The Silent Deep

by James Jinks

  Aftermath

  261. Daily Mail, 16 March 1983; Daily Telegraph, 16 March 1983. 262. Daily Telegraph, 16 March 1983. 263. Pitkeathly and Wixon, Submarine Courageous, p. 227. 264. Ibid., p. 253. 265. MOD Archive. 266. Pitkeathly and Wixon, Submarine Courageous, p. 225.

  The Deterrent

  267. Duncan Campbell and John Rentoul, ‘All Out War’, New Statesman, 24 August 1984. 268. Freedman, Official History of the Falklands Campaign, Vol. 1, p. 49. 269. Interview with Toby Elliott, 14 January 2014. 270. Ibid. 271. Ibid. 272. Interview with Admiral Sir Peter Herbert, 15 October 2013. 273. Sunday Times, 27 November 2005. 274. Guardian, 22 November 2005; Sunday Times, 20 November 2005. 275. Sir Lawrence Freedman, Political Studies Review, Vol. 5 (2007), pp. 39–44. 276. BBC Radio 4, Obituary, ‘Margaret Thatcher: Potency and Paradox’, first broadcast 8 April 2013. 277. Frank Grenier, ‘The Falklands War, 1982 – R. N. Submarine involvement’, in Friends of the Submarine Museum, All Round Look: Year Book 2002/2003 (Royal Navy Submarine Museum, 2003), p. 38. 278. ‘The Falklands War’, eds. Dorman, Kandiah and Staerck. 279. Interview with Admiral Sir Peter Herbert, 15 October 2013. 280. Thatcher, Downing Street Years, p. 174. 281. John F. Lehman Jr, ‘Reflections on the Special Relationship’, Naval History Magazine, Vol. 26, No. 5 (October 2012). 282. Powis, ‘Falklands Memories’, p. 65.

  8 MAINTAINING THE DETERRENT: FROM POLARIS TO TRIDENT

  1. Peter Hennessy, Muddling Through: Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Postwar Britain (Victor Gollancz, 1996), p. 126. Jim Callaghan originally described his grass-hut meeting with Jimmy Carter for A Bloody Union Jack on Top of It, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1988. 2. Financial Times, 17 November 1986. 3. Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (Macmillan, 1994), p. 240.

  Improving Polaris

  4. Resolution (Port crew, under the command of Toby Elliott) was on patrol during March and April 1982. Commander Paul Branscombe (Starboard crew) took over command of Resolution on 30 April 1982 and departed for patrol in early June 1982. 5. Interview with Paul Branscombe, 1 April 2014. 6. CAC/THCR, 3/2/98 f3, Thatcher to Fieldhouse, 10 August 1982. 7. TNA/CAB/130/1128, MISC 237(69)5, Prospects for nuclear collaboration within NATO including prospects for an Anglo-French nuclear force, 26 March 1969. 8. TNA/DEFE/24/189, DCSO(R) to AUS, Damage capability of the Polaris force, 26 October 1967. 9. TNA/DEFE/13/350, Mackenzie to Minister RN, CNS, Controller of the Navy, 2nd PUS (RN), 19 January 1965; TNA/PREM/13/228, Healey to Wilson, 22 January 1965. 10. Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (Michael Joseph, 1989), p. 313. 11. TNA/CAB/134/3120, PN(67), 4th Meeting, 5 December 1967; for the Kings Norton Working Party Report into the future of AWRE see TNA/CAB/134/3121, Report to the Minister of Technology and the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority by the Working Party on Atomic Weapons Establishments, July 1968; for Lord Rothschild’s Minority Report see TNA/CAB/134/3121, Part 2, Lord Rothschild’s ‘Minority Report’ dissenting from the findings of the Kings Norton Working Party on Atomic Weapons Establishments, 18 July 1968. 12. Thomas Robb, ‘Antelope, Poseidon or a Hybrid: The Upgrading of the British Strategic Nuclear Deterrent, 1970–1974’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 33:6, p. 802. 13. See John Baylis and Kristan Stoddart, ‘Britain and the Chevaline Project: The Hidden Nuclear Programme, 1967–1982’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 26:4 (2003), pp. 128–31; Robb, ‘Antelope, Poseidon or a Hybrid’, pp. 803–5. 14. See Robb, ‘Antelope, Poseidon or a Hybrid’, pp. 805–13.

