With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of the year the prospects of ratifying SALT II immediately sharply receded. But at this point the US Administration said that it was reluctant to announce the Trident decision because it could be seen as an overreaction to events in Afghanistan. The Americans were similarly unduly worried about the attitude of Chancellor Schmidt to the Trident decision. More hard-headedly, the Carter Administration also pressed strongly for both political and financial returns on the decision to supply us with Trident. They wanted us to agree to a form of words which would commit us to expanding our defence efforts. They were also keen to develop their defence facilities at our island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — something for which I had a good deal of sympathy. There was the matter of a substantial levy which we would be charged for American research and development costs which they were not prepared to waive.
I was not happy about some of these demands: it seemed to me that it was as much in America’s interests as ours that we should have an independent strategic deterrent which would, like Polaris, be assigned to NATO and, except where the UK Government decided that supreme national interests were at stake, would be used for the purposes of international defence of the western alliance. As with the question of theatre nuclear weapons, it was the Soviet perception of the strategic threat which would ultimately determine its credibility — and whatever doubts they might have about America’s willingness to launch strategic nuclear weapons in defence of Britain, they would never doubt that a British Conservative Government would do so.
On the afternoon of Monday 2 June 1980, however, I finalized the terms in discussion with Dr Harold Brown, the able US Defence Secretary, in Downing Street. I said that Britain wanted to purchase the Trident I missile on the same terms as regards research and development as Polaris, that is paying a 5 per cent levy. Dr Brown would not agree to this and said that it would have been severely criticized in Congress. But he would accept it providing the British Government bore the cost of manning the Rapier Air Defence Systems which the US intended to purchase for their bases in Britain. I agreed. I also agreed with the objective of extending and increasing US use of the base at Diego Garcia; but this made sense on its own merits and had nothing to do with the Trident decision. Dr Brown accepted this. At last the decision was effectively made and I wrote formally to President Carter requesting purchase of Trident, simultaneously informing President Giscard, Chancellor Schmidt and Prime Minister Cossiga. The decision was announced to the House by Francis Pym on 15 July and at Francis’s suggestion fully debated and endorsed on 3 March 1981.
In the summer of 1980 we thought that we had made our final decision on the independent nuclear deterrent. But it was not to be. President Reagan came into office in 1981 with a programme of modernizing US strategic nuclear forces, including Trident. On 24 August the new US Defence Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, wrote to me to confirm that President Reagan had now decided to use the Trident II (D5) missile in the Trident submarines. The US Administration would make this missile available to us if we wished to buy it. On 1 October President Reagan formally told me of his decision.
I well understood and indeed supported President Reagan’s decision to improve the US strategic nuclear capability. I was worried about the advances which the Soviet Union had made both in their technology and in numbers of weapons. However, we now faced a new situation. If we were still to go ahead with Trident I we risked spending huge sums on a system that would be outdated and increasingly difficult to maintain as the Americans went over to Trident II. But if we were to accept President Reagan’s generous offer of the new technology represented by Trident II we risked the increasing costs of any new project. Moreover, a number of political difficulties arose.
In November 1981 a group of ministers met to discuss what we should do. We argued out all the questions between us; and all the arguments which would be raised in the outside world were discussed, including some feeble and unrealistic ones. One colleague was concerned at the impact on public opinion of choosing a still more powerful missile. Another raised the question whether it would be more difficult to keep a Trident II nuclear strategic force out of future arms control negotiations, as we had managed hitherto. A third was inclined to support the case for Trident II but with fewer missiles. Yet another, while accepting that Trident II was better than the alternatives, felt that the choice raised the more fundamental question of whether the UK could afford to continue to maintain an independent strategic nuclear deterrent at all. For my part I had two anxieties. One was, as I noted above, that the cost of a completely new missile now being developed was bound to be uncertain and on past performance was likely to escalate. The other was my unease about the implications for the strategic deterrent of Soviet developments in anti-ballistic missile defence, including particle beam and laser weapons — a possibility to which I had been alerted some years earlier but which became a matter of public debate only when President Reagan proposed his SDI initiative in March 1983.
In January 1982 we had a further and fuller discussion based on a presentation. The more we considered the question the more it seemed that if we were to maintain a credible deterrent, which I was utterly determined we should do, we must indeed have the Trident II. But we must get it on the best possible terms. The issue was put to Cabinet later that month and on 1 February I sent a message to President Reagan saying that I would send officials to Washington to discuss terms.
Again, as with President Carter’s Administration, there was plenty of hard bargaining. But I always knew that President Reagan and Caspar Weinberger would be conscious of Britain’s and the alliance’s long-term interests and would ultimately do what they believed to be right in defence terms, rather than just expedient or popular with the Congress. As before, the whole question of charges and levies arose. We for our part pressed hard for a fixed percentage of the work on the development of Trident to go to UK sub-contractors. The Americans who were building up their own navy were anxious to discourage us from reducing our surface fleet which we were intending to do following the Defence Review that year. We indicated the possibility of reprieving the amphibious landing ships HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid, which pleased them. They also pressed for an extension of our armed forces’ engagement in Belize, which has now become a virtually permanent commitment.
