Seeing Off the Bear: 

Anglo-American Air Power 

Cooper at ion 

During the Cold War 

Proceedings, 

Joint Meeting of the 

Royal Air Force Historical Society 

and the 

Air Force Historical Foundation 

Roger G. Miller 

Editor 

Air Force History and Museums Program 

United States Air Force 

Washington, D.C. 1995 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Seeing off the bear: Anglo-American air power cooperation during the Cold 

War: proceedings, joint meeting of the Royal Air Force Historical Society 

and the Air Force Historical Foundation/Roger G. Miller, editor. 

p. cm. 

Includes bibliographical references and index. 

1. Combined operations (Military science)--Congresses. 2. United 

States. Air Force-Congresses. 3. Great Britain. Royal Air ForceCongresses. 1. Miller, Roger G. (Roger Gene) 11. Royal Air Force Historical 

Society. 111. Air Force Historical Foundation. 

U260.S44 1995 

358.4'14-dc20 95-21162 

CIP 

.. 

11 
Dedicated to 

Dr. Malcolm Postgate 

Royal Air Force Historical Society 

(1937 - 1994) 

Preface 

On September 9th and loth, 1993, more than two hundred men and 

women-active duty and retired military personnel, scholars, and private 

individuals from the United Kingdom and the United States4onvened at the 

Bolling Air Force Base Officers Club in Washington, D.C., for a symposium on 

“ Anglo-American Air Power Cooperation During the Cold War.” The Air Force 

Historical Foundation and the Royal Air Force Historical Society, working in 

close association with the U.S. Air Force History and Museums Program and the 

RAF Air Historical Branch, jointly sponsored the symposium. The symposium 

recognized the special relationship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain 

and the United States of America, possibly the most enduring attribute of the 

Cold War. Sustained consistently despite frequently divergent policies and goals, 

this special relationship was a primary reason for ultimate Western victory. 

Planning for the 1993 Air Power History Symposium began in late 1992 

under the direction of General Bryce Poe 11, President of the Air Force Historical 

Foundation, Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey, President of the RAF Historical 

Society, and Jacob Neufeld of the Air Force Historical Program. They agreed to 

have three sessions on “Policy Decisions,” “Acquisition,” and “Crisis Response.” 

Within this framework, the challenge for the symposium’s organizers was to 

strike a balance between scholarly monographs and first-person remembrances, 

and to include as many of the significant episodes of the Cold War that time 

allowed. As a result, the panelists addressed an impressive number of important 

topics and major developments during this critical period in the history of both 

nations. 

Perhaps nowhere was the special relationship more visible or significant than 

in the activities of the airmen and air forces of the two nations. The 1993 

symposium was a meeting of old friends, some of whose associations dated from 

World War 11. Many of the attendees, as well as participants, experienced some 

of the most important and dangerous episodes of the Cold War in close 

association with their opposite numbers in the Royal Air Force or U.S. Air Force. 

The symposium vividly demonstrated the enduring nature of the singular, close 

relationship that the USAF and RAF share. 

Dr. Richard P. Hallion 

The Air Force Historian 

V 

Acknowledgements 

The 1993 Air Power History Symposium followed a format traditional to 

most conferences. Initial planning called for three sessions on “Policy 

Decisions,” “Acquisition,” and “Crisis Response.” In their final format, two 

sessions featured three formal papers, while one had four. The last session also 

included additional remarks by two distinguished individuals attending the 

symposium. Retired senior officers served as moderators for each session, 

introduced the speakers, and kept the session on schedule. The organizers agreed 

to follow British custom and omitted the American practice of using 

commentators. An interval for questions and answers followed each session. 

Rather than take oral questions, however, the organizers provided note cards to 

each attendee. Questions written on the cards were then collected and given to 

the appropriate panel member to answer at the podium. While some spontaneity 

was lost, this procedure eliminated the need for additional sound equipment and 

personnel, encouraged shorter, more direct questions, enabled the symposium to 

stay on schedule, and, perhaps most important, gave the panel member a few 

minutes in which to frame a thoughtful response. 

A twenty-page pictorial section featuring many of the aircraft contributing 

to Anglo-American air power during the Cold War begins on page 153. The 

pictorial traces the American presence in England necessitated by the Berlin 

Airlift and Soviet threat to a free Europe, shows many of the USAF aircraft that 

were stationed at RAF bases during the Cold War, and features the distinctive 

RAF aircraft that contributed to peace during that era. It closes with the principal 

USAF and RAF aircraft that fought in Desert Shieldmesert Storm, the most 

celebrated joint combat effort by the two air forces since World War 11. 

Special thanks must go to Jacob Neufeld of the Air Force Historical Program, 

Maj. John Kreis, USAF retired, of the Air Force Historical Foundation, and 

Group Captain Ian Madelin, head of the Royal Air Force Air Historical Branch 

in London. The 1993 Air Power History Symposium could not have been successful without their extraordinary efforts. Their hard work and common sense 

prevented a multitude of challenges from evolving into problems. 

Col. Steven B. Richards, Commander, Air Force District Washington, and 

Lt. Col. Christine M. Jaremko, Deputy Commander, 11th Air Base Group, made 

the symposium participants and attendees welcome at the facilities on Bolling 

vii 
Air Force Base. Bruce I. John and Susan J. Linders from the Air Force Central 

Graphic Arts Facility at the Pentagon assisted with programs, brochures, signs, 

and name tags. Tresha Mabile and Mark Chesney from the Directorate of Information Service, Defense Intelligence Agency, provided audiovisual support for 

the symposium proceedings. A1C. Vincent Jones, SrA. Jay Applegate, and Amn. 

Michael Pivarnik, 1100th Communications Squadron, took still photographs. 

Sgt. William B. Savage from the Air Force’s Executive Support Staff in the 

Pentagon transcribed the proceeding tapes. 

The book version of the proceedings was produced by the Air Force 

Historical Support Office. Several rules have been followed in preparing the 

proceidings for publication. First, as little change as possible has been made in 

the papers. In general, British spelling was maintained in papers from the United 

Kingdom and American spelling in those from the United States. Individuals 

presenting papers often prefaced their formal papers with casual comments and 

these have been retained to preserve the flavor of the symposium. The informal 

introductions and the answers to questions from the audience are reproduced 

verbatim with a minimum of editing for comprehension and proper style. 

Robert “Gus” Bell supervised preparation of the cover and graphics. The 

cover, by Nilo Santiago, was based on information and photographs furnished 

by Peter H.R. Singleton, RAF Air Historical Branch, and SSgt. Stanley D. Gohl, 

Historian, 35th Wing, Keflavik, Iceland. 

Dr. Roger G. Miller 

viii 
Contents 

Preface ..................................................... iii 

Acknowledgements ........................................... vii 

Introduction and Welcome 

General Bryce Poe 11; Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey .............. 3 

Opening Address 

General Menill A. McPeak ..................................... 5 

Session One: Policy Decisions 

Chair: General Bryce Poe I1 

Introduction ................................................. 11 

An Initial Response to the Cold War: The Buildup of the U.S. Air Force 

in the United Kingdom, 1948-1956 Patrick E. Murray ............. 15 

The Role of Missiles in British Concepts of Defence: The Influence of 

Duncan Sandys Cecil James ................................. 25 

Cooperation at the Top: A View f;om a Former Vice Chief of the Air 

Staff and CINCUKAIR Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood ..... 39 

The Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles to RAF Greenham 

Common Lieutenant Colonel Michael A. Kirtland ................ 47 

Questions and Answers ........................................ 65 

Luncheon Address 

Air Vice Marshal Ron Dick ..................................... 73 

Session Two: Acquisition 

Chair: General Robert T. Marsh 

Introduction ................................................. 87 

RAF Aircraft Procurement, 1950-1 965: The American Involvement 

Robert Jackson ............................................ 91 

The Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force Under the Military Defense 

Assistance Program William W. Suit ......................... 101 

The Origins of the Skybolt Controversy in the Eisenhower Administration 

RonaldD.Landa .......................................... 117 

Questions and Answers ....................................... 133 

Banquet Address 

General Charles A. Homer .................................... 139 

ix 
Pictorial 

Notable Anglo-American Aircraft of the Cold War ................. 153 

Session Three: Crisis Response 

Chair: Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey 

Introduction ................................................ 175 

Operation Firedog: Air Support in the Malayan Emergency 

The Anglo-American Origins of Overflying the Soviet Union: The Case 

Anglo-American Air Force Collaboration and the Cuban Missile 

Further Comments on Command and Control of British Nuclear Forces 

El Dorado Canyon: The Political and Public Affairs Aftermath 

Some Additional Comments on Crisis Response During the Falklands War 

Malcolm Postgate .......................................... 181 . 

of the “Znvisible Aircraft” Donald E. Welzenbach 

Crisis: A British Perspective Stephen Twigge ................... 209 

............... 191 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis Group Captain Ian Madelin ...... 223 

.................... 227 

243 

Chief Master Sergeant Jerome E. Schroeder 

Air Marshal Sir John Curtis ................................. Questions and Answers ....................................... 249 

Closing Comments 

Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey; General Bryce Poe 11 ............ 255 

Index ..................................................... 257 

X 
Seeing Off the Bear: 

Anglo-American Air Power 

Cooperation 

During the Cold War 
General Bryce Poe 11, 

President, Air Force 

Historical Foundation Historical Society 

Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey, 

Chairman, Royal Air Force 

Dr. Richard P. Hallion, 

Air Force Historian 

Group Captain Ian Madelin, 

Chief, Air Historical Branch 

General Bryce Poe 11, 

President, Air Force 

Historical Foundation Historical Society 

Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey, 

Chairman, Royal Air Force 

Dr. Richard P. Hallion, 

Air Force Historian 

Group Captain Ian Madelin, 

Chief, Air Historical Branch 

General Bryce Poe 11, 

President, Air Force 

Historical Foundation Historical Society 

Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey, 

Chairman, Royal Air Force 

Dr. Richard P. Hallion, 

Air Force Historian 

Group Captain Ian Madelin, 

Chief, Air Historical Branch 
Introduction and Welcome 

General Bryce Poe 11: This is the second joint meeting of the Royal Air Force 

Historical Society and the United States Air Force Historical Foundation. The 

first was held in 1990 in London and focused upon the relationship between the 

Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces through 1945. A number of the 

American participants in that meeting are here as well as many of our British 

friends. We thought that gathering was such a success that we had to try it again, 

and this is the sequel we have been looking forward to. This year the Society and 

Foundation are joined in sponsorship by our respective air forces. Representing 

the U.S. Air Force is distinguished author and historian Dr. Richard Hallion, the 

Air Force Historian. The Royal Air Force is represented by an individual who 

will be introduced by my counterpart, the Chairman of the Royal Air Force 

Historical Society, Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey. 

Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey: General Poe, ladies and gentlemen. What 

a great privilege it is for us all to be here for this historic occasion. The history 

of our two great air forces in both peace and war has been closely interwoven, 

and I think none more so than since 1945 and the advenrof nuclear weapons and 

the Cold War, the period which we are going to be talking about during this 

symposium. Our aims are very much as yours. We look at history through the 

policies, the operations, and the personalities of our air force, and we hopefully 

can draw the lessons of the past to make some relevance to those who are 

operating an air force of today. We, for our part, look forward to the contribution 

that we can make to your symposium, and we particularly look forward to the 

warmth of friendship and comradeship which you have provided us. Now the 

people who have done all the hard work in this have been those in the Pentagon 

and the Ministry of Defence who have, in fact, been our channel of 

communication. Dick Hallion has already been introduced to you; perhaps I can 

introduce his opposite number in the Ministry of Defence, Group Captain Ian 

Madelin, the head of our Air Historical Branch. 

General Poe: Thank you, very much. This relationship between our two air 

forces, forged in fire at the height of the gloomy days of World War I1 and 

tempered through many later confrontations, is very important to us. 

3 
General Merrill A. (Tony) McPeak, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, 

earned a bachelor of arts in economics at San Diego State College and 

entered preflight training at Lackland AFB, Texas, in 1957. After 

graduating from flight instruction in in 1959, he flew F-100 and F-104 

fighter aircraft, including a tour at RAF Woodbridge in England. From 

December 1966 to December 1968 he was a’ member of the USAF Air 

Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds. In Vietnam between 

December 1968 and December 1969, General McPeak served as an 

F-100D fighter pilot with the 612th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 

commander of Operation Commando Sabre (“Misty” Fast FACs), and 

chief of the Standardization/Evaluation Division for the 31st Tactical 

Fighter Wing. Subsequent assignments found General Peak serving in 

numerous wing and heaquarters positions at every level throughout the 

USAF. He also attended the Armed Forces Staff College and National 

War College and was the military fellow at the Council on Foreign 

Relations in New York City. From February 1980 to June 1981 he 

commanded the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Upper Heyford. 

Later, he was commander of 12th Air Force and U.S. Southern 

Command Air Forces at Bergstrom AFB, Texas, and commander in 

chief of Pacific Air Forces at Hickam AFB, Hawaii. General McPeak 

became Chief of Staff in October 1990. 
Opening Address 

To Protect Our Heritage* 

General Merrill A. McPeak 

It’s a real honor to address this group of distinguished airmen and historians. 

I’m pleased to see so many of our friends from the RAF Historical Society. 

Much of our own heritage in the U.S. Air Force was built side-by-side with our 

British cousins. So we feel a special kinship with the RAF. 

In this century a famous Briton-Winston Churchill-suggested that history 

would deal gently with him because, as he said, “I intend to write it.” It’s rather 

tempting, isn’t it, to write one’s own history, to preserve a legacy. We have that 

opportunity and responsibility today, in both the U.S. Air Force and the RAF. 

If we try to look at today’s developments from the viewpoint of some future 

historian, it is clear that the 1990s will be seen as a time of sharp downsizing, as 

a time of reorganization, and I hope, as a time in which we took care to protect 

our heritage. Let me spend a few minutes explaining why heritage is so 

important to us and what we’re doing to protect it. 

All of us understand that air forces exist for the ultimate purpose of putting 

fire and steel on targets. That means that the combat function is the core of our 

business. If you asked a man-on-the-street what it takes to get this job done, he 

would quite likely point to some tangible thing-a stealth aircraft, a precisionguided weapon, an air base. In any case, a material, and usually high-tech 

object-a thing. 

But-and all professionals understand this-the important mission 

component is people. And, therefore, the most significant improvements we can 

make have to do with the human dimension-with recruiting, and training, and 

keeping, and motivating high-quality people. In my view, our history, our legacy, 

our heritage play an essential role in these human values. 

Now, combat is often depicted as an individual event; like tennis. It 

sometimes does come down to pilot versus pilot, “1 v 1.” And so we recognize 

individual achievement, or personal valor. But, more often than not, combat is 

a team sport, more like soccer than tennis. Individuals still score, but it’s the 

team effort that makes scoring possible. 

* 

General McPeek‘s speech was published in Air Power History (Winter 1993), pp. 

36-38. 

5 
.Opening Address 

You all know this, and I mention it only to help me explain to myself why 

it’s so important for us to pay attention to team performance, to the units that 

people served in, to the flags that have flown under circumstances that cause us 

the greatest pride. 

Anyway, we are paying attention. We’ve recently taken a comprehensive 

look back at wing and squadron flags across all communities: fighter, bomber, 

mobility, missile, C31, trainers, space, test, special operations-all of them. 

Before this initiative, our heritage preservation effort-such as it was-was 

disjointed. Each command was left to its own approach. Commanders who 

cared-and many didn’t-watched over their own small pot of unit flags. It was 

to prevent the piecemeal loss of our legacy that we decided on a systematic, 

three-step approach. 

First, we looked at the age of our formations. This was fairly straightforward. As you know, by the early 1930s we had established thirteen combat 

groups. Of course, these groups are called wings today, but their numbers and 

their heritage still carry through. These groups and their squadrons are the oldest 

combat organizations we have. They are, kind of the original Air Force-our 

elder statesmen. 

If you go back to the cities, towns, and villages of this country, these are the 

units people would most associate themselves with. This is true because, simply 

by being on the books for fifty or sixty years, more Air Force men and women 

would have cycled through these units. 

So, we first resolved to protect out oldest units, to keep these original 

thirteen flags flying. By the way, some of these unit flags had already been 

folded by the time we got around to doing this; so we had some work to do. 

Second, we looked at units established starting about 1940, during the rapid 

buildup for the Second World World War. Here, the issue was not age, but unit 

achievement. We identified flags with illustrious accomplishments to their credit, 

the flags that had literally earned the right to keep flying. We did not reach for 

particular specifics-preferring instead to let the history speak for itself. This list 

would include units such as: 

The 23rd Wing - the Flying Tigers 

The 4th Wing - with the RAF Eagle Squadrons and more combat 

victories than any other wing 

The 56th Wing - with thirty-nine aces 

The 60th Wing - which made our first paratroop drop of World War 11, 

helped in the Berlin Airlift, made the first jet landing in the Antarctic 

The 305th Wing- whose logbook includes Schweinfurt, the Battle of the 

Bulge, and a commander named LeMay. 

There are so many more, but you get the idea. 

We wanted to keep wing flags in each operating element of the Air Force, 

so we tried to find fighter flags, bomber flags, missile flags, and so forth, of 

special distinction. I’ll admit, given the desire to keep flags in each category, 

6 
To Protect Our Heritage 

there’s a certain amount of subjective judgment. For instance, we’ve never fired 

an ICBM in anger, so it’s hard to compare a missile wing’s record against other 

kinds of combat wings. But President Kennedy called the 341st Wing his “ace 

in the hole” during the Cuban Missile Crisis and this fact distinguishes the 341st, 

sets it apart as a missile unit. 

Other wings are associated with one-time spectaculars-the 509th Bomb 

Wing-for instance. The 509th was recently reestablished to stand-up the B-2 

operation at Whiteman Air Force Base. The 509th, of course, is the only outfit 

that has ever dropped nuclear munitions in anger. Its record otherwise is not all 

that distinguished. Nevertheless, the 509th has a secure place in history and we 

thought it ought to be protected. 

So, we decided to first preserve our thirteen oldest wings. Second, we 

identified a small number of additional wings that had a record of special 

accomplishment. As you might expect, there was some overlap here, because 

some of our original thirteen flags have served with great distinction. But for our 

purposes, it didn’t matter. The thirteen oldest were given a “bye” into the finals 

and were joined there by units that fought their way through the qualifying 

rounds. 

The final step was to rank-order the remaining wing flags. Here we used a 

scoring system with points awarded for years of service, decorations, streamers, 

aerial victories, and so on. We’ve done exactly the same thing for squadron flags 

that I’ve described for wings. That is, we’ve identified our oldest and most 

distinguished squadrons and have rank-ordered the rest. 

Now, the idea is, as our force structure continues to shrink, the oldest and 

most distinguished flags will be “keepers.” We will deactivate and turn in other 

wing and squadron flags, starting with those units that have the lowest heritage 

scores. As installations close, we’ll move unit flags around to ensure the keepers 

are protected. We will no doubt take some criticism for this. Some will say, 

“What difference does it make? You take one number down over the door and 

put up another. So what?” 

We can’t really respond to these critics because they don’t understand the 

institution. If the numbers don’t mean anything to them-if heritage isn’t 

important to them-they’ll never understand what we’re about. 

I don’t expect we’ll see much of this kind of criticism inside the Air Force. 

We haven’t been in business long-less than fifty years. Even so, most Air Force 

people understand the importance of pride and roots. 

A second type of criticism will be more effective because there is a certain 

cost to doing this. We’ll have to change signs around the base. We’ll have to 

order new patches and new stationery and so forth. I’ve put out guidance that 

says don’t repaint wholesale-wait until it’s necessary. Don’t buy new stationery 

until the old stock is used up and so on. We’ll try to think it through so people 

don’t have to go through this twice or three times. But, in the end, there will be 

a ceratin cost associated with this initiative. 

7 
Opening Address 

In the context of our mission, these costs are trivial. I have absolutely no 

doubt that we’ll be a better organization to accomplish our mission if we 

preserve our heritage. In fact, this may be the lowest cost approach to increasing 

combat effectiveness. Anything else we might do-enhancing training, buying 

better equipment, or improving facility support-would certainly cost more. 

I don’t suppose any of this would make much difference if the Air Force 

were growing4r even if it were staying the same size. Then all of our 

organizations-all our flags-would be safe. 

But the problem in the Pentagon, or in Whitehall, for that matter, is that the 

drawdown is putting our heritage at risk-causing us to fold and shelve many 

proud unit flags. To me, these flags are more than symbols-they are living 

reminders of values that define the Air Force. 

If we’re not careful, just taking down of a squadron here, a wing there, we’ll 

whittle away at our legacy, we’ll create a new kind of hollow air force-one 

that’s lost its heritage, its heroes, its famous campaigns, its core values. 

That’s a quick look at our heritage program. I know this was a bit like 

preaching to the choir, but I thought you’d appreciate my view of the process. 

I’d like to take credit for recognizing that an Air Force without a past will 

not have a future. Unhappily for me, that simple, powerful idea was put forward 

by another Chief of Staff-Carl Spaatz. He remembered the lean years of the 

1930s-how the future Great Captains of World War I1 prepared by studying and 

debating the lessons learned from World War I. Spaatz saw a parallel developing 

in the 1950s, so he set up the Air Force Historical Foundation. 

That first meeting in 1953 was a Who’s-Who of air power-Twining, 

Vandenberg, White, Eaker, McKee, Edwards, and others. It would have been fun 

to have been there. Spaatz gave one charge to the group-“Preserve and 

perpetuate the history and traditions of the Air Force and of the people who’ve 

devoted their lives to its service.” All that is left for us to do is salute smartly and 

say, “Yes sir.” 

8 
Session One 

Policy Decisions 
General Bryce Poe 11, U.S. Air Force, retired, President, the Air Force 

Historical Foundation, graduated from the United States Military 

Academy at West Point in 1946. He earned an M.A. in history at the 

University of Nebraska in 1964 and an M.S. in international affairs at 

George Washington University, Washington, D.C., in 1965. From 1946 

through 1948, General Poe served in one of the first jet-equipped 

squadrons in the United States Air Force and flew over ninety combat 

missions in Korea in RF-80 aircraft. Assigned to Allied Air Forces 

Northern Europe, Oslo, Norway, in 1952, he flew Vampires, Meteors, 

F-84s, and F-86s with the Royal Norwegian and Royal Danish Air 

Forces. Following graduation from Armed Forces Staff College in 

1960, the general served in an Atlas missile squadron. In Vietnam, he 

flew 213 combat missions, most in RF-4Cs. Later General Poe was 

Commander of the 26th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, Ramstein, 

Germany (1969 to 1970); Commander of Ogden Materiel Area, Hill 

AFB, Utah (1973 to 1974); Commander of Air Force Acquisition 

Logistics Division, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio (1976 to 1978); and 

Commander, Air Force Logistics Command at the same base from 

1978 until his retirement in 1981. Since retiring, General Poe has done 

unpaid work for numerous agencies including the National Research 

Council, Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, National 

Air and Space Museum, and the Department of Energy. 
Introduction 

General Bryce Poe I1 

As you know, Panel I begins our symposium with “Policy Decisions,” and 

I do not know how we could have picked a more pertinent or more difficult 

subject between allies. The many factors involved in policy decision 

making-relating it to the real threat, to the perceived threat, public reaction, 

government and bureaucratic reactions, system reliability and availability, 

finance, the influence of outside circumstances, differing service and national 

traditions, agreements and disputes on roles and missions within our services 

and with our allies-make it a fascinating subject for examination today. We are 

very fortunate that our panel members have selected subjects across the 

spectrum-of Royal Air Force and U.S. Air Force efforts to confront and 

eventually solve problems through policy decisions. This session features four 

papers that detail important developments from just after World War I1 through 

the early 1980s. 