  Chevaline

  15. TNA/DEFE/13/1039, A Report on the Progress of the Chevaline Project: The Main Report, 1 April 1976. 16. TNA/DEFE/13/1039, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 November 1975. 17. TNA/PREM/1564, Hunt to Callaghan, Nuclear Meeting, 28 October, 9.45 a.m., 25 October 1977. 18. TNA/DEFE/13/1039, Mayne to Secretary of State, 18 November 1975. 19. TNA/DEFE/13/1039, Carver to Mason, Soviet ABM Cover, 31 March 1976; this file is retained. However, it was temporarily released and is quoted in Kristan Stoddart and John Baylis, ‘The British Nuclear Experience: The Role of Ideas, Beliefs and Culture (Part Two)’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Issue 23, No. 3 (September 2012), see fn. 38; also, David Owen, Nuclear Papers (Liverpool University Press, 2009), p. 10. 20. CAC/GBR/0014/DKNS, Rear Admiral David Scott, Polaris, Chevaline and an Encounter with the Russians, 1973–1980, unpublished manuscript. 21. TNA/DEFE/13/1039, A Report on the Progress of the Chevaline Project: The Main Report, 1 April 1976. 22. Ibid. 23. TNA/PREM/16/1564, R. T. Jackling to E. A. J. Fergusson, Chevaline, 26 October 1977. 24. TNA/PREM/1564, Hunt to Callaghan, Military Nuclear Issues, 25 October 1977. 25. TNA/PREM/1564, R. T. Jackling to E. A. J. Fergusson, Chevaline, 26 October 1977. 26. House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Ministry of Defence: Chevaline Improvement to the Polaris Missile System, Ninth Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, Session 1981–1982 HC 269 (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1982). 27. Ibid. 28. Hennessy, Muddling Through, p. 121. 29. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Mulley to Callaghan, Future of the British Deterrent, 20 December 1978. 30. House of Commons Defence Select Committee, Sixth Report of Session 1984–1985, ‘Trident Programme’, HC 479, 10 July 1985, Minutes of Evidence, 27 February 1985, Q 1910. 31. Most of the files surrounding this re-motoring programme are still classified. ‘TNA/DEFE/72/224, Joint Motor Life Study Co-ordination Group: status of the UK Polaris rocket motors, January 1981. 32. TNA/PREM/16/1564, Hunt to Callaghan, 25 October 1977.

