Nassau Agreement
A series of meetings between the two leaders over three days in the Bahamas followed Kennedy's announcement of his intention to cancel the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile project.
The British Government had then cancelled the development of its medium-range ballistic missile, known as Blue Streak, leaving Skybolt as the basis of the UK's independent nuclear deterrent in the 1960s.
These represented more advanced technology than Skybolt, and the US was not inclined to provide them except as part of a Multilateral Force within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The agreement stipulated that the UK's Polaris missiles would be assigned to NATO as part of a Multilateral Force, and could be used independently only when "supreme national interests" intervened.
[4] Fearing a resurgence of United States isolationism, and Britain losing its great power status, the British Government restarted its own development effort,[5] now codenamed High Explosive Research.
[7][8] The subsequent British development of the hydrogen bomb, and a favourable international relations climate created by the Sputnik Crisis, led to the McMahon Act being amended in 1958, resulting in the restoration of the nuclear Special Relationship in the form of the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, which allowed Britain to acquire nuclear weapons systems from the United States.
[9] Britain's nuclear weapons armament was initially based on free-fall bombs delivered by the V-bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF).
With the development of the hydrogen bomb, a nuclear strike on the UK could kill most of the population and disrupt or destroy the political and military chains of command.
[12] In April 1955, the Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir George Mills expressed his dissatisfaction with the counterforce strategy, and argued for a countervalue one that targeted administration and population centres for their deterrent effect.
[10] At a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting in Paris in December 1953, United States Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson, raised the possibility of a joint medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) development programme.
Its deployment was still years away, but the United States was supplying American-built Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles under Project Emily, and there were concerns about liquid fuelled Blue Streak's vulnerability to a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
[20] Confronted with the same problem, the United States Air Force (USAF) also attempted to extend the operational life of its strategic bombers by developing a stand off missile, the AGM-28 Hound Dog.
A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress could carry two, but the underslung Pratt & Whitney J52 engine precluded its carriage by bombers with less underwing clearance like the Convair B-58 Hustler and the North American XB-70 Valkyrie.
An Advanced Air to Surface Missile (AASM) that could carry a 0.5-to-1.0-megatonne-of-TNT (2.1 to 4.2 PJ) warhead with a range of 1,900 to 2,800 kilometres (1,000 to 1,500 nmi) and a CEP of 910 metres (3,000 ft).
[25] Armed with a British Red Snow warhead, this would improve the capability of the UK's V-bomber force, and extend its useful life into the late 1960s and early 1970s.
[31] The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, met with President Dwight Eisenhower at Camp David near Washington in March 1960, and secured permission to buy Skybolt without strings attached.
[33] With the Skybolt agreement in hand, the Minister of Defence, Harold Watkinson, announced the cancellation of Blue Streak to the House of Commons on 13 April 1960.
"[40] The Kennedy administration was concerned that a situation like the Suez Crisis might repeat itself, one that would once again incite a nuclear threat against the UK from the Soviet Union.
[43] This meant that there were few advantages for the United States in continuing Skybolt,[48] but at the same time its cancellation would be a powerful political tool for bringing the UK into their Multilateral Force.
[52] US National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy gave an interview on television in which he stated that the US had no obligation to supply Skybolt to the UK.
He went on to state "that some of us on this side, who want to see Britain retain a nuclear deterrent, are highly suspicious of some of the American motives... and say that the British people are tired of being pushed around".
[56] In London, over one hundred Conservative members of Parliament, nearly one third of the parliamentary party, signed a motion urging Macmillan to ensure that Britain remained an independent nuclear power.
The Prime Minister made it clear that except where HMG [Her Majesty's Government] may decide that supreme national interests are at stake, these British forces will be used for the purposes of international defense of the Western Alliance in all circumstances.
This nicety was not observed when the Nassau conference was arranged,[63] but the Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker, invited Macmillan to a meeting in Ottawa.
[68][69] On 22 December, after the Nassau conference had ended, the USAF conducted the sixth and final test flight of Skybolt, having received explicit permission to do so from Roswell Gilpatric, the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, in McNamara's absence.
[51] Kennedy was furious, but Macmillan remained confident that the Americans had "determined to kill Skybolt on good general grounds—not merely to annoy us or drive Great Britain out of the nuclear business".
[79] The V-bombers were immediately reassigned to NATO under the terms of the Nassau Agreement, carrying tactical nuclear weapons,[80] as were the Polaris submarines when they entered service in 1968.
[83] As had been feared, the President of France, Charles de Gaulle, vetoed Britain's application for admission to the EEC on 14 January 1963, citing the Nassau Agreement as one of the main reasons.
He encountered dissent from within his own Liberal Party, notably from Pierre Trudeau,[86] but opinion polls indicated that he was staking out a position held by the overwhelming majority of Canadians.
[91] In October 1963, on the eve of the annual Conservative Party Conference, Macmillan fell ill with what was initially feared to be inoperable prostate cancer.
