per annum and pursued the deployment of the neutron bomb. He followed these measures by announcing the Carter Doctrine, ordering Presidential Directive 59, and withdrawing SALT II from Congress. Carter then added a number of other military programs, thereby initiating a new wave of American militarization most often associated with the first term (1981–1985) of the Ronald Reagan presidency.43

The deterioration of superpower relations suggested the growing possibility of the outbreak of World War III. By 1980, 42 percent of Britons believed nuclear war would happen within the decade, while 77 percent did not expect to survive.44 British fatalism induced Callaghan to break with political convention and his own personal beliefs regarding the transfer of information to the incoming government. In the interest of securing Trident as the independent British deterrent, Callaghan left behind instructions for incoming Prime Minister Thatcher following the Conservative defeat of the Labour Party in the May 1979 elections. He noted:

It was a matter of national importance. I think it is very important that succeeding ministers and succeeding governments should not know about the political decisions of their predecessors—that is a principle I adhere to. But if one wishes to leave a note for his successor about a matter [Trident] of the greatest national importance, then I think he is entitled to do so.45

Callaghan’s pivotal message signaled the moment when Trident technology tran-scended the status quo and became a unique foundation in Anglo-American rela-tions. Until Trident, the most important nuclear agreements such as the Mutual Defense Agreement, the Nassau Agreement, and the Polaris Sales Agreement dated from the Macmillan premiership (1957–1963).46 From 1963 to 1978, Brit-

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47. Zbigniew Brzezinski to Jimmy Carter, “British Nuclear Force Modernization,” 15 Oc-tober 1979, Box 20, Brzezinski Papers, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.

48. Michael Quinlan, “Strategic decisions: LRTNF and Trident,” Adelphi Series 51 (2011): 167–260.

49. Jimmy Carter to Margaret Thatcher, 8 June 1979, Box 20, Brzezinski Papers, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.

ish decisions regarding nuclear weapons, including the rejection of the Poseidon missile, threats to scrap deterrence, and the disastrous Chevaline project, removed much of the shine from the special nuclear relationship. By passing the Trident issue from a Labour government to a Conservative one, Callaghan established continuity in the British handling of nuclear cooperation with the U.S.

Margaret Thatcher arrived in office with a lone note from Callaghan about Trident and an increasingly dangerous European nuclear theater. The first hurdle to the Trident exchange proved easy to clear. Though Cabinet leaders believed the SALT II talks might complicate nuclear sharing, the Carter administration proved more than willing to protect cooperation upon Callaghan’s request for Trident. Callaghan provided the stimulus to renew the special nuclear relationship. Now, Thatcher faced three diplomatic challenges to securing Trident. First, Thatcher had to insure the changes in government in both the U.K. and the U.S. would not jeopardize the Trident agreement in principle. Second, the new prime minister needed to persuade Western European leaders that a Trident Sales Agreement was in their collective best security interest and to prevent theater nuclear force modernization across Europe from being attached to the issue of upgrading Britain’s national deterrent.47 Thatcher had to prove that Trident added an essential defensive layer to NATO/European security relative to the offensive capabilities of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. Closer to home, the Thatcher government sought to use international and NATO support for its nuclear deterrent to combat growing public unrest that aimed to unilaterally disarm Britain. Lastly, because Trident formed an integral component of NATO force diversity, Thatcher needed to counter the Soviet rationale that claimed improvements to NATO’s nuclear capabilities would undo military détente in Europe.48

Less than fifty days after she moved into 10 Downing Street, Thatcher urged President Carter to continue with Callaghan’s plans. Carter quickly responded, writing, “The viability and effectiveness of the British deterrent has long been a matter of interest to the United States and cooperation between us . . . I can assure you all the alternatives you mention remain open under the SALT II Treaty.”49 The Carter administration did not waver in its plans to supply Trident to the U.K., but the state of European relations and economic dynamics first merited serious consideration.

The British planned to seek Trident on the same beneficial terms through which they had acquired Polaris. Carter’s National Security Council called for terms more advantageous to the U.S. Carter advisers feared political opposition in Washington might condemn the new agreement as a “sweetheart deal on the

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50. Jim Thomson to Zbigniew Brzezinski, “US National Security Council NSC 1.13(a): UK and French Nuclear Programs,” 29 May 1980, Box 23, Brzezinski Papers, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.