The initial introduction of U.S. Air Force aircraft with atomic weapons, at 

no little risk to the United Kingdom, was ‘to be marked by frustration, conflict, 

disagreement, and misunderstanding. But the common threat and common 

mission led to remarkable success and cooperation. In our first paper, Patrick 

Murray, the senior U.S. Air Force historian in the United Kingdom, gives a look 

at this process that is both unique and most interesting. 

Our second speaker has been a historian, soldier, author, and holder of jobs 

with increasing responsibility up to and including the Assistant Under Secretary 

of State for the United Kingdom. Cecil James adds a special personal 

knowledge, as well as historical expertise, to the discussion of how Minister of 

Defence Duncan Sandys brought missiles into a prominent role as a major part 

of British defense activities. 

Our third speaker, Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood, is an old friend 

of mine. He moved up, as you know, through the ranks to the highest levels of 

the Royal Air Force. When you talk about “the view from the top,” he has had 

that view. He has also had it down the line a bit. 1 can remember when you and 

I, sir, were keeping an eye on General Bubayev across the Iron Curtain; sharing 

concerns and, sometimes, amused comments about that Soviet general’s activities. I am just delighted to have my old friend Sir Denis here. If anybody is a 

representative of the kind of attitudes and personalities that led to strong AngloAmerican cooperation, it is “Splinters” Smallwood. He was there longer than 

11 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

most, and he had much to do with the serious problems that had to be dealt with. 

Incidentally, I did have one problem, “Splinters.” The State Department was a 

bit concerned. They came to me a couple of weeks ago about your coming over 

here-all of you, Freddie and all. It seems we have this terrorist problem and it 

was the 179th anniversary last week of the burning of Washington. I had to 

assure them that it was the Royal Marines that burned the place down, not the 

Royal Air Force! 

Finally, as one of the hand-picked few selected to chart the way to solve an 

entirely new set of military problems and opportunities, Lieutenant Colonel 

Michael Kirtland is particularly well suited to the study of policy decisions, 

which he does at the Air Power Research Institute down at Maxwell AFB, 

Alabama. If you had to pick one activity that one would have assumed to have 

been routine operation, but that turned into a major controversy, it would have 

to be the deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles at Greenham Common. 

Colonel Kirtland was intimately involved in that deployment. 

12 
Session One Presentations 

An Initial Response to the Cold War: The Buildup of the USAF in the United 

Kingdom, 1948-1956 Patrick E. Murray ....................... 15 

The Role of Missiles in British Concepts of Defence: The Influence of Duncan 

Sandys Cecil James ........................................ 25 

Cooperation at the Top: A View from a Former Vice Chief of the Air Staff and 

CINCUKAIR Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood ............ 39 

The Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles to RAF Greenham 

Common Lieutenant Colonel Michael A. Kirtland ............... 47 

Questions and Answers ........................................ 65 

13 
Patrick E. Murray, Command Historian, Third Air Force, RAF 

Mildenhall, England, received his B.A. in Philosophy and M.A. in 

History from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Louisiana, and 

did graduate work at the University of Notre Dame and the University 

of Texas-San Antonio. He has worked extensively in Latin America 

and taught and lectured in Spanish. As an Air Force historian, Mr. 

Murray began at the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, 

Colorado. Subsequently, he served as a historian at the United States 

Air Force Southern Division at Howard AFB in the Republic of 

Panama, Headquarters Eighth Air Force, and HeadquartersTwelfth Air 

Force. 
An Initial Response to the Cold War: 

The Buildup of the U.S. Air Force 

in the United Kingdom 

1948-1956 

Patrick E. Murray 

The demobilization of Allied military forces following the surrender of 

Nazi Germany resulted in the withdrawal of all United States military combat 

aircraft from the United Kingdom. The general hope was that such a combat 

armada would never be needed again. That hope was short-lived. The closing 

of ground routes into West Berlin during the spring and summer of 1948 began 

the challenge, the threats, the show of force by Stalinist Soviet might, and, on 

the part of the United States, a corresponding demonstration of resolve, as 

shown by Operation Vittles, the airlift to blockaded Berlin. The increased 

tensions, response, and counter-response were elements that would characterize 

the history of Europe and Asia for decades. The Cold War was underway, and 

the United Kingdom found itself, not unwittingly, on the front line. “It must not 

be forgotten,” Winston Churchill would state later, “that under the late 

Government, we took peculiar risks in providing the principal atomic base for 

the United States in East Anglia and that, in consequence, we placed ourselves 

in the very forefront of Soviet antagonism.”’ The United States and the United 

Kingdom had become inseparably allied in the East-West confrontation. 

On July 17-18, 1948, at the invitation of British Prime Minister Clement 

Attlee, some sixty United States Air Force B-29 strategic bombers landed at 

three British air bases on a thirty-day training deployment. For the first time, the 

U.S. Air Force had stationed combat aircraft in another sovereign nation during 

peacetime. Unlike the situation in Germany, where the United States had 

acquired its bases by right of occupation, the United States had no bases of its 

own in the United Kingdom. Moreover, the two nations had no formal 

agreement allowing this deployment. Six squadrons of strategic bombers 

constituted a sizeable military force to be deployed on British soil in peacetime 

without formal agreements between the host nation and visiting forces.’ 

This absence of a formal agreement allowing foreign military forces on 

sovereign British soil was not the only irregularity that one could observe in this 

event. After the demobilization following World War 11, hundreds of military 

airfields still remained in the United Kingdom. These were Class A Standard 

Airfields with runways only 6,000 feet long and 150 feet wide, adequate for 

combat-loaded B-17s and B-24s. However, USAF B-29s, capable of carrying 

15 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

bomb loads three to four times greater than the earlier bombers, required 

runways 8,000 feet long and 200 feet wide. How was it possible that the largest 

combat-tested bomber in the free world, possessed only by the United States, 

could deploy to and operate safely from British military airfields in 1948? The 

answer is not immediately obvious and requires some explanation, while the 

long-term consequences of the B-29 event requires even more elaboration. 

In 1946, while making a final tour of air force installations in the United 

Kingdom, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Tedder, Chief of the Air 

Staff, and General Carl Spaatz, Commanding General, U.S. Army Air Forces, 

discussed the uneasy peace that resulted from the Allied victory in E~rope.~ The 

strength of the Soviet military, together with little indication of demobilization 

comparable to that of the other Allied nations, justified more than just a gut 

feeling that political and military struggle in Europe might not be over. The two 

airmen agreed that several air bases in East Anglia would be prepared for use 

by B-29s, in the eventuality that they would be needed in the theater. So it was 

that Royal Air Force (RAF) Scampton, RAF Marham, RAF Waddington, and 

RAF Lakenheath were able and ready to receive the six squadrons of USAF 

strategic bombers in the summer of 1948.4 

On July 16, 1948, Lieutenant General Curtis E. LeMay, Commander, 

United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), issued General Order No. 54, 

establishing the 3rd Air Division (Provisional) at RAF Marham. The 

commanding officer designated for this provisional organization was Colonel 

Stanley T. Wray, a USAFE staff officer who happened to be in England at the 

time surveying airfield^.^ Two days later, the first phase of Operation Looker, 

the “movement of two medium Bomb Groups from the [United States] to 

E~rope”~ was completed, as the 28th Bomb Group from Rapid City, South 

Dakota, and the 307th Bomb Group from MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, 

landed in the United Kingdom for a thirty-day deployment. The advertised 

purpose of this thirty-day temporary duty, according to a news release sent from 

the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force to U.S. Military Attach6 in London, 

was training: 

The flight is being made at the invitation of the Air Ministry. During 

their stay in England it is expected that the B-29 ’ s will visit Royal Air 

Force installations throughout England and engage in such joint 

exercises as may be decided upon there. . . . They arc? scheduled to 

return to the U.S. approximately July 31.’ 

Each group consisted of three squadrons of ten aircraft, while C-54 cargo 

aircraft transported maintenance personnel and supplies. The total number of 

U.S. airmen descending upon English soil was approximately fifteen hundred.8 

However, even before this initial deployment reached England, the decision had 

been made to extend the temporary duty to sixty days.g 

16 
Initial Response to the Cold War 

Training was definitely a consideration in the deployment concept, but, 

in larger terms, the basing of American strategic forces in England at 

that time represented a unified British-American response to the Soviet 

ground blockade of West Berlin.” 

A new commander with the rank of general officer was assigned to 3rd Air 

Division (Provisional), adding credence to the probability that the USAF 

presence in England was more than a casual visit of old friends. On August 7, 

1948, Major General Leon W. Johnson assumed command of the 3rd Air 

Division with responsibilities to exercise command jurisdiction over all USAF 

stations, activities, supporting and attached units; to exercise operational control 

under direction of the Commanding General, USAFE, of all USAFcombat units 

based in the United Kingdom; to establish an air depot to provide depot support 

to Operation Vittles; and to organize logistical support for all USAF units in the 

United Kingdom.” 

Two weeks later, on August 23,1948, permanency took on a stronger claim 

when the parenthetical “provisional” was deleted from the air division 

designation, as Headquarters USAFE established the 3rd Air Division assigned 

to the USAFE.” Thus began four and a half decades of U.S. military presence 

in the United Kingdom; the mission as stated in 1948 has remained essentially 

unchanged. 

As quickly as the thirty-day temporary deployment was changed to sixty 

days, so the sixty-day deployment was extended to ninety days. On November 

13, 1948, the Air Ministry advised Washington that long-term use of RAF 

stations by the USAF “was ass~med.”’~ Thus, less than four months after the 

arrival of a thirty-day deployed task force, the governments of the United States 

and the United Kingdom had agreed that the basing of U.S. forces in the United 

Kingdom would continue indefinitely. 

The long-term use of RAF stations necessitated extensive, usually 

protracted, negotiations. Whereas the early documentation occasionally reveals 

the frustration and weariness on both sides of the negotiating table, the U.S. and 

the U.K. governments succeeded in forging a substantial basis of cooperation 

that has coursed through the test of time for forty-five years. The mutual respect 

that had been earned during 1942-1945 undoubtedly contributed to the 

willingness of the British to do everything possible to make the American 

presence succeed. As General Johnson reported to Lieutenant General Edwin 

W. Rawlings in the Pentagon, referring to the British assistance and generosity 

to the USAF: “I think the RAF has leaned over backward to accomplish this.”I4 

From 1948 through 1955, the United States and the United Kingdom labored 

endlessly to establish a credible Cold War response to the Soviet Union, a 

response that included a capable strategic nuclear delivery force, an adequate 

air defense system, and the development of a logistic system and supply channel 

adequate for whatever might arise. 

17 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

In these initial months, there were ample instances of cooperation between 

the two parties at virtually every echelon. At the lower levels, quite literally 

where the “rubber meets the road,” the RAF made available to the USAF 385 

vehicles of all types, from motorcycles to six-ton trucks.’’ In discussions about 

financial arrangements, they reached an early understanding that the British 

would supply the Americans with airfields, accommodations, and telecommunications free of charge, provided that the expenditures did not exceed the 

normal costs of RAF requirements and standards. That “free of charge”I6 aspect 

made the presence of the USAF in the U.K. different from the U.S. military 

presence in any other country, a fact that could go a long way toward supporting 

an opinion that a special sense of cooperation existed between the United States 

and the United Kingdom. 

The first cooperative effort between the United States and United Kingdom 

occurred in September at a meeting at Bush House Central, where representatives of the Air Ministry, Headquarters Bomber Command, and 3rd Air Division 

worked out arrangements for the supply of aviation fuel, petrol, and lubricants. 

It was agreed that the airfields in the U.K. at which the USAF were 

estab!ished, where Royal Air Force provided headquarters facilities, 

M.T. petrol, lubricants, etc., required by the USAF, will be issued from 

local Royal Air Force stocks on re~ayment.”’~ 

Another example involving American and British military forces in a 

combined training exercise occurred six weeks after the arrival of the two U.S. 

bombardment groups described above. On September 3 through 5, 1948, the 

B-29s participated in a British defense exercise called Operation Dagger.” 

Officials of both countries bad looked upon American participation with some 

apprehension because of the political implications involved, however, no 

serious problems arose. 

Easy to overlook when considering the peacetime deployment of USAF 

strategic bombers to England in the summer of 1948 was the equally 

momentous decision to establish a major air force depot in the United Kingdom. 

In response to this decision, the Air Ministry made RAF Burtonwood available 

as an air depot site to support the airlift in Germany. On September 12, 1948, 

96 officers and 1,451 airmen arrived from Rome, New York, to begin depot 

operations, doubling the USAF population in England. As the Berlin Blockade 

tightened, the airlift of supplies became the number one priority throughout the 

Air Force.’’ A week after its arrival at Burtonwood, the 59th Air Depot was 

assigned responsibility for performing 200-hour inspections on aircraft involved 

in Operation Vittles, and the depot commander received instructions to build an 

organization capable of completing seven inspections a day.*” 

RAF and USAF leaders quickly realized that the American presence 

demanded more comprehensive jurisdictional and financial arrangements than 

18 
Initial Response to the Cold War 

existed prior to the arrival of a thirty-day TDY bomber force. The first group of 

peacetime American forces were governed under the existing statutes of the 

United Kingdom-the wartime Visiting Forces Act of 1942. The 3rd Air 

Division Regulations 11 1-2 (Military Justice), 30-1 (Personnel), and 30-2 

(Paternity Claims) were all based on the provisions of this act.2’ The early 

financial agreements were premised upon a brief stay and a limited use of 

resources. Once both sides acknowledged that the USAF was in the U.K. for an 

indefinite duration, a stay which would involve a much larger force than sixty 

bombers and would require enormous expenditures of public money, more 

detailed and protracted negotiations were initiated.22 

During the first half of 1949, the American forcescarried out an intense but 

regular routine of rotating strategic bomber units for ninety-day tours. At the 

same time, the air depot at Burtonwood pushed (2-47s through their 

maintenance line at an average of 8.4 aircraft per day.23 In May 1949, the 

Soviets lifted the Berlin blockade, and for the first time in nine months, USAFE 

relaxed the six-hour alert that had been required of the B-29s in England.24 By 

the time the USAF had completed its first year of Cold War deployments in the 

United Kingdom, ten strategic bomber groups-the 2nd, 22nd, 28th, 43rd, 92nd, 

97th, 98th, 301st, 307th, and 509th-had acquired familiarity and experience 

in operating out of U.K. bases and training with RAF units. 

While the Berlin Airlift and the training of rotational units were high 

priorities for the 3rd Air Division Headquarters, negotiations with the host 

nation also received considerable attention. Major activities included the 

selection of additional RAF bases for USAF use and the endless agreements 

necessary to define the privileges available to U.S. service members. 

Of the seventy-four arrangements accomplished between the United States 

and the United Kingdom at this time, four must be singled out: the JohnsonChilver Arrangement signed in January 1949; the Ambassadors ’ Agreement, 

signed in April 1950; the Special Construction Program signed in February 

1951; and the U.S.-U.K. Cost Sharing Agreement of 1953. The importance of 

these four agreements cannot be o~erestimated.~’ As we look back on the Cold 

War as an historic event, the calibre of the initial response and cooperation 

between the United States and United Kingdom is exemplified in these four 

major decisions. In retrospect, it can be seen and must be acknowledged that 

they established the groundwork upon which the two nations have worked 

together for more than forty-five years. 

The experience of the Berlin Airlift and the associated extended alert for the 

B-29 aircraft and air crews from September 1948 through May 1949 increased 

the USAF concern about the safety and protection of the bomber force. In May 

1949, General Johnson wrote to the American Ambassador, Lewis Douglas, 

stating his desire to acquire better locations for basing the B-29s. Johnson 

believed that RAF Marham, RAF Lakenheath, and RAF Sculthorpe, all located 

in East Anglia, were “tactically unsuitable because of their nearness to the coast 

19 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

and their obvious vulnerability to enemy air attack.”26 For adequate protection, 

the B-29s needed bases located behind the RAF fighter screen and behind the 

Greater London antiaircraft defenses. 

The emergency plan Double Quick had provided for the movement of 

B-29s to other areas of England, preferably the Midlands, which were less 

vulnerable to attack. Double Quick required four bases adequate for B-29 

combat operations. This early requirement for inland bases laid the foundation 

for the eventual procurement and rehabilitation of four airfields: RAF Brize 

Norton, RAF Fairfield, RAF Upper Heyford, and RAF Greenham Common.*’ 

During 1949, 3rd Air Division did not see any major changes in the 

composition of U.S. forces in the United Kingdom. The rotational bomber units 

continued to come and go at RAF Marham, RAF Sculthorpe, and RAF 

Lakenheath. The USAF continued to seek more expansion of locations and 

facilities, but more bases required additional Congressional appropriations and 

securing a comparable commitment from the U.K. government during a period 

of a weakened British post-war economy. 

Two events of 1949 which strengthened the U.S.-UK partnership in the 

Cold War were the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in April and the ABC 

(American, British, Canadian) Conference held in Washington during 

September. At the ABC conference, officials agreed that the RAF would 

oversee the air defense of Great Britain, while the USAF would increase the 

number of wartime bomber units operating from U.K. bases. The explosion of 

the first nuclear device by the Soviet Union in August 1949, no doubt, provided 

incentive for greater U.S.-U.K. partnership in defense. As an additional sign of 

the cooperative efforts of the two air forces, the RAF agreed to commit fighters 

to the defense of the USAF bases, give radar coverage for the areas surrounding 

the East Anglian bases, and furnish RAF Regiment forces to guard the bases.28 

The first major agreement that secured the expansion of USAF operations 

in the United Kingdom was the Ambassadors’ Agreement, mentioned above. 

Although the Ambassadors’ Agreement involved the expenditure of $17 

million, it did not include any exchange of funds between the United States and 

the United Kingdom. Under this agreement, the United States contributed the 

services of three engineer aviation battalions for upgrading RAF Upper 

Heyford, Brize Norton, Fairford, and Greenham Common to B-29 operational 

standards. The British furnished all construction materials and a specified 

degree of contractual labor.29 This agreement was significant in another aspect 

as well. The principle of “extra cost” was recognized, wherein the British 

Government agreed to provide land, facilities, and services at no cost to the 

USAF as long as such elements were surplus to British needs and involved no 

additional expense to British agencie~.~” 

The Korean War, which began in June 1950, added a sense of urgency to 

the buildup of forces in the U.K. In July, the 20th Fighter-Bomber Group 

deployed sixty-nine F-84s to RAF Manston and established the first permanent 

20 
Initial Response to the Cold War 

presence of U.S. fighter air~raft.~’ During the last half of the year, concern about 

the war in Korea and the influence it might have on Soviet expansion in Europe 

led to additional deployments, and two more B-29 bomb groups moved to the 

United Kingdom, the largest concentration of Strategic Air Command (SAC) 

bombers ever to occur in Britain. 32 

As the American military buildup progressed, U.S. and U.K. representatives 

continued to study and negotiate installation requirements in response to the 

decisions made at the ABC Conference held in Washington in September 1949. 

In addition to improving the four Midlands bases as agreed on in the 

Ambassadors Agreement, the AJ3C Conference approved an expansion of the 

USAF to thirty bases. 

This agreement led to the next important arrangement between the United 

States and the United Kingdom, the Special Construction Program, which called 

for improvements and construction at three air depots and twenty-three airfields. 

This jointly funded program, initially costing $109 million, was signed by U.S. 

and U.K. officials in February 1951.33 

By 1951, the growing size and complexity of the mission of 3rd Air 

Division led to a separation of its responsibilities. The 7th Air Division under 

SAC took the strategic bombing mission of the B-29s, while the newly 

activated Third Air Force, which reported to USAFE, was responsible for all 

tactical operations, logistics and supply, and negotiations with the host nation. 

By the time 3rd Air Division had split in two, the USAF presence in the U.K. 

had grown to nearly twenty-five thousand personnel stationed at sixteen 

installations. For the next decade and a half, 7th Air Division and Third Air 

Force were the two principal USAF elements in the United Kingdom.34 

In May 1951, to meet SAC’s deployment requirements, Third Air Force 

transferred to 7th Air Division jurisdiction at nine bases-RAF Basingborne, 

RAF Lakenheath, RAF Lindholme, RAF Manston, RAF Marham, RAF 

Mildenhall, RAF Sculthorpe, RAF Wyton, and RAF Waddington. As soon as 

they were activated, six more bases-RAF Brize Norton, RAF Upper Heyford, 

RAF Fairford, RAF Greenham Common, RAF Woodbridge, and RAF 

Carnaley-were added to SAC’S holdings?’ In June 1951, the Air Ministry, the 

RAF, and SAC expanded SAC operations in England to included medium and 

heavy bombers, fighter escorts, reconnaissance, and air refuelers, an effort that 

required a total of twenty-four installation^.^^ 

For the next four years, the United States and the United Kingdom were 

joined in the common cause of construction to satisfy the burgeoning need for 

facilities to accommodate more USAF aircraft and personnel. SAC’s 7th Air 

Division continued its large-scale unit rotations, while Third Air Force acquired 

tactical operational responsibilities. In August 1951, the 20th Fighter Bomber 

Wing at RAF Wethersfield was assigned to Third Air Force; in September, the 

81st Fighter Interceptor Wing arrived at RAF Bentwaters; and in December, the 

123rd Fighter Bomber Group at RAF Manston reported to Third Air Force. Six 

21 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

months later, the 49th Air Division, equipped with B-45 medium bombers, was 

assigned to Third Air Force and stationed at RAF Sculthorpe. With the 

establishment of the 49th Air Division, the Third Air Force aircraft inventory 

consisted of eighty-six F-84 Thunderjets from the 20th Fighter Bomber Wing, 

sixty F-86 Sabrejets belonging to the 81st Fighter Interceptor Wing, thirty-one 

B-45~ under the 47th Bomb Group, and a mix of forty F-84s and twenty-three 

F-86s flown by the 406th Fighter-Bomber Wing.37 

As more forces arrived in the United Kingdom, both sides dedicated 

additional manpower to the continued development of negotiated agreement. It 

was a learning experience for all involved. After several instances of Third Air 

Force presenting its understanding of certain “contracts” for services, an official 

in the Air Ministry responded 

I am directed to refer to {he increasing use in correspondence of the 

word “Contract” when allusion is made to the financial arrangements 

between the Air Ministry and the Third Air Force relating to 

equipment, facilities, services and supplies granted to the latter. The 

Air Ministry is not under contract to provide any such services and the 

written agreements relate only to the charges (or absence of charge) 

which will be appropriate when our good offices are used to assist the 

USAF. The distinction is an important one and I am to ask that care 

should be taken by all correspondents to avoid referring to the 

arrangements as contract^."^^ 

The other major agreement achieved regarding the development and 

financing for the upgrade, rehabilitation, and maintenance of USAF locations 

in the United Kingdom was the “US-U.K. Cost Sharing Arrangement” of 1953, 

which involved expenditures of $640 million. The agreement, which went into 

force on September 9, 1953, was of indefinite duration. The cost-sharing 

approach reached in these negotiations has served as a basis for US.-U.K. 

cooperation since that time.39 

The buildup of forces for 7th Air Division and Third Air Force continued 

throughout 1953 and 1954. By 1955 the USAF occupied eighty installations, of 

which twenty-three were airfields. At the installations utilized by the 7th Air 

Division, the wings participating in the ninety-day rotational deployments 

gradually changed from B-29s and B-50s to B-36s and B-47~. At this time, the 

USAF inventory consisted of four hundred aircraft and a total of eighty-two 

thousand USAF personnel, including dependents, permanently stationed in the 

United Kingd~m.~” 

By 1956 major changes were on the horizon for both Third Air Force and 

the 7th Air Division. From a military perspective, the development of ballistic 

missiles and their operational potential indicated a lesser need for forward 

deployed forces. From an economic perspective, President Eisenhower, entering 

22 
Initial Response to the Cold War 

his second term, began looking for ways to decrease overseas military 

expenditures, and one method was to reduce the number and size of units 

stationed abroad. Under the program known as “Big Shuffle” seventeen of the 

thirty USAF installations were designated for return to the Ministry of Defence. 

