A Very British Deterrent

Out there, somewhere, hidden under the sea...

..is a British submarine ready to launch a nuclear strike.

Continuously on patrol, its job is to hide, to wait and to deter.

Earlier this year, the British Parliament

voted for four new Trident submarines

that are expected to last another generation.

'This places Prime Minister Macmillan in a difficult position...'

-But how did we get here?

-'As I read the papers...'

Now, through the personal letters of prime ministers and presidents...

This has become a matter of some urgency.

..eyewitness accounts and once secret documents...

This must be very secret.

..the story can be told of the remarkable events,

relationships and deals done half a century ago...

Initiate fire.

..to secure Britain's very first submarines and missiles...

This is a weapon which may prove to be the ultimate answer.

..and how one small loch in the west of Scotland

became a crucial bargaining chip in this great game

to keep Britain a member of the nuclear club.

There was a great deal of anger about this in Scotland.

This is how we came to have our very British deterrent.

BELL TOLLS

In 1957, Britain was one of just three nuclear powers in the world,

third behind America and the Soviet Union.

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan has staked his reputation on Britain

remaining part of this elite club.

But in October of that year, his plans are upset

in a most unexpected way.

# Find a wheel and it goes round, round, round

# As it skims along with the happy sound as it goes

# Along the ground, ground, ground

# Till it leads you to the one you love... #

The Soviet Union has put a satellite into space,

and stunned the leaders of the free world.

'Sputnik made history with hundreds of circuits in orbit.

'Listening post picked up the beeps and hisses from its radio.'

This seemingly innocent act by Russia

will bring the Cold War to boiling point.

Sputnik is a game changer.

Once you put a satellite into space,

that means you could put a warhead into space,

which means that the United States

is suddenly directly threatened by the Soviet Union.

Were you surprised or alarmed by the fact that the Russians

-were able to get satellites going round the world?

-Definitely alarmed.

What do you think about America not being able to do the same?

Well, if I was in military service and fell down on the job like that,

I could stand a court-martial.

As America's humiliation sinks in,

the president tries to maintain a brave face.

This launching of the satellite

proves that they can hurl

an object a considerable distance.

Now, that is a great accomplishment if done.

One of the great frustrations for Dwight Eisenhower

is that the American people don't trust him to keep them safe the way used to.

Macmillan is quick to grasp how much

Sputnik has dented America's confidence

and records these frank observations in his diary.

The Russian success in launching the satellite

has been something equivalent to Pearl Harbor.

The American cocksureness is shaken,

the president is under severe attack for the first time.

Eisenhower and Macmillan know each other well.

Their bond is one of brothers in arms.

I worked at his headquarters as British resident minister.

We had a lot of very tough problems to deal with then.

And we remained great friends.

And one of the advantages of friendship

is you can talk frankly to your friends.

As America's crisis of confidence deepens,

Macmillan reaches out to Eisenhower.

These are his own words.

What are we going to do about these Russians?

This artificial satellite has brought it home to us

what formidable people they are

and what a menace they present to the free world.

Has not the time come, when we could go further towards pooling our efforts,

and decide how best to use them for our common good?

Dear, Harold.

All countries that fear themselves threatened by communism

look primarily to your country and to ours

for the leadership they need.

As you know, I have long been an earnest advocate

of closer ties between our two countries.

I keep torturing my imagination to discover ways and means whereby we

could occasionally meet together,

without creating the necessity for a communique.

If we are to meet,

we should do so as soon as possible.

How is my visit to be explained?

I thought carefully about the possibility of some pretext,

like a lecture or a university degree,

in order to reduce any impression that this is an emergency meeting.

In America's humiliation, Macmillan also sent us an opportunity.

He was a calculating politician. He was interested in using this public reaction in the United States

to achieve what he described as the great prize

as far as Britain's concerned, which was to re-establish a very close

nuclear partnership with the United States.

Just three weeks after Sputnik, Harold Macmillan travels to America

for his summit with Eisenhower.

They strike a deal to help each other out,

and Macmillan comes away with his great prize -

the promise of access to America's deepest nuclear secrets.

Just like Britain once had before.

Britain ended the Second World War as a full partner

in the nuclear bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Britain ends the war thinking that the country is a nuclear country.