  Towards Trident

  33. Hennessy, Muddling Through, pp. 99–130. 34. TNA/PREM/16/1564, ‘Nuclear Studies’, Hunt to Callaghan, 13 December 1977. 35. The ‘Neutron Bomb’ was intended to kill the enemy on the battlefield by releasing a very high dose of lethal radiation while minimizing the amount of physical damage caused by blast, heat and fallout. 36. TNA/PREM/16/1564, ‘The British Strategic Nuclear Deterrent’, Part 2, Conclusions of a Ministerial Meeting Held at No. 10 Downing Street on Friday, 28 October 1977 at 0945. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid.; TNA/PREM/16/1564, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy. Note of a Meeting Held at 10 Downing Street on Thursday 1 December 1977 at 10:00 a.m. 40. TNA/DEFE/25/335, Mason to Hunt, 12 December 1978; the fullest version of Duff–Mason to reach the National Archives was the Chief of Defence Staff’s copy (later taken back by Whitehall because, among other things, targeting details were included). But the file did not contain Part III as it had yet ‘to be issued’. Mason circulated the report of his working party to Sir John Hunt’s Steering Group on Nuclear Matters on 12 December 1978. This chapter draws on the CDS’s file in particular. 41. PM/78/138, Letter from David Owen to Jim Callaghan, 11 December 1978 in Owen, Nuclear Papers, p. 149. 42. See Owen, Nuclear Papers. 43. TNA/CAB/134/940, HDC(55)3, ‘The Defence Implications of Fallout from a Hydrogen Bomb’, report by a group of officials, 8 March 1955; see Hennessy, The Secret State, pp. 167-78;, J. Hughes, ‘The Strath Report: Britain Confronts the H-Bomb, 1954-5’. History and Technology, 19:3 (2003), pp. 257–75. 44. The name of the Soviet ABM system which was deployed around Moscow. 45. TNA/DEFE/25/335, Annex C. Other Criteria. An Assured Second Strike Capability. 46. Ibid. 47. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Future of the British Deterrent, Hunt to Callaghan, 20 December 1978. 48. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Future of the British Deterrent, Owen to Callaghan, 19 December 1978. 49. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Future of the British Deterrent, Hunt to Callaghan, 20 December 1978. 50. TNA/DEFE/25/433, Quinlan to PS Secretary of State, Nuclear Matters, 18 December 1978. 51. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Mason to Callaghan, Future of the British Deterrent, 20 December 1978. 52. Ibid. 53. TNA/PREM/19/1978, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy. Note of a Meeting Held at 10 Downing Street on Thursday, 21 December 1978, at 9.45 a.m. 54. Ibid. 55. TNA/DEFE/25/335, Factors Relating to Further Consideration of the Future of the United Kingdom Nuclear Deterrent, Part I, paragraph 16. 56. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy. Note of a Meeting Held at 10 Downing Street on Thursday, 21 December 1978, at 9.45 a.m. 57. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy. Note of a Meeting held at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday, 2 January 1979, at 11.00 a.m. 58. Ibid. 59. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Prime Minister’s Conversation with President
Carter: 3:30 p.m., 5 January, at Guadeloupe. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Hunt to Callaghan, Nuclear Matters. Next Steps, 7 January 1979. 63. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy. Note of a Meeting Held at 10 Downing Street on Friday, 19 January 1979, at 10:00 a.m. 64. Kenneth O. Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (OUP, 1997), pp. 661–2. 65. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy. Note of a Meeting Held at 10 Downing Street on Friday, 19 January 1979, at 10:00 a.m. 66. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Healey to Callaghan, 8 February 1979. 67. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Callaghan to Carter, 27 March 1979. 68. TNA/PREM/19/1978, Hunt to Cartledge, 27 March 1979; TNA/PREM/19/1978, Cartledge to Callaghan, 28 March 1979; TNA/PREM/19/1978, Callaghan to Cartledge, 4 May 1979; in 1988, Hennessy asked Jim Callaghan why he had left instructions for Mrs Thatcher to be briefed on Polaris replacement. ‘Because,’ he replied, ‘it was a matter of national importance. I think it is very important that succeeding ministers and succeeding governments and administrations should not know about the political decisions of their predecessors – that is a principle I adhere to. But if the administration, or the Prime Minister, wishes to leave a note for his successor about a matter of greatest national importance, then I think he is entitled to do so’: Hennessy, Muddling Through, p. 127. 69. TNA/PREM/16/1978, Cartledge to Hunt, 6 April 1979. 70. Iain Dale (ed.), Labour Party General Election Manifestos, 1900–1997 (Routledge/Politico’s, 2000), p. 281. 71. 1979 Conservative Party General Election Manifesto (Conservative Party, 1979). 72. David Butler, British General Elections since 1945 (Blackwell/Institute of Contemporary British History, 1989), p. 35.

