Peden G.S. Arms, Economics and British Strategy From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs

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sterling crisis of 1967 to withdraw from commitments around the Indian

Ocean.

The main issues discussed in this chapt er are: was Britain’s scientiﬁc-

military-industrial complex able to keep up with international stan-

dards? What parts did the hydrogen bomb and the need to maintain a

strong economy play in British strategy? Were changes in strategy signs

of weakness and responses to relative economic decline, as Paul Ken-

nedy believed?

Or was David Greenwood correct to argue that British

defence policy was not characterised by decline and contraction, but by

reshaping to spend much the same amount of money in real terms in

different ways?

If so, did that reshaping reﬂect the increasing costs of

weapons systems?

Policymakers

The Ministry of Defence, as it had been created in 1946, was no t an

effective mechanism for making choices that would change the balance

between the three armed services. While Harold Macmillan was min-

ister of defence from October 1954 to April 1955, he found he had no

power, but was held to be responsible for everything that went wrong.

Churchill continued to intervene a lot, chairing the Cabinet’s Defence

Committee. Macmillan had also to deal with the Foreign Ofﬁce and

with the ministers in charge of the Admiralty, the Air Ministry, the War

Ofﬁce and the Ministry of Supply; and he could give no instructions on

his own. His experience at Defence, followed by a period at the

Treasury, made him acutely conscious of the need for greater dire ction

by ministers if there were to be radical changes in policy. When he

became prime minister in Januar y 1957 he decided that Anthony Head,

who had been minister of defence in the Eden government, was too

much of a ‘service’ man to make the cuts that the country’s economic

situation demanded.

Instead Macmillan chose Sandys, who had

already shown independence of thought in defence matters while min-

ister of supply in Churchill’s government. Sandys was authorised to

decide all matters of policy affecting the size, shape and organisation of

the armed forces, and their equipme nt. His Defence White Paper in

1957 foreshadowed far-reaching changes, but to produce it he had to

rely on a group of personal advisers and have a series of confrontations

Kennedy, Rise and Fall, pp. 477, 546–9.

David Greenwood, ‘Defence and national priorities since 1945’, in John Baylis (ed.),

British Defence Policy in a Changing World (London: Croom Helm, 1977), pp. 174–207.

The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet years, 1950–1957, ed. Peter Catterall (London:

Macmillan, 2003), pp. 363, 369–70, 614.

The hydrogen bomb, the economy and decolonisation 275

with the Chiefs of Staff. Both Sandys and Macmillan believed that the

changes in policy had been brought about in spite of the existing ofﬁcial

arrangements. Sandys’ efforts to combine the administration of the

three defence services into a single integrated department ran into

opposition from his senior advisers, apart from Earl Mountbatten, the

ﬁrst sea lord, and the White Paper on the central organisation of defence

in 1958 was a disappointment to Macmillan. It stated that all proposals

by any of the armed services had ﬁrst to be submitted to the minister of

defence; a Defence Board was set up at ministerial level to assist co-

ordination; and the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee became

chief of the defence staff (CDS), with a small staff of his own. On the

other hand, concessions were made to the autonomy of the three ser-

vices: in particular, the advice given by CDS was to be that of the Chiefs

of Staff Committee and, if it was divided, he had to report the different

views as well as give his own.

Mountbatten’s appointment as CDS in July 1959 placed a centraliser

in a key position, and he was able to persuade the Chiefs of Staff to agree

to the new post of central director of plans, who would also chair the

Joint Planning Committee. However, Macmillan preferred to wait until

the time was ripe for major changes in the central organisation of

defence. Sandys was moved in October 1959 to the Ministry of Aviation

(the successor to the Ministry of Supply) and replaced by the more

emollient Harold Watkinson. It was not until 1962–3, and then with a

new minister of defence , Peter Thorneycroft, that Macmillan tried

again. Mountbatten, whose period as CDS had been extended by

Macmillan, put forward a proposal for the abolition of the separate

defence departments and the creation of a single Ministry of Defence.

Macmillan approved, but felt that he could not ride roughshod over the

opposition of the Chiefs of Staff. Generals Ismay and Jacob, whose

advice had shaped the Ministry of Defence in 1946, were asked to report

on how it could be reorganised to reduce wasteful duplication, and came

up with a compromise in February 1963 whereby the separate defence

departments would retain many of their old functions in an otherwise

uniﬁed ministry. The Chiefs of Staff retained the right of direct access to

the prime minister as well as to the minister of defence.