It doesn't have any bombs,

but the country understands how to make them and then

comes the cold shoulder.

The US Congress looks at the DNA and decides that Great Britain is not

the father of the nuclear bomb and that the United States should not be

sharing nuclear secrets any more with any country and suddenly,

Britain is pushed out of the nuclear club by the United States.

British scientists had been forced to go it alone and set out on a path

towards an independent nuclear deterrent.

Three, two, one.

By 1957, we had our own H-bombs and a fleet of bombers to carry them.

But in the new age of rockets, bombs and bombers were barely...

credible.

Britain could produce its own warheads,

but that wasn't the most expensive part any more

of being a nuclear power, it was how do you deliver these warheads?

Britain needed a way to convey the nuclear weapons

against a Soviet or Soviet bloc target.

That was a very expensive proposition.

Engine ignited, armed and guard removed.

Roger.

A group of elite rocket scientists were tasked

with developing Britain's own nuclear missile.

-Motors are central.

-Roger.

Tucked away from prying eyes in the very north of England,

this top-secret project was called Blue Streak.

All systems are ready.

Roger.

Blue Streak drained millions from the public purse.

But it didn't go as planned.

After Sputnik, there would be just four minutes' warning

of a Soviet missile dropping from space.

But Blue Streak took half an hour just to get its engine ready.

While stuck on this vast launchpad, it would be a sitting duck.

This is a small country, where do you put these things?

You can't hide them like you can in the Russian steppes.

They're easy to find and they're a target and they actually, in effect,

make the British probably more vulnerable than they would be without them.

Blue Streak's failings mean that by the mid-'60s,

Britain will have no credible nuclear deterrent of its own.

With Eisenhower's vast nuclear vault now opening,

Macmillan can look inside for a solution.

America has been funding a remarkable array

of nuclear missile programmes

through its Army, its Air Force and its Navy.

Leading the way for the Navy is Admiral Arleigh Burke.

In all of the campaigns of America's history,

our ships have demonstrated a superior fighting quality

and they have done that against all challengers,

sometimes, it should be noted,

when the odds seemed almost insurmountable.

Burke is all too aware how dangerous nuclear missile bases on home soil

have become since Sputnik...

..as he reveals in this once top-secret memo.

If we use the United States soil as the base,

we will receive on United States soil,

large numbers of enemy missiles aimed at eliminating

our own missile-launching sites.

If there were no alternatives, we should pursue this strategy.

Fortunately, there are alternatives.

And good ones.

Burke has come up with a brilliant idea -

put nuclear missiles into submarines.

It's a system called Polaris.

Move the deterrents out to sea,

where the real estate is free and where they are far away from me.

This would have the added benefit of keeping them far from America.

The whole idea of a submarine launch system is almost incomprehensible.

The basics of rocketry were really very new.

They put them under water, in a submarine.

And it works.

And it shows, I think,

the vast amount of money that they're prepared to spend,

for instance, on this thing.

Burke's once-secret papers shed more light on this extraordinary plan.

Today, they are kept at the National Security Archive in Washington.

Well, this is a document from the Navy archives,

it's a memorandum that Arleigh Burke wrote

and this one had an interesting section on plans

for the Polaris missile system.

As Burke put it, "having a Polaris submarine launch missile system,

"it will permit eventually the US to move its deterrent missile forces

"many, many miles from land.

"Such distances, in the light of fallout,

"of fixed site attraction for enemy missiles,

"blast destruction and nuclear holocaust

"are important and very impressive.

"This would enlarge the possible launch area for ballistic missiles

"to tens of millions of square miles."

As far as he's concerned, the Russians had no real capabilities

in determining the locations of submarines.

You could put a submarine in the North Sea or in the North Pacific.

A nuclear-powered submarine would be very quiet

and he thought it would be potentially invulnerable to attack.

Burke's ideas soon come to the attention

of his counterpart in the UK -

First Sea Lord, Dickie Mountbatten,

who takes a very keen interest.

Do you think our ships are the best to cope with this problem at the moment?

I think they're the best that science

and the present state of knowledge can produce.

When we have to deal with nuclear submarines,

we shall have a new problem and I think probably the best answer is to

have nuclear submarines of our own,

as being the best means of killing the others.