In the process of returning installations, force structure changed, units 

inactivated, and the size of the USAF in the United Kingdom diminished. Never 

again did U.S. troop strength reach the numbers stationed in the United 

Kingdom during the period from 1952 to 1955. 

The U.S.-U.K. initial response to the Cold War, as illustrated in the buildup 

of USAF forces in the United Kingdom, had been both massive and rapid. 

Discussing the effect of this buildup on Soviet planning is not the purpose of 

this paper, however, there is little doubt that this demonstration of long-term 

commitment and resolve in the early years of the Cold War illustrated to Soviet 

leaders that the U.S. and U.K. were firm allies against the threat of aggression. 

In terms of U.S.-U.K. partnership, the principles of teamwork and bonds of trust 

established at the negotiation tables during those early years created a solid 

foundation for cooperation which still serves the two nations. 

Notes 

1. Winston Churchill, Nov 9, 1951, shortly after his return to power as Prime Minister. 

2. History, 3rd Air Division (AD), Jul 1948-Jul 1949, p. 1; Kenneth Sams, HQ Third Air 

Force (3AF) Historical Division, Office of Information, History of Third Air Force, 1948- 

1962, pp. 12-17; Lawrence Benson, USAFE Historical Monograph, “USAF Aircraft Basing 

in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, 1945-1980, pp. 9-14. Most official USAF 

histories and monographs are classified or contain classified material. All of the material 

used in this paper is unclassified. 

3. Simon Duke, U.S. Defence Bases in the United Kingdom: A Matter for Joint Decision? 

(Basingstoke: Macmillan with St. Antony ’s College Oxford, 1987), pp. 20-25. 

4. Vernon D. Burke, “The USAF in the United Kingdom, 1948-1973: Organization” (HQ 

USAFE Historical Monograph, Nov 28, 1977), pp. 2-4); Vernon D. Burke, “US-UK 

Negotiations Concerning the U.S. Air Force in the UK, 1948-1973: Chronology and 

Document Collection” (HQ 3AF Draft Monograph, Nov 17, 1975), p. 1. 

5. G.O. No.1, HQ USAFE, subj: “Assumption of Command,” Jul 16, 1948; History, 3AD, 

Jul1948-Jull949, Vol. I, pp. 13-14. During the planning for this operation, the deployment 

force was referred to simply as the ‘3-29 Task Force in the U.K.” 

6. Ltr, HQ USAF to Commanding General USAFE, subj: Assignment and Declassification 

of Code Word, Jul 19, 1948; History, 3AD, Jul 1948-Jul 1949, Vol. I, p. 16; Unit History, 

28th Bombardment Group, 90-days TDY to England, Jul 17, 1948-0ct 19, 1948. 

7. Msg, Office Sec Air Force to USAFE, USMA London, 1614232 Jun 1948. 

8. Msg, Office Sec Air Force to USAFE, MacDill Fld, CG SAC, Rapid City AFB, ND, 

1602572 Jul 1948; Msg, HQ SAC to USMA London, 1604002 Jul 1948. 

9. History, 3AD, Jul 1948-Jul 1949, Vol. I, p. 17. 

10. Burke, “USAF in the United Kingdom,” p. 1. 

11. Diary of Maj. Gen. Leon W. Johnson, Jul 48-Feb 52, p. 2; History, 3AD, July 1948- 

1949, Vol. I, p. 18. 

12. Ltr. 322 (AFOOR 867), HQ USAF, Washington, D.C., “Establishment of the 3rd Air 

Division, Oct 7, 1948. 

23 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

13. History, 3AD, Jul 1948-Jul 1949, Vol. 1, p. 27. 

14. Diary of Maj Gen. Johnson. 

15. Ltr, Col. Thomas 0. Newell, USAF to Lt. Gen Edwin W. Rawlings, HQ USAF, Nov 4, 

48, (A Matter of Decision file), pp. 336-40; L. Olewine, “A Matter of Decision,” Vols. I, 11, 

111. This document is a Third Air Force study on the financial arrangements and agreements 

between the U.S. and U.K. between 1948-1955. It is an essential source for anyone 

interested in this subject. 

16. Johnson-Chilver, “Financial Arrangement for Supplies and Services for the United States 

Air Force in the United Kingdom”; History, 3AD, Jul 1948-Jul 1949, Vol. 1, pp. 44-52. 

17. Notes of meeting held in Room 629, Air Ministry, Bush House Central, Sep 30, 1948, 

(HQ 3AF Historical Archives). 

18. Unit History, 307th Bomb Group, contained in History, 3AD, Jul 1948-Jul 1949, Vol. 

11, p. 197, ff. 

19. Unit History, 59th Air Depot Wing, Sep 12, 1948-Jun 30, 1949, included in 3AD 

History, Jul1948-Jull949, Vol. IV; History, 3AD, Jul1948-Jull949, Vol. I, pp. 22-24,28- 

34. 

20. History, 3AD, Jul 1948-Jul 1949, Vol. I, pp. 20-21. 

21. Regulations, 3AD Reg. 111-2, Jun 29, 1949; 3AD Reg. 30-1, Mar 1, 1949; 3AD Reg. 

30-2, May 17, 1949. 

22. Visiting Forces Act of 1942; History, 3AD, Jul 1948-Jul 1949, Vol. I, pp. 51-97; 

Olewine, “A Matter of Decision,” Vols. I, 11,111. 

23. Unit History, 59th Air Depot Wing, Sep 12, 1948-Jun 30, 1949, pp. 26-28. 

24. Burke, “USAF in the United Kingdom,” p. 6. 

25. Olewine, “A Matter of Decision,” Vols. I, 11, 111; Donald A. Walbrecht, “AngloAmerican Air Co-operation, 1919-1992,” (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). 

26. E.R. Eggers, “History of the United States Air Force Construction Program in the United 

Kingdom, July 1948-December 1955” (HQ 3AF Monograph, Dec 1955), p. 46; Olewine, “A 

Matter of Decision,” Vol. I, pp. 5-8. 

27. History, 3AD, Jul 1948-Jul 1949, Vol. I, pp. 100-15. 

28. Ibid., p. 22. 

29. Olewine, “A Matter of Decision,” Vol. I. 

30. Burke, “USAF in the United Kingdom,” p. 18. 

31. History, 3AD, Jan-Jun 1950, Vol. I, pp. 7-9; History, 3AD, Jul-Dec 1950, Vol. I, pp. 1-5, 

32. Burke, “USAF in the United Kingdom,” p. 23. 

33. Olewine, “A Matter of Decision,” Vol. I & 11. 

34. History, 3AD, Jan 1-Apr 30,1951, Vol. I; History, HQ 3AF, May 1-December 31,1951, 

35. Agreement, “Transfer Agreement and Delineation of Responsibilities between USAFE 

and SAC in the United Kingdom,” May 16, 1951 (Ha 3AF Historical Archives). 

36. Benson, “USAF Aircraft Basing,” pp. 29-30; Walbrecht, “Anglo-American Air Power 

Cooperation,” pp. 167-71. 

37.3AF Director of Statistical Services, subj: “3AF Statistical Summary for October 1953” 

(HQ 3AF Historical Archives). 

38. Ltr, Air Ministry to Headquarters Third Air Force, Dec 8, 1952. 

39. Olewine, “A Matter of Decision,” Vols. I & 11; History, Headquarters Third Air Force, 

January-December 1954, Vol. I, pp. 84-94. 

40. Benson “USAF Aircraft Basing,” pp. 29-31. 

83-95,120-25. 

Vol. I, pp. 1-8. 

24 
The Role of Missiles in British Concepts of Defence: 

The Influence of Duncan Sandys 

Cecil James 

The moderator must not start counting, yet, timewise. I have my throat 

pastilles with me; we seem to have imported some London type fog today. And 

I do not mean for you to start counting yet, sir, because I’ve really been through 

a sort of “drowning man” experience from Patrick Murray. So much of what he 

was talking about, I was personally involved in, especially in the late 1940s and 

1950s. There was a point in that history where, if I had died overnight, 

Greenham Common would have been found written on my heart! 

But here we are. Missiles, concepts of defence, Duncan Sandys, in half an 

hour. Oh, boy! Brevity, of course, is important; there does seem to be a sort of 

relationship between the number of words and the importance of the subject: 56 

words in the Lord’s Prayer, 294 in the Ten Commandments, 300 in the 

Declaration of Independence, and 26,911 in the European Community directive 

on the export of duck eggs! Oh yes, I ought to also say, before you start 

counting, I had a word with Roger Miller about the balance of this particular 

talk as between high policy and personality, and he said, “For the sort of 

audience that we’ve got, personality is far more important than policy!” 

Duncan Sandys was born in 1908. He had a typical education for his age 

and class: Eton and Cambridge University. His father had been a Member of 

Parliament, and Sandys became one also at an unusually early age, twentyseven, and remained one, except for a breakbetween 1945 and 1950, until 1974. 

His father-in-law, Winston Churchill, was also in Parliament for most of that 

long, dangerous, and turbulent period. Sandys’ first ministerial appointment 

came in 1941, after he had been invalided out of the army with a: serious 

disablement. 

His wartime service is best known for his chairmanship of the Crossbow 

Committee, a subcommittee of the British War Cabinet that monitored and 

coordinated intelligence operations and air attacks against a range of targets 

crucial to the V-weapon offensive that the Germans were planning: V-1, the 

first cruise missile, and V-2, the first ballistic missile. On June 13 1944, a week 

after D-Day, the first V-1 landed in Britain; they then came thick and fast. 

Some ten thousand V-1s and one thousand V-2s were launched against Britain 

by April 1945. Looking back on World War 11, on critical periods that could 

have turned out differently and altered the course of history, the German missile 

25 
Cecil James, member of the Royal Air Force Historical Society 

Committee, received his degree in history from Cambridge University 

in 1940. He served as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery from 1940 to 

1942, Subsequently, he was the author of numerous wartime 

information booklets on Royal Air Force operations. From 1951 to 

1956, Mr. James was the Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for 

Air from 1951 to 1956. Later he served as Command Secretary for the 

Far East Air Force, Singapore, from 1963 to 1966 and as Chief of 

Public Relations, Ministry of Defence, from 1966 to 1968. 

Subsequently he became the Assistant Under Secretary of State from 

1968 to 1977. 
Influence of Duncan Sandys 

attack and Allied counteraction is just such a period. The intelligence effort 

from 1942 and the associated bombing missions of Eighth Air Force and Royal 

Air Force Bomber Command and Second Tactical Air Force not only reduced 

the scale of the V-1 and V-2 attacks, they seriously delayed them. A week after 

D-Day for the first V-1 had little effect on the invasion of Normandy; a week 

before would have been more than a nuisance; a month or longer before, who 

can say? V-1s could be shot down, with difficulty; V-2s, delayed until 

September 1944, could not. Duncan Sandys was steeped in all this; it left its 

mark. 

He was next a minister from October 1951, when Churchill came back as 

Prime Minister. This was as Minister of Supply, with responsibilities that 

included the development of nuclear weapons and missiles in all the 

categories-ground-to-air, ground-to-ground, air-to-air, and air-to-ground. He 

was a member of the Cabinet at the time of the Anglo-French expedition at 

Suez, a watershed event. This, too, left its mark on Sandys. In January 1957 

Harold Macmillan, who had replaced Anthony Eden as Prime Minister, 

appointed Sandys as Minister of Defence; and it is for his time and performance 

in this post that Sandys is best known and remembered. His name is associated, 

above all others, with deep and ill-conceived cuts in British defence, especially 

with a blinkered obsession with the development of missiles at the expense of 

aircraft. Whether this is a fair judgement or not, it cannot be denied that, in 

contrast with many political appointments in our democratic systems, Sandys 

became Minister of Defence knowing a lot about the subject for which he was 

responsible. The task was daunting. 

The Suez Crisis of 1956 was a political disaster, but far more important was 

the growing realization, long before Egyptian President Gamal Nasser 

nationalized the Suez Canal, that the British were living beyond their means and 

had to get their priorities right. Concentrating, as we must, on defence-defence 

concepts and defence expenditures, and the two were closely linked-the 

process of scaling down the cost of defence and rethinking defence policy began 

when Churchill returned to power in 1951. Defence was seen as taking too big 

a share of government expenditure; too much industrial, scientific, and technical 

effort was going into defence industry at the expense of civil industry and 

exports; too much manpower was going into defence through National 

Service-the draft. The British Empire would surely shrink, but there were 

many commitments in the Mediterranean, in Asia, and in Africa which could 

last for many years. Could one meet them without the manpower provided by 

National Service? Could one even meet British commitments on the European 

mainland-over 30,000 men in the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) and a 

large tactical air force-without National Service? There was no question of 

choosing between Imperial and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

commitments. Both had to be honoured, but could this be done less expensively, 

with differentially structured forces and a revised strategy; not only less 

27 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

expensively in money, but in manpower as well? To get rid of National Service 

would be politically popular and provide good quality manpower for a languishing economy. Was there a solution, practicable and politically acceptable? 

Or was it the case, as some were becoming to suspect, that God had gotten tired 

of being an Englishman? 

In May 1956, the Secretary to the British Cabinet delivered a memorandum 

to the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden. It had quite a title: “The Future of the 

United Kingdom in world Affairs.” It was quite brief, but it was notable for 

both its common sense and its potential for controversy. As far as Defence was 

concerned, the basic reasons for change were expressed like this: 

The external situation confronting us has changed. The hydrogen bomb 

has transformed the military situation. It has made full-scale war with 

Russia or China unlikely. And conventional forces, though still of great 

importance in some situations, have become a relatively less important 

factor in world affairs. . . . It is clear that ever since the end of the war 

we have tried to do too much-with the result that we have only rarely 

been free from the danger of economic crisis. . . . Unless we make 

substantial reductions in the Government’s claims on the national 

economy we shall endanger our capacity to play an effective role in 

world affairs.’ 

”The hydrogen bomb,” the memorandum emphasized, “has transformed the 

military situation.” What was sinking in, or what those who wrote that 

memorandum hoped was sinking in, was that the significant nuclear event was 

not so much Hiroshima as Bikini Atoll. So long as the ultimate weapon was 

measured in kilotons, you could just about conceive of a war in which such 

weapons might be used. Your insurance policy had to be shaped accordingly, 

with a serious element of conventional capability-which is where most of the 

money goes-as well as nuclear. But once there is a thermonuclear capability 

in some abundance you can and should rethink the terms of the insurance 

policy. What now matters most is the absolute priority to be given to avoiding 

general war. 

The memorandum on future policy was the first such document to be 

considered when, in May 1956, the Eden government began what was intended 

to be a fundamental review of defence and national strategy. This made rapid 

progress that summer but ran into the sand, almost literally, and was nearly 

washed away when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal on July 26th. For the 

rest of the year, the government concentrated on the Suez expedition and its 

numerous consequences. But some crucial decisions were beginning to emerge. 

One was that the keystone of defence policy would be an independent nuclear 

deterrent. It would be provided by a V-bomber force to begin with, followed by 

Blue Streak-a nuclear intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) developed 

28 
Influence of Duncan Sandys 

by the British with a good deal of American help, but wholly under British 

control and with a British warhead. The possibility of deploying the Thor IRBM 

in Britain as a stop gap until Blue Streak became operational was also emerging. 

Whether or not that happened, two British air-launched cruise missiles were 

envisaged to keep the V-bomber deterrent credible for as long as possible and 

insure against delay over Blue Streak. These were the Blue Streak Mark 1 and, 

later, the more sophisticated and capable Blue Streak Mark 2. There could be, 

and was, argument about the size of the V-bomber force and the number of Blue 

Streaks, but otherwise there was unanimity between the government and the Air 

Staff. But there was a cloud on the horizon: the Royal Navy and Royal Army 

had their doubts to some extent about the concept of nuclear deterrence and 

certainly about the priority to be accorded to it and the resources that would be 

invested in it. 

Another emerging concept was that Britain had become indefensible. In the 

thermonuclear age, if deterrence failed, you had to be able to knock everything 

down. You could not do this, even when the threat was from manned bombers. 

You certainly could not do so when the threat was from ballistic missiles; and 

the intelligence assessment in the late 1950s was that the missile threat to 

Britain would be serious within five or six years. Before Mr. Macmillan became 

Prime Minister he had said that the sensible decision was to disband Fighter 

Command-Fighter Command, the saviour of the nation and much else in 1940. 

No wonder that Macmillan said that the decision was difficult as well as 

sensible.*’ The question that Duncan Sandys was required to answer was not 

how much air defense was needed for the protection of Britain. It was how 

much was needed for the credibility of the nuclear deterrent? 

Precisely the same question arose in the next area of immense importance 

to the British Cabinet: the commitment to NATO. If nuclear deterrence was the 

name of the game, the purpose of conventional forces, at any rate in the NATO 

area, was not to fight a set-piece war but to enhance nuclear credibility. Indeed, 

the more prepared one was to fight such a war, the more it weakened his nuclear 

credibility, or so it could be argued. So before Duncan Sandys became Minister 

of Defence, a diplomatic offensive was launched to sell to the NATO allies the 

need for a radical reappraisal of NATO strategy and force levels, especially on 

the Central Front, but at sea as well. Inevitably, this antagonized the Supreme 

Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) as well as the Supreme Allied 

Commander Europe (SACEUR). 

Accordingly, Duncan Sandys came into office in January 1957 with a 

directive from Mr. Macmillan, the new Prime Minister, “to formulate in the 

light of present strategic needs a new defence policy which will secure a 

substantial reduction in expenditure and manp~wer.”~ In more detail, he was to 

build up and, as necessary, modernize an effective independent strategic nuclear 

* 

Macmillan was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. 

29 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

deterrent; ensure that NATO accepted and applied the logic of nuclear 

deterrence; abolish National Service; achieve big savings in air defence, BAOR, 

and RAF Germany; and reduce the Navy’s commitments and garrison forces 

worldwide. 

A programme such as this demanded a politician who either could charm 

the birds from the trees or who could not be deflected whatever the opposition. 

Mr. Sandys was the second kind; he had always been. As a young artillery 

officer before the war, he had used his position as a Member of Parliament to 

expose the lamentable state of Britain ’ s antiaircraft defences. His name still 

crops up twenty years after his retirement from active politics. In the London 

Times this very year, a distinguished political opponent described him as a 

politician of “monumental obstinacy,” and a senior civil servant has likened him 

to “a programmed tank.” Tales abound about how difficult he was to work for; 

but it must be said that he was as hard on himself as his staff; long hours, late 

into the night, week after week, were nothing to him. Memoranda were drafted 

and redrafted again and again. Civil servants were cannon fodder. Two of us 

went to see him one day to tell him that a missile range for the RAF in the Outer 

Hebrides in Scotland could no longer be justified and should be abandoned. We 

had taken a lot of criticism over this project: Whitehall blundering about in a 

beautiful part of Scotland in its big bureaucratic boots. He listened to us, saying 

nothing. I am not sure what we expected, but I was taken aback at what we got. 

When we had finished, he laughed-loudly. It was a bit like a crevasse suddenly 

opening up in a glacier, but it was a laugh, sure enough. I think he laughed 

because we civil servants had finished up with egg on our faces. Another 

missile project he had to deal with was the British link in the Ballistic Missile 

Early Warning System. The best site was in a National Park at Fylingdale in 

Yorkshire, and it was important to build the station quickly. Conservationists, 

naturalists, amenity societies were up in arms and demanded a public enquiry. 

One would have been conceded by the usual kind of politician, but not by 

Duncan Sandys. The tank was programmed for credible nuclear deterrence; 

early warning was essential for the credibility of Bomber Command as well as 

Strategic Air Command; the tank rolled on and over the opposition. 

Sandys could claim formal acceptance for nuclear deterrence by NATO. 

After some hard lobbying in the last weeks of 1956, a new Political Directive 

to the Military Authorities was issued in December by the NATO Council. It 

was a document capable of differing interpretations, but formally it accepted a 

trip-wire strategy, sanctioned by massive nuclear retaliation at an early stage if 

war was not deterred. Sandys now had the basis he needed to argue within 

NATO that the British nuclear deterrent justified a reduction in the British 

conventional contribution; to support the case for a manifestly substantial 

strategic nuclear capability; and to apply the logic of nuclear deterrence to 

British force levels and capabilities outside the NATO area, as well as within. 

We must not forget that the objective was not only to bring the defence strategy 

30 
‘Influence of Duncan Sandys 

of the West up to date, to quote the Macmillan directive, it was also to “make 

a substantial reduction in expenditure and man~ower.”~ 

Within NATO, it had been difficult to get agreement on the new political 

directives of December 1956. The SACEUR and SACLANT had both argued 

against any change which would lead to smaller conventional forces. The 

SACEUR, General Walter Gruenther, was reported to have said, “As of now I 

hate the British.”’ His concern was that other NATO allies would also seek a 

reduction in their conventional forces and the Soviet Union would get the 

impression that NATO ’ s unity and determination were weakening. Sandys was 

totally unshaken. He revised the old Roman maxim, “If you want peace prepare 

for war.” The new formulation in his 1957 White Paper was, “The overriding 

consideration in military planning must be to prevent war rather than prepare 

for it.” He insisted on this, despite being asked by the Chairman of the Chiefs 

of Staff to leave it out for similar reasons to those of General Gruenther.” The 

tank was programmed and rolling. 