51. Sir Robert Wade-Grey briefing to Margaret Thatcher, “Anglo-American Negotiations on Polaris Replacement,” MISC 7(80) 2, 13 June 1980, PREM 19/417 f232, TNA.

52. Harold Brown to Francis Pym, “Replacement of Polaris: Acquisition of Trident,” 14 July 1980, PREM 19/417 f161, TNA.

53. France had withdrawn its nuclear forces from NATO command in 1966 for the dura-tion of the Cold War.

54. Ministry of Defence, The Future United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Force (Lon-don: Defence Open Government Document 80/23, July 1980), 8.

55. Ibid., 8.

Hill” at a time when an already overburdened American economy struggled to maintain the increased defense expenditures brought on in response to the Soviet military buildup.50 Before a workable agreement could be reached, the Thatcher government and the Carter administration had to structure a deal that appeased possible domestic opponents and soothed dissidents in Parliament and Congress.

The Ministry of Defence moved to connect other defense issues with the Trident exchange. Diego Garcia emerged as the primary link. The U.S. wished to extend the lease of its naval facilities on the small island in the Indian Ocean for fleet support, intelligence activities, and further strategic interests. Even though the Thatcher government never planned to revoke American basing rights in Diego Garcia, the connection between the issues provided adequate compensation to potential opposition on Capitol Hill.51 The Carter administration moderated its own demands. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided for a 5 percent surcharge on the cost of missiles and equipment purchased under the agreement. Instead of calling for an additional research and development charge, the White House proposed to recoup the extra costs on Trident through the U.K. operation of RAPIER air defense of U.S. Air Force bases in Britain.52

In London, the U.K.’s position as the only European nuclear power in NATO’s integrated force structure validated expenditure on Trident.53 The British nuclear deterrent had always been assigned for NATO purposes; only if Britain’s supreme national interests are at risk are exceptions allowed. Encouraged by the U.S., and in concert with NATO allies, Britain had already agreed to escalate its defense expenditure in real terms by 3 percent per annum for five years. Ministry of Defence estimates predicted Trident would consume over the course of its lifetime only 1.5 percent of the defense budget per year, while gradually decreasing over time. Of this expenditure the government promised 70 percent as direct investment in British industry.54 These figures allowed the Thatcher government to justify the cost of Trident as falling under the NATO pledge to increase defense spending, while alleviating concerns about Trident funds detracting from efforts to battle unemployment in the U.K.55

The Conservative government in London considered the costs of deterrence directly linked to the probability of Soviet attack. Thatcher fittingly asserted her defense-minded policies early in her premiership during a speech given in

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56. Margaret Thatcher, “The Obligations of Liberty” (speech, Luxembourg, 18 October 1979), http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104149.

57. Ibid.58. UK Cabinet Office Briefing, “Prime Minister’s Meeting with President Carter,” 20 June

1980, PREM 19/417 f210, TNA.59. Jimmy Carter to Margaret Thatcher, 14 July 1980, PREM19/417 f149, TNA.60. Jimmy Carter to Margaret Thatcher, 14 July 1980, PREM 19/417 f150, TNA. 61. Stoddart, “The Special Relationship and the 1980 Trident Decision,” 93. 62. CMND 7979, The British Strategic Nuclear Force.63. Copy of White House briefing for Congressional Leaders on Trident, 21 July 1980,

PREM 19/417 f104, TNA.

memorial of Winston Churchill, where she exhorted: “Let me be clear. The Soviet armies in Europe are organized and trained for attack. Their military strength is growing.”56 Based on the fear of an imminent Soviet attack, Thatcher rationalized that ensuring “our strategic deterrent [Britain’s submarines], which is also the uniquely European contribution to NATO’s deterrent, remains effective for a long time” fell “well within our economic and technical capacity.”57 Thatcher’s emphasis of the Soviet threat and her insistence on the U.K.’s commitment to NATO’s nuclear deterrent provided London with additional political leverage in Europe, with the U.S., and vis-à-vis the Soviet Union.