The creation

in 1964 of a single ministry with one minister in charge of defence policy

Sir Ewen Broadbent, The Military and Government: From Macmillan to Heseltine

(Basingstoke: Macmillan, for Royal United Services Institute, 1988), pp. 19–21; Central

Organisation for Defence (Cmnd 476), PP 1957–58, xxi. 501.

Broadbent, Military and Government, pp. 21–7, 216–17; Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten:

The Ofﬁcial Biography (London: Collins, 1985), pp. 608–21; Central Organisation for

Defence (Cmnd 2097), PP 1962–63, xxvii. 715.

Arms, economics and British strategy276

did not bring inter-service rivalries to an end. Healey , who was secretary

of state for defence throughout the period of Labour government from

1964 to 1970, may well have preferred divided counsels, since he was

intellectually self-conﬁdent, had studied strategic problems prior to

taking ofﬁce, and had no reason to encourage united opposition within

the ministry to his ideas.

Churchill, Eden and Macmillan were all prone to taking a hands-on

approach to defence, sending personal minutes to ensure that their views

were being acted on. Much of the policymaking was conducted infor-

mally, with the Cabinet’s Defence Committee and even more the Cabinet

itself being involved at a late stage, often only to give authority to deci-

sions that had already been taken and to ensure that information reached

everyone concerned through the circulation of minutes. The way in which

the decision to develop the hydrogen bomb was taken exempliﬁes this

point. After hearing of the ﬁrst American test on 1 March 1954 Churchill

summoned Plowden, chairman-designate of the Atomic Energy

Authority, which was about to take over responsibility for nuclear energy

from the Ministry of Supply, to advise on what would have to be done to

develop and manufacture these new weapons. After Churchill had taken

the decision to go ahead, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook,

called a meeting on 12 March to discuss the implications for foreign

policy, defence strategy, the size and shape of the armed forces, civil

defence policy and the atomic weapons programme. Those present were

Plowden; two scientists, Sir John Cockcroft, the director of the Atomic

Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, and Sir William Penney, the

director of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston;

and three ofﬁcials from the Ministry of Defence. Penney explained the

destructive power of the hydrogen bomb, and Brook briefed the Prime

Minister on the policy adjustments that would be required. These matters

were then discussed by senior ministers in the Defence Policy Committee,

which was advised by the Chiefs of Staff, who in turn sought advice from

Plowden, Cockcroft and Penney. Both scientiﬁc and professional advice

followed on from Churchill’s original, political decision after his discus-

sion with Plowden in March.

Thedecisiontodevelopthebombwas

conﬁrmed by the Prime Minister in consultation with senior ministers in

Healey, Time of My Life, pp. 193–4, 198–9, 224–48, 252; Broadbent, Military and

Government, p. 30. Broadbent was Healey’s private secretary. For the development of

the Ministry of Defence, see Peter Nailor, ‘The Ministry of Defence, 1959–70’, in P.

Smith (ed.), Government and the Armed Forces, pp. 9–248, and Adrian Smith,

‘Command and control in postwar Britain: defence decision-making in the United

Kingdom, 1945–1984’, Twentieth Century British History, 2 (1991), 291–327.

Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (London: Penguin Books,

2003), pp. 50–8; Arnold, Britain and the H-Bomb, pp. 51–7.

The hydrogen bomb, the economy and decolonisation 277

an ad hoc body, the Defence Policy Committee, on 16 June 1954. Unlike

Attlee, Churchill also consulted the full Cabinet at three meetings on 7,

8 and 27 July, but without disclosing the full cost, perhaps because it

was not known.

Normally the role of ofﬁcials was to ensure that decisions were taken

by ministers in an orderly way, but inevitably ofﬁci als’ briefs drew min-

isters’ attention to discrepancies in expert advice, and some ofﬁcials, of

whom Brook was one, and his successor as Cabinet Secretary, Sir Burke

Trend, another, could be inﬂuential advisers on their own account.