But it did not roll quite as far, or as fast, as Sandys intended. The British 

Cabinet had hoped to announce a reduction of the Rhine Army from 88,000 to 

45,000 men within about two years, a reduction essential to an early ending to 

National Service to which they were committed. This reduction could not be 

reached: the final figure was 55,000, where it stayed for the next thirty years. 

RAF Germany, in contrast, was halved in size-from four hundred to two 

hundred frontline aircraft-within a year. The Air Staff were not far behind 

Duncan Sandys in being willing to put most of the RAF eggs in the nuclear 

basket. Their plans envisaged an even smaller force in Germany, exclusively for 

strike and reconnaissance, by the beginning of the 1960s. But what was the right 

balance between the nuclear and the conventional? I offer three quotations. 

First, the British Ambassador to NATO in March 1958: 

The Political Directive was still open to conflicting interpretations and 

. . . had plastered over the cracks rather than solved the strategic 

problems of the Alliance. In particular, the United Kingdom were 

known to take a more revolutionary view of military requirements in 

the nuclear age than was acceptable to their continental allies, with the 

Americans standing somewhat uneasily between, conscious of the 

strength of the United Kingdom arguments but equally concerned with 

their possibly dangerous effects on Continental p~licies.~ 

Second, Duncan Sandys at the NATO Council of December 1958: 

The safety of the West continues to depend on our ability to convince 

the Russians that a major attack upon any member of NATO will 

provoke a massive nuclear retaliation. . . . Effectiveness does not 

depend upon the possession of superiority. It depends upon the power 

31 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

to inflict on the aggressor a degree of injury which he is not prepared 

to accept.8 

A third quotation was by Lord Mountbatten commenting on behalf of the 

British Chiefs of Staff in 1960 on a Ministry of Defence memorandum which 

was heavily critical of NATO ' s investment in a set-piece battle-all those 

F-104 Starfighters and tactical nuclear weapons, for instance-and of forward 

defence on the Central Front in strength: 

Our conclusions do not differ greatly in substance . . . but we must 

have regard for the morale of our own troops, the confidence of our 

allies-both in the military and political fields-and the continued 

belief of our enemies in our steadfastness of purpose. . . . We cannot 

admit, even to ourselves, that we would not fight on after a nuclear 

exchange, nor that we should not attempt to defend as much as possible 

of the territory of our continental allies. . . . we must organize, equip, 

train and supply our forces with those evident intentions in view. . . . we must therefore advocate the continuance of a doctrine whose basis 

we agree to be unrealistic from the strictly military point of view? 

These quotations illustrate several aspects of NATO ' s strategic position. 

Looking at them from the British point of view, the historical significance lies 

first in total commitment to the priority of nuclear deterrence; second, the 

application of the deterrent concept in terms of credible British nuclear 

capability, in part because of the political influence it bestowed but partly; and, 

this is the third point, because it would be a unique contribution from within 

Europe to strategic deterrence and justified a lesser conventional contribution 

by the British to NATO. Against this background, it is not surprising that the 

British were mainly interested in the strategic dimension of missilery. A very 

promising tactical ground-to-ground missile, code named Blue Water, which 

was under development before Sandys became Minister of Defence, was to be 

an early sacrifice on the alter of economy. In this area, the British relied on U.S. 

weaponry. With their view of correct NATO strategy, British ministers 

consistently deplored the immense and rapid increase from 1958 onwards, in 

SACEUR's stock of nuclear weapons. They conceded that there was an 

important political dividend, but they reckoned much smaller numbers would 

suffice. And they were strongly opposed to providing SACEUR with groundlaunched missiles that could reach Soviet territory.'" In their view, it was 

politically and strategically essential that capability of that kind should be under 

U.S. and British control. 

Almost the first thing that Sandys did after he was appointed Minister of 

Defence was to write to his opposite number, U.S. Secretary of Defense Charles 

Wilson, confirming an agreement which had been reached in December 1956 

32 
Influence of Duncan Sandys 

thanks to the good relations of the two Air Staffs. This provided for the supply 

of U.S. atomic weapons until RAF stocks were adequate and for joint planning 

and operational coordination between SAC and RAF Bomber Command. 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Macmillan reconfirmed 

this agreement at their Bermuda Conference in March 1957. At this time there 

were also successful Anglo-American negotiations over nuclear information and 

materials and the Thor IRBM. The complicated technical and financial 

agreement, the training of RAF personnel to operate the weapon and the actual 

deployment and emplacement of sixty missiles were extraordinary achievements. But in one significant respect, the programmed tank came up against an 

immoveable obstacle. Blue Streak, the British IRBM, was in trouble. The 

Treasury had always been against it, and Sandys was almost continuously 

engaged in defending a project which he genuinely believed in and was 

personally committed to. Costs, the development programme, number to be 

deployed and, increasingly as time passed, the weapon's credibility as a 

deterrent, were the factors in the argument, especially costs. One possible 

cheaper alternative Sandys was obliged to examine was putting a British 

warhead into Thor, so long as-and this was the all-important provisethe 

U.S. government would then concede unrestricted control of the weapon. 

At a meeting with Mr. Macmillan in May 1957 Sandys reported what had 

taken place at a discussion with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and 

Secretary of Defense Wilson-a very curious report." According to the British 

record, Mr. Sandys thought that the two Americans had accepted the proposition 

of unrestricted control of Blue Streak; he had sent them a letter registering their 

understanding, but the letter had not been acknowledged. Anyway, the proposal 

was not to be seriously pursued. What was pursued was the case against Blue 

Streak. Blue Streak was cancelled, as a weapon launcher, six months after 

Sandys ceased to be Minister of Defence. It had taken longer to develop, and 

had been consequently more costly, than originally estimated. But then, what 

weapon system of this kind has not? The technical problems were eventually 

solved and Blue Streak proved to be satisfactory as a launcher for nonmilitary 

purposes. But accommodating production and deployment costs within a 

defence budget under heavy pressure was one reason for cancellation. The Air 

Staff were not all that enthusiastic; they had an understandable preference for 

an airborne deterrent. The key questions, however, were will it be credible and 

is there an alternative? 

Sandys found himself defending an increasingly vulnerable position. 

Ballistic missiles were for him the only satisfactory instrument of deterrence in 

the long term. One of his earlier decisions had been to cancel all work on a 

supersonic successor to the V-bombers, and when, at the same time, he also 

cancelled the development of a supersonic interceptor fighter, it was because it 

was irrelevant to defence against ballistic missiles. Extending the life of the Vbombers by means of airborne cruise missiles was one possible option, but less 

' 

33 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

important to him than successful development of Blue Streak-a British product 

as well as a ballistic missile. But ground-based ballistic missiles in a country as 

small as Britain were open to criticism for military as well as political reasons. 

For some months in late 1958, Sandys procrastinated over proposals emanating 

from the Cabinet Office as well as the Treasury for a radical review of future 

deterrent systems. But for once his obstinacy was outmaneuvered. 

There was a gathering in June 1959 at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s 

country residence. All the appropriate top brass were there, civilian and 

military, but no politicians other than Mr. Macmillan. The cover story was that 

it was a farewell to the Chief of the Defence Staff who was about to retire. The 

real purpose was to launch a strategic review which, among other questions, 

would consider whether there was an alternative to an independent British 

deterrent; if not, what should be the successor system. So it came about that the 

British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group was formed. Blue Streak was abandoned 

early in 1960 because of its recommendations. Certainly, the weight of military 

as well as political opinion had now moved against Blue Streak, the clinching 

argument being that by the end of the 1960s, when Blue Streak would be fully 

deployed, Soviet missilery would be able to destroy a high proportion of the 

Blue Streak sites. In other words, if Blue Streak was vulnerable to a preemptive 

strike, it could have credibility only as a first-strike weapon, whereas British 

politics would be easier to manage if the deterrent was credible as a retaliatory 

weapon. Sandys, and there were important and able people to support him, 

persisted in the powerful counterargument that a scenario that assumed an attack 

exclusively against Britain was totally unrealistic and that the theoretical 

vulnerability of Blue Streak implied neither that the Soviet Union would be 

unimpressed by the system nor that it failed to provide the political clout of an 

independent British capability. But it was the need for that capability, as 

previously understood, that was coming into question. Semantics were 

significant: the terms of reference of the Nuclear Studies Group required it “to 

consider how the British-controlled contribution to the nuclear deterrent can be 

effectively maintained”-a “contribution,” not necessarily a capability that 

would be a deterrent on its own. 

The Air Staff suspected that these were weasel words and that the weasels 

were hankering after a deterrent system which was not necessarily wholly 

British and also one which had less delivery capability that the V-bomber force. 

On the first point, Polaris was now being advocated as the most credible deterrent system. The British Admiralty had been lukewarm at best about strategic 

deterrence, but now saw the possibility of a system operated by the Navy. But 

Polaris had a competitor: Skybolt, potentially a better airborne weapon than 

Blue Streak Mark 2, offered the cheapest way ahead. On the second point, 

capability, a somewhat arbitrary criterion had been used to justify the size of the 

V-bomber force, and there was undoubtedly scope for something smaller. How 

much is enough is a question that has always haunted the nuclear strategists. 

34 
Influence of Duncan Sandys 

The last months of 1959 and the first months of 1960 saw meeting after 

meeting with final decisions-perhaps I should say final provisional 

decisions-not taken until Mr. Macmillan had discussed with President 

Eisenhower the prospects of obtaining Polaris or Skybolt.’* The outcome must 

be briefly described: Britain abandoned Blue Streak because it was no more 

than a first-strike weapon and continued nuclear deterrence by arming the Vbombers with Skybolt, not Blue Streak Mark 2 for which, it was said, the 

necessary development resources could not be made available. President John 

F. Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert S. MacNamara, who entered office 

at the end of 1960, decided that too many deterrent systems were under 

development and canceled Skybolt two years later. The cat was among the 

pigeons and the chickens had come home to roost. The panicky Nassau 

conference was held in December 1962 and Mr. Macmillan saved his political 

skin with the Polaris deal. One cannot be surprised that writing in his memoirs 

about the cancellation of Blue Streak he said, “I am not now convinced that it 

was ~ise.”’~ 

But if the strategic missilery to succeed the V-bombers had been an 

immensely difficult question, the determination to make the concept of strategic 

deterrence a key feature of defence policy was never abandoned. So it was 

necessary to address the question of how far should the logic of that concept be 

applied to defensive missilery. This was so much a question of air defence of 

deterrent forces in Britain, SAC as well as Bomber Command, that we shall 

concentrate on this. 

A snapshot of RAF plans in 1957 gives a picture of twenty squadrons of 

interceptor fighters equipped with air-to-air missiles, a pursuit-course weapon 

to begin with and a collision-course weapon later on. Genie, an American 

weapon with a nuclear warhead, also figured in the programme. Plans for 

sizeable and progressively improving surface-to-air missile (SAM) defences 

were well advanced, with deployment determined by the need to protect SAC 

and Bomber Command airfields. Some missiles were planned to be nuclear 

tipped. As for numbers, there was a range of possibilities, but if I describe the 

1957 snapshot as showing some twenty missile squadrons armed with between 

five hundred and eight hundred missiles, you will not be misled. Major 

improvements were planned in radar warning and in the control and reporting 

system. Here there was to be argument about the scale of improvements, but no 

conceptual problems. Whatever disputes there might be about the value of 

fighters and SAMs, the nuclear strike forces would be totally unconvincing-to 

both friend and foe-without a sophisticated warning system. It was the twenty 

squadrons of fighters and twenty squadrons of SAMs that were the target for 

those who believed that one area where there was massive scope for economy 

was the air defence of Britain. 

One of Sandys’ earliest decisions was to cancel the development of a 

supersonic interceptor fighter. From then on, the attack on the RAF programme 

35 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

was relentless. More high-level attention was paid to air defence between 1957 

and 1960 than to any other aspect of defence policy. The debate went on beyond 

Mr. Sandys' time and can be said finally to have ended at a meeting of the 

Cabinet Defence Committee in October 1960. As a result, the twenty fighter 

squadrons in the 1957 programme for home air defence had been reduced to 

four, with no more than a further six overseas-Germany, Cyprus, Aden, and 

Singapore. The twenty SAM squadrons were down to two, and these were not 

so much for air defence in Britain as backing for SAM squadrons in Cyprus and 

Singap~re.'~ Whether the logic of nuclear deterrence could or should have been 

applied in other areas is highly debatable. It was certainly applied rigorously to 

the air defence of Britain. There is no time to trace the debate in detail. Here are 

some of the contrasting concepts and arguments: I shall typify the antagonists 

as Sandys and the Air Ministry-because senior civil servants fought just as 

hard as their Royal Air Force colleagues. 

Sandys: The Soviet Union will only attack airfields in Britain if it 

can simultaneously attack all the allied bomber bases, including those 

in the United States. It could not think in those terms until it has an 

adequate number of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This cannot be 

before the mid-1960s. Thereafter fighters will be irrelevant to the 

missile threat, so why spend anything on them in the meantime? 

Air Ministry: We have an independent deterrent and it should be 

defended. An attack could come against Britain alone. Anyway, there 

is still a bomber threat for some years to come, and it would be unwise 

to assume that bombers will be wholly replaced by missiles. And what 

will our allies think? 

Sandys: I take the last point. If we antagonize our allies we might 

make other economics, such as reductions in Germany, more difficult 

to negotiate. So we must be careful not to frighten the horses. But 

heavy involvement in fighter and SAM defences is a waste of money. 

Dispersal airfields for Bomber Command and quick reaction are more 

relevant to credibility. 

Air Ministry: The objective is as much political as military. We 

are not asking for the ability to fight another Battle of Britain but only 

for sufficient forces to demonstrate that our airspace cannot be violated 

and our deterrent forces destroyed with impunity. 

Sandys: Game, set and match to me! You can have a few 

squadrons to police our airspace and see off Soviet aircraft on 

reconnaissance or similar intelligence missions. 

I have somewhat simplified the debate and telescoped a controversy that 

lasted for more than three years. That it took so long is not because senior 

ministers, such as Mr. Macmillan and Duncan Sandys, were doubtful about the 

36 
Influence of Duncan Sandys 

merits of the case. Rather, it was because of the political fallout in Britain and 

NATO. 

The programmed tank had got bogged down, not over the concept of 

strategic deterrence but over the missilery for applying the concept. Over air 

defence, it rumbled remorselessly on and attained its objective. A formidable 

man, Duncan Sandys; given a formidable task in a daunting political and 

economic situation. I wonder what the considered judgement of history will 

make of him? 

Notes 

1. Cabinet Office Records, PR (56). 

2. Cabinet Office Records, Gen 51/2nd meeting, May 31, 1956. 

3. Cabinet Office Records, Minutes of January 18, 1959. 

4. Ibid. 

5. UK D, Paris Tel No. 103, July 2, 1956, reporting a meeting between General Gruenther 

and Field Marshal Montgomery. 

6. MOD Records M02006, Minutes of February 7,1957. 

7. WUN 1-11/1 of March 8, 1958. 

8. MOD Records, MO 13/5/4, Pt 1. 

9. Minutes of September 14,1960, Mountbatten to Minister of Defence, MO 13/1/16, Pt. 1. 

10. A statement of the British objections to the deployment of medium range ballistic 

missiles (MRBMs) under SACEUR’s operational control is in D(60)31 of July 8, 1960. 

11. Cabinet Office Records, Gen 570/2nd Meeting, May 30,1957. 

12. Reporting on his discussions with President Eisenhower in Washington, March 1960, 

Macmillan said “I am grateful to you for expressing your willingness to help us when the 

time comes by enabling us to purchase supplies of Skybolts without warheads or to acquire 

in addition or substitution a mobile MRBM system in the light of such decisions as may be 

reached in the discussions under way on NATO.” MOD Records, MO 26/10/7, p. 1. 

13. Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way: 1959-1961 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 

251. 

14. Cabinet Office Records, D(60) 10th meeting, October 16-17, 1960. 

37 
Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood, GBE, KCB, DSO, DFC, 

FRSA, FRAeS, Royal Air Force, retired, graduated from King Edward 

VI School, Birmingham, and joined the Royal Air Force in 1938. 

Subsequently, he served in Fighter Command during World War 11, 

flying Hurricanes from 1940 through 1942. He then served as a Spitfire 

wing leader from 1943 through 1944. Among his many important postWorld War I1 assignments, Air Chief Marshal Smallwood was the Air 

Officer Commanding and Commandant of the Royal Air Force College 

of Air Warfare from 1959 to 1967; Commander, Royal Air Force 

Guided Missiles Station, Lincs, from 1961 to 1962; Air Officer 

Commanding Near East Air Force, Commander, British Forces Near 

East, and Administrator, Sovereign Base Area, Cyprus, from 1969 to 

1970; Vice Chief of the Air Staff from 1970 to 1974, Commander in 

Chief, Royal Air Force Strike Command, from 1974 to 1976, and 

Commander in Chief, United Kingdom Air Forces, from 1975 to 1976. 

Air Chief Marshal Smallwood was AidC-de-Camp to Queen Elizabeth 

I1 from 1950 to 1964, and served as President of the Air League from 

1981 to 1984. 
Cooperation at the Top: 

A View from a Former 

Vice Chief of the Air Staff and CINCUKAIR 

Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood 

It is really a great pleasure for me to be back in Washington and, 

particularly, to see so many old friends again. You can rest assured, Bryce, I 

shall not overrun my time. I don’t have any lozenges. I don’t know what 

difference that would make, but what i’ m most concerned about is that damned 

shepherd’s crook you have got there. I would not like to finish what has been 

a rather poor public speaking career by being whipped off like they used to do 

in the old music hall comedies! 

I am going to talk about the period when I wa Vice Chief of the Royal Air 

Force and, then, moving on to what became a new appointm 

Commander in Chief, United Kingdom Air Forces (CINCUKA 

to 1976.1 was the first to take up the appointment of CINCUKAIR when the 

command was formed in 1975 as the fourth region in Allied Command Europe, 

reporting directly to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). I 

remember well the investment ceremony which took place at High W 

in the United Kingdom with the then SACEUR, General Nexand 

conducting the investing proceedings, It so happens that Patrick Murray ’ s and 

Cecil James ’ s presentations-there was no collusion in this, curiously 

enough-have dealt with a period of time which lays a good backdrop, to my 

mind, for the period I am going to talk about. In the process, I propose to 

interspace what I have to say with a few anecdotes, going back quite a bit in 

time, in part, for two reasons. One, I think, to “leaven the bread” a bit, and, 

second, to give you my impressions of the very close relationships which did 

develop at all levels, but particularly at the top, in about the last ten to twenty 

years. 

But first, by way of a little background, a few memories of the earlier days. 

My first encounter with the U. S. Air Force, or U.S. Army Air Forces as it was 

then called, was almost precisely fifty years ago. At that time, I was 

* 

As already noted, each speaker was 1 

prominently displayed a shepherd’s ct 

humorously emphasize his determination 

ty-five minutes. General Poe 

39 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

commanding a Spitfire wing based in the United Kingdom on the South Coast 

near Bournemouth. The American Eighth and Ninth Air Forces had moved into 

the United Kingdom in strength and were beginning to develop their daylight 

bombing operations in conjunction with those of the RAF Bomber Command 

at night. At that time, a large percentage of my wing’s operations were 

concerned with providing escort to Eighth Air Force bombing missions, 

although, regrettably, we did not have the range to escort them all the way to the 

target. This ability did not appear until later, with the introduction of the longrange P-51 Mustang. An outstanding leader on the American-operated P-51s 

was a Colonel John C. Meyer. I met him then when he was leading a P-51 

wing, and it was significant and a fortunate coincidence that he was later to 

become the Commander in Chief of SAC and, more to the point, Vice Chief of 

the USAF at the same time that I was appointed to be Vice Chief of the RAF. 

It was as a result of our meetings in the early 1970s that the regular, annual Vice 

Chief to Vice Chief talks began and still continue. 

My first meeting with an American Army Air Forces officer took place at 

my Spitfire base. I had received a telephone call from a colonel commanding a 

Ninth Air Force fighter wing who said that he would like to drop in to discuss 

mutual fighter escort tactics. I was waiting on the tarmac to welcome him and, 

as he taxied, in I was intrigued to see that poking out of his oxygen mask was 

a large cigar. The oxygen mask in those days had a hinged microphone which 

could swing open, very convenient for those who wished to smoke whilst in the 

cockpit. We had a wing leader who smoked a cigarette with a long black ebony 

cigarette holder poking through his mask. I never took to it myself! I was so 

impressed with the cigar-smoking colonel that my memory locked on to this 

incident, and I cannot for the life of me remember what sort of airplane he was 

flying! But it was a memorable first encounter and very significant to me as it 

heralded what was to became a long line of increasingly close relationships with 

the USAF. And now, I find it enormously heartwarming that fifty years later, 

I should find myself yet again talking on matters of policy and operational 

cooperation between our two air forces, and, as it happened so many times 

before, once more in the capital of the United States of America. 

Before I get on to the subject in detail, one further anecdote by way of 

background. In the midsummer of 1977, we held a special ceremony at High 

Wycombe, which, you will remember, was the wartime headquarters of the 

Eighth Air Force, quite close to the headquarters of RAF Bomber Command. 

The ceremony was to mark and perpetuate the memory of the very close 

cooperation between Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command throughout most 

of World War I1 and was held in Wycombe Abbey. Previous to the war, 

Wycombe Abbey had been, and again is, an upmarket, private girls school. 

General Russell Dougherty, then Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command 

(CINCSAC), flew over, accompanied by those two famous generals who came 

out of retirement for the event, Ira C. Eaker and Jimmy Doolittle. On our side 

40 
Cooperation at the Top 

was the great Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris accompanied by 

myself. The planning for the ceremony had been coordinated with the 

headmistress, who remarkably and coincidentally was called Miss Lancaster. 

As our party drove up the drive to the school we noticed the “Stars and Stripes” 

flying from the main flagpole. This had been no part of our planning, and it 

transpired that this was the original flag handed over as a memento to the then 

headmistress by Jimmy Doolittle just prior to him moving Eighth Air Force out 

to the Pacific in 1945. It had been kept in an airtight tin and brought out for the 

first time on the day of the ceremony. Not surprisingly, Eaker and Doolittle 

were pleased and impressed. 

To terminate the ceremony, an Avro Lancaster followed by a l3-17 Flying 

Fortress, flew over the school. At that moment, Bert Harris, who had a waspish 

sense of humour, said to General Eaker, “I think that’s in the right order, don’t 

you, Ira?” It was not recorded what General Eaker’s response was! 