In the end, we concluded an agreement with the United States to buy Trident II on more advantageous terms than Trident I. The missile was to be purchased by us at the same price as the United States Navy’s own requirements in accordance with the Polaris Sales Agreement. But the additional overheads and levies would be lower than would have been the case under the 1980 Agreement to purchase Trident I. In particular, the so-called R & D levy would be a fixed sum in real terms and there would be a complete waiver of the facilities charge which was part of the Trident I deal. The terms protected us completely from the escalation of the development cost. The United States would set up a liaison office in London to advise British industry on how to compete on equal terms with US industry for sub-contracts for the Trident II programme as a whole, including the American programme. We also decided to improve and increase the size of the submarines which would carry Trident, making them more efficient and less detectable, and by running longer between refits make them more available for patrol. The total cost of Trident II and the other changes over the whole period would be £7.5 billion, just over 3 per cent of the total defence budget over the same period. When I learnt of the terms now being offered I was delighted and I gladly authorized their acceptance.
THE DEFENCE REVIEW
It is sometimes forgotten, now that the map of Europe and indeed the world has been reshaped with the fall of communism, just how painful were the consequences of the West’s efforts to strengthen its defence effort in the 1980s. The United States was as a result unable to reduce its public spending, with the consequence that the world faced higher interest rates, threatening economic recovery. We in Britain,
for our part, had to match the necessary commitment to strengthen our defence with rigorous evaluation of what we could afford and where resources could be best applied. Economic, strategic and technical arguments alike pointed towards a thorough review of our defence commitments and how they should be fulfilled — and not only ours but those of the other NATO allies. Yet, at the same time, I was conscious of the danger that the wrong signals might be given to left-wing opponents of strong defence at home and to our enemies abroad.
In early November 1980 I chaired a meeting of the Overseas and Defence Committee of the Cabinet (OD) to consider a paper from Peter Carrington and Francis Pym which argued that Britain should take the initiative in proposing a wide-ranging review of NATO to make it more relevant to western defence requirements and more cost effective. In the longer term the members of the alliance should move towards greater specialization. Attractive as the idea was from our viewpoint, it quickly became clear that Chancellor Schmidt was opposed to it, on the grounds that he believed that it would weaken not strengthen NATO. Moreover, with the election of President Reagan, committed to radically different policies from his predecessor, my main emphasis came to be on keeping the alliance together, united behind American leadership. However, whether matched by international action or not, Britain was forced by pressures of circumstance to conduct its own and — as it turned out — highly controversial defence review.
I appointed John Nott to Defence in January 1981 with the remit of getting better value for money from the huge sums spent on defence. In February John, Peter Carrington and I had an initial discussion about what would be our 1981 Defence Review. John had already concluded that the defence budget was hopelessly overextended both in the short and long term. The real cost of ever more sophisticated weapons was remorselessly increasing the pressure. More sales of defence equipment could help a little — particularly if we were able to produce equipment more suited to the needs of potential overseas customers. However, defence orders were running way ahead of budget and would have to be cut back if we were to keep within any kind of financial discipline. Some fundamental strategic issues also had to be faced. There was very little scope for reducing our commitment to West Germany. A policy of forward defence was crucial to the alliance’s strategy: moreover the political implications of cuts here for NATO as a whole could be very serious. Nor could savings be found in home defence: indeed the effort here would have to be increased, for example by strengthening the Territorial Army. There was no room for savings on the RAF: on the contrary, additional expenditure would probably be required. This left the navy. The navy needed more submarines and more minesweepers. But it is extremely expensive to keep up a large surface fleet and so that was plainly the area to look for cuts. None of us had any illusions about the sensitivities involved in the approach John proposed, but it was difficult to fault his analysis.
In early May I had another discussion with John about the options emerging clearly from his review. He believed that his proposals would provide the basis for a far more effective defence force for the needs of the future. But it was already clear that opposition within the armed forces and in the Conservative Party would be strong. I would have to see the Defence Chiefs of Staff to discuss with them their reactions to what was proposed. Moreover, many marginal seats would be involved, especially in dockyard closures. We would have to make every effort to explain our priorities both in the country and to our NATO allies, particularly the Americans.
What I had not expected was that the most public opposition would come from a Defence minister. On Friday 15 May Keith Speed, the Navy minister, made a speech which effectively disowned the whole strategy of the review. John Nott did not want him to resign at once and suggested that he should be moved to another department. I said that there was no question of this: if he was going to be disloyal to the Government in one department, he would in another. I saw him very late on the night of Monday 18 May and told him he must go.
In early June I met the Chiefs of the Defence Staff, at their request, with John and Peter Carrington. The press had been full of stories about my ‘fury’ at their lobbying against the review. But in fact I had found the behaviour of the Chiefs of Staff throughout impeccable, and I said so. No one at the meeting openly contested that the NATO central front was bound to be the decisive arena. Scenarios of conflict in the Third World might be more likely: but only on the central front could the war be lost in an afternoon. It was argued that we should again press for a full-scale NATO review. But we could not afford to postpone decisions in the hope that a NATO review might help us: moreover such a review at this time could itself destabilize the alliance.