Shortly before the finalization of the agreement, a briefing to the British Cabinet regarding Thatcher’s meeting with Carter described Polaris replacement as “security co-operation at its best. A very special element in Anglo-American relations.”58 Carter’s correspondence with Thatcher indicates the White House shared Whitehall’s assessment. President Carter wrote Prime Minister Thatcher, “I am pleased to confirm the United States attaches significant importance to the nuclear deterrent capability of the United Kingdom and to close cooperation between our two governments.”59 Both administrations successfully navigated obstacles to the provision of Trident. The British and American governments signed the Trident Sales Agreement in mid-July 1980.60 Carter’s willingness to rapidly negotiate the agreement before the end of his term helped ensure the smooth transition on the Trident decision from Callaghan to Thatcher and guaranteed strategic continuity between the U.S. and the U.K.61 Both Washington and London believed that the agreement expanded security benefits for the two parties and their respective international security commitments. U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown explained that Britain’s purchase of Trident “enhance[d] the security of not only the United States and the United Kingdom, but of our allies and the world generally.”62 The primary U.S. Congressional briefings aptly designated “strategic cooperation” as the “central component of the close cooperation between the U.S. and the U.K., a relationship that encompasses close cooperation on foreign and defense policy across-the-board,” adding, “it is crucial for the future that this special relationship be maintained.”63

Assuring the other member states in the European Economic Community that Trident did not factor as part of a larger move on behalf of the U.K. to pull

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64. Robert Armstrong minute to Michael Alexander, 15 July 1980, PREM 19/417 f154, TNA.

65. Doug Dalgleish and Larry Schweikart, Trident (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univer-sity Press, 1984), 316.

66. Francis Pym and Hans Apel record of conversation, 14 May 1979, PREM 19/15, TNA.

67. Ibid.

away from general European security and economic cooperation represented yet another challenge. French leaders recognized the limits of Franco-Anglo nuclear cooperation, but viewed in the context of Thatcher’s hardline economic posture in community negotiations, renewed nuclear collaboration with the U.S. appeared more than coincidental.64 West German defense analysts questioned the Trident upgrade, noting, “We don’t consider it wise for Britain to consider weakening the alliance’s conventional defense in order to finance an independent nuclear deterrent.”65 Looping in NATO members on the modernization of Britain’s national nuclear forces assured European allies the Thatcher government intended to follow up on its pledge to undertake strategic force decisions within the collective best interests of Western Europe security.66 U.K. officials needed to persuade NATO members that Trident formed an essential component in the seamless web of nuclear deterrence, but was not redundant alongside the looming upgrade to Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces or detrimental to British conventional contributions to NATO security.67 The soothing of European concerns over Trident had to be accomplished in the face of Soviet intimidation and coincided with the transition to the Reagan presidency in January 1981.

Modification of the British economic role in Europe and its trade connections to the U.S., the Commonwealth, and the rest of the world loomed large at the time of the Trident Sales Agreement. West Germany boasted the strongest economy in Europe, but France remained politically atop the EEC. This position led France to challenge British designs to upgrade its nuclear deterrent. No longer fully integrated in NATO’s command structure, France did not desire a British upgrade to its deterrent through collaboration with the U.S. Gaullist tradition

Figure 2: Technical dimensions of the Ohio-Class submarine, known as the Vanguard-Class in the U.K. service, from which the Trident missile is launched [Federation of American Scientists, http://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/ssbn-726_i.htm]

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68. Michael Quinlan, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects (Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Michael Quinlan, “Introduction,” in Cabinets and the Bomb, ed. Peter Hennessy et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), ix–xi.

69. Carter, Keeping Faith, 234–35. 70. Ministry of Defence, The Future United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Force, 4.71. Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, 323. 72. Robert Armstrong minute to Michael Alexander, 15 July 1980, PREM 19/417 f154,

TNA.73. Jim Thomson to Zbigniew Brzezinski, “US National Security Council NSC 1.13(a):

UK and French Nuclear Programs,” 29 May 1980, Box 23, Brzezinski Papers, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.

74. Robert Armstrong minute to Michael Alexander, 15 July 1980, PREM 19/417 f154, TNA.

pushed France to pursue its own independently developed and maintained deterrent at immense costs.68 When considerations to the Polaris upgrade began in 1977–1978, Paris excitedly suggested collaboration. However, France occupied an awkward position in the Western alliance. It had a substantial communist party and other Western leaders harbored reservations over the closeness of Franco-Soviet relations.69 France’s nonalignment with NATO’s strategic nuclear forces led British officials to conclude that it “debar[ed] her from undertaking a clear commitment to collective Alliance deterrent concepts, planning and strategy which we have made.”70 The strategic conclusion added weight to the projected scientific and economic realities of Franco-Anglo nuclear collaboration.