Incidentally, the staff of Headquarters Eighth Air Force were billeted in 

what had been the girl’s dormitories. It was here that took place that well 

known-story about the consternation of those Americans who upon moving in 

saw a notice which read, “If you want a mistress during the night, ring the bell.” 

My main purpose in relating these few anecdotal pieces of background is 

to show that there is nothing new in Anglo-American air force cooperation, as 

was clearly shown to those of you who were at the seminar held at the RAF 

Museum, Hendon, between our two historical associations some few years ago. 

Cooperation started and built up during the war years, continued and developed 

during the postwar.years, and, in my opinion, is as strong and close now as it 

has ever been. 

I took over as Vice Chief in 1970 and remained in that appointment until 

I moved to become CINCUKAIR during 1974-1976. Close liaison already 

existed in many areas. RAF Bomber Command kept in close touch with 

Strategic Air Command by frequent liaison visits. All nuclear targeting was 

coordinated by Headquarters SAC. Both SAC and Bomber Command took part 

in each other’s annual bombing competitions. The U.S. Third Air Force was 

now well settled in the United Kingdom with its headquarters at RAF 

Mildenhall in East Anglia. The RAF had already gained considerable experience of operating USAF aircraft with a fair-sized front line of B-29s, not to 

mention the Thor ballistic missile and several hundred F-86s. There was a 

wide-ranging personnel exchange programme, whereby each of the commands 

on both sides of the Atlantic had USAF and RAF personnel attached. There was 

considerable exchange of views at the top between commands and between the 

Air Force departments in the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence in London. 

But there was no formal arrangement for regular interchange at the top, and this 

is the subject I want to concentrate on for the rest of my talk. 

Before I do, however, I must make a particular point related to the Third 

Air Force. Its existence, following the withdrawal of the Eighth and Ninth Air 

41 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

Forces, marks one of the of the most remarkable and successful military 

presences by a foreign power in a foreign land. In those elapsed fifty years, 

there has been a continuous and formidable presence of American Air Force 

people in the United Kingdom. I have no idea of the total number of Americans 

who have served there, but it must run into millions. All that time, and I was 

closely connected with these activities, I can think of no major incident of poor 

or unseemly behaviour by that multitude of men and, indeed, women. It is a 

most remarkable piece of history which, in my opinion, has no parallel and 

ought to be officially written up. Perhaps it already has been or somebody is 

about to do it. I can only say that, if you look into some areas of British military 

occupation overseas, they do not bear such close scrutiny! 

The idea of regular Vice Chief to Vice Chief talks had already been mooted, 

and as a first step, I was invited by General John C. Meyer to visit him in the 

Pentagon, and this I did. I should say enpassant here that two men who played 

a considerable part in the development of those talks at that time were the two 

air attache-Colonel, later General and Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. 

Air Force, Thomas McInerney, in London, and Air Commodore, later Air 

Marshal, “Paddy” Harbison, in Washington. During this first visit with General 

Meyer we. had a full-ranging discussion on most matters of mutual interest. 

During my recent research into this visit, I could find no record in London of 

the detail of our discussions. Suffice to say, however, I remember we discussed 

infer alia the continuation and development of exchange postings, the future 

programme and policy for Third Air Force, participation in the SAC and 

Bomber Command bombing competitions, nuclear targeting coordination by 

Headquarters, SAC, and augmentation and allocation of airfields in the United 

Kingdom for reinforcement by the USAF in an emergency. At the conclusion 

to this first meeting, we agreed to continue on a regular yearly basis, and the 

next meeting duly took place in London sometime later. 

I want now to say a little bit more on the subjects I just mentioned and to 

mention one or two others. I would emphasize, however, that what I have to say 

will not be all-embracing as time and memory will not permit. 

Exchange Postings. The exchange posting scheme had already been 

running for a number of years. At the time of this first meeting, the records 

show that the RAF and the USAF each had over fifty exchange personnel 

serving with the other air force. We agreed that this pattern should continue, and 

it is comforting to know that the exchange programme has continued more or 

less unchanged up to this day, and only now, for the first time, is consideration 

being given to a cutback in numbers in the light of present force reductions. We 

reviewed in the early 1970s the value of this programme and confirmed the 

benefits that emerged in the knowledge of each other’s operational activities. 

Third Air Force. The operations of Third Air Force were already closely 

coordinated with those of the RAF based in the United Kingdom and agreement 

was reached for even closer cooperation-such matters as participation in 

42 
Cooperation at the Top 

United Kingdom Air Defence operations, during which the USAF wings at RAF 

Bentwaters and Lakenheath would, in certain circumstances, come under the 

operational control of the United Kingdom Air Defence operations centre; the 

Third Air Force participating in antishipping exercises and operations; USAF 

forces used for offensive support and reconnaissance in U.K. Land Forces 

exercises; RAF forces rehearsing inflight refuelling with USAF KC-135 

tankers; Third Air Force providing electronic warfare support for joint 

exercises; and many other subjects. This liaison between Third Air Force and 

the U.K.-based RAF worked well in those days, but it was helped considerably 

by the formation of RAF Strike Command in 1968, when the four operational 

commands of Bomber, Fighter, Coastal, and Transport were amalgamated under 

one headquarters. This new headquarters, based on the old Bomber Command 

headquarters, later assumed the additional title in 1975, as I have already said, 

of HQ UKAIR, which with its official NATO connections, even further helped 

the close liaison with Third Air Force. 

SAC and RAJ? Bombing Competitions. It was agreed that considerable 

benefit was obtained by both sides from this yearly interchange. The RAF, in 

particular, obtained valuable experience in competing against SAC but initially 

not with great success, in terms of coming out on top. It was not until 1975 that 

the RAF won SAC’S coveted Mather Trophy for the first time. I will have more 

to say about this in a moment when I review some of the matters of mutual 

importance which transpired later when I was CINCUKAIR. 

Nuclear Targeting. This was an area which had been well developed into 

very close cooperation, particularly between Strategic Air Command and 

Bomber Command in the days when General Curtis LeMay and Air Marshal Sir 

Kenneth Cross were respectively Commanders in Chief. There was already an 

RAF representation at Headquarters SAC for this purpose, and it was agreed to 

maintain this representation and strengthen it. It is encouraging to note that this 

arrangement has continued right through, relatively unchanged, to this day. 

Augmentation and Forward Airfield Allocation. Detailed planning 

during this period between our respective staffs produced a precise plan of 

allocation of airfields in the United Kingdom for USAF reinforcement during 

an emergency. It was a subject of considerable importance and continued to be 

developed and strengthened during the four years that I was Vice Chief. Such 

was its importance that it was considered from time to time at Chiefs and Joint 

Chiefs of Staff level. This emphasized the point that, although the mainstream 

of joint planning and discussion was conducted at Vice Chief level, the 

respective Chiefs kept in close touch from time to time. Thus, the two Chiefs 

for whom I served, Air Marshals Sir John Grandy and Sir Denis Spotswood, 

were often in communication with their opposite numbers in Washington, at 

that time, Generals John Ryan, George Brown, and David Jones. The latter, for 

example, paid several visits to the United Kingdom to consolidate some of the 

planning on the augmentation subject. 

43 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

And so, the Vice Chief to Vice Chief regular meetings continued on a 

regular basis, alternating between Washington and London. John Meyer retired 

in 1972, to be followed by General Horace Wade, and then General Richard 

Ellis. These changes made no difference to the momentum of the talks, and they 

have continued right up to this day, with the USAF team still being led by the 

USAF Vice Chief, now General Michael P.C. Carns, and the RAF team by CinC 

Strike, as the RAF Vice Chief appointment was disbanded some few years ago. 

I understand that the next meeting is due to take place in the United Kingdom 

in the near future. 

Before I leave the subject of cooperation during my time as Vice Chief, 

there are one or two other points I would like to make. In 1970, the USAF 

started what came to be known as the NATO Air Chiefs tour. This was an 

annual two-week tour round important military installations in the United 

States. Although the party included all the Chiefs of Air Staff-and sometimes 

the Vice Chiefs-and senior air commanders in NATO, it provided an excellent 

and informal opportunity to have private and informal discussions with one’s 

USAF counterparts, sometimes with a touch of “in vino veritus”! I went on most 

of these tours from 1970 to 1976, as in the later years CINCUKAIR was 

included on the list. Furthermore, CINCUKAIR joined SACEUR for regular 

monthly meetings with the agenda producing valuable background to current 

RAF affairs, but as the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers 

Europe, who was always a USAF four-star general-in my day, General Russell 

Dougherty, followed by General Louis T. Seith-it provided a regular and 

excellent opportunity for an exchange of views on air force matters. Again, all 

of these areas of cooperation continue in the present day. 

In 1974, I took up the appointment of CinC Strike, which was soon to 

become jointly-hatted, as I have already explained, as CINCUKAIR. I said I 

would talk a little further about the SAC Bombing competition and the fact that 

the RAF won the coveted Mather Trophy for the first time in 1975. In view of 

this unique event-as it then was, we won it again later-I flew over to 

Barksdale Air Force Base in a VC-10 to be met by my old friend who was then 

CINCSAC. Understandably, he looked none too pleased with the fact that, for 

the first time, the Mather Trophy had slipped out of SAC’S grasp. Nevertheless, 

as always, I was made very welcome. The awards ceremony was held in one of 

the massive hangers at Barksdale, and immense trouble had been devoted to 

converting the interior into what might almost be described as a Roman 

ampitheatre. I remember that when I was being taken over to view the premises 

by a “bird colonel” responsible for the arrangements, I noticed a large cross 

over the door to the main entrance. On asking the colonel what this was for, the 

colonel replied, “Well sir, everyone I have shown round this hanger so far on 

seeing the magnificence of the setting has involuntarily muttered, ‘Jesus 

Christ!”’ He was right! This particular SAC Bombing Competition was also 

notable by the fact that it was the first time-I think I am right in saying 

44 
Cooperation at the Top 

this-that the F-111s of Tactical Air Command had taken part. It enabled me 

to meet General Robert Dixon, then commander of TAC, with whom I struck 

up a close friendship. But more about that later. TAC, curiously enough, did not 

do very well in this competition and at a senior USAF luncheon hosted by Russ 

Dougherty-many of the former commanders of SAC were there including Curt 

LeMay; I was the only foreigner present-he decided to play a small practical 

joke on Bob Dixon by presenting Bob, at an appropriate moment, with an 

antique crock jerrypot that he had stored under the luncheon table. However, the 

tenor of the luncheon turned out be unsuitable for this informal presentation. 

The senior members were not pleased with the USAF performance, and I 

remember Russ decided to give up the idea. He kicked the jerrypot well out of 

sight, under the table where it disappeared to the sound rather like a ship’s bell. 

Altogether a memorable occasion and one which I shall never forget. 

During my time as CinC Strike, I paid several visits to Headquarters SAC 

and to Headquarters TAC and on the last occasion, flew the F-15 Eagle. 

General Dougherty came over to the awards ceremony held at RAF Waddington 

in the United Kingdom for the 1975 Strike Command Bomb Competition when 

he was able to achieve his revenge, as SAC won. I also had a memorable visit 

from General Dixon, particularly in relation to the planning that was then 

proceeding, strongly supported and supervised by Bob himself, for the 

development of what became known as “Red Flag.” This was an area of the 

Nevada desert devoted to simulating in the most realistic fashion the combat 

conditions likely to be experienced against the Soviet Union. The program had 

been originally conceived and set up after the Vietnam War, but the RAF did 

not take part in these exercises until 1977. The fact that they were able to do so 

at that time was due very much to the influence and cooperation of General 

Dixon. Since then, Vulcans, Buccaneers, Jaguars, Tornados, and RAF C-130s 

have all participated. The pattern developed into Strike Command being 

allocated two Red Flag periods per year, with the aircraft being based at Nellis 

Air Force Base. I understand that this arrangement still continues, which is 

excellent, for Red Flag provides, to my mind, the finest combat training to be 

found anywhere in the Western World. 

During his last visit to Strike Command, after an official programme I 

asked Bob Dixon if there was anything else he wanted to do. “Yes,” he said, “I 

would like to revisit RAF Benson.” Bob had joined the Royal Canadian Air 

Force before the United States entered World War I1 and had been posted to the 

United Kingdom to become a part of the elite photo reconnaissance force flying 

specialized Spitfires based at Benson. “Sure,” I said, “I will lay on an official 

visit.” “No,” he said, 

I would like to do this privately. I merely want to show my wife the 

married quarters I occupied at that time as a bachelor establishment. I 

‘ have hired a saloon motor car and I could drop in on my way from 

45 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

London on a visit I am making to Oxford. As the officers married 

quarters will be outside the security wire, I could just motor in, show 

my wife the layout, and then motor on to Oxford. 

I took no further action in the matter. Bob duly arrived privately at Benson early 

one fine summer’s morning driving a black sedan. As he realized that the 

married officers quarters would now be occupied by a family he stopped about 

one hundred yards from the house and pointed it out to his wife. Inside the 

house was the young wife of a flight lieutenant who was preparing the children 

to go to school. Unknown to Bob, or to me for that matter, there had been a 

false alarm, an Irish Republican Army bomb scare, the night before. The young 

wife looked out of the window and seeing, as she put it, this “evil black motor 

car with a man with penetrating blue eyes pointing in a menacing way at her 

house,” she called the police. The next thing that Bob knew, he was surrounded 

by some six police cars. The first thing I knew about this was when the station 

commander telephoned me to say that he had a slight problem. “Oh,” I asked, 

“what is it?” “I’m afraid we’ve arrested General Dixon.” It all ended happily, 

and I think that Bob has dined out on this story many times! 

I tell this story, by way of a postscript, as I think it illustrates, perhaps better 

than anything else, what I have encountered over the last fifty years: the close 

relationship that existed and still exists between our two services. 

46 
The Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles 

To RAF Greenham Common 

Lieutenant Colonel Michael A. Kirtland 

I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. However, I do feel a little bit 

like a pair of brown shoes in a room full of tuxedos, next to the other members 

of this distinguished panel. I would like to talk to you about Greenham Common 

and the deployment of ground launched-cruise missiles (GLCMs) there. Let me 

begin by suggesting to you that, simply because opposing commanders decide to 

take a stand, great military battles have been fought at places that otherwise 

lacked strategic significance. The little town of Gettysburg comes to mind, as 

does the Somme, an otherwise unremarkable stream in northern France. In more 

recent history, a remote spot in the jungle called Khe Sanh was the scene of one 

of the Vietnam War’s major battles because opposing commanders wanted to 

make a stand. During the Cold War, a high-stakes, albeit mostly nonviolent, 

confrontation occurred at Greenham Common, a quiet Royal Air Force base near 

the little town of Newbury, England. What could have been a routine deployment 

of a new weapon system became much more. The simple movement of pawns in 

the superpowers’ arms control match escalated into a turning point in the Cold 

War. 

The story of the development and deployment of GLCMs is multifaceted. 

Limits on the length on this paper demand that it focus on a relatively narrow area 

of the subject: the political nature of development and the opposition to European 

deployment. Within those confines the paper will be further limited to those areas 

which directly affected the first of the GLCM bases-RAF Greenham Common. 

Like so many significant conflicts, the battle to deploy GLCMs was fought at 

more than one level. At the strategic level, the Soviet Union and North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization struggled for world, and especially European, political 

influence. At the same time, at RAF Greenham Common itself, a tactical battle 

was fought for control of domestic opinion. The two fields of conflict intertwined 

and the direction of one influenced the direction of the other, but they were both 

a part of the same struggle. If the domestic front were lost, it would not matter 

that NATO stood firm in the face of Soviet political rhetoric. On the other hand, 

if the NATO allies faltered in the face of Soviet pressure to prevent deployment, 

it would be irrelevant how popular or unpopular deployment was with average 

citizens. To understand the scale of the conflict over deployment, one must 

consider the campaign that was waged at both levels. 

47 
Lieutenant Colonel Michael A. Kirtland, Military Doctrine Analyst, 

Airpower Research Institute, Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, 

and Education, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, earned his B.A. in history from 

Coe College, Iowa, his M.P.A. from the University of Colorado at 

Colorado Springs, and a J.D. from Faulkner University in Alabama. He 

is also a graduate of the Air Command and Staff College and the Air 

War College. As a missile officer, Lieutenant Colonel Kirtland has 

worked with the Titan I1 and the ground-launched cruise missile. He has 

published articles, editorials, and reviews in the Airpower Journal, Air 

Force Times, and Aerospace Historian and served as Associate Editor 

ofAirpower Journal between 1986 and 1990. 
Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles 

It is also important to keep in mind the state of strategic arms negotiations 

between the United States and the Soviet Union, since, as will be noted, the 

GLCM was a major factor in that process. Cruise missile technology had not been 

a major concern in developing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) I 

agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. During SALT I 

negotiations, Soviet leaders simply did not anticipate the advances the United 

States had made in cruise missile technology. However, from the beginning of the 

SALT I1 talks, the Soviets made cruise missiles a focal point.’ The Soviets 

believed that the SALT negotiations had helped them reach parity with the United 

States in nuclear weapons. They viewed development of theater nuclear forces 

(TNF) as an attempt by the United States and NATO to reacquire strategic 

superiority and saw the deployment of GLCM and Pershing I1 as an attempt to 

circumvent the SALT I1 proposed limits and to create a negotiating advantage in 

the talks.2 

The GLCM had such an important impact because the American missile 

technology posed a dangerous threat to the Soviets. The Soviets and Americans 

had both captured World War I1 German V-1 technology and investigated its 

uses after the war. The United States, however, soon abandoned explorations in 

this area in favor of developing a mix of manned aircraft and ballistic missiles. 

The Soviet Union, in contrast, pursued cruise missile studies and ultimately 

deployed a number of ground- and sea-launched versions, although the 

technology involved in these systemswas rudimentary, far below that which U.S. 

weapons designers were capable of producing. In the mid-l970s, interest in 

unmanned, subsonic missiles revived in the United States. Advances in solidstate and computer technology enabled US. designers to produce and field a 

sophisticated, highly accurate, relatively inexpensive weapon. 

Soviet fear of the GLCM was based on the missile’s extremely small size 

and high degree of accuracy. Only twenty-one feet long and twenty-one inches 

in diameter, the GLCM could fly a twenty-five hundred-kilometer course at subsonic speed and deliver its nuclear warhead with incredible accuracy. Unlike 

ballistic missile systems, the farther the GLCM flew along its flight path, the 

more accurate it became, thanks to its terrain contour matching guidance system? 

Despite the long flight time to the target, the accuracy of the missile led Soviet 

leaders to contend that the GLCM was a first-strike weapon system. Soviet Chief 

of the General Staff, Marshal Nikolai V. Ogarkov, told an audience of senior 

Soviet military leaders in June 1980 that GLCMs would “disrupt the approximate 

balance of medium-range nuclear systems that has been created in Europe” and 

would “create the threat of a surprise suppression of the launches of our strategic 

nuclear force^."^ Perceiving a significant threat from GLCMs, the Soviets began 

to develop a negotiating strategy backed by intensive political and propaganda 

campaigns that characterized the foreign policy of Yuri Andropov, leader of the 

Soviet Union from 1982 to 1984. This fixation on preventing deployment of TNF 

was not based solely on the perceived threat from GLCM. Soviet leaders also saw 

49 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

an opportunity to create a major schism within the NATO community and to exploit it for their benefit.5 

Despite its potential value, it must be remembered that the GLCM was a 

weapon system that the U.S. military had originally opposed. The U.S. Army 

envisioned Pershing I1 as a replacement for Pershing I and viewed the GLCM, 

which might normally have been considered an Army system, as a threat to 

Pershing I1 development dollars. U.S. Air Force leaders, for their part, opposed 

the GLCM as an unmanned system which threatened the limited funding 

available for manned aircraft. In addition, most Air Force leaders were 

disinterested in ground-based systems of any kind, and certainly did not want to 

spend good money on what was nothing more than an arms control bargaining 

chip. As a result, the Carter administration had to force the GLCM program on 

the USAF. With each annual budget, the Air Force placed the missile at the 

bottom of its priority list, knowing that the administration would fund it, 

sometimes providing more money than the service had requested for the system.6 

The USAF thus had the system under development when NATO leaders 

decided they needed a way to counter a new Soviet threat. In 1977 the Soviet 

Union began deploying mobile SS-20 medium-range baIlistic missiles. This new 

generatiOD of missiles was to replace existing SS4 and SS-5 missiles. NATO 

military leaders regarded this deployment as more than simple replacement of 

older systems, however. They believed it would provide a significant increase in 

the capability of Soviet TNF because of the numbers deployed, their increased 

accuracy, and the fact that each carried three warheads. Of most concern, the 

SS-20’s mobility made it extremely difficult to locate, target, and destroy. By the 

time NATO leaders decided to develop and deploy GLCMs, the Soviets had 

already fielded approximately 140 SS-20 missiles.’ 

In May 1977, the NATO High Level Group, made up of members from 

NATO ’ s Nuclear Planning Group, recommended upgrading NATO ’ s theater 

nuclear systems in response to the SS-20 threat. Publicly, NATO concerns about 

the theater nuclear balance first surfaced in an October 1977 speech by West 

German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to the International Institute for Strategic 

Studies. Chancellor Schmidt questioned the security of Western Europe given the 

strategic nuclear parity that had developed between the United States and the 

Soviet Union. For Schmidt, and other leaders, the question was whether the 

United States would respond with strategic nuclear weapons to a Soviet attack on 

Europe, given that such a response would most likely engender a retaliatory 

attack on the continental United States. Europeans leaders feared the United 

States would not take such a risk; the United States might trade European security 

for U.S. strategic nuclear security. The American position was that the nuclear 

deterrent force of USAF F-111 fighter-bombers and U.S. Navy sea-launched 

ballistic missiles (SLBMs), both already in place, tied the United States to 

Europe. The problem was that unrefuded F-111s could not reach deep into the 

Soviet Union, and SLBMs, by their very nature, could not be seen. British 

50 
Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles 

Secretary of State for Defence Fred Mulley wrote to U.S. Secretary of Defense 

Harold Brown that the link was insufficient: NATO’s concerns about the 

strength of U.S. resolution, combined with the determination of President Jimmy 

Carter’s administration to respond to the continually growing number of SS-20s 

deployed by the Soviet Union, led to the American commitment to deploy 

GLCMs and Pershing 11s. Even then, however, members of the Carter 

administration helped validate European uncertainty because they could never 

decide whether the GLCM was really a deployable weapon system or just a 

bargaining chip in arms control negotiations? 

The official NATO response to the continued deployment of SS-20s by the 

Soviet Union came in December 1979. NATO would follow a “dual-track” 

strategy. On one track, it would pursue intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) 

arms control negotiations with the Soviets in Geneva, Switzerland. At the same 

time, it would pursue development and deployment of 108 Pershing 11s and 464 

GLCMS.” Five nations-the United Kingdom, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, 

and the Netherlands-would host US. GLCM units. Actual deployment would 

occur unless arms control negotiations proved effective.” 

Soviet reaction to the NATO dual-track announcement was immediate. 