  Purchasing Trident

  73. Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 24 January 1980, Vol. 977, Col. 681. 74. Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 15 February 1980, Vol. 147, Col. 384. 75. CAC/MTA, Sir Robin Day, TV interview with Margaret Thatcher, BBC1, Panorama, 8 June 1987. 76. Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 28 June 1983, Vol. 44, Col. 496. 77. Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 28 June 1983, Vol. 44, Col. 495. 78. Rodric Braithwaite, Across the Moscow River: The World Turned Upside Down (Yale, 2002), p. 52. 79. Interview with Toby Elliott, 14 January 2014. 80. Ibid. 81. Ibid. 82. Interview with Paul Branscombe, 1 April 2014. 83. TNA/PREM/19/159, Note of a Meeting in the Oval Office, The White House, Washington DC, on Monday, 17 December 1979. Present were President Carter, Mrs Thatcher, Cyrus Vance (US Secretary of State), Lord Carrington (Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary), Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter’s National Security Advisor) and Robert Armstrong. 84. Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (OUP, 2007), pp. 87–125. 85. TNA/CAB/130/1109, MISC 7 (79), 1st Meeting, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy, 24 May 1979. 86. TNA/CAB/130/1109, MISC 7 (79), 1st Meeting, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy, 24 May 1979. 87. Ibid. 88. TNA/PREM/19/159, Armstrong to Thatcher, Future of the Strategic Deterrent, 4 December 1979. 89. TNA/PREM/19/416, OD(81)29, The Defence Programme, Note by the Secretary of State for Defence, 2 June 1981. 90. TNA/PREM/19/159, Armstrong to Thatcher, Future of the Strategic Deterrent, 4 December 1979; the four pillars upon which defence policy was founded were: an independent element of strategic and theatre nuclear forces committed to the Atlantic Alliance; the direct defence of the UK mainland; a major land and air contribution on the European mainland; and a major maritime effort in the Eastern Atlantic and Channel. These pillars were later reiterated in the 1981 Defence Review. 91. TNA/PREM/19/159, Armstrong to Thatcher, Future of the Strategic Deterrent, 4 December 1979. 92. TNA/DEFE/69/406, Duff–Mason Report, Part 3 (revised version), 12 October 1979. 93. TNA/DEFE/25/335, Factors Relating to Further Consideration of the Future of the United Kingdom Nuclear Deterrent, Part II, Criteria for Deterrence, Annex A: Unacceptable Damage, 30 November 1978. 94. TNA/PREM/19/159, Armstrong to Thatcher, Future of the Strategic Deterrent, 4 December 1979. 95. Ibid. 96. Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume 1: Not for Turning (Allen Lane, 2013), p. 572. 97. TNA/PREM/19/159, Armstrong to Thatcher, Future of the Strategic Deterrent, 4 December 1979. 98. Hennessy, Muddling Through, p. 128. 99. TNA/PREM/19/159, Armstrong to Thatcher, Future of the Strategic Deterrent, 4 December 1979. 100. Ibid. 101. TNA/PREM/19/159, Armstrong to Thatcher, Future of the Strategic Deterrent, 4 December 1979; TNA/CAB/128/66/25, CC(79), 25th Conclusions, 13 December 1979. 102. TNA/DEFE/24/2124, Howe to Thatcher, Polaris Successor, 15 June 1980. 103. TNA/DEFE/25/325, Chiefs of Staff Committee, The Case for Five SSBN, 10 June 1980. 104. Richard Hill, Lewin of Greenwich: The Authorised Biography of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin (Cassell, 2000), p. 327. 105. TNA/CAB/130/1182, MISC 7(82)1, Anglo-American Negotiations on D5 (Note by the Cabinet Office), March 1982. 106. TNA/AIR/8/2846, Note by the Directors of Defence Policy, US Strategic Nuclear Force – Chiefs of Staff advice, 2 October 1981. 107. House of Commons Defence Select Committee, Sixth Report of Session 1984–1985, ‘Trident Programme’, HC 479, 10 July 1985, Minutes of Evidence, 27 February 1985, Q1890. 108. House of Commons Defence Select Committee, Sixth Report of Session 1984–1985, ‘Trident Programme’, HC 479, 10 July 1985, Minutes of Evidence, 30 January 1985. 109. TNA/CAB/130/1222, MISC7(81)1, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Defence, Cabinet Nuclear Defence Policy, United Kingdom Strategic Deterrent, 17 November 1981. 110. Ibid. 111. TNA/PREM/19/417, Minute of a meeting between the Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Foreign Secretary, 10 February 1981. 