On the morning of Monday 8 June John Nott and I met Sir Henry Leach, the First Sea Lord, who argued vigorously the importance of the surface fleet. I have the greatest respect for his judgement. He could well argue that the Falklands War proved him right. He could certainly argue today that with the end of the Cold War and events in the Gulf there is now a need for mobile forces and a strong navy. At that time I had to disagree with him because I could see no other way of meeting our NATO obligations within the financial constraints.
John announced the conclusions of the Defence Review to the House of Commons on the afternoon of Thursday 25 June. The decisions — particularly to cut the number of ships and to close the base and dockyard in Chatham — ran into fierce opposition, not least from Members of Parliament whose constituencies were affected. The closure of the dockyard went ahead. But after the Falklands campaign the following year some of the decisions of the Defence Review were altered. Certainly no one who lived through that campaign could be in any doubt about the importance of a country such as Britain with far-flung interests being able to project its military power swiftly and effectively across the globe.
THE POLISH CRISIS
No matter how effectively Britain managed its defence effort it was on the unity, strength and credibility of NATO that our security ultimately depended. It was of the utmost importance that American public opinion remained committed to western Europe. So the tensions and divisions which arose in the alliance at this time were of great concern to me. My view was that ultimately we must support American leadership: but that did not mean that the Americans could pursue their interests regardless of the opinion of their European allies.
The need to decide how to react to the imposition of martial law by General Jaruzelski’s Government in Poland on 13 December 1981 highlighted problems which had been growing throughout 1981. Some European countries, most importantly the Germans, were hostile to President Reagan’s economic policy and mistrustful of his rhetoric on defence and arms control. I, of course, did not share these attitudes, though I wanted tougher action to control the widening US budget deficit. What I found irritating and on occasion quite unjustified was the way in which the actions the Americans preferred inflicted a good deal more pain on their allies than on themselves and, one might argue, the communists in Poland and the Soviet Union. The first such issue was the Polish Government’s crackdown on Solidarity.
I was from the first acutely aware of the importance of the Polish question. Like most people in Britain, I have always liked and admired the Poles, many of whom settled in this country during and after the war. But there was more to it than that. On 9 December 1980 I talked quite frankly to the Polish Deputy Prime Minister who visited London. I said that I was conscious of witnessing a change in a socialist state of a kind that had not occurred in the last sixty years. A new group of people — the Solidarity movement — were challenging the communists’ monopoly on power on their own terms. I told him how closely we were watching events in Poland and how excited I was by what was happening. I said that the socialist system had succeeded in suppressing the human spirit for a surprisingly long time but that I had always been confident that there would be a breakthrough.
But these happy signs were not to last. The Soviets brought increasing pressure to bear on the Poles. From the end of 1980 the Ame
ricans became convinced that the Soviet Union was planning direct military intervention to crush the Polish reform movement, just as they had crushed the ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968.
From about the same time we began to draw up measures to punish the Soviet Union in such an eventuality. Peter Carrington and I agreed that we should respond in a measured, graduated way depending on the situation we faced. We foresaw four possibilities: a situation in which the use of force by the Polish Government against Polish workers was imminent, or had already taken place, or one in which Soviet intervention was imminent, or had already taken place. We agreed that ineffective sanctions would be worse than useless, but sanctions would have to hit the Soviets harder than they hit us. Meanwhile, we had to make a number of complex judgements about Soviet and the Polish Government’s intentions. Was the present ostentatious Warsaw Pact activity the prelude to armed intervention or a means of bringing political pressure to bear on the Polish Communist Party? If we continued to provide food aid and to proceed with plans for Polish debt relief would this benefit the Polish people or play into the hands of the hardliners in Poland who were struggling to survive the consequences of their own misgovernment? These were not easy judgements to make.
Suddenly the situation changed. Martial law was declared in Poland from midnight on 12–13 December 1981 and a ‘Military Council for National Salvation’ consisting of military leaders was set up under the Prime Minister, General Jaruzelski. The borders were sealed, telex and telephone links severed, a curfew imposed, strikes and assemblies banned, the broadcasting system brought under tight control. There was no doubt in my mind that all of this was morally unacceptable but that did not make it easier to gauge the correct response. After all, in order to warn off Soviet intervention, we had consistently said that the Poles must be allowed to decide on their own internal affairs. Were the Soviets themselves behind it, intending to use the crackdown as a means of turning the clock back to hardline communism and subordination to Moscow? Or was this really a temporary decision, as the Jaruzelski Government claimed, forced upon them to bring some kind of order to Poland, with the implication that this would prevent a Soviet takeover? At this early stage there was a severe shortage of information not just to illuminate these questions but even as to the whereabouts and safety of leading Polish dissidents.
The Downing Street Years Page 33