Brook had acquired considerable inﬂuence over Churchill and became

accustomed to putting forward his own opinions in the briefs that he

prepared for prime ministers. On the other hand he was unable to dis-

suade Eden from what he (Brook) considered to be the folly of the Suez

operation. Trend was said by Lord Rothschild in 1970 to be one of the

two men who ran the country, the other being Sir William Armstrong ,

the permanent secretary of the Treasury. Trend was a great believer in

the Anglo-American special relationship, and this is reﬂected in the

advice that he gave Harold Wilson, of whom he was a close conﬁdant.

The Treasury began to exercise more effective control of defence

expenditure as the annual debate over the estimates was supplemented

by long-term planning. In April 1958 the Ministry of Defence agreed

that futu re expenditure would be considered on the basis of three-year

programmes, with long-term costings to take account of likely increases

in pay and prices. From 1961/2 planni ng was on a ﬁve-year basis, and it

was possible for the government to set a target for defence expenditure

as a percentage of GNP far enough ahead for the necessary policy

changes to be implemented. Sir Richard Clarke, the Treasury ofﬁcial

who was responsible more than any other for the introduction of this

system of ‘forward looks’, thought that it depended upon a willing

partnership between the Admiralty, the War Ofﬁce, the Air Ministry,

the Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury (and

in some matters the Atomic Energy Authority). The key relations hip

was between the two departments with the co-ordinating role: the

Ministry of Defence, responsible for deciding priorities and allocating

resources between the defence departments, and the Treasury,

responsible for ﬁnance, including the phasing of expenditure over time

and ensuring that departments got the best value for money.

Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (London: Secker and Warburg, 1989), pp. 147–8, 167, 212–

18.

Sir Richard Clarke, ‘The control of defence expenditure: memorandum by the

Treasury’, n.d., but c. 1960, CLRK 1/3/1/1, Churchill College, Cambridge; G. R. M.

Hartcup, ‘History of the defence budget, 1946–1971’, T 267/23, TNA.

Arms, economics and British strategy278

As always, much depended upon individual personalities, not least

those of prime ministers. Churchill had suffered a massive stroke in

1953 but he reserved his remaining strength for defence and foreign

policy, and whatever one thinks of his decisions, he was at least decisive.

Eden was unable to delegate detailed matters to departmental ministers

and had a tendency to be indecisive, and even a sympathetic biographe r

has referred to his ‘temperamental inaptitude for the supreme ofﬁce’.

Macmillan had a grasp of economic issues and had the patience to

pursue goals over a long period, as his efforts to reform the central

organisation for defence show. One of his leading opponents, Harold

Wilson, commented that few prime ministers had worked so hard or had

so wide-ranging a grip on every aspect of government.

Sir Alec

Douglas-Home had little time as prime minister in 1963–4 in which to

have an impact. Wilson, according to Healey, interfered in the work of

colleagues and lacked any long-term goals, but gave Healey ‘a pretty free

hand’ in defence, except when a crisis threatened the government.

Relations between the Chiefs of Staff also depended on personalities.

Mountbatten, both as ﬁrst sea lord (1955–9) and CDS (1959–65), was

deeply distrusted by successive heads of the air force and army, who felt,

not without reason, that he pursued the interests of the navy at the

expense of their services , even when he was supposed to be above inter-

service rivalries. Mountbatten’s love of intrigue and his superior access

to politicians, on account of his social connections, intensiﬁed the CAS

and CIGS’s sense of grievance.

This ﬁssure in the ranks of govern-

ment’s professional advisers gave politicians more scope for making

changes in policy that did not treat all three services equally.

Nuclear weapons

Policymaking was not made any easier by the rapidity of technical

change in nuclear warfare, on the one hand, and by the slowness of the

development of British delivery systems, on the other. The ﬁrst exam-

ples of Blue Danube, the production mod el of the British atomic bomb,

were delivered to Bomber Command’s Armament School in November

1953 to enable RAF personnel to be trained in their storage, service and

use. It would have been possible to adapt the ageing Linco ln piston-

engined bombers to carry Blue Danube, but the decision was taken to

Victor Rothwell, Anthony Eden: A Political Biography 1931–57 (Manchester University

Press, 1992), p. 165.

Harold Wilson, A Prime Minister on Prime Ministers (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson:

Joseph, 1977), p. 326.

Healey, Time of My Life, p. 331.

Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 528, 586.