Early on the Duff-Mason Report dismissed the French option for a shared deterrent, making clear to Callaghan and subsequently the Thatcher government that the only viable option for a continued British deterrent lay in partnership with the Americans.71 France lukewarmly acknowledged obstacles to nuclear collaboration with the British, but remained adamant that the U.K. first and foremost commit to the European community.72 Washington suspected these factors might hinder Whitehall’s ability to carry out the Trident exchange by forcing the public to choose between financing an Anglo-American nuclear compact or underwriting stronger economic ties with Europe. The Presidential Steering Committee for PD 46 voiced its apprehension, noting, “they [the British] are concerned that the TRIDENT decision would exacerbate their EC budget problem by reinforcing Anglo-American ties.”73 This prediction played out until the moments immediately preceding the Trident Sales Agreement on 15 July 1980. France continued to stress to the United Kingdom the ill effects Trident might have on its position within the European economic bloc. On 14 July 1980 Cabinet Secretary Robert Armstrong relayed French complaints to Thatcher on “the need for our trade to adjust to our membership of the Community.”74 To mollify French complaints, the Americans stepped in on behalf of the British, indicating not only a desire to help along the British deterrent, but also a view that the decision needed to proceed without serious objections from allies. Earlier in the summer Carter traveled to Venice for his first bilateral conversations with French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in over

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75. Leonid Brezhnev to Margaret Thatcher, 29 November 1979, PREM 19/15, TNA. 76. Nichols, “Carter and the Soviets,” 28. 77. Ibid., 29.78. Jimmy Carter to Margaret Thatcher, 14 July 1980, PREM 19/417 f150, TNA. 79. Jim Thomson to Zbigniew Brzezinski, “NSC Note on Timing of Trident Decision,” 13

February 1980, Box 34, Brzezinski Papers, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.80. For decision, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27040.htm

a year. The American president persuaded his French counterpart on the role of “reinvigorated nuclear cooperation with the UK” in the Western alliance. Carter’s visit with Giscard served notice to European allies that the U.S. and the U.K. were intent on reinvigorating their nuclear partnership through Trident. Pushing nuclear cooperation past objections raised by other allies showed Carter and Thatcher planned on reversing the trends of the 1970s, which had left both the U.S. and the U.K. looking to other nations to fill the role of chief ally.

The Soviet strategic force modernization that spurred Carter into action coincided with renewed attempts from Moscow to convince Europe to take a less aggressive nuclear posture, by promising to refrain from using nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states.75 The Kremlin alleged its calls for European force reduction were in the name of force equivalency. In reality, Soviet qualitative advancements had made their nuclear capabilities significantly more threatening than they had been at any other period in the Cold War. Soviet security adviser Georgii Arbatov later admitted, “The thought of restraint, of moderation in military affairs, was absolutely alien to us . . . During those years we were enthusiastically arming ourselves, like binging drunks, without any apparent political need.”76 By 1979, the Soviets had outfitted SS-18 missiles with 3,000 warheads—enough to theoretically destroy all 1,054 hardened Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silos within the U.S. In Europe, the deployment of Soviet SS-20 missiles made every capital vulnerable to nuclear armageddon.77

The White House believed supplying Trident to the U.K. would provide the British with a reliable deterrent capable of penetrating Soviet antiballistic missile defenses. The Trident deal fell under a larger nuclear upgrade strategy for NATO. Combining Trident with modernized theater nuclear forces (TNF) intimidated the Soviets. Britain’s Trident remained outside the purview of U.S.-Soviet strategic arms control negotiations. This allowed NATO to circumvent bilateral strategic arms control caps on the numbers of weapons allowed, and provided the Western alliance an advantage compared to the capabilities of the Warsaw Pact, whose strategic assets derived solely from the Soviet arsenal. Washington ranked both potential advantages “of highest priority for Western security.”78 However, the timing of the Trident deal ran the risk of complicating TNF modernization, especially to the smaller NATO states.79 Trading one nuclear system for another seemed less than ideal. TNF modernization remained a critical part of NATO’s dual-track decision designed to bring the Soviet Union to the negotiating table on intermediate-range nuclear forces.80 London and Washington needed to destroy any perceived link

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81. Jimmy Carter to Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, 11 July 1980, Folder 3, Box 6, Brzezinski Papers, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.

