The Allies: After Nassau

In December 1960. the U.S. first proposed to help NATO develop its own nuclear strike force. But Europe made no attempt to devise a plan. Last week, as they studied the Nassau accord between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan. Europeans saw emerging the first outlines of the nuclear NATO that the U.S. wants and will support.

It all sprang from the Anglo-U.S. crisis over cancellation of the bug-ridden Skybolt missile, and the U.S. offer to supply Britain and France with the proved Polaris (TIME, Dec. 28). The one Allied leader who unreservedly welcomed the Polaris offer was Harold Macmillan, who by thus keeping a separate nuclear deterrent for Britain had saved his own neck.

Back from Nassau, the Prime Minister beamed that Britain now had a weapon that "will last a generation. The terms are very good." Many other Britons were not so sure. Though the government will shoulder none of the $800 million development cost of Polaris, it has already poured $28 million into Skybolt and will have to spend perhaps $1billion more for a fleet of missile-packing submarines. At best, the British will not be able to design, build and prove its nuclear fleet before 1970, three years after Britain's bomber force has presumably become obsolete.

Then what? Tory backbenchers are loudly skeptical of what they call "the small type" in the Nassau pact, which stipulates that Britain's Polaris submarine fleet, except when "supreme national interests intervene, must be committed to a truly multilateral NATO force. Does that mean that Britain will eventually have no strike force of its own? Who will decide when or whether national interests justify withdrawal of submarines from NATO, particularly if those national interests conflict with U.S. policy? The biggest question of all is whether France's inclusion in the offer was a deliberate ploy by Jack Kennedy to end or at least downgrade Britain's prized "special relationship" with the U.S. The cartoonists went even farther. They not only showed Supermac jumping to Superjack's commands, but De Gaulle and Adenauer as well.

Unswerving Conviction. The French, who got no help from the U.S. in developing their force de frappe, were quick to crow that Britain's ties with the U.S. had brought it nothing but humiliation. By contrast, bragged French officials, the Skybolt fiasco only vindicated France's decision to develop its own bombs and delivery systems. Thus, though Charles de Gaulle promised to "reflect" on the Polaris offer, there was little likelihood that he would accept any offer that would subject a French force to Allied control.

It is De Gaulle's unswerving conviction that if the Russians were actually to invade Western Europe, no nation that was not directly attacked—meaning the U.S.—would invite nuclear devastation by helping its allies. Thus, unlike Britain's bomber force, which all along has been pledged to "the Western strategic deterrent," France's force de frappe will be responsible only for France's defense.