112. TNA/DEFE/24/2123, MISC 7, Frank Cooper, 20 November 1981. 113. Hill, Lewin of Greenwich, p. 324. 114. John Nott, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Memoirs of an Errant Politician (Politico’s, 2002), p. 220. 115. TNA/CAB/130/1222, MISC7(81) 1st Meeting, 24 November 1981; TNA/CAB/130/1182, MISC7(82) 1st Meeting, ‘Most Confidential Record’, 12 January 1982. 116. TNA/AIR/8/2846, Draft Chiefs of Staff advice to the Secretary of State on UK strategic nuclear forces, 13 October 1981. 117. Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, p. 145. 118. Nott, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, p. 217. 119. MISC 7(82) 1st Meeting, 2 March 1982. 120. TNA/CAB/130/1182, Limited Circulation Annex, MISC 7(82) 2nd Meeting, 4 March 1982. 121. Ibid. 122. TNA/CAB/128/75, CC(82) 8th Conclusions, ‘Most Confidential Record’, 4 March 1982. 123. Ibid. 124. Ibid. 125. TNA/CAB/130/1182, United Kingdom Strategic Deterrent: Missile Processing, 29 July 1982. 126. TNA/CAB/130/1182, MISC 7(82)4, United Kingdom Strategic Deterrent: Missile Processing, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Defence, 19 July 1982. 127. TNA/CAB/130/1182, Impact of Missile Processing on the Independence of the UK Deterrent, Annex A 128. TNA/CAB/130/1182, MISC 7(82)4, Missile Processing, 29 July 1982 129. TNA/CAB/128/75, CC(82) 8th Conclusions, Most Confidential Record, 4 March 1982. 130. TNA/CAB/130/1182, United Kingdom Strategic Deterrent: Missile Processing, 29 July 1982. 131. TNA/DEFE/24/2125, Quinlan memorandum, Polaris successor memorandum, 9 June 1980. 132. Ibid. 133. TNA/PREM19/417, Defence Open Government Document 80/23, ‘The Future United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Force’, 15 July 1980. 134. Sir Michael Quinlan, ‘The British Experience’, in Henry D. Sokolski (ed.), Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2004), p. 273. 135. During the Cabinet discussion on the purchase of Trident on 4 March 1982, the ethical factor does flicker in the shape of thoughts on the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament which ‘gained from being at least nominally a non-party organisation, and from the support it enjoyed among the young and in some church circles. It was perhaps a pity that the CND’s many opponents were not also organised on a non-party basis. The CND rightly stressed the terrible nature of nuclear weapons but failed to recognise that Britain’s possession of a strategic nuclear deterrent lessened rather than increased the danger of nuclear war.’ TNA/CAB/128/75, CC(82) 8th Conclusions, Most Confidential Record, 4 March 1982. 136. Sunday Times, 14 July 1991. 137. Evening Standard, 10 July 1991. 138. TNA/CAB/128/75, CC(82) 8th Conclusions, Most Confidential Record, 4 March 1982. 139. CAC/MTA, Sir Robin Day, TV interview with Margaret Thatcher, BBC1, Panorama, 8 June 1987. 140. Ibid.

  The Trident Programme

  141. House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Session 1983–1984, The UK Trident Programme, Minutes of Evidence, 26 March 1984, Q2488. 142. Vice
Admiral Sir Ted Horlick, ‘Submarine Propulsion in the Royal Navy’, The Thomas Lowe Gray Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, January 1981, pp. 950–51. 143. Ibid. 144. Ibid. 145. Norman Friedman, The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems, 1997–1998 (Naval Institute Press, 1997), pp. 150–51. 146. Jack Hool and Keith Nutter, Damned Un-English Machines: A History of Barrow-Built Submarines (The History Press, 2003), pp. 296–301. 147. CAC/MTA, interview from BBC1, Panorama, ‘The Peace Penalty: Whatever Happened to the Peace Dividend?’, 22 March 1993. 148. CAC/MTA, Speech at the keel laying of HMS Vanguard, 3 September 1986. 149. Independent, 6 July 1995. 150. National Audit Office, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Ministry of Defence and Property Services Agency: Control and Management of the Trident programme, HC 27, 1987/88. 151. House of Commons Defence Committee, The Progress of the Trident Programme, HC 337 (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1992), p. 6. 152. John Major, ‘Building New Britain’, speech, 1 April 1992.