82. Ibid. 83. TNF modernization was a response to Soviet SS-18 and SS-20 missile deployment.

NATO was to install new Pershing II Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles to counter Soviet missiles. Brezhnev perceived this as a major blow to East-West relations and SALT talks. See Christopher Makins, “TNF Modernization and ‘countervailing strategy,’” Survival: Global Poli-tics and Strategy 4 (1981): 157–64.

84. UK Cabinet Office Briefing, “Prime Minister’s Meeting with President Carter,” 20 June 1980, PREM 19/417 f210, TNA.

between intermediate-range nuclear forces and the Trident Sales Agreement in order to secure a total upgrade to both U.K. and NATO deterrents and guarantee a tiered nuclear force structure.81 British and American defense hawks considered both a necessity to meet the requirements of flexible response and limited nuclear war. These doctrines relied upon a step-by-step escalation of nuclear force to manage conflict in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe, beginning first with the use of lower-yield short- and intermediate-range nuclear weapons and climbing all the way to the launch of high-yield long-range strategic nuclear weapons.

Two possibilities figured into calculations regarding the Soviet reaction to the Trident Sales Agreement. Washington figured Moscow might interpret the exchange as a further step toward proliferation, damaging the possibility for arms reductions between the superpowers, and further destabilizing East-West relations. Apprehension over Soviet discontent played into the calculation that allied decisions on other NATO commitments and upgrades might be negatively affected by Soviet attempts to link the issue of theater nuclear force modernization to the strategic modernization represented by Trident.

National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski coached Carter to head off an attempt by the Soviet Union to link theater nuclear forces with Trident and the health of East-West relations. In letters to French President Giscard and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Carter explained, “we have stressed that the transfer of numerically limited systems is not necessarily precluded. Though we must anticipate that the Soviets will react negatively, they certainly understood this to apply with special strength to the intensive pattern of US-UK cooperation.” He continued to warn of the dangers of allowing the Soviets to turn Trident into a victory in the competition for nuclear supremacy, writing, “Although some may attempt to connect this decision with the TNF issue, there is no basis for viewing the modernized British deterrent as an alternative or addition to USLRTNF [US Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces] deployments.”82 Thatcher’s Cabinet gave particular attention to the possible Belgian and West German problems with TNF modernization.83 British officials recognized that Washington placed added emphasis on West Germany, as a Cabinet briefing explained: “They [US] are particularly concerned about Chancellor Schmidt’s reaction . . . that he may see the Anglo-American deal as a reason for going back on commitment to TNF modernization.”84 NATO partners questioned whether the Trident deterrent

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85. Ministry of Defence, The Future United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Force, 27. 86. Ibid., 83. 87. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993), 246.88. Alfred Sherman to Margaret Thatcher, 8 February 1981, THCR 1/10/19 f3, TNA.89. Ibid., 10.

made TNF modernization redundant and wondered if the British, mired in financial difficulties, could afford their other NATO commitments.

NATO commitments had been at the center of British economic and strategic thinking since the creation of the alliance in 1949. Except for the U.S., the United Kingdom has historically sustained the largest NATO commitment. The British commitment consisted of four obligations: ground troops, air forces, naval support, and the strategic deterrent. NATO members have always been concerned with the balance of these commitments. To West Germany and those states in close proximity to Warsaw Pact countries, ground and conventional forces were essential to keep a possible Soviet offensive from spilling too far into their homelands. These states considered the strategic component of NATO to benefit the Americans and British the most due to their removed geographic location.

Washington and London asserted that the Trident deal allowed the British to contribute more to NATO’s conventional forces by driving down the cost of maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent. The Thatcher government reasoned, “the Trident force should be broadly as economical as Polaris . . . [it] should not prevent or emasculate continued improvement in other areas of our contribution to NATO.”85 At the same time the Thatcher government argued that dual nuclear capabilities were important to maintain a credible position in negotiations with the Soviets. The rationale was that Britain and NATO “should not negotiate from weakness and must not therefore make any arms control offer in advance of a firm and specific decision to go ahead with modernisation.”86 These arguments, in addition to a provision in the sales agreement demanding the U.K. improve its other defense capacities, alleviated the concerns of NATO allies that Britain would be able to maintain its contribution to conventional defense.87