Overtly, Soviet leaders declared that the decision destroyed the basis for INF 

negotiations, and they refused to consider further discussions, a position they 

maintained until July 1980.12 Covertly, they perceived a tremendous opportunity 

to achieve theater nuclear superiority and, if the gambit of breaking negotiations 

was successful, to develop a virtual veto over future NATO deployment 

de~isi0ns.l~ In this effort, Soviet leaders developed a strategy aimed at preventing 

deployment by breaking the solidarity of NATO through the exploitation of the 

antinuclear and peace movements in the West. Their efforts to manipulate those 

movements became so pervasive, an Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis book 

later concluded, as to have “become the fulcrum of Soviet policy towards 

NAT0.”l4 The Soviets had decided that TNF deployment was the point in the 

Cold War where they would make their stand. 

In response, the NATO allies sought to defend the alliance as an effective 

political and military force despite their domestic political differences. Given the 

failure of the alliance to act in the face of intense domestic political opposition 

(partly encouraged by the Soviets) and in the development and deployment of the 

Enhanced Radiation Weapon-the neutron bomb-the members of NATO 

realized that if they again failed in TNF deployment, they might never succeed 

in fielding another major theater weapon system. Coming so closely after the 

neutron bomb failure, TNF deployment might have been “a make-or-break test 

of NATO cohe~ion.”’~ 

The Soviets would repeatedly break negotiations during the next five years, 

each time attempting to achieve maximum political benefit before returning to the 

negotiating table. At the same time, it must be remembered, their own 

deployment of SS-20s continued at the rate of more than one per week. In fact, 

51 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

even after Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev announced a unilateral 

“moratorium” on deployment of SS-20s in March 1982-supposedly to induce 

a similar moratorium by NATO-the Soviets continued construction on five 

SS-20 bases in Eastern Europe.I6 The Soviet emphasis was on propaganda to split 

the West, not on arms control. By the time the first GLCMs reached RAF 

Greenham Common in November 1883, the Soviets had deployed 378 SS-20s.” 

To achieve their objectives, Soviet leaders recognized that they had to 

influence public opinion in Western Europe against deployment. While the 

antinuclear movements were strongest in countries such as the Netherlands, the 

Soviets knew that to prevent deployment, they would have to concentrate their 

efforts in West Germany and in the United Kingdom. Not only would these two 

countries host the majority of the TNF weapons, but as the two largest European 

NATO members, their actions would be decisive in determining whether 

deployment would take place. Since the first missiles were destined for RAF 

Greenham Common, Soviet leaders sought to use the antinuclear and peace 

movements in Britain to undermine domestic support for such a deployment. 

They understood precisely that, while they might aid and encourage domestic 

unrest, real opposition had to come from local populations. This was the start of 

the tactical battle. Forces to fight this battle were garnered from a variety of 

antinuclear groups and other pacifist movements. While Soviet-influenced, these 

were genuine domestic political groups. 

The antinuclear movement in Great Britain dated from the 1950s when 

Britain first developed its own nuclear retaliatory forces. The first British Hbomb detonation in 1957 led to the formation of an organization known as the 

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The CND included mainstream 

British citizens from both the left and the right opposed to nuclear weapons as 

well as radicals and socialists of all flavors. The movement was closely 

associated with the Labour Party and in the late 1950s gained such political 

influence that the Labour Party at its annual conference in 1960voted to advocate 

unilateral nuclear disarmament for Great Britain, although it reversed that 

position the next year.18 In addition, the CND was endorsed by the Communist 

Party of Great Britain (CPGB), with which it developed an extremely close 

relationship. 

The CND was a significant political movement in Britain until the signing 

of the 1963 Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. This agreement, the first of the major 

nuclear arms treaties, reduced interest in the antinuclear movement and CND 

membership dwindled to around two thousand individuals. At the same time that 

membership in CND plummeted, communist influence in the organization grew 

and by 1963 the CPGB had converted the CND into its main peace front.Ig 

Ultimately, the association between the CND and the Communist Party became 

so strong that the top five stated goals of the CND and CPGB were identical. 

Communist assumption of leading positions within the CND reached its pinnacle 

when John Cox became chairman in 197L2” Ten years later, when CPBG leaders 

52 
Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles 

celebrated their importance in the CND during the Party’s 1981 national 

congress, they were joined by Monsignor Bruce Kent, General Secretary of the 

CND, who praised the CPGB for keeping the peace movement going during the 

“lean years.” CND officials also had direct ties to other Soviet front organizations 

in Britain, including the British Peace Assembly and the World Peace Council. 

Additionally, the Soviet Peace Committee, an organization dedicated to antiNATO and antinuclear activity in the West, maintained a close relationship with 

the CND, sending “observers” to the CND annual conferences in 1982 and 

1983.21 

The decision to develop and deploy GLCMs to England breathed new life 

into an almost moribund organization. By 1980, the membership in CND had 

risen modestly to approximately three thousand, but, at the time the GLCM was 

deployed at the end of 1983, participation had surged to some seventy thousand 

and included a mixed group of citizens dedicated to the peace movement, along 

with others dissatisfied with society for a wide variety of reasons. Monsignor 

Kent claimed that 23 percent of CND members were practicing Christians, and 

available statistics bear him out.22 At its peak, the organization contained some 

twenty thousand Quakers and others with antimilitary or pacifist beliefs. In 

addition to the Quakers, Anglican Church members, including clergy, were also 

heavily involved. But secular voices were important, too. The Communist Party 

of Great Britain contributed roughly fifteen thousand individuals to the 

organization, about 85 percent of the Party ’ s member~hip.~~ 

The Labour Party continued its close association with the CND, as well. 

Sixty-eight percent of CND members had voted for Labour candidates in the 

1979 elections that brought Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher to 

power as Prime Minister. Surprisingly, in retrospect, Labour governments had 

made most of the pronuclear deployment decisions through the years, including 

the 1947 decision to develop a British nuclear capability and the determination 

to deploy U.S. nuclear-armed F-111s in Britain. In fact, the Labour government 

of Prime Minister James Callaghan had initially supported the deployment of 

GLCMs to counter the SS-20s. However, radical Labour elements assumed more 

stature following Callaghan’s defeat in 1979 and his resignation as party leader 

in November 1980, and the party reversed its position. Beginning in 1980, 

Labour Party annual conferences voted three years in a row against basing U.S. 

nuclear weapon systems in Great Britain. 

Anti-American sentiment added to the anti-GLCM movement. Many British 

saw the new American leader, President Ronald Reagan, as a dangerous “nuclear 

cowboy,” and his election in 1980 increased fears of unilateral use of nuclear 

weapons based on British soil. This view reached its zenith after Reagan failed 

to consult with the European allies prior to the 1983 Grenada invasion, an event 

that raised anew the issue of how much control Britain had over the release of 

U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in the United Kingdom. A London Sunday Times 

poll taken immediately after the Grenada invasion showed 73 percent of all 

53 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

British citizens believed the United States would launch nuclear strikes from the 

United Kingdom even if the British government ~bjected.’~ 

To allay fears of unilateral action by the United States and to increase the 

involvement of European NATO members in TNF deployment, the United States 

offered NATO “dual key” control of GLCM missiles. Under the dual-key 

concept, the United States would control the nuclear warheads on a day-to-day 

basis, while the weapon systems themselves would be owned and operated by the 

host nation or in conjunction with the United States. Thus, both nations would 

have to agree to release the weapons since the warheads and the launchers would 

be under the control of separate authorities. Ultimately, however, none of the 

NATO host nations took advantage of this option, because of the additional 

monetary cost such a system would entail. 

In a House of Commons debate on December 20, 1979, Prime Minister 

Thatcher assured Parliament that the launch decision was a joint matter, and she 

could ground her assurance in the knowledge that the United States and Great 

Britain had a long history of cooperation and consultation concerning the 

deployment and use of nuclear weapon^?^ Beginning with the Attlee-Truman 

agreement in 1948, and reconfirmed in the 1952 Churchill-Truman agreement, 

both nations understood that U.S. leaders would consult with British leaders prior 

to authorizing the release of nuclear weapons. The procedure was formalized in 

the 1962 Athens Guidelines, which required consultation with host nations for 

release of nuclear weapons in NATO, and was further refined in 1968 when the 

NATO Nuclear Planning Group reemphasized the consultation requirement in 

NATO nuclear release procedures.26 Despite public perception of a problem, 

government-to-government and military-to-military procedures were thus firmly 

in place. In the case of the British, as with most of the other host nations, the 

financial burden of purchasing their portions of the weapons system was simply 

not worth the cost when compared to any perceived increase in nuclear control. 

In any event, in the case of British-based GLCMs, RAF Regiment personnel 

would be a major part of the GLCM flights when they left their base and 

deployed to launch positions in the field, giving additional assurances of British 

involvement in the launch process?’ 

RAF Greenham Common was the first GLCM base and, as a result, it 

became the leading and most important target of the anti-GLCM campaign. 

Greenham Common was the test case. If antinuclear activists could prevent 

deployment, NATO would be weakened and deployment elsewhere would be 

difficult, if not unlikely. On the other hand, successful deployment at Greenham 

Common would emphasize and enhance NATO solidarity and ease later 

deployments. For the protesters, Greenham Common became a battle they could 

not afford to lose. For NATO, the United Kingdom, and the United States, 

deployment on schedule became a firm commitment. 

Compounding the difficulty of gaining public support for deployment was 

the problem of time, complicated by the fixed schedule that established initial 

, 54 
Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles 

operational capability (IOC) for December 1983, only four years after NATO 

made the dual-track announcement described above. Because of the importance 

to NATO of meeting its commitment, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger 

directed that under no circumstances would the IOC date be allowed to slip?* 

Ensuring the weapon system was delivered on time was the job of the Joint 

Cruise Missile Program Office (JCMPO). The JCMPO was responsible for both 

GLCM and the Navy’s sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM), and here the 

problems created by earlier visions of the GLCM as an arms control bargaining 

chip rather than a deployable weapon system came back to haunt those tasked 

with preparing for deployment. The JCMPO ’ s difficulties eventually resulted in 

the removal of the Navy admiral in charge. Among its failures, JCMPO neglected 

to contract for fifty different pieces of training equipment, seventeen of which 

were not delivered in time to train the first GLCM crews. Another, and perhaps 

the most serious deficiency, was in the area of software development for the 

launch control system where performance problems interfered with launch crew 

training. Delays in weapon system development and manufacture reduced the 

time available for the GLCM crews to learn to operate and maintain the system 

prior to depl0yment.2~ 

Training took place at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, where the 

USAF activated the 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron (TMTS) in July 

1982. Little time was available to accomplish all the different tasks that lay 

before that organization, however, and many problems hampered its work. The 

first class of students entered in February 1983. Squadron morale was high and, 

despite shortages in instructional materials, limited training equipment, severe 

time constraints, and requirements for numerous “work arounds,” the class 

graduated on schedule on April 26,1983, and headed for England?” 

In the meantime, site activation activities began at RAF Greenham Common 

in mid-1981 with the arrival of various engineering and support detachments. The 

GLCM organization at Greenham Common, the 501st Tactical Missile Wing 

(TMW), was activated on July 1,1982. The 501st, like the 868 TMTS, struggled 

with its numerous difficulties in bringing the GLCM to a ready status. At the time 

the wing was activated, for example, no formal mission statement or 

organizational directives existed. Headquarters, United States Air Forces in 

Europe (Ha USAFE), at Ramstein Air Base, West Germany, did provide a rough 

outline for a mission and organization, but it was rudimentary at best.3’ 

Accordingly, the 501st put together its own vision of where it needed to go. The 

wing was to “maintain a capability to destroy or neutralize enemy offensive 

nuclear aircraft, fixed surface-to-surface missiles, nuclear storage areas, 

headquarters, command and control centers, and offensive and defensive air 

forces.”32 

By the time the 501st activated, protests were already old hat. Low-key 

demonstrations began in August 1981, then expanded. On September 5th, 1981, 

the first widely publicized event saw twelve women chain themselves to the base 

55 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

perimeter fence. The protesters had no formal organization at this time, but later 

identified themselves as the Greenham Common Women ’ s Peace Camp.33 Early 

on, these individuals established a semipermanent camp outside the base where 

they took advantage of confusion over who had jurisdiction over the land on 

which they camped. Depending on exactly where the women sat, either the 

Ministry of Transport or the local Newbury District Council was the responsible 

authority. The result was that whenever eviction notices were served on camp 

members, they simply shifted positions a few feet, thereby entering a different 

jurisdiction. In the early days of the peace camp, between twenty and forty 

women were present at any given time, with that number rising to between two 

and three hundred on ~eekends.3~ The peace camp remained an irritant to USAF 

and RAF personnel who dealt with the protesters throughout the Greenham 

Common experience. It was especially irritating to American personnel who had 

to pass the camp every day when going to or leaving work. In general, the 

atmosphere at Greenham Common was peaceful, but strained by the difficulty in 

entering the base. Personnel who passed through the gates were left with the 

impression of entering an armed camp and being locked in. 

The official USAF position was that the peace protesters were an internal 

British political matter in which the United States had no authority. The 501st 

TMW commander ordered the peace camp placed off limits to his personnel and 

forbade contact of any kind with the protesters. But the effect on base personnel 

of the jurisdictional squabble was a perception of lukewarm British government 

commitment which affected the unit’s morale. The perception of the British 

government as unsupportive of GLCM personnel was furthered on September 

11th when the peace camp women sent a letter to the RAF base commander. At 

a meeting with the commander the next day, the women demanded access to a 

water supply, phone service, and reduced presence of Ministry of Defence 

(MOD) police. The base commander gave the women access to a water supply.35 

Another major problem for morale and American perceptions of the British 

attitude was the result of failure to impose significant penalties on the protesters 

following their arrest. Unlike protestors in other situations, these would normally 

be released shortly after their arrest without formal charges being filed. Unknown 

to the Air Force personnel at Greenham Common, much of the pressure to drop 

charges came from the U.S. State Department, against the wishes of military and 

local British officials who felt that trial and conviction would have a deterrent 

effect .36 

The first large-scale demonstration at Greenham Common took place 

between March 20th and 22nd, 1982, when approximately two thousand 

demonstrators gathered. The protest was generally peaceful and featured women 

filling the locks to the base gates with super glue. On the last day of the protest, 

base employees were brought to work in convoys through a little-used gate. 

When the protesters realized this, they blockaded that gate and thirty-three were 

arrested. Subsequently, on May 21, the Newbury District Council issued its first 

56 
Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles 

formal eviction notice, and the camp was dismantled by a bulldozer, with four 

people arrested. The women, however, simply reestablished the camp twelve 

yards away on Ministry of Transport property. By the summer of 1982 protest 

activities had grown more serious and included numerous incidents in which 

portions of the base fence were destroyed. The reinforcement of MOD police on 

July 9th saw rocks and bottles thrown, causing $15 thousand in damages and 

leading to five arrest^.^' 

A relatively small number of protestors were active on a day-to-day basis, 

but the CND proved capable of generating enormous support at planned events. 

During the protest on December 12 and 13,1982, marking the third anniversary 

of the NATO TNF deployment decision, over 15,000 demonstrators encircled the 

seven-mile perimeter of the base. The protests, and the media coverage, grew 

more intense as time passed. In March of 1983, the RAF installed concertina wire 

along the perimeter fence to help discourage the numerous penetrations by the 

peace camp women. On Easter weekend, forty thousand protesters demonstrated 

at the base in conjunction with anti-GLCM protests all over Europe, including a 

demonstration organized by the CND in London attended by an estimated 

125,000 people, although the CND claimed 500,000 protesters. 

It must be emphasized that the battle at Greenham Common was really a 

battle for access to the media. As problems at the base increased, the British 

government developed an active campaign to present public information 

favorable to the deployment of GLCMs. Nevertheless, most of the publicity 

coming out of Greenham Common was anti-GLCM. This situation was promoted 

at least in part by the media, which saw far more value in filming demonstrators 

than it did in advancing government “propaganda.” The peace demonstrators 

were extremely media conscious and, from time to time, the media was willing 

to assist the protesters in their publicity efforts. On January 25, 1983, for 

example, a Canadian television news crew arrived at Greenham Common. When 

little was seen to be happening, the news crew encouraged the peace camp 

women to stage a sit-down and block the gate while their cameras recorded the 

scene. The women were only too happy to oblige.38 

The Soviet Union and its communist allies devoted a great deal of attention 

to the protests. A Soviet television crew was present at the September 5, 1981, 

protest march to Greenham Common. Soviet, East German, and Bulgarian 

television sent crews to provide coverage of the Women’s Peace Camp.39 

Western media were involved as well. When twenty women blocked the base 

gate at 3:20 a.m. on July 4, 1982, television crews were present from both the 

American Broadcasting Company and the British Broadcasting Corporation. In 

addition, a Soviet diplomatic vehicle was spotted observing the protest.‘” 

The anti-GLCM protests lost considerable steam after the landslide 

reelection of Margaret Thatcher in June 1983. In comparison to the Easter 

weekend protest held by CND in London at which 125,000 were present, a midJuly protest attracted only six thousand demonstrators. Support for GLCM 

57 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

deployment had grown to be the majority position, according to the Sunday Times 

polls, and the change in political atmosphere took the steam out of anti-GLCM 

protests!’ Nevertheless, the CND and the Women’s Peace Camp, with the 

assistance of the media, could still create a circus atmosphere. 

On October 21, 1983, Air Force security police at Greenham Common 

reported that vehicles resembling GLCM launchers and launch control centers 

had been seen outside the base. Since no GLCM launch vehicles had yet arrived 

in Britain, base officials were both puzzled and concerned about the appearance 

of vehicles that were nonexistent outside the United States. As it turned out, 

Thames Television was producing a segment about the GLCM for their program, 

“TV Eye” and had produced several mock-up vehicles. When approached, the 

production company assured British officials that the vehicles were for their use, 

and that Thames had nothing to do with the CND. Despite these assertions, 

however, Thames turned over the mock-ups, which had cost some $34 thousand 

to build, to the CND after filming the segment. The CND later used the mock-ups 

in an anti-GLCM demonstration in London.42 

Complicity between the media and the CND peaked in 1983 when a Ministry 

of Defence employee leaked the classified delivery schedule for the GLCM 

missiles and launchers to The Guardian. The newspaper timed release of the 

information to coincide with the large-scale anti-GLCM demonstration at which 

the mock-ups of the GLCM launcher and launch control center were used. 

When actual delivery of missiles and launch vehicles began in November 

1983, the activity of the protesters was almost anticlimactic. Despite the leaked 

schedule, only a hundred or so protesters were present at the base. When these 

objectors realized what was happening, they attempted to storm the base fence, 

but were repelled by police, who arrested twenty-seven people. The next day only 

one person was arrested. Despite the arrival of the British news media, there were 

no incidents on the third day of deliveries. That condition changed on November 

4th, when perhaps the most dramatic incident of the deployment occurred. The 

GLCM missiles, vehicles, and other equipment were delivered by C-5A Galaxy 

cargo aircraft. On the 4th, a lone British male eluded the security police, got on 

the base, and immediately tried to ram his car into one of the giant aircraft sitting 

on the parking apron. USAF security police rammed his vehicle, instead, 

preventing it from reaching the aircraft. When the protester was arrested, the 

inside of his vehicle was found to be full of CND rnaterial~!~ 

The aircraft-ramming incident seemed to revitalize the demonstrators, who 

intensified their efforts to stop deployment. The next day, some two hundred 

protesters were present at the base, and by November 9th, the group included five 

Labour Members of Parliament (MPs), accompanied by between thirty and forty 

members of the news media. On the 15th, the Secretary of State for Defence 

formally announced the arrival of the missiles at RAF Greenham Common, 

causing a further increase in protest a~tivity.4~ A sense of urgency had developed 

among the protesters, who seemed to realize that the time had come for a last 

58 
Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles 

stand to halt deployment. On New Year’s Day 1984, the Women’s Peace Camp 

announced a protest action to the BBC and, while the television cameras rolled, 

attempted to bring down the base gate. The following day, CND members 

resumed this effort when they tried to crash a car into the gate. Neither of these 

actions was successful. As the situation seemed to become more desperate, the 

peace campers determined to take drastic action. Rumors circulated that the 

protesters intended to shoot one of their own protesters and claim that U.S. 

military personnel did the shooting. While these rumors seem farfetched, shortly 

thereafter, a Labour MP did claim that USAF security police had shot at a British 

subject, and on January 20, the London Daily Mail seconded this with a report 

that a female protester had been “shot at.” No such incident took place, of 

course.45 

For the personnel assigned to Greenham Common, life had continued at a 

hectic pace, but not because of the protests. Getting the wing “mission-ready” 

was a time-consuming task. Training activities were conducted regularly, both 

onbase and offbase at British Army training areas. Throughout the fall, USAFE 

and NATO inspectors conducted various phases of an Initial Nuclear Surety 

Inspection (INSI). The wing had to accept its nuclear weapons and attain IOC. 

Construction units completed the GLCM Alert and Maintenance Area and turned 

it over to the wing on October 13. The final phase of the INSI was conducted 

between December 3rd and 9th. On December 23rd, the 501st TMW wing 

commander informed HQ USAFE that his wing was mission-ready, one week 

ahead of schedule. On December 30th, the Commander in Chief, U.S. European 

Command, declared that the 501st had attained IOC.46 The GLCM had been 

deployed. 

Meanwhile, outside the gates, the constant harassing tactics of the 

demonstrators took its toll on British police, who for a time had become less 

interested in dealing with the demonstrators. When the CND held a “Halloween 

Party” on November 29,1983, for example, the Thames Valley Police refused to 

arrest women who interfered with the repairs being made to breaks in the base 

perimeter fence.47 The successful deployment, however, seemed to put some fight 

back into the authorities. A new magistrate was brought in to deal with the 

protesters. This time he had the authority to jail protesters who had not paid 

earlier fines, and he increased the fines on those who had been repeatedly 

arrested. Some protesters were even sent to jail. 

The Soviets did not let successful deployment end their attempt to influence 

the situation, either. On November 23,1983, Soviet leaders discontinued the INF 

talks in Geneva, announced they were lifting the “moratorium” on SS-20 

deployment, and focused all their attention on a last-ditch effort to defeat TNF 

depl~yment.~~ But the European governments had decided that the United States 

should not make concessions to lure the Soviets back to the negotiating table. 

Soviet diplomatic and political protests simply did not have the impact they once 

did. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko made a strongly worded, anti59 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

American speech before the Conference on Disarmament in Europe, in January 

1984, denouncing the United States for the breakdown of INF neg0tiations.4~ The 

senior American negotiator at the INF talks simply commented that the Soviets 

would resume talks “as soon as they have squeezed every imaginable 

psychological advantage they think they can get from their withdrawal from 

Geneva.”” The Soviet leaders at first insisted that the United States had to 

withdraw all INFforces before the negotiations could continue. By October 1984, 

however, they had adjusted to the situation and resumed negotiations. 