So, Lord Mountbatten, descended from royalty, incredibly well connected,

was always interested in technology.

He used to joke that he invented technology

and what he was interested in

when he became First Sea Lord,

was anything that would give the Royal Navy an edge.

Mountbatten sees in Polaris the answer to all Britain's problems.

He launches a charm offensive and begins a correspondence with Burke.

These are their letters.

My dear Arleigh, I hope you would agree to release to us,

on a strictly Navy to Navy net,

as much information as your acts would allow us to have

in advance of you getting the weapon into service.

Dear Dicky,

we will, of course provide you with drawings

of our Polaris submarines which you require.

What we're aiming to do at the moment is to keep the Polaris pot boiling

over here, so that the manifest advantages of the weapon systems

shall not be overlooked.

We can only do this if we can show that the US Navy

is willing to give us every possible assistance

to get such a weapon into service.

For God's sake, Dickie, stop pestering me.

Put one of your men in our special projects office

and he can tell you all you need to know.

Both of us believe that this is a weapon which,

if entrusted to our navies, may prove to be the ultimate answer.

America's Navy is not the only force developing a nuclear deterrent that

could solve Britain's problem.

Top secret and incredibly sophisticated,

a missile called Skybolt is being developed by the US Air Force

to hit a target 2,000 miles away,

after launching from a supersonic bomber.

Because it's launched in midair,

it's claimed to be more flexible

and less vulnerable to counterattack

than any weapon of comparable size on land.

For Macmillan, the appeal of Skybolt includes its cost.

Scramble, scramble!

Because it can be fitted to Britain's bombers,

it's far less expensive than a new fleet of submarines,

even if it is not yet proven to work.

It is February of 1960.

In just a few weeks' time,

Macmillan's government must finally announce to the public

that Britain's nuclear missile, Blue Streak, will be cancelled.

Yet he still hasn't got a replacement from Eisenhower's vault.

A meeting is hastily arranged. PHONE RINGS

A transcript of a call between them

shows how desperate Macmillan is for a private word

alone with his old friend.

Hello, Harold.

Where could we meet?

Oh, we could come here we could go over to Camp David.

We don't want lots of people milling around, we want just...

you and me.

Yes.

We'd say we were talking about summit meetings.

OK.

On the 27th of March,

Macmillan and Eisenhower arrive

at the presidential retreat at Camp David.

Officially, they are to discuss

future summit meetings between world leaders.

The next day, the two leaders of the free world slip away together

on a short drive to the President's family farm

at Gettysburg, for some time alone.

I was in our backyard shooting baskets with friends

and I'm dribbling a basketball around the side,

this is the Gettysburg farm, and my grandfather and Macmillan

are just simply walked towards us.

And I put the basketball down and I shook his hand.

And I was thrilled to meet him.

This was a man who was in the news all the time,

he was somebody that my grandfather spoke very highly of

and I was impressed by his

matter of factness and his dignity.

Because it was just the two of them.

In fact, they weren't even surrounded by security people.

Yeah, just the two of them.

Here, away from the gaze of advisers and civil servants,

they get down to business.

Eisenhower agrees to solve Macmillan's missile problem.

He won't give Britain Polaris submarines and missiles,

but he will provide the air-launched Skybolt -

a deal that will keep Britain in the nuclear club

for another ten years,

and save Macmillan's skin.

But Eisenhower wants something in return.

To keep Russia in range,

America's own Polaris submarines need a base in north-western Europe.

Eisenhower thinks Scotland would be perfect.

And Macmillan agrees.

In a memo the next day, Eisenhower seals their gentlemen's agreement.

We welcome the assurance that in the same spirit of cooperation,

the UK would be agreeable, in principle,

to making the necessary arrangements

for US Polaris tenders in the Scottish ports.

Just two weeks after Macmillan returns from America,

Blue Streak is officially cancelled, to much derision,

having a cost £180 million.

Instead, Skybolt is announced as Britain's future deterrent.

What's not announced and what remains top secret

is the American nuclear submarine base Macmillan swapped it for.

This must be very secret.

And no wonder.

The British public is becoming increasingly concerned

about nuclear weapons.