When Ronald Reagan came into office in January 1981, the new American president’s maverick attitude toward superpower relations and arms development led alliance partners to scrutinize the American commitment to NATO. British officials concluded: “NATO is now being questioned at the highest levels in State, Defence, and by the Top Brass . . . What use is NATO, if European partners run a separate European policy, which undermines American global policy.”88 Doubts over NATO commitment were compounded by the increasing distance between administrations in the U.S. and U.K. in Reagan’s first months in office. The Thatcher government noted, “Since November Reaganites have quite brutally differentiated themselves from the Conservative Government here, to counter forecasts . . . that as soon the administration learns the facts of life in domestic and foreign affairs it will act like Carter.”89

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90. Ibid., 10. 91. Skybolt was an air-launched ballistic missile developed by the U.S. that was promised to

the U.K. to outfit the Vulcan bomber force. In December 1962, Kennedy unilaterally cancelled the program, leading to a major crisis in U.S.-U.K. relations. The cancellation ultimately resulted in the Polaris Sales Agreement as a replacement for Skybolt. See Ken Young, “The Skybolt Crisis of 1962: Muddle or Mischief?,” Journal of Strategic Studies 4 (2004): 614–35.

92. Geoffrey Pattie to Margaret Thatcher, “Trident—What Next?,” 4 January 1982, THCR 1/4/2 part 2 f58, TNA.

93. UK Cabinet Office Briefing, “The United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent,” 4 March 1982, CAB 128/75 f11, TNA.

Thatcher and Reagan are now considered ideological soul mates. However, their ability to modify and carry out the Trident Sales Agreement served as a cornerstone of the relationship, especially as a string of nuclear controversies gripped international relations in the 1980s. Reagan’s initial distance came with a reassessment of submarine-launched ballistic missile technology that kept Trident at the center of Anglo-American relations. Failure to maintain continuity in nuclear cooperation would have jeopardized defense cooperation in general. It could either crash the British defense budget by forcing the development of a home-grown strategic replacement, or leave the U.K. without an effective national deterrent. The Conservative government stressed:

These considerations affect NATO policy. Supposing the Thatcher government fails to “turn Britain round”, so that power falls into the hands of a left dominated Labour Party, what then? . . . They will handle the matter with kid gloves. But one can be too kid-gloved, if it means that messages fail.90

The Reagan administration’s hawkish tendencies and the president’s belief that America was “on the right side of history” pushed him to see through the devel-opment of the Trident missile from its original C-4 design to the improved D-5 model. He announced the switch in October 1981. The Reagan administration made the Thatcher government aware of the upgrade, but stopped short of consult-ing with the British prior to the decision.

The one-sided decision recalled the conditions of President John F. Kennedy’s infamous unilateral cancellation of the sale of the Skybolt nuclear missile to the U.K. in 1962 that nearly undid Anglo-American Cold War nuclear cooperation before it began.91 Should London choose to keep the Trident C-4 option, the British would lose out on the benefits of commonality, which guaranteed the financial benefits to their and NATO defense economies. The cost of maintaining the C-4 option would climb at least 13 percent per year.92 Without the economy of equipment commonality the British could not afford to boost other NATO commitments and defense expenditure would crash hard into domestic and social programs that could return Labour to power. But, the importance Reagan placed on shared objectives with Thatcher rescued the Conservative government in London and resulted in a more financially beneficial sales agreement than the one brokered under Carter.93

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94. Margaret Thatcher to Ronald Reagan, “Trident D5 formal exchange of Letters,” 11 March 1982, THCR 3/1/19 f23, TNA.

95. Margaret Thatcher to Ronald Reagan, “Trident D5 formal exchange of Letters,” 11 March 1982, THCR 3/1/19 f23 (T42/82), TNA.

96. Ronald Reagan to Margaret Thatcher, 13 March 1982, PREM 19/942 f126, TNA. 97. J. Sanford, “Mutual (Mis)Perceptions: The GDR and the British Peace Movement in

the 1980s,” in Britain and the GDR. Relations and Perceptions in a Divided World, ed. A. Bauer-kaemper (Berlin: Philo, 2002), 355; Also see Andy McSmith, No Such Thing as Society: A History of Britain in the 1980s (London: Constable, 2011), 46–47.

98. “Labour Party 1983 General Election Manifesto,” retrieved 3 April 2015, http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1983/1983-labour-manifesto.shtml.