The hydrogen bomb, the economy and decolonisation 279

wait for the ﬁrst of the jet medium bombers, which began to enter

service in 1955. It could be said that the RAF had atomic bombing

capacity from July of that year, but a series of tests with unarmed

bombs was conducted to check Blue Danube’s safety and accuracy as a

free-falling weapon before the ﬁrst live test in October 1956.

Blue

Danube was too big for the Canberra light bomber, but the Canberra

could deliver the 2,000-pound, kiloton Red Beard ‘tactical’ atomic

bomb which was issued to squadrons in 1958. A naval version of Red

Beard went into production in 1959, enabling carrier-borne aircraft to

attack targets such as submarine bases or Soviet cruisers.

The American decision in 1954 to deploy tactical atomic weapons in

Europe required an easing of the McMahon Act in order for the ir

characteristics to be passed to NATO allies. However, Britain was not

content to be treated as just one among a number of allies, and aspired

to a bilateral relationship with the United States. When in 1956

American defence planners wanted to deploy Thor intermediate-range

ballistic missiles (IRB Ms) in Britain and othe r countries within range of

targets in the Soviet Union, Anglo -American negotiations were pro-

tracted because the British insisted that the missiles be subject to dual

controls and not committed to the SACEUR. The successful launching

of the ﬁrst Soviet space satellite on 4 October 1957 demonstrated that

the United States would soon be vulnerable to Soviet intercontinental

missiles (ICBMs), leading Sandys to hope that the ‘powerful psycho-

logical shock’ would reduce American doubts about the wisdom of

nuclear co-operation with Britain.

By 1957 the British also had

something to contribute in exchange for American nuclear know-how:

ﬁrst, an operational nuclear deterrent force, making joint planning on

targets a practical issue; and, second, knowledge der ived from the ﬁrst

British hydrogen bomb test series in May and June. On 25 October the

American and British governments agreed a ‘Declaration of a Common

Purpose’, in which they stated their intention to collaborate on nuclear

weapons. Discussions between the USAF and the RAF in November

resulted in a joint strategic plan that avoided duplication of targets. The

agreement on joint Anglo-American control of Thors in Britain followed

on 22 February 1958. The big prize for the British, however, came on 3

July 1958, with the ‘Agreement for Co-operation on the Uses of Atomic

Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes’, which provided for the exchange

of information on the design and production of nuclear warheads and

Wynn, RAF Strategic Deterrent, pp. 92–9.

Duncan Sandys to Sir Richard Powell, permanent secretary, Ministry of Defence, 8

Oct. 1957, Duncan Sandys papers (DSND) 6/6, Churchill College, Cambridge.

Arms, economics and British strategy280

the exchange of ﬁssile material. The agreement proved to be the

beginning of a lasting nuclear relationship, but Ian Clark has challenged

the commonly held assumption that American willingness to share

nuclear secrets was a result of the British hydrogen bomb tests. His

alternative explanation is that the American government saw no sense in

Britain wasting research and development resources on duplicating what

the Americans had already done.

This explanation would ﬁt in with

American concern that the 1957 Defence White Paper indicated an

intention to reduce Britain’s defence effort.

The requirements for megaton warheads identiﬁed in advance of the

British thermonuclear tests at Christmas Island in 1957–8 include d a

free-falling bomb and a powered, guided bomb, both to be carried by

medium bombers, and a warhead for a medium-range ballistic missile.

Blue Danube bomb-casings were used and the outcome was a device

suitable for use as a free-falling bomb, but not for a powered bomb or a

ballistic missile. Blue Danube weighed 10,000 pounds; Violet Club, an

interim, experimental megaton bomb, which was issued in small num-

bers and under severe operational limitations in March 1958, weighed

9,000 pounds; and Yellow Sun Mark 2, the deﬁnitive megaton bomb,

which entered service in 1961, weighed 7,000 pounds. A lighter warhead

was required for powered bombs and ballistic missiles, and one of the

early beneﬁts of Anglo-American collaboration was access to the design

of the American Mark 28 warhead, which was just going into production

in 1958. It was economical in its use of scarce ﬁssile material, and was

suitable for use in free-falling bombs, powered bombs and ballistic

missiles, and its variable yield (up to 1.1 megatons) meant that it could

also be used for tactical weapons. A British version of the Mark 28,

known as Red Snow, was ready for production in 1960, the expected date

when the ﬁrst British powered bomb, Blue Steel, would enter service, but

Blue Steel did not become operational until December 1962.