That very weekend,

the biggest peace march in British history arrives right at

Macmillan's doorstep...

..and brings central London to a standstill.

The question and issue is,

shall the human race survive or shall it not?

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It's a triumph for a new protest organisation called

The Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament.

People were frightened. I mean,

Whitehall from Parliament Square to Trafalgar Square,

was solid, absolutely solid with people

with banners and flags.

And it was the first political development where

mass numbers were getting involved.

This is an age of anxiety for the public about nuclear weapons.

Remember, that the example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

is literally only a few years before.

It's within memory.

The fear is that the Russians after Sputnik

might threaten some form of nuclear attack.

People believe that a nuclear exchange is possible.

There are many remote places in Scotland

where you could hide a nuclear submarine base.

But Eisenhower doesn't have those in mind.

He wants one at the mouth of the Clyde.

Just 25 miles from Glasgow.

The third biggest city in Britain.

Locked away at the National Archives at Kew

are remarkable once-secret documents that reveal how deeply worried

Macmillan was about this politically toxic problem.

Macmillan, when he gets back home, suddenly has a revelation,

I don't know why he didn't have it earlier,

at the possibility that stationing a nuclear base

right next to Glasgow,

might not be a good idea!

They were worried about protests, largely.

It makes, obviously, a target very close to a major city.

Quite difficult to sell to the inhabitants,

quite difficult to sell to Britain in general.

So we get a whole host of the ins and outs, as it were,

of the Anglo-American nuclear relationship.

A series of extraordinary drafts

reveals how Macmillan now tries to talk Eisenhower out of locating

his base on the Clyde.

Dear friend,

I'm sure you realise that this proposal must cause serious

political controversy in our country at this time.

I am convinced that the Clyde would not be the right place.

I am convinced that this would not be the right place either

in your interests or in ours.

The placing, so to speak, of a target so near to Glasgow would,

I believe, give rise to the greatest political difficulties

of your point of view.

It would give rise to the greatest political difficulties

and would make the project almost unsalable in this country.

It would surely be a mistake to put down what would become

a major nuclear target so near to the third largest

and most overcrowded city in this country.

"Your officers and men would have to live in the spots chosen for them

"and their lives would be extremely difficult

"if they were badly received by the local population."

So, at this point, you're already getting the indication

that the Americans themselves might find a hostile reception

and so the idea is emerging that we may offer

the Americans another location.

Macmillan is desperate for an alternative.

Considering even naval bases in England and Wales.

But he settles on a stretch of water 100 miles further up the west coast

of Scotland and safely away from Glasgow.

Loch Linnhe would be a far better location.

From a security point of view,

a robust population of 3,000 or 4,000 Highlanders

at Fort William is much more to my taste

than the rather mixed population of the cosmopolitan city of Glasgow.

So, here we have the gambit, as it were.

Can you move your base from Glasgow to Fort William?

It would make Macmillan's life a lot easier and it would make

the potential sale of this to the British population easier, politically.

The president has not yet replied to my telegram, which is very odd

and rather disturbing.

The Americans look at this and basically reject it.

They don't want it, they don't want to be stuck in Fort William,

they want to be a good port with all various facilities.

Dear Harold, Loch Linnhe would be a better location for the Polaris

submarine tender and dry dock in the Clyde.

Other factors important to our ballistic missile submarine needs however,

compel us, reluctantly, to decline your offer of Loch Linnhe.

More immediate access to open seas and international waters

and the need for comparative ease and safety of navigation,

greater shore facilities for logistical support.

To ensure the very best Polaris crews are recruited and retained,

Eisenhower doesn't want them in the middle of nowhere.

For their comfort, morale and amusement,

they require a city on their doorstep.

And an international airport nearby.

The decisive factor in the location of the base is pinned to here,

Prestwick Airport, where American transport planes can land with ease.

If this is the really vital point for you,

I will have the question reopened.

I'm happy to accept your offer to reconsider the question.

Indeed, this has become a matter of some urgency.

It would soon become apparent why.

International tensions have never been higher.

'Several cameras are mounted on the plane at different positions,

'so that they can photograph the ground down below

'at different angles.'

Cold War espionage is taking the world to the brink of war.

The shooting down of an American spy plane by a Soviet missile continues

to send shock waves around the world.