99. Ian Aitken, “Labour picks Foot to heal party splits,” Guardian, 11 November 1980. 100. Andy McSmith, No Such Thing as Society, 61.

On 11 March 1982, Thatcher and Reagan exchanged letters on the final decision of Anglo-American nuclear cooperation through the Trident missile (D-5).94 Once more, prospects for Anglo-American nuclear cooperation, the foundation of the “special relationship,” reached conclusion through the efforts of national executives intent on strengthening the ties of the Atlantic alliance. On the day of the final agreement, Thatcher warmly wrote, “I can think of no way in which our two countries could more powerfully have illustrated our common resolution in defence of freedom and our unique ability to reinforce each other’s efforts.”95 Reagan returned the sentiment and expanded upon the significance of the agreement, “Thank you for the kind note on the TRIDENT II sale . . . I too think it is a perfect example of the cooperative relationship that exists between our governments and is mirrored in the many close personal relationships between Americans and Britons.”96 By avoiding the deviation of nuclear programs and supplying Trident on terms more beneficial than those of the original sales agreement, Reagan provided Thatcher with enough flexibility to avoid a collapse in support for the Conservative nuclear agenda. Continuity on the Trident issue meant stability between Thatcher and Reagan, whose close personal relationship underpinned their shared strategic objective to restore the “special relationship” to the preeminent allied relationship in the West.

In the U.K., the Trident Sales Agreement remained vulnerable until the next general election. Uproar over Trident and other related issues invigorated CND membership. In 1980, CND membership jumped from a couple thousand to 9,000 and national rolls soon tallied over 100,000 supporters; local branches counted thousands more members, perhaps half a million by mid-decade.97 The Labour Party fully committed itself to unilateral disarmament leading up to the June 1983 general elections.98 Michael Foot, a longtime member of CND, took control of the Labour Party during the controversial annual conference in 1980. Foot quickly declared disarmament to be one of the two most important issues of the day; he argued, “the dismantling of those weapons is essential for the survival of our world.”99 Under Foot, Labour focused extensively on disarmament, the issue of approximately 30 percent of the content in his campaign speeches.100 However, the nuclear issue contributed significantly to the fracturing of the political left

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101. Christopher Moores, “Opposition to the Greenham Women’s Peace Camp in 1980s Britain: RAGE Against the ‘Obscene,’” History Workshop Journal 78 (Autumn 2014): 1–3.

102. Mark Phythian, “Still a Matter of Trust: Post-9/11 British Intelligence and Political Culture,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 18 (2006): 656.

103. Steve Dorril, “American Friends: the Anti-CND Groups,” The Lobster 3 (1984): 15–20.

104. Despite winning over a quarter of the vote, the Liberal-SDP alliance earned a dis-proportionately small share of parliamentary representation. See “Election 1983,” BBC 1, parts 1–31. Last retrieved 5 May 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cxMIHt48-U.

105. Byrne, Social Movements, 212.

into the Liberal–Social Democratic Party (SDP) alliance and the Labour Party. The left’s old guard, led by James Callaghan, took a moderate approach on nuclear matters. Opposition to Foot included several of Labour’s top members—such as David Owen, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, and Bill Rodgers—who split the party when they founded the SDP as a center-left alternative.

The Thatcher government capitalized on the division of the left to sell a pro-nuclear platform. A boom in British nationalism thanks to the successful Falkland Islands’ campaign (April–June 1982) and the efforts of grassroots supporters backed by neo-conservative think tanks helped the Thatcher government wrestle control of public discourse on nuclear weapons away from the massive protests spreading throughout the country.101 By election season, the Thatcher government felt confident in its public defense of the Trident purchase, which centered on economic benefits and defense realities made apparent by Soviet aggression and the conflict with Argentina over the Falklands Islands. Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine headed up a seven-man unit known as Defence Secretariat 19 to control public opinion: the unit illegally monitored thousands of peace advocates from CND in order to better orchestrate its public relations campaign.102 The Reagan administration also recognized the value of keeping British Conservatives in power for the sake of Washington’s nuclear agenda. Reagan instructed Eugene Rostow, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, to aid the Conservative government’s election prospects. Rostow mobilized public opinion and charged Ernest Lefever with establishing religious support for Conservatives. The press referred to Rostow’s actions as “dirty trick operations” against peace groups.103 These combined efforts helped British Conservatives neutralize disarmament as a political advantage for the left.