The nature of thermonuclear war was made all too clear in the highly

secret report of the Strath Committee in March 1955 on the home

defence implications of thermonuclear weapons. William Strath had been

seconded from the Treasury’s Central Economic Planning Staff to set up

the War Plans Secretariat, and his colleagues on the committee included

representatives of the Chiefs of Staff, the Ministry of Defence (the Chief

Scientist, Sir Frederick Brundrett, and the Deputy Secretary, Sir Richard

Powell), and the Home Ofﬁce, including the Director-General of

Ian Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship: Britain’s Deterrent and America

1957–1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), esp. pp. 104–6.

Arnold, Britain and the H-bomb; Wynn, RAF Strategic Deterrent, pp. 222, 235, 247–51,

262.

The hydrogen bomb, the economy and decolonisation 281

Civil Defence, Sir Sidney Kirkman. The Strath Committee was able to

draw upon advice from the Joint Intelligence Committee, which in turn

drew upon American sources, since Britain had yet to develop a

hydrogen bomb. Ministers were advised that, if no civil defence mea-

sures had been taken beforehand, ten 10-megaton bombs dropped on

the United Kingdom would cause up to 12 million deaths, including 3

million from radiation. There would be a further 4 million serious

casualties, which would be more than surviving hospitals could cope

with. A single bomb could destroy any city, except Greater London,

starting up to 100,0 00 ﬁres within a circumference of between 60 and

100 miles. Half of the country’s industrial capacity would be destroyed;

the distributive system would break down; utilities would be severely

dislocated; and water and food would be contaminated. The Strath

Committee itself drew the conclusion that the government should try to

reduce the impact of a thermonuclear attack by organising evacuation of

the population from areas likely to be targeted and by constructing

shelters. However, the Home Ofﬁce’s proposals to spend £1,250 million

on civil defence met with the response from the Chiefs of Staff that the

money would be better spent on the nuclear deterrent, and in December

1955 the Defence Committee agreed that ‘the ﬁnancial and economic

situation precluded a programme for the construction of domestic

shelters at public expens e’.

In September 1958, during attempts to reduce the burden of defence

expenditure on the economy, the Prime Minister, Macmillan, noted in

the Defence Committee that the current annual level of expenditure of

£14 million on civil defence made little provision for providing food and

water, and that it was illogical to try to increase the number of people

who would survive the immediate effects of a nuclear attack if they were

to die subsequently from starvation, thirst and disease. On the other

hand, to add survival measures to existing preparations would increase

expenditure to £50 million a year. If the government were to admit that

it was impossible to make effective provision for survival, the logical

course of action would be to spend nothing, but he doubted whether it

was practicable, politically, to deny publicly all responsibility for the fate

of the population. Continuing the present level of expenditure, he

suggested, ‘would enable a fac¸ade of civil defence preparations to be

maintained’. His colleagues agreed that no increase in expenditure

could be contemplated, but that a reduction would be likel y to ‘provoke

discussion of an issue to which public opinion appeared at present to be

remarkably indifferent’. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Hennessy, Secret State, pp. 133–45, 148.

Arms, economics and British strategy282

(CND) had been formed in January 1958, but its inﬂuence was

apparently discounted in Whitehall. The Committee agreed to continue

the civil defence programme in order to ‘maintain morale’ rather than to

provide effective protection against nuclear attack.

British govern-

ments made no attempt to follow the examples of Norway, Sweden and

Switzerland, which had shelter programmes designed to protect a high

proportion of their populations. Indeed, as part of the cuts in public

expenditure to protect sterling, expenditure on civil defence was

reduced after 1965 from £22 million a year to between £7 million and

£8 m illion, the latter level being enough only for care and maintenance

of the organisation that had been created by 1969.

Air weapons

The argument that there was no effec tive defence against a thermo-

nuclear attack could also be directed against Fighter Command. It will

be recalled that the Global Strategy paper of 1952 had placed a high

priority on air defence, despite the new doctrine that enough atomic

bombers would get through to inﬂict devastation, and super-priority

had been given in 1952 to the production of jet ﬁghters (see pp. 256,

266–7). However, the American tests in 1954 led the Chiefs of Staff to

the conclusion that hydrogen bombs would be so devastating that even

an air defence system that shot down a high percentage of attacking

bombers could not protect the United Kingdom, and would be useless

against ballistic missiles.