The Soviet leader has stormed out of disarmament negotiations because of

it and is threatening to attack Berlin.

The world is very dangerous

because Khrushchev appears to be really taking the western states on

and, indeed, he is the man

with the supreme authority to push the button.

Eisenhower wants to deploy his Polaris fleet to the UK

as soon as possible.

The pressure on Macmillan is unrelenting.

And the news only gets worse.

Another aeroplane, coming this time from a base in the UK,

disappeared in the sea near the northern shores of Russia

some 10 or 12 days ago.

They claim it violated Russian airspace

and was shot down over territorial waters.

The plane is code-named RB 47.

And a once top-secret civil service memo reveals the impact of this

forgotten incident on the plan for Eisenhower's base on the Clyde.

"The Americans should not underrate our problem.

"After the RB 47 incident, nothing could be more difficult

"than to announce what would look like a new H-bomb base in this country.

"Its status as a Soviet target would give rise to the greatest political

"difficulties and would make the project almost unsalable

"in this country."

My mind is not working quite right.

Really, the last fortnight has been an absolute nightmare.

After six months of backtracking,

Macmillan finally gives Eisenhower

the base on the Clyde he promised him, in return for Skybolt.

The Holy Loch.

But Macmillan has one last card to play.

To limit the political fallout when it all becomes public,

he asks Eisenhower for joint control of the fleet's nuclear button.

All that has been suggested so far is they should not,

without our consent,

fire their missiles from within our territorial waters.

I'm wondering whether this could, for presentation purposes,

be extended to something like 100 miles.

It will not be necessary for me to explain to the public

the whole procedure.

We agree that our Polaris missiles would not be launched within your

territorial waters without your consent.

To carry any form of dual control beyond territorial waters would,

however, present us with a number of problems.

I give you the following assurance, which, of course,

is not to be used publicly.

In the event of an emergency,

such as increased tensions or the threat of war,

the US will take every possible step

to consult with the British and other allies.

With this weak assurance, Eisenhower can now hold Macmillan to his word.

And Macmillan must face the consequences

when it all becomes public.

The Cabinet this morning approved facilities for Polaris on the Clyde

on terms which are, I fear, not what I originally hoped.

Well, it was November, 1960,

when it was announced just out of the blue

that Scotland was going to have a major nuclear base.

There had been no consultation, no debate, no discussion on this.

There was a good deal of anger about this in Scotland.

First comes a giant support ship packed with technology and weapons.

Then the Polaris submarines and their nuclear missiles.

And what was once America's most secret weapon is now anchored

in a Scottish loch and very public indeed.

Everybody wants to know, are you carrying Polaris missiles now?

We have the capability to do so and...

..that's about all we have.

This pier was the link between the American base

and the Scottish mainland.

And it quickly became a magnet for protests.

They sat it out for 20 hours at the pier and they slept and sang

anti-Polaris songs and were fortified by tea from supporters.

First sit-down here, the sailors did clamber over us.

I mean, I was trampled over by some American sailors.

The sailors were upset.

This was unexpected.

Youths and elderly men and women lay limp

as they were dumped on top of each other.

There were cries of protest from the crowd

as one boy stuck his head on the ground.

We did get arrested.

The police tactics, the authorities had decided

they would clear the pier, so we were carried away

and distributed in various police stations

throughout the area over the weekend, until court the next week.

It was trying to get people to realise

just what kind of evil power

was there that could get out of control.

Just one of them could kill millions of people.

It used to be quite a spectacle, actually, because

each time a sub came in...

the entire ship's company

would present themselves on deck and they would

stand to attention, and it was quite something to see.

We're just coming up to the bit of the loch now

that the base used to occupy.

We'd be looking...

inside the floating dock from here

and then the big linkspan was after that and then the mothership.

And of course lashed alongside the mothership would be...

..half a dozen submarines at any one time.

The Tannoy would be going,

"Now hear this."

It was just a bustle all the time.

Lots and lots of local girls of course took up with the Americans

and benefited from it in that way.

They started families and got off to pastures new -

the usual story, I suppose, anywhere there's a big base.

In trying to keep Britain at the top table of nuclear powers,

Harold Macmillan has turned the Clyde into a major Soviet target.