After the deployment of GLCM to RAF Greenham Common, the other 

deployments went much more smoothly, although not without continuing 

protests on a smaller scale than seen in Britain. The stand the Soviets had taken 

failed. The NATO alliance was able to withstand extreme pressure from the 

Soviet Union and from Soviet-influenced protests on the domestic front. Senator 

Charles Percy (R-Indiana) later summarized what had taken place: 

In 1983, the strength and cohesion of the North Atlantic Alliance was 

severely tested by events related to the negotiation and deployment of 

intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF). NATO faced successive 

challenges in maintaining a united front throughout the demanding final 

stage of the negotiations and, when negotiations failed, in proceeding 

with the initial INF deployments despite Soviet blandishment^.^' 

NATO members recognized the significance the battle to deploy the GLCM and 

Pershing I1 held for the future of the NATO Alliance. The election of 

conservative governments in the United States and Britain, combined with other 

domestic political factors, decreased the influence of the protests on the general 

population. The left-wing politics and sometimes outrageous actions of the 

protesters had also turned off public support. 

Successful deployment of the GLCM proved to be a culminating point in the 

Cold War. It had not “defeated” the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, but it did 

place them in an “end-game” situation. The events that unfolded in the following 

years played out the TNF deployment. The success of NATO in holding firm 

against Soviet pressures resulted in an arms control treaty which, for the first 

time, banned an entire class of nuclear weapons between the two superpowers. 

The Soviets, having gambled so much on their ability to defeat TNF deployment 

and break up the Western Alliance, were never again able to significantly 

influence the direction that NATO took. 

60 
Deployment of Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles 

Notes 

1. Robert J. Art and Stephen E. Ockenden, “The Domestic Politics of Cruise Missile 

Development, 1970-1980,” in Richard K. Betts, ed., Cruise Missiles: Technology, Strategy, 

Politics (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1981), p. 394. The SALT I Treaty, 

signed in May 1972, limited “strategic” nuclear systems, including ICBMs and SLBMs, by 

freezing the number of deployable launchers for a period of five years. In addition, the treaty 

limited anti-ballistic missile coverage to one geographical site per country, thereby avoiding an arms race in ABM technology. The SALT I1 Treaty, signed in June 1979, again covered 

strategic level nuclear systems. It limited the number of ICBM launchers and long-range 

bombers, as well as the number of warheads. A separate protocol that expired in 1981, 

limited the number of air launched cruise missiles that could be carried on any aircraft, 

banned multiple warheads on cruise missiles, and prohibited deployment of GLCMs with 

a range of over six hundred kilometers until after December 31, 1981. This last provision 

had little impact, since the United States no intention (or ability) to deploy cruise missiles 

before this date. The SALT I1 Treaty was never ratified by the US. Senate, because of the 

December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

2. Raymond L. Garthoff, “Soviet Perspectives,” in ibid., pp. 341-44. Theater nuclear forces 

refers to both the GLCM and to Pershing 11, a U.S. Army ballistic missile designed to 

replace existing Pershing I ballistic missiles previously deployed to the Federal Republic of 

Germany. While TNF refers to both missiles, for the purposes of this paper only the GLCM, 

by far the more controversial of the two weapon systems, is addressed. The West German 

army also operated a short-range version of the Pershing I, but those missiles were not a 

consideration in the events discussed in this paper. 

3. During the development of GLCM, critics attacked claims of accuracy, reliability, and 

survivability for the weapon system. The faith of those involved in development was 

confirmed during the Persian Gulf War when the sea-launched version of the missile proved 

its ability to penetrate enemy air defenses undetected and hit targets with considerable 

accuracy. 

4. Quoted in ibid., p. 345. 

5. James E. Dougherty, “Strategy, Politics, and Ethical Feelings: A Perspective of the Peace 

Movement,” in James E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., eds., Shattering Europe ’s 

Defense Consensus: the Antinuclear Protest Movement and the Future of NATO 

(Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey, 1985), p. 1. 

6. Art and Ockenden, “Domestic Politics of Cruise Missile Development,” pp. 360,405. 

7. John Cartwright, MP, and Julian Critchley, MP, Cruise, Pershing and SS-20, The Search 

for Consensus: Nuclear Weapons in Europe (London: Brassey ’ s Defence Publishers, 1985), 

pp. 22-23. This book is a commercial reprint of the Eighth Report of the North Atlantic 

Assembly’s Special Committee on Nuclear Weapons in Europe. 

8. Gregory F. Treverton, “NATO Alliance Politics,” in Betts, ed., Cruise Missiles, p. 424. 

9. This indecision had significant impact on the development of GLCMs. Funds were 

repeatedly cut for what should have been normal research and development activities, such 

as human factors analysis. The result was notable in ways that were very real to crews who 

would later man the system. The lack of work space, scarcity of chairs that fit inside the 

launch control center, and late development of training systems for both operations and 

maintenance personnel were among the problems. 

10. The total of 108 for Pershing 11s was determined based on a one-for-one replacement 

with existing Pershing Is. For GLCM, 464 is simply a multiple of sixteen, the number of 

missiles in a GLCM flight. 

11. NATO “‘Dual-Track‘ Decision,” CommuniquC of the Special Meeting of the NATO 

Foreign and Defence Ministers, Brussels, Dec 12,1979, in Cartwright and Critchley, Cruise, 

Pershing, and SS-20. The deployment called for six flights at RAF Greenham Common, 

United Kingdom, in 1983; seven flights at Comiso Air Station, Italy, in 1984; three flights 

at Florennes Air Base, Belgium, in 1985; six flights at Weuscheim Air Base, Federal 

Republic of Germany, in 1986; three flights at Woensdrecht Air Base, The Netherlands, in 

61 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

1987; and four flights at RAF Molesworth, United Kingdom, also in 1987. 

12. Ron Huisken, “The History of Modern Cruise Missiles,” in Betts, ed., Cruise Missiles, 

p. 98. 

13. Jacquelyn K. Davis, Charles M. Perry, and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., The INF 

Controversy: Lessons for NATO Modernization and Transatlantic Relations (Cambridge, 

Mass.: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, 1989), p. 4. 

14. Ibid., p. 2. 

15. Treverton, “NATO Alliance Politics,” p. 432. The Enhanced Radiation Weapon was designed to kill enemy personnel with little physical destruction, thereby making use of the 

weapon on European soil more palatable. As in the case of TNF deployment, in 1977-1978 

NATO planned to deploy the ERW if the Soviets refused to restrain development of other 

nuclear systems. As with TNF, the Soviets mounted an intense political and propaganda 

effort to create Western European opposition to deployment of the ERW. This effort was successful, and NATO officials decided that the political cost of deploying such a weapon was too great. Soviet leaders hoped to achieve the same success against TNF deployment. 

See Sherri L. Wasserman, The Neutron Bomb Controversy: A Study in Alliance Politics 

(New York Praeger, 1983). 

16. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Second Interim Report on 

Nuclear Weapons in Europe, 98th Cong., 1st sess., 1983, p. 12. 

17. Cartwright and Critchley, Cruise, Pershing, and SS-20, p. 22. 

18. Thomas M. Cynkin, “The British Antinuclear Movement: Precedents, Program, and 

Prospects,” in Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff, eds., Shattering Europe’s Defense Consensus, pp. 

19. Background paper, 3AFPublic Affairs, subj: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 

Mar 1,1982, atch. to History, 501st Tactical Missile Wing (TMW). USAF official histories 

are maintained in the archives of the Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, 

Alabama. 

20. Cynkin, “British Antinuclear Movement,” pp. 39-40. Those goals were the: 1) 

abandonment of Britain’s strategic nuclear force; 2) closure of NATO bases in the United 

Kingdom; 3) diversion of funding from defense to social services; 4) redeployment of 

workers from military production to other domestic activities; and 5) termination of British 

arms sales. It might be noted that only the United States had “NATO bases in the United 

Kingdom. 

21. Clive Rose, CampaignsAgainst Western Defence (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 

pp. 139-40. In December 1981, Monsignor Kent visited East Berlin where he made antiGLCM broadcasts. 

22. Ibid., p. 148. 

23. Cynkin, “British Antinuclear Movement,” p. 37. 

24. Simon Duke, U.S. Defence Bases in the United Kingdom: A Matter for Joint Decision? 

(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), p. 177. 

25. Ibid., p. 175. 

26. Cartwright and Critchley, Cruise, Pershing, and SS-20, p. 18. 

27. The RAF Regiment performs the same functions as the USAF security police and US. 

Army forces assigned overseas for the purpose of air base defense, including physical 

security and air defense efforts. The U.S. agreement with the United Kingdom called for 

one-half of each GLCM flight’s security forces, or about thirty-three personnel, to be from 

the RAF Regiment. Under this arrangement, either a USAF or RAF Regiment officer could 

command a GLCM flight deployed to the field. 

28. History, 836th Air Division (AD), Oct-Dec 1981, p. 50. 

29. History, 836 AD, Jan 1-Mar 31, 1982, pp. 24,29-30. 

30. History, 836 AD, Jan 1-Jun 30, 1983, p. 16. 

31. History, 501 TMW, Jul 1982-Mar 1983, p. 5. 

32. Greenham Common Pamphlet 23-1, subj: Organization and Functions Chartbook, Jan 

12, 1983, p. 1, atch. to ibid. 

33. Rose, Campaigns Against Western Defence, p. 149. Formally, the Greenham Common 

34-36. 

62 
Deployment of Ground-bunched Cruise Missiles 

Women’s Peace Camp and the CND were separate organizations. Many of the women of 

the Peace Camp, however, were members of the CND, and both organizations had ties to the 

CPGB, although neither was a “front” organization. The Peace Camp was a radical feminist 

organization that took great pains to separate itself from organizations with male leadership. 

Its members saw nuclear weapons and large military budgets as symbolic of male-dominated 

politics and oppression of women. The Peace Camp and CND, did coordinate protest 

activities while the CPGB provided financial and moral support. 

34. History, 501 TMW, Jul 1982-Mar 1983, pp. 121, 123. 

35. Ibid., pp. 121, 124. 

36. History, 501 TMW, Jul 1-Sep 30,1983, p. 97. 

37. History, 501 TMW, Jul 1982-Mar 1983, p. 126. 

38. Ibid., p. 129. 

39. Background paper, HQ Third Air Force, pp. 1-2, atch. to ibid. 

40. History, 501 TMW, Jul 1-Sep 30 1983, p. 90. 

41. Cartwright and Critchley, Cruise, Pershing, and SS-20, p. 118. 

42. Security Police Blotter Entry, 501 TMW, Oct 21, 1983, atch. to History, 501 TMW, 

“Phoney Missile Launchers Visit NATO Air Base,” Stars and Stripes (European Edition), 

Oct 23,1983; “Cruise Mock-up Given to CND,” The Mail on Sunday, Oct 22,1983. 

43. History, 501 TMW, Oct 1-Dec 31, 1983, p. 86. 

44. Ibid., p. 87. 

45. Gordon Greig, “Greenham Girl ‘Shot At,”’ Daily Mail, Jan 20, 1984. 

46. History, 501 TMW, Oct 1-Dec 31, 1983, Chronology. 

47. Ibid., p. 89. 

48. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Post-Deployment NuclearArms 

Control in Europe, 98th Cong., 2nd sess., 1984, pp. 1, 11. 

49. Cartwright and Critchley, Cruise, Pershing, and SS-20, p. 77. 

50. Quoted in ibid., p. 75. 

51. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Post-Deployment NuclearArms 

. Control in Europe, 98th Cong., 2nd sess., 1984,111. 

63 

Questions and Answers 

Patrick Murray: I have two questions relating to the introduction of U.S. 

nuclear weapons, so I will just answer both of them in the same way. One 

question concerns the introduction of nuclear weapons into the United Kingdom 

on a provisional basis and then on a more permanent basis. When and where did 

this take place? Which agreement covered it? What was the procedure with 

Strategic Air Command, 7th Air Division, Third Air Force, and United States Air 

Forces in Europe? Which depot and squadrons were involved? When were the 

operational bombs brought to the United Kingdom, etc.? 

This is a very difficult question to answer. The official position, even today, 

regarding nuclear weapons is, “The United States Air Force neither affirms nor 

denies the presence of nuclear weapons in the U.K.” When did it exactly occur, 

and what agreements permitted this? It is still extremely difficult to pinpoint with 

absoluteaccuracy the day nuclear weapons were brought to the U.K. In the Third 

Air Force historical archives, about the best answer to this particular question 

comes from the diary of General Leon Johnson, who kept a fairly good diary 

during those years In July of 1950, there is an entry which states that the Prime 

Minister had been informed about the U.S. request to bring nuclear weapons into 

the United Kingdom. The answer came back that, yes, the Prime Minister did 

agree to this and that he fully understood all the various ramifications of bringing 

these units into the United Kingdom. Now, at this particular time, the weapons 

appear to have been sent without their fissionable material. So, the bomb itself 

was there, but the explosive components were not. They were retained in the 

United States. So, when did nuclear weapons first come to the U.K.? The guess 

is about 1950. That, again, is a guess, and about the best answer I can give. 

The second question I have concerns the participation of B-29 groups in a 

British defense exercise, I believe in 1948. I mentioned that exercise as Operation 

Dagger. The question is, How does a strategic bomber participate in a defense 

exercise, how did they envision the use of B-29s, and in what circumstances and 

by whom would they have been released? 

There are many possible scenarios. In this particular event, Operation 

Dagger, I do not have any specifics as to the U.S. bomber activities; but there are 

any number of air defense scenarios in which bombers could be used either as an 

aggressor force or as a defensive force. I cannot give you a specific answer 

regarding Operation Dagger. The deployment of E29s made it possible for the 

day fighter squadrons in the U.K. to undertake defensive exercises involving 

fighters versus many bombers in the early 1950s, which enabled us to perfect 

65 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

tactics, particularly attacks against the equivalent of a Soviet TU-4 Bull. These 

exercises also helped the B-29 crews in the task of penetrating the Soviet Union. 

Early on, in some of these exercises, it was stated that depending on the type of 

tactics used, it was almost impossible to defend British cities from a very 

determined Soviet attack. It was extremely disconcerting when they came across 

some of these moments, and it did require some considerable restructuring of 

defensive strategies. 

Cecil James: There are three interrelated questions here, but just to lighten 

the occasion a little bit, I was present at a press conference which Duncan Sandys 

held to announce the deployment of Thor in the United Kingdom. It was a big 

international conference, and it was of great significance internationally because 

this really was the first overt response to that nasty shock to all of us in the West, 

the Sputnik launch in October 1957. This press conference would be sometime 

in 1958, and Sandys asked those who wanted to ask a question to say what 

newspaper they represented. He had made it quite clear that the deployment of 

Thor would be in the eastern half of the U.K. Thor was a bit short of range, so the 

further east you could put them, the better. And one correspondent got up, and in 

a very heavy sort of mittle Europa accent, said, “Is not the deployment of these 

missiles in the eastern half of England an outward and open provocation to the 

Soviet Union?” Now this is one of those “have you stopped beating your wife” 

sort of questions. Duncan said, “What paper do you represent?” And the 

correspondent gave the name of a Warsaw newspaper. And Duncan said, “It is 

convenient to put them there!” 

Anyway, the first question is, to what extent was the Sandys’ 1957 White 

Paper an extension of the 1952 British chiefs of staff global strategy paper and 

what individual input did he introduce into strategic thinking during this period? 

I think that the answer is, yes, it was an extension of that thinking and I shall be 

referring to that global strategy paper in response to a further question here. I 

think the individual input was not so much on Sandys’ part, as I tried to get over 

to you. Sandys comes into office in January 1957 really as the hatchet man for a 

policy which has already begun to emerge, and that policy was one which did 

involve a much greater reliance on strategic deterrence. So, I think the answer 

directly to the question is that he didn ’ t introduce anything more, but he did apply 

it with a degree of political will that was quite extraordinary. The second part of 

this question is, Did the cancellation of Blue Streak require Duncan Sandys to 

leave office to retain credibility of the deterrent or were other factors responsible? 

I don ’ t know why Macmillan moved Duncan Sandys from Minister of Defence 

at the time that he did, which was late 1959. I think that he fully wanted him out 

of the way; it made it easier if he was out of the way to cancel Blue Streak. But 

I don ’ t think that had any effect upon the policy of strategic deterrence, and it 

may we well be that Duncan, himself, had gotten rather tired of the job and 

wanted a change. He ’ d had a very hard time, and I don ’ t think one should see too 

much significance in that particular change in his appointment. 

66 
Questions and Answers 

The second question is, Sandys appears to have anticipated the EisenhowerDulles view of nuclear war having superseded conventional war. Was 

there a close relationship between the American and British approach to national 

defense? I think that, if I may say so, the right word is not “supersede.” It simply 

made global war much less likely. The British chiefs of staff as early as 1949, 

even before the global strategy paper, had taken the view-and I think this was 

the word they used-that the atomic bomb had “outlawed” global war. I think 

that what they were getting at there was not necessarily that general war wouldn ’ t 

happen, it was rather that they thought it very unlikely, and, if it did, it would be 

so catastrophic that long, drawn-out conflicts like World War I and World War 

I1 just would not be within human capacity. We’d all be too involved in burying 

our dead and trying to keep something going. In that sense, I think, it was felt that 

the whole strategic situation had been absolutely revolutionized, as I said in my 

talk, not so much by Hiroshima, by atomic weapons, as by thermonuclear weapons. 

It is a quite extraordinary thing, when you think about it, isn’t it, that we 

have somehow on each side so played the game that, even still to this day we 

have got far more nuclear weapons than make any kind of sense at all. And the 

reason that we have got them has got nothing really to do with military 

superiority. If they are used, you are never going to destroy so many of the other 

side that you won’t get some of them back. The game is not a military game, 

gentlemen, is it? It is a political game. Anyway, there is always a difference of 

opinion on this kind of thing, obviously. But, I think it is quite true that there was 

a very similar view of the strategic picture between on the British side, 

Macmillan and Sandys, and on this side, Eisenhower and Dulles. Dulles at one 

stage of the British preparations for a change in the NATO strategic directive 

agreed with the British view that nobody, even the United States, could possibly 

have two kits, one for effective strategic deterrence and another set of kit to fight 

a set-piece global war with conventional weapons. And that was taken by General 

A1 Gruenther-who rather resented that statement-across to Washington where 

he really sorted John Foster Dulles out and got Dulles to agree that you mustn’t 

let the British take the logic of nuclear deterrence so far as to gravely weaken the 

conventional element of deterrence. I think we’ve got to accept, haven’t we, that 

you cannot rely only on strategic nuclear deterrence. There has to be a 

conventional component as well. The great question is, what is the size and shape 

and deployment of the conventional component? 

And 1 think that leads quite naturally, to the last question here, which is, what 

was Sandys’ and official British reaction to the Kennedy Administration’s 

decision to void the British-sponsored trip wire strategy and go for “flexible 

response?” Well, the classroom answer to the first part of that question is that 

Sandys was out of the picture, anyway, when flexible response formally takes the 

place of trip wire. And, for the life of me, I can ’ t remember when that was. It was 

quite well into the 1960s, am I not right? Can anybody comment on that point? 

67 
Session One: Policy Decisions 

I think I have got 1967 in mind. Something like that. Sandys is, as I say, really out 

of the picture; the Torys are out of the picture politically by 1964, anyway; from 

then on in it’s Labour. You’ve got flexible response, the culmination of a process 

that begins under the Kennedy administration, in which you do tend to change the 

balance between the conventional and the nuclear, the point being that, through 

a greater emphasis on the conventional, you raise the nuclear threshold. Right? 

Agreed? Good! But it still does raise this question, did we ever get that balance 

right? And you could argue till the cows come home on that one. 

Air Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood: The question is, you mentioned 

U.S.N.K. intelligence programs. Was the U-2 program a U.S.N.K. program 

with British pilots? The answer to that is, yes, but I will elaborate a little bit. At 

the time, it was held to be a matter of the highest security and very few people, 

certainly on the U.K. side, knew about it. We had four pilots for many 

years-they rotated, of course-based at Edwards AFB. From time to time, if I 

remember correctly, the U-2s would move forward into Western Europe, 

particularly into Cyprus, and they would operate from there. I don ’ t 

think-again, I am relying entirely on my memory here-that the RAF pilots 

ever actually conducted an operational sortie. The purpose of this bilateral 

agreement was that if the chips seemed to be down and one really needed to have 

a very wide-ranging reconnaissance program using the U-2s, then the RAF pilots 

would be used. As far as the situation in Whitehall was concerned, as I have said, 

very few people were privy to this. The program on the RAF side was run by the 

Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Operations in the Ministry of Defence. It was a 

subject that came up occasionally during the vice chief to vice chief talks. It was 

certainly a subject talked about between the respective chiefs at that level, and, 

of course, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Intelligence Committee 

in London were involved. In London, it was certainly known to the Defence 

Committee at Cabinet level. 

My memory of this illustrates a small point I mentioned in my talk: how 

valuable the NATO air chief tours were; how one could in certain circumstances 

discuss bilateral matters secretly with one’s USAF colleagues. On one of the 

visits, we visited Edwards AFB, California, and I was able to peel off from the 

international pattern there and visit the RAF pilots who were over on the far side 

of the field and talk about the current situation. In summary, it was, of course, 

predominantly a USAF program, but we did participate fully, although never, to 

my knowledge, on an operational sortie. 

Lieutenant Colonel Michael A. Kirtland: The question is, what was the 

U.S. State Department ’ s rationale for discouraging legal actions against individuals engaged in illegal acts at Greenham Common? It may be difficult to give an 

authoritative answer, but I think it boils down to State Department concerns at the 

time. I think it goes a little deeper, though, to a basic difference in how military 

people and diplomatic people deal with conflict, whether that conflict is an armed 

force or simply a group of ladies cutting holes in the base fence. 

68 
Questions and Answers 

In those days, the State Department was very concerned about making sure 

that GLCM activities had a very low profile. The State Department would ask us 

do things that didn’t necessarily seem to make sense from a military perspective. 

Let me give you an example that doesn’t have to do with Greenham Common, 

but really points out how the State Department felt about things. We had been 

briefing for a number of years which five NATO countries would host GLCMs 

and the names of the six bases in those five countries, including the fact that there 

would be a GLCM base at Wueshheim, Germany, just down the road from Hahn 

Air Base. We had been giving these briefings for two or three years not only to 

military people, but to the American press and to the international news media, 

as well. And yet, one day we got a message from the State Department that said 

that from here on out any references to the base in Germany would be classified 

and we couldn’ t even use the word “Wueshheim.” So the 868th Tactical Missile 

Training Squadron-two hundred some people-spent an entire day going 

through every single piece of paper in the squadron attempting to find any pieces 

that had Wueshheim written on them and stamping them as classified. 

From our perspective, it was absolutely ludicrous. Even if we could have 

classified the base name from them on out-which we obviously could not-the 

cat was out of the bag at that point as to where the missiles were going. All it did, 

in terms of the USAF, was cause problems. We had people at that point who were 

getting ready to be shipped to Germany. All of a sudden we had to stamp 

classified all over their household goods and baggage, and all over their orders. 

