56. Telegram From the Mission to the European Communities to the Department of State0
Ecbus 591. Eyes only for Secretary and Under Secretary from Tuthill. Subject: Relation of Polaris Decision to UK-Six Negotiations.
While in Paris during NATO meeting,1 I discussed Skybolt-Polaris problem with Ambassador Finletter and was present Monnet meeting2 during which this matter raised. Inasmuch as ultimate decision may have crucial effect on UK-Six negotiations, felt I should submit my reactions.
Today, both Six and UK have insisted publicly that current negotiations are not related to nuclear issues including whole range of special US-UK relations, French force de frappe and prospects for a multilateral instead of independent nuclear forces. It has seemed to me that, up until now, this public posture was entirely desirable as it offered the possibility that issue would not be decisively joined until after UK entry into Common Market had been decided. Then NATO and European multilateral force possibilities (within NATO context) could be examined on their merits.
[Page 140]I am deeply concerned however that this truce on nuclear issues will burst wide open if the US should decide to offer aid to the UK for an independent Polaris deterrent to replace Skybolt. Major shock of change would come from fact that Polaris represents an indefinite deterrent while Skybolt has been generally assumed by Europeans to have a limited period of effectiveness—general impression being that it would rapidly become obsolete after 1970—the very year the Common Market would enter into full force. Thus, I have had impression that Europeans—and especially the French—were prepared to live with a special UK-US arrangement that in effect had a terminal date. French I believe are aware of fact that before original Skybolt agreement was reached with British, UK had been interested in obtaining Polaris submarines for purely independent force but had been turned down by US because of our unwillingness to prejudice multilateral force prospects and unduly prolong independent UK deterrent. I believe French would have serious doubts re UK membership in Community if UK has a special relation of indefinite validity in the nuclear weapons field.
Longer-term effects on Germans would also be grave. In line with their support of European integration, they have hitherto favored principle of a multilateral approach to nuclear problem and tacitly approved our policy of not aiding independent national nuclear efforts. US aid to British independent deterrent through Polaris could well alter this German position and cause Germans to look with more favor on French efforts to foster France-German collaboration as well as surfacing of latent German pressures for own independent national program.
Certainly Monnet was deeply shocked by newspaper reports that US might offer Polarises to UK apparently without insisting upon firm multilateral conditions. Having in mind timing aspects mentioned above, he felt such a decision would run directly counter to well established US opposition to proliferation of independent nuclear forces. It would strengthen De Gaulle’s insistence upon his force de frappe and would reduce or perhaps eliminate possibility of achieving a genuine multilateral nuclear force. Quite clearly it would cause De Gaulle to reconsider UK entry into the Common Market as it would build in an indefinite structural preferential arrangement for the British in the most sensitive field of national security and prestige.
Personally I believe odds are still favorable that UK-Six negotiations will succeed in early months of 1963. However, this assumes no political changes such as a US offer of Polaris to UK without an effective multilateral framework. Effects of such a development would of course depend considerably on conditions attached and on how matter handled. However two grave (alternative) results appear possible in field of European unity. First would be that French might simply decide oppose British entry into Common Market. Second, French might resign themselves [Page 141] to British, Danish, Norwegian and Irish membership plus association or preference trading arrangements with other Europeans including neutrals in a big flabby trading arrangement with little political content. French acceptance of this would probably be based upon plan to change political content to bilateral France/German relationship for which they have already made quite extensive preliminary plans. This of course would result in a travesty of the united Europe that we have been seeking both economically and politically.