And all this for Skybolt...

..a weapon still in the hands of the developers.

'Deliveries of Skybolt to the Royal Air Force were scheduled for 1965.

'At the moment, after five and a half years of planning and building,

'Skybolt is in the testing stage.'

Skybolt has been promised to Macmillan by President Eisenhower

as a way of solving Britain's nuclear missile problem.

But in early 1961, a new American president comes to power.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards,

as all paths are.

But it is the one most consistent with our character and courage,

as a nation, and our commitments around the world.

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.

The thing that's important about Kennedy

is that he's from different generation.

He's not like Eisenhower,

who had the experience in the Second World War

of working closely with the British

and therefore was sympathetic to their needs.

He doesn't really have the same belief that Britain

is still a superpower and that you need to keep maintaining

that illusion, if you will.

From different generations with different worldviews,

these are not the most obvious of friends.

'You are the target of those who would trample the liberties of free men.

'You are in the crosshairs of the bombsite.

'An enemy is centring on you.'

But Kennedy sees Macmillan as someone he can turn to in times of crisis.

'Our president has told us that even against the most powerful defence,

'an aggressor in possession of an effective number of atomic bombs

'could cause hideous damage.'

As Khrushchev tries to place Russian missiles in Cuba and Kennedy faces

his darkest hour, he telephones Macmillan everyday for his counsel,

and their personal relationship emerges even stronger.

Good evening. Was it then the most dangerous week

in the whole history of mankind? I suppose it was.

But we're through it. And where are we now?

In the days and weeks immediately after the Cuban Missile Crisis,

Skybolt begins to cloud the relationship

between their two countries.

Some members of Kennedy's inner circle want to see Britain give up

its role as an independent nuclear power altogether.

Why should Britain get preferential treatment

with American nuclear weapons and not other European countries?

For the US State Department,

every mention of an independent British deterrent

was a poke in the eye of the French and the West Germans.

In November 1962, Kennedy's Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara,

takes stock of Skybolt's progress,

and doesn't like what he sees.

Skybolt is one of many systems the Americans were working on

and they have a pretty ruthless approach.

McNamara is looking at his budget and says, "Look, this is a turkey.

"We've already spent 400 million on this.

"It's a turkey. Let's get rid of it. We don't need it."

In early December, the bad news becomes very public indeed

when McNamara comes to London.

I think the most significant point he makes is to state categorically

that all five Skybolt tests so far have been failures.

This is the first time this has been publicly admitted.

To the press and the public,

Macmillan has been played for a fool.

There was huge uproar in the United Kingdom.

He feared his government might fall.

He had invested his political prestige,

which is always dangerous for any politician,

into one particular programme,

one particular solution to the British problem

of how to be part of a nuclear club.

On the 12th of December, Macmillan's Defence Secretary meets McNamara

and spells out British concerns in no uncertain terms.

We have cancelled the Blue Streak.

We have made ourselves absolutely dependent on you in this matter.

This was part of the Holy Loch agreement.

Are we going to continue to have such agreements or are we not?

That is the fundamental question.

Britain's strategy is in tatters.

And the Skybolt affair becomes a fully-blown international crisis.

It has been, really, in a sense,

the kind of the engineering that's been beyond us.

We put 0.5 billion into it already.

To complete the system might cost another,

and to buy the missiles that we would want

might require 2.5 billion.

This was an opportunity that a number of American foreign policy leaders

had been looking for to kill the entire British deterrent.

It's not because they were anti-British,

they weren't anti-British,

they were just pro-French and pro-German and pro-Europe.

And they felt that the British deterrent

was an artefact of World War II.

A frantic period of diplomacy follows.

And the date is set for a head-to-head summit

to try to resolve the crisis.

Macmillan expects America to stick to its word

and provide Britain with an effective nuclear deterrent..

..while Kennedy wants to know exactly what has already been agreed

and calls Eisenhower to check what he promised.

-KENNEDY:

-'I will receive tomorrow morning the Prime Minister

'and this Skybolt matter is going to come up.

'I've been going through...'

An audio recording exists of some of their actual conversation.

-KENNEDY:

-'As I read the papers...