Macmillan came to believe that the air

defence of the United Kingdom, insofar as it was practicable at all,

would depend less and less upon manned ﬁghters, which the Air Min-

istry had ordered in large numbers, and more and more on guided

missiles.

Problems with the development of ﬁghter aircraft further weakened

the case for big orders. The government had to publish a W hite Pa per in

February 1955 explaining why the Swift had been a failure as an

interceptor.

Even in 1956 the Hunter had problems with its guns, and

the Javelin night and all-weather ﬁghter had a tendency to inadvertent

spinning at operational speeds. By the time of the Javelin’s delayed entry

into service that year it was described by the Minister of Defence as being

Defence Committee minutes, 10 Sep. 1958, CAB 131/19, TNA.

David Miller, The Cold War: A Military History (London: John Murray, 1998), pp. 149–

54; Hennessy, Secret State, p. 149.

‘United Kingdom defence policy’, C (54) 249, 22 July 1954, CAB 129/69, TNA.

The Supply of Military Aircraft (Cmd 9388), PP 1954–55, x. 511–22, paras. 25, 30.

The hydrogen bomb, the economy and decolonisation 283

able to give ‘adequate service’ for only ‘two or three years’.

The

Defence Committee had agreed in July 1955 that Britain was falling

behind the Americans and Russians in the development of military air-

craft, and that it would be necessary to concentrate on a smaller number

of projects than hitherto, perhaps even abandoning further development

of manned ﬁghter aircraft (although the minutes noted that such a

decision would be ‘drastic’).

By November 1955, Eden had accepted

that there was a prima facie case for economising on expenditure on

ﬁghters rather than on bombers, but he still envisaged a Fighter Com-

mand of about 400 aircraft (compared with the existing planned strength

of 576) rather than no Fighter Command at all.

Macmillan, as chancellor of the exchequer, was prepared to go much

further in January 1956, advocating the abolition of Fighter Com-

mand.

When preparing his budget, he warned Eden that deﬂationary

increases in taxation (‘already painfully high’) would be necessary if

government expenditure were not reduced. Macmillan continued: ‘it is

defence expenditure which has broken our backs ... [and] we get no

defence from the defence expenditure. When the story of the aero-

planes ﬁnally comes out, it will be the greatest tragedy, if not scandal,

in our history’.

In May and June 1956 he used an enquiry, chaired

by Eden, into the aircraft programme to press for the abol ition of

Fighter Command. Britain, Macmillan argued, could not afford to

maintain present levels of expend iture on air defence, the nuclear

deterrent, and forces to defend supplies of oil in the Middle East and

rubber in Malaya. If Fighter Command could not provide effe ctive

defence against Soviet bombers (and later guided missiles) in a global

war, and had no part to play in other types of war, the governme nt

could not justiﬁably continue to divert brains, skill and mater ials from

more proﬁtable activities in order to develop new types of ﬁghter

aircraft.

The future of Fighter Command was placed on the agenda of a

defence policy review. There were two supersonic day-ﬁghters under

‘Military aircraft programme’, DC (56) 9, 26 May 1956, para. 19 (words underlined by

Eden), PREM 11/1712. For Hunter’s problems with its guns, see Walter Monckton

(minister of defence) to Prime Minister, 12 July and 23 Aug. 1956, PREM 11/1712,

TNA. Eden commented on the ﬁrst of these minutes: ‘a melancholy story. What will

happen to our name and fame when all this is known, as I fear it must be, among our

allies?’

Defence Committee minutes, 11 July 1955, CAB 131/16, TNA.

Defence Committee minutes, 4 Nov. 1955, CAB 131/16, TNA.

Macmillan Diaries 1950–57, pp. 529, 531.

Macmillan to Eden, 23 Mar. 1956, PREM 11/1326, TNA.

Gen 514, 2nd meeting, 31 May 1956, and Chancellor’s notes on ‘Military aircraft

programme’, 4 June 1956, PREM 11/1712. TNA.

Arms, economics and British strategy284