For a long time we had a problem with movers who would refuse to take the 

shipments because, they said, “You’ve given me this place”-we came up with 

a code name for where the stuff was going, and that was what would be stamped 

on the orders-and the movers would say, “There is no such place.” And we 

would say, “That’s right.” And they’d say, “Well I’m not taking it.” And we 

would say, “You’ve got to, because the contract says you have to.” 

This same sort of concern over keeping a low profile was present in Britain, 

as well, and because the anti-GLCM activity was higher there, it was even more 

intense. The State Department felt that any action against the protesters would 

simply create martyrs for the anti-GLCM cause and they didn ’ t want to do that. 

In hindsight, it wasn’t, perhaps, the best course to take. After the deployment 

took place, the British government and the local governments decided they 

would, in fact, take stronger action and they put magistrates into the area with 

authority to jail the protestors, to fine the protestors, and it did have a significant 

effect on the activity that took place. Not that this step ended protest activity; it 

certainly didn’ t. But, for instance, the camps decreased in size as a result of the 

changes, and the activities that they would undertake declined, except on those 

special occasions that I referred to where the protesters would already have 

notified the news media that something was going to happen. For the most part, 

they sat outside the base gate and shot the breeze all day rather than attempting 

significant political activity. 

69 

Luncheon Address 
Air Vice Marshal Ron Dick, CB, FRAeS, Royal Air Force, retired, 

entered the Royal Air Force College in 1950 and received his 

commission in July 1952. He then began a varied and highly successful 

flying career flying Meteor 8 day fighters with No. 64 Squadron. 

During subsequent assignments, he flew Provosts and Vampires, 

became a flying instructor, an examiner, and an exchange flight 

commander with the United States Air Force. In 1955/1956, he won 

both the Clarkson and Wright Jubilee individual aerobatic trophies. 

Later, Air Marshal Dick was flight commander on a nuclear strike 

squadron and commanded a Vulcan squadron and a Buccaneer wing. 

During the latter part of his career, he served as Air AttachC and 

Defence Attach6 at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. Her 

Majesty the Queen created Air Vice Marshal Dick Companion of the 

Most Noble Order of the Bath early in 1988. Following his retirement, 

Air Vice Marshal Dick became a Smithsonian International Fellow at 

the National Air and Space Museum from 1988 to 1991. He now writes 

and lectures on military and aviation history, is a member of the board 

of trustees of the Confederate Air Force, and is a visiting lecturer at the 

Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. 
Luncheon Address 

Air Vice Marshal Ron Dick 

When the Falkland Crisis began in 1982, I was the British attach6 in 

Washington, and I had been for about eighteen months. But there was more to 

it than that. In the course of my career, I was fortunate to have been an exchange 

officer with the U.S. Air Force and to have taken part in a number of exercises 

in the United States. I was a guide for the Royal College of Defence Studies 

when they toured North America, and I was also on General Alexander Haig’s 

staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, so my face was fairly 

familiar to members of the U.S. military and, particularly, to many in the 

Pentagon. Even if that had not been the case, I think it is true that U.S. military 

people are, generally, fairly comfortable with their British counterparts, if for 

no other reason than they have suffered together in staff colleges or in joint 

exchange programs. 

As I was to find out in 1982, these interservice contacts proved their worth 

time and time again. There is nothing to equal the sight of a friendly face if you 

have got a problem or, for that matter, to hear a friendly voice on the other end 

of the telephone. In my experience, that was particularly true at the very highest 

level, the commander in chief level, when old friends are able to talk pretty 

freely because of trans-Atlantic links. 

I was, by early 1982, well settled into an extremely pleasant, not too 

tasking, tour of duty as the friendly neighborhood RAF spy. But that fiddle 

began to fade a bit on the 19th of March, when some Argentine scrap metal 

merchants hoisted Argentina’s flag on South Georgia, the Falklands dependency some six hundred miles east of the main islands. They were asked to report 

themselves to the British authorities, they refused, the British government 

complained to puenos Aires, the complaint was ignored, and so the rest of the 

disaster began. 

The initial reaction to all that, both in the United Kingdom and the United 

States, was to brush it aside in favour of more important things. It was too much 

like a comic opera, not to be taken seriously. However, the Junta in Buenos 

* 

Constantine Davidoff, an Argentine of Greek extraction, had a contract for 

dismantling four unused whaling stations on South Georgia. His arrival with forty-one 

workmen and the Argentine flag in mid-March 1982 precipitated the Falklands War. 

73 
Luncheon Address 

Aires had troubles enough without having to endure loss of face, even over a 

scrap metal merchant and his flag. We now know the South Georgia incident 

was pretty unfortunate for them, because it was the trigger which started events 

rolling, even though they had already decided to undertake an operation six 

months later in the year. This set things in motion much too soon. 

As the international temperature rose, it became apparent that the comic 

opera was in danger of turning into Hamlet. The tempo of exchanges between 

Washington and the British Embassy, where I was working, began to quicken. 

At the political level, the growing crisis was viewed in a very different light on 

opposite sides of the water. 

In London, it was a pretty simple business. The Falklands were British 

territory and the people on them were British citizens. That is all there was to 

it. In Washington, it was much more complex. The Falklands might be British, 

but they were in the American hemisphere and they carried that weight of 

Victorian colonialism about them which makes Americans uncomfortable. They 

were also a bone of contention between two nations friendly to the United 

States. The last thing Washington wanted was to have a fight going on between 

friends right on its doorstep. 

When it became apparent that the Argentines were not going to back down, 

especially after their fleet was at sea, the trans-Atlantic messages really began 

to fly. The atmosphere was not, to start with, entirely harmonious. London 

wanted Washington to lean heavily on its South American friends to stop them 

from doing anything silly. The State Department duly did that through its 

ambassador to Buenos Aires, but a message also went to the British Foreign 

Secretary, Lord Carrington, and it urged caution. Carrington suffered a severe 

loss of sense of humor through that, and he told the U.S. Embassy in London 

quite bluntly that an aggressor was loose in the South Atlantic and the United 

States had better make up its mind which side it was on. 

It was not an auspicious beginning. However, the U.S. ambassador's 

approach in Buenos Aires was rebuffed, so President Ronald Reagan, urged on 

by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, intervened with a personal phone call to 

General Galtieri, head of theJuntu, on the evening of the 31st of March. He got 

nowhere, principally because Galtieri was already being swept along by forces 

well beyond his control. We did not know at the time that the Argentine 

invasion force was already committed. 

Argentine soldiers went ashore on East Falkland at dawn on the 2nd of 

April and soon overcame the small Royal Marine detachment, and on the 3rd 

* 

A military Junta led by General Leopoldo Galtieri, Commander in Chief of the 

army, and including Admiral Jorge Anaya of the navy and Brigadier General Basilio 

Lami Dozo of the air force ruled Argentina. Considerable evidence suggests that a 

primary reason for the invasion was theJuntu 's determination to continue in power by 

distracting the Argentines from the desperate economic conditions of the nation. 

74 
Falklands War 

of April the same thing happened in South Georgia. That same day, Saturday 

the 3rd of April, Mrs. Thatcher announced to the House of Commons that a task 

force would be sent to the South Atlantic. 

There now followed a quite extraordinary period during which the United 

States seemed to us in the British Embassy to be pursuing two different policies: 

One, public, which originated more or less in the State Department, and the 

other, which was pursued much more quietly in the Pentagon. 

Let me briefly run through the public mode of Anglo-American relations 

first. It was the principal concern of the State Department that the contenders 

in the dispute should be kept apart and a negotiated settlement reached. The 

problem was that the opening positions of the parties were pretty uncompromising. The United Kingdom said there could be no discussions without an 

Argentine withdrawal. Argentina said there could be no withdrawal without a 

subsequent guarantee of Argentine sovereignty. To break the impasse, Secretary 

of State Alexander Haig, set off on-I have to say-an epic of shuttle diplomacy, flying some fourteen thousand miles in twelve days as he pursued the 

Holy Grail of peaceful solution in London, Buenos Aires, and Washington. It 

was exhausting, it was exasperating, and despite his quite amazing persistence, 

he got absolutely nowhere. 

Mrs. Thatcher, of course, was implacable. The Argentine forces had to 

withdraw. The long-term wishes of the Falkland Islanders were paramount. 

Britain could and would recover the island by force if it came to it. She still 

believed that theJuntu would back down rather than fight. 

The Junta was irrevocably committed. They could not back down and 

survive. They had also convinced themselves that Britain was a soft-hearted 

democracy and that the British had no stomach for a fight. Haig told them flatly, 

several times, that the British would go through with it and that Argentina 

would lose. Galtieri told him he was wrong, and Admiral Anaya went so far as 

to call Haig a liar. In the midst of all this gathering gloom, there were lighter 

moments. Haig kept everybody informed about how things were going as he 

shuttled backward and forward. Some of the messages were not all that terribly 

formal. Those that we got to see in the British Embassy indicated he was having 

some difficulty in damping down his well-known short fuse. Once he went so 

far as to say that he might be able to make better progress if could ever get to 

Galtieri when he, was sober. Now that problem is actually mentioned in Max 

Hastings’ book. Another time, Haig’s genuine astonishment at the method of 

government in Buenos Aires. He said it was impossible to see how the system 

worked, since there appeared to be at least a thousand decision makers. He 

would get Galtieri, or Nicanor Costa Mendes, who was Foreign Minister of 

Argentina, or somebody else to commit themselves, and he would think he had 

* 

See Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands (London: 

Michael Joseph, 1983), p. 112. 

75 
Luncheon Address 

got something wrapped up, and about an hour later a colonel would arrive on 

the scene and tell him to forget the whole thing. 

Faced with a very real tragedy of a comic opera government, Haig finally 

folded his tent and went home, where he told the President that armed conflict 

was inevitable and the United States should get off the fence and back Britain. 

Later, on the 30th of April, President Reagan did exactly that, though 

cautiously. He imposed sanctions on Argentina and formally offered material 

aid to the United Kingdom, thereby regularizing what had been, for some time, 

an established fact. 

I intend to leave aside the dissenting voice also being heard by the 

President. Jeane Kirkpatrick, you may remember, was U.S. Ambassador to the 

United Nations at that time, and she believed the United Kingdom was being 

imperial and that the United States should stand aside. The consequences of 

backing Britain, she said, would be disastrous for the United States, whose 

long-term interest lay with South America. She was unmoved, absolutely, by 

arguments that contrasted America ’ s oldest alliance with the convenient 

arrangement based on promoting anticommunism in Latin America or contrasted a democratic government with a military dictatorship. Nor did she appear 

to be impressed by the thought that military aggression was taking place in the 

American hemisphere and that it might perhaps be a good idea for the United 

States to disapprove. She held to her views, even after being instructed to vote 

for a United Nations resolution demanding the withdrawal of the Argentines 

from the island. 

The British Ambassador at this time was Nicholas Henderson, who could 

have been cast in Hollywood as the classically eccentric Englishman. Haig 

described him as being “studiously rumpled,” and Secretary of Defense Caspar 

Weinberger said that Nicho, as he was known, “took great delight in violating 

many of Saville Row ’ s ideas of proper dress.” 

The Ambassador was remarkable during this crisis. He hurled himself at it, 

and he seemed to be everywhere at once-in the White House, at the State 

Department, on the Hill, talking to the press, or appearing on television. He was 

on at least one, usually several morning news programs every day and was 

enormously effective in promoting Britain ’ s cause. America heard his aristocratic tones, took one look at his lugubrious face and his uncontrollable hair and 

his rumpled collar, and it loved him. One serious senator actually interrupted 

Nicho in full flow on the Hill once and told him that his arguments were indeed 

powerful, but that was not why the Senate was with him, it was because he was 

so British. The senator went on to say he was sure it was unlikely that the same 

strong feeling could have been stirred, for instance, if the conflict in the South 

Atlantic was between Argentina and Brazil. 

Early every morning the Ambassador’s staff, including his defence team, 

met to brief him before he went on television. For me, in particular, that was a 

challenging experience. Nicho could understand infantry or frigates, stuff like 

76 
Falklands War 

that, but his conception of air power seemed to have been frozen sometime 

around the year 1916. He thought that delivering bombs on a target could not 

possibly be difficult; for instance, putting a hole in the Port Stanley runway. 

Details like the four thousand miles of open sea between the base at Ascension 

and the target, the multiple refuelings at night, the enemy radar, surface-to-air 

missiles, bombing on radar, bomb trajectory, all that stuff, were mere trifles. As 

far as he was concerned, you pick the target, you place an aircraft above it, you 

let the bombs go, the job was done. It was almost as if he had a mental image 

of the pilot leaning out with the proverbial hand-held bomb. For Nicho, aircraft 

always found, hit, and destroyed their targets. Otherwise, as he said, “What’s 

the good of ’em?” Well, as a result, I spent a good deal of time briefing the 

Ambassador on the air war and then watching his subsequent television 

appearances with my fingers crossed. 

He got his own back on me one day. It was an afternoon in late May, and 

the Ambassador really was*showing signs of strain. The Argentines at Goose 

Green has just surrendered, and the Cable News Network (CNN) asked him for 

an interview at 1O:OO p.m. that night. Nicho visibly sagged, and said, “I really 

don’t think I can.” Then he looked across the table at me and said, “You go.” 

My protestations about being a simple military man were brushed aside and I 

duly arrived at the CNN studio that evening. 

The interview was one of those cozy little three-way affairs: Jorge Herrera 

Vegas, Argentina’s man at the United Nations, was in New York, I was in 

Washington, and the interviewer was in Atlanta. The second half of the program 

was in the form of a call-in from open phones throughout the United States. I 

was not happy about the prospect of facing Herrera Vegas. He was a smooth, 

professional diplomat, who had been doing very well for some time on television. However, the news from Goose Green must have given him a bit of a 

shock, because he made a serious tactical error right at the beginning. He said 

that it was his unpleasant duty to report that the British were killing Argentine 

prisoners of war. He claimed that they were being used to walk ahead of the 

British over minefields to clear them. He went on to say that he found it grossly 

unfair of Americans to accuse only the Galtieri government of human rights 

abuses when it was well known that the British consistently violated human 

rights. Well, once those cracks had appeared in his composure, his credibility 

was gone, and I really had not much difficulty holding the moral high ground. 

It was very satisfying, and the call-in portion of the program left me with 

a thoroughly warm glow. The calls came in from all over the United States, and 

every caller, bar one, was enthusiastically in support of Britain. I left the studio 

smiling broadly at every American I saw, and, since it was nighttime in 

Georgetown, I was very lucky to survive unscathed! 

* 

On May 28, the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment liberated the small village 

of Goose Green in the first major land action of the Falklands campaign. 

77 
Luncheon Address 

Let me tell you some of the things that were more obviously in the military 

sphere. I had, of course, been heavily involved in the crisis since the first day. 

Mrs. Thatcher announced the task force on Saturday, the 3rd of April, and on 

Monday, I was on my way to the Pentagon in dress blue and gold ropes, 

appearing very stiff and formal. I presented myself at the entrance to the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff area trying to looked relaxed, but I have to say that I really was 

not all that comfortable. As I have said, the political signals at the beginning 

were ambivalent, and I was not sure of the welcome I was going to get. I really 

need not have worried. As I walked down the corridors, I was slapped on the 

back repeatedly and pursued by calls of “Give them hell down there!” or “Go-o0-0 Brits!” Some months later, my Pentagon friends told me that nearly 

everybody at the time thought we were insane and quite a number thought we 

were going to lose our shirts, but they cheered anyway. 

Well, encouraged by all that enthusiasm, I was ushered in to see the admiral 

who filled the 5-4, Logistics, chair. He sat me down and sent for a cup of coffee 

and asked what he could do for me. I explained:hat, as unlikely as it seemed, 

we were going to have to use Ascension Island as the mounting base for the 

operations against the Falklands because we could not get any closer, and 

Wideawake Air Base, although a United States airfield, was on a British island. 

We, therefore, felt that the United States would not object if we increased our 

usage of Wideawake facilities. Assuming that to be the case, I pointed out that 

the fuel storage capacity at Wideawake had been designed to allow for little 

more than a weekly C-141 or two to service the U.S. satellite tracking station. 

We were going to need a good deal more than that. 

I asked if the United States would be prepared to help in providing 

whatever we needed to do the job. The admiral said that of course they wanted 

to help, and he asked me how much fuel we were going to need. I took a deep 

breath and told him that we would like an eight million-gallon tanker full of 

aviation fuel off the settlement of Georgetown within the next seven days. We 

could not provide one, and we hoped the U.S. military could help us out. 

The admiral pulled the screen back on his big plotting board and he 

pondered over it a bit and made a couple of phone calls and then he said, yes, 

he thought he could do that. He fingered one-I seem to remember it was going 

to Guantanamo or somewhere and I expect the U.S. Navy objected strongly 

shortly thereafter-but anyway, off it went to Ascension. 

He said, “HOW are you going to use and store this fuel?” I said, “Well, I’m 

afraid it’ll have to just lie off Georgetown with lines ashore and be used as a 

* 

Located roughly five hundred miles south of the equator and one thousand miles 

off the coast of Africa, the British colony of Ascension Island served as the primary 

support base for the Task Force. The chief attraction was the airfield, called Wideawake 

after a local species of bird, built by the United States during World War I1 and used to 

support a variety of classified activities. 

78 
Falklands War 

floating gas station until it’s empty.” He said, “Fine, is that all?” I said, “Well, 

I think we’ll probably need another tanker like that seven days after the first, 

and another seven days after that, and so on.” His chin dropped, and he said, 

“You can ’ t use that much fuel!” I said we were going to have a reasonable try, 

and he said something about making long-term plans and requirements. 

The only snag appeared after three weeks, or so, when the admiral told me 

that the tanker which was then en route to Ascension had broken a shaft and was 

not going to make it. He found a replacement, but it was going to be late. Well, 

it rapidly became apparent that we were going to use the fuel we had available 

and go dry. Wideawake, by the way, at that time was up to four hundred aircraft 

movements a day. I asked if we could use the U.S. stocks there on the island, 

small though they were. He agreed, but it was soon obvious that they were 

going to go as well. Confronted by what seemed to be an absolutely intractable 

problem, and under the pressure of what was obviously great concern, the 

admiral produced a chart and showed me the U.S. war stock on Ascension. The 

war emergency fuel supply proved to be just about the right size to fill the hole. 

There was a long pause, then he said, “Well, hell, there is a war on after all.” So, 

we got our fuel. 

What I did not know when I first visited 5-4 was that Secretary Weinberger 

had, as soon as he had heard of the invasion, told his staff that the Brits were to 

be given every possible assistance short of engaging in operations and that he 

would not tolerate any bureaucratic interference with British requests, which 

were to be given maximum priority. It was, of course, a business arrangement 

in that the United Kingdom paid for all goods and services, but it was also a 

pretty marvelous political commitment between friends. 

Given that attitude from the man at top, and the normally high level of 

peacetime cooperation between the U.S. and the U.K. services, it was hardly 

surprising that the Pentagon was way ahead of the State Department when it 

came to support. The many civilian officials outside the Pentagon seemed 

almost alarmed that the military could have preempted them so effectively in 

aiding a foreign power. Weinberger said that the U.S. help must stop short of 

operations in the war zone, of course. While that was strictly true in the fact that 

no U.S. units took part in the conflict, it has to be said that the United States did 

provide extra aircraft, ships, and men to cover the NATO commitments which 

the United Kingdom had necessarily left uncovered. 

There were, of course, many other instances of close Anglo-American 

cooperation besides the aviation cooperation. Among the more important were 

those in the fields of intelligence and communications. Most of the intelligence 

was of the signals intelligence variety, and it enabled the British task force 

commander to be given a reasonably accurate indication of the disposition of 

the Argentines throughout the struggle. If the intelligence was important, the 

communications were absolutely vital and ranged from allocations of space on 

satellites to the provision of special radios that allowed easy contact with 

79 
Luncheon Address 

intelligence gathering sources. With the war headquarters some eight thousand 

miles from the action, the commander in chief would have been very poorly 

placed without those slots on the satellites. 

There was an earlier request for AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles. We had 

them on order, but delivery was not due for months. There was no fuss; our 

request was quietly brought up to the top of the priority list as soon as I asked. 

We also bought navigational systems to cope with the long-range missions over 

the Atlantic. Other weaponry came in the form of Shrike and Harpoon missiles. 

The Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft, for instance, was qualified to take 

Harpoon, but that weapon never saw any action. Incidentally, the Nimrod was 

also fitted with Sidewinders, much to the delight of the pilots, who advertised 

that they were flying the largest fighter aircraft in the world. 

Shrikes were also fitted to the Vulcan and used, unfortunately without too 

much success, against the Argentine Westinghouse radars outside Port Stanley. 

At about this time, I was drinking for Queen and Country at some reception in 

Washington, and the Washington Westinghouse representative took me to one 

side, and he said, “How are you getting along against the radar? Do you, um, 

need any specs or drawings?” I was quite shocked! I said, “Aren’t you pushing 

the limits of ethical behavior a bit?” He said, “Hell no, you knock that one out, 

we ’ 11 sell them another one!” 

At the time, the Vulcan raids were the longest attack missions ever flown, 

four thousand miles each way, and they were undertaken with aircraft which 

were already being withdrawn from service. We had just presented three of 

them to USAF museums. They were flown into Strategic Air Command 

headquarters at Offutt AFB and handed over in flying condition. Soon after that, 

we discovered some of the hard truths about operating an air force which has 

NATO commitments rather than Imperial ones. We had no aircraft that were 

really suitable for the vast reaches of the South Atlantic. A host of quick fixes 

were rushed into service to meet the problem, among them the need to extend 

the range on, for instance, our maritime patrol aircraft, the Nimrod. Refueling 

probes were needed in a hurry, and we did not have them. Then somebody had 

an inspiration, and we got a call in Washington: “The Vulcans we’ve just given 

to the U.S. Air Force, they had probes on, didn’t they?” “Yes, they did,” I said. 

What followed was very embarrassing. There was a small team of our air 

technicians who arrived in plain clothes, and they went sneaking around USAF 

museums unbolting refueling probes. At the end of the war, I got a signal from 

the Castle Air Force Base Museum in California congratulating us on our 

success and demanding the immediate return of stolen property! 

Forgive me as I now digress even further from the central theme and tell 

you a story which has absolutely nothing to do with Anglo-American relations, 

but is worth the telling. In that first week after Mrs. Thatcher had said that the 

fleet would sail south, I had to go up to the United Nations to chair a meeting 

of the United Nations Military Staff Committee, the most moribund committee 

80 
Falklands War 

ever devised by man. Before leaving for New York, I was told that the Buenos 

Aires newspapers had been headlining a report that a British nuclear submarine 

had been detected operating off the cost of Argentina. I knew that to be wrong. 

The nearest was en