'..there was always a question of the feasibility of Skybolt,

'and that... I think, they feel,

'we've got two or three the problems.

'First, that in the agreement we need on Holy Loch...'

In the agreement we agreed on Holy Loch,

they may feel that one is for the other.

It doesn't read that way. It seems they were separate decisions,

both made at the same time.

I'll go down to Nassau and meet him.

By the way, be sure to give him my warm greetings.

Oh, I will.

I will, General.

The venue for Kennedy and Macmillan to meet is Nassau in the Bahamas.

It was on Wednesday morning that the president drove up

to the Macmillan villa to begin the first main session

of this critical Anglo-American meeting.

But it could be politically disastrous for Mr Macmillan

if he were to return home without some way of keeping the British nuclear deterrent in being.

The encounter is documented, word for word,

in these remarkable transcripts.

Kennedy is quickly on the defensive.

He denies Skybolt has been cancelled

just to force Britain out of the nuclear club.

Now, it is true that the US doesn't favour national deterrence.

I agree, there is a danger that some would think that cutting off Skybolt

was an effort to cut off the British deterrent.

There can be no question of bad faith.

Kennedy then stuns Macmillan by trying to sell him

the failed Skybolt all over again.

He even offers to foot the bill to make it finally work.

Now, for 100 million, the British could get 450 million worth of work

which we have put in.

Skybolt should be capable of deterring Mr Khrushchev.

20 missiles in Cuba had a deterrent effect on us.

And Macmillan says, "Oh, no.

"Not now.

"Not now. No, no. It's too late for that."

His Secretary of Defence has publicly said the thing doesn't work.

We're getting a nuclear hand-me-down.

That can't... "No, no!

"I don't want Skybolt any more."

We were being asked to spend hundreds of millions of dollars

upon a weapon on which the President's own authorities are casting doubts.

Harold Macmillan then uses one of the most unexpected phrases in the

history of British diplomacy.

One of the things that Macmillan first learned about Kennedy

was he was oversexed, so it made perfect sense for Macmillan

to use a sexual metaphor

to explain the problems that he now faced.

While the proposed marriage with Skybolt

isn't exactly a shotgun wedding,

the virginity of the lady must now be regarded as doubtful.

Skybolt has been undermined in terms of its credibility

and so he's not prepared to accept it.

Then Macmillan makes a play for the real prize -

the Polaris submarine and missile system.

Kennedy won't hand this over without strings.

A British Polaris fleet should be assigned to NATO,

where America will be able to control it.

What is really meant by the words, "Assigned to NATO"?

I understand that it is in the UK's interest to define "assigned" as

loosely as possible.

These missiles and submarines should be available to the UK for national

use only in case of dire emergencies.

What is meant by "dire"?

And how much of an emergency would it have to be?

It seems to me what you're saying is it will be all right if it was

a question of absolute survival,

and that no situation short of this would justify their doing so.

The Foreign Secretary said there are other potential crises

which should be considered.

For example, Kuwait and the UK oil interests there.

Macmillan called these Britain's supreme national interests.

In 1962...

the supreme national interest might be the defence of oilfields.

Britain was so dependent upon the Gulf states for its oil.

Dire national emergency implies that either there is a very likely threat

of a nuclear attack or a nuclear attack is underway.

That's a dire national emergency,

that's not the same as your supreme national interest.

Day one of the summit ends without a deal.

The British press is convinced that the sun is setting

on Britain's independent deterrent.

But in Nassau, Macmillan remains unfazed.

Assigned.

Earmarked.

Earmarked for commitment to.

Committed.

He has an enormous confidence in himself

because he actually does think

that he's better than everyone in the room.

He's not only British but he's also Macmillan,

and so he's going to get his way.

On day two of the summit, Macmillan takes a different line -

honesty.

But it's a tactic that threatens the whole Anglo-American relationship.

Actually, the whole thing is ridiculous.

What does seven or eight UK units

add to the existing nuclear strength,

which is enough to blow up the world?

So, why does the UK want it?

It is partly a question of keeping up with the Joneses.

Countries which have played a great role in history

must retain their dignity.

The UK does not want to be just a clown or a satellite.

The UK wants a nuclear force, not only for defence,

but in the event of menace to its existence.