When the polls closed in 1983, Labour had gathered only 27.6 percent of the vote, while its rivals on the left—the Liberal-SDP alliance—collected 25.4 percent of ballots cast.104 Conservatives outpaced their opponents with 42.4 percent of the vote, though even that number showed a decrease in support from the 1979 election. Analysts blamed the antinuclear platform for Labour’s poor showing; one expert recounted, “those sticking with Labour did so despite Labour’s defence policy: those deserting Labour did so, at least partly, because of the policy.”105 Gerald Kaufman, a Labour shadow minister, labeled the 1983 election manifesto that prominently featured disarmament as “the longest suicide note in history.”106

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106. See, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7362487/Michael-Foot-Labours-1983-general-election-manifesto-and-the-longest-suicide-in-history.html.

107. Malone, The British Nuclear Deterrent, 75.

With Labour soundly defeated, the CND lost much of the political base it used to challenge the Conservative nuclear agenda. The Conservative victory ensured that Trident would remain a central component of Anglo-American relations for decades into the future.

In 1977, Anglo-American nuclear cooperation had appeared to be in its final generation.107 When Callaghan came to office, the direction of superpower relations convinced him that the British must maintain a nuclear deterrent, but he needed to reconcile British financial constraints with defense needs. When Carter’s new direction in foreign policy prompted rebuke from Moscow, the American administration underwent a process of rapid militarization. The military buildup provided London with the opening it needed to approach the U.S. to sell the benefits of continued collaborative efforts. Wary of other potential partners, Carter responded warmly to the request. Callaghan’s message to Thatcher following Labour’s defeat in 1979 raised the Trident weapon to a new degree of political importance, as it was the only issue passed from Callaghan to the incoming Conservative government. Thatcher acted quickly on Callaghan’s recommendation to pursue Trident and, in doing so, engaged the Carter administration in a diplomatic effort to convince NATO that Trident expanded the defensive options of Western Europe. This diplomatic effort was essential to securing NATO’s support, which London used to justify its efforts to maintain an independent nuclear capacity.

Reagan’s ascension to the White House engendered doubts over the future of NATO, Anglo-American intimacy, and sustained commonality between the nuclear weapons programs of the U.S. and the U.K. Thatcher embraced Reagan’s cavalier attitude, proceeded to improve upon the initial agreement for Trident, and obtained enhanced strategic abilities on more beneficial terms. The five-year process that began during a period of unsure Anglo-American nuclear relations finished in 1982 amidst a renewed affinity between Washington and London. Trident’s political, strategic, and diplomatic significance endured political turnovers in the U.S. and the U.K., tension in NATO, and the demise of détente to become a bedrock of Anglo-American relations and Western supremacy at the close of the Cold War.

In the second stage of the Trident Sales Agreement, Anglo-American diplomatic efforts proved capable of soothing international anxieties. After agreeing in principle on Trident, American and British national executives were key to selling Trident to politicians at home and to European allies, while diminishing the effectiveness of Moscow’s propaganda on strategic balance. The diplomatic efforts necessary to securing the Trident Sales Agreement are in many ways the perfect representation of two mainstays in the Atlantic alliance: nuclear technology and the close working relationship between presidents and prime

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ministers. These two pillars were manifest in the Polaris Sales Agreement between Kennedy and Macmillan and set the stage for the Trident Sales Agreement. However, the forces behind the Trident Sales Agreement were much different from the ones that motivated the Polaris Sales Agreement. In the first agreement, Macmillan pleaded with Kennedy to acquire Polaris not just for deterrence, but also for global power projection. This insistence came in addition to the American-proposed Multilateral Force, a nuclear deterrent operated by NATO allies. In the Trident agreement, Washington viewed London as an indispensible second-center of nuclear decision-making and depended on the U.K.’s nuclear profile to bolster the security of NATO members. London embraced this role and no longer looked to use its nuclear deterrent as a means to renew an independent great power status. Instead, the Thatcher government looked to strengthen the “specific linkage” unique to the Anglo-American nuclear partnership that could advance its geo-political profile and allow Whitehall to play a larger role in East-West relations, while also using the connection to demonstrate its commitment to nuclear deterrence to the British public. Moving forward into a decade defined by nuclear controversies, the Trident Sales Agreement prepared the Reagan and Thatcher governments to jointly counter other obstacles to their nuclear agenda.

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