There's all these wonderful metaphors

which basically mean that you've got this country which is

admittedly in a state of decline but which is desperately trying to

maintain its credibility as a great power.

And at this point, Macmillan begins to say, "Look,

"if you're not prepared to provide us with Polaris, then there will be,

"within my government, an agonising reappraisal."

It must still be capable of being used when they wish

by the British Government.

Unless this principle can be accepted,

I would prefer to drop the whole idea.

We would have to undertake an agonising reappraisal

of our military and political policies.

And he uses this phrase,

"There could well be a parting of the ways

"between Britain and the United States."

The special relationship, close ties between us will end.

After two days of intense negotiations,

a deal is nowhere in sight.

Despite the public face,

Anglo-American relations are now hanging by a very thin thread.

At the back of Kennedy's mind

is the special relationship.

Britain, for a long time, has been America's bridge to Europe

and without some kind of deal, that bridge is destroyed.

Both leaders now desperately need a deal

that will allow them to save face.

It's all hinges on the words.

Macmillan cleverly works with Kennedy on finding language

that would allow Macmillan to sell to the British people

the fact that he got Polaris as an independent UK deterrent,

while at the same time allowing Kennedy to tell the Europeans

that the British Polaris fleet will be part of a multinational nuclear deterrent when necessary.

Kennedy finally gives Macmillan the deal he needs.

The submarines will be assigned to NATO after all,

yet the UK reserves its right to use its forces independently.

Not just in a dire national emergency,

but when her supreme national interests are at stake.

Both Kennedy and Macmillan were able to claim success,

and on his return to Britain,

Macmillan basked in the glory of keeping Britain in the nuclear club.

I would like to pay tribute to the statesmanship

of President Kennedy and his advisers,

who, after much thought and discussion,

and I think I may be perhaps right in saying some pressure from us,

accepted what we felt was the right balance within the alliance.

Harold Macmillan was extraordinarily aware

of the limits of British power.

He...played with words

and always used ambiguity to his own advantage.

He left things ambiguous,

not because he didn't have command of the English language,

but BECAUSE he had command of the English language.

Harold Macmillan's government was voted out in 1964.

His replacement, Labour's Harold Wilson,

had promised to cancel Britain's independent nuclear deterrent

when elected.

Instead, he pressed ahead.

Action stations.

Four nuclear submarines were commissioned.

Ready for launch.

Each would cost the equivalent of £600 million today.

Fire.

Britain would make these and the warheads

and the missiles would come from America.

By 1969, they were ready to be deployed at sea.

When you look at the Polaris programme, five years to design,

build, test, and then train the crew

so they could take a submarine on operational patrol,

for an operation which we'd never done before,

is actually an incredible achievement.

If you know anything about submarines,

they are some of the most complex things

that man has ever put together.

In terms of the moving parts,

it has more moving parts, for example, than the space shuttle.

And they all have to come together

and work in one of the harshest environments known to man.

But where would the submarines and nuclear missiles be based?

After Devonport and Falmouth were ruled out,

a spot in Scotland was identified...

..with the right mixture of sea access and shore facilities.

It was just a few miles across the Clyde from the Holy Loch,

at Faslane.

From April 1969 through to the present day,

there has been a deterrent submarine patrolling the waters

365 days a year, 24/7.

All we are providing is a minimum credible deterrent to deter

whatever adversaries around the world are there,

that might threaten the United Kingdom

or certainly its vital interests, in the most extreme ways.

-Breaking clear.

-Breaking clear.

The Americans left the Clyde in 1992.

But Faslane is still going strong as the home base and training centre

for Britain's current nuclear deterrent, Trident.

Parliament has now voted to renew Trident for another generation.

But the public debate will continue.

No to Trident!

Do these submarines and their deadly missiles succeed in deterring

Britain's enemies, or are they simply not necessary?

As Britain tries to maintain its place in an uncertain world,

the issue remains dominated by ideas forged half a century ago.

# Find a wheel and it goes round, round, round

# As it skims along with a happy sound

# As it goes along the ground, ground, ground

# Till it leads you to the one you love

# Then your love will hold you round, round, round

# In your heart's a song with a brand new sound

# And your head goes spinning round, round, round

# Cos you've found what you've been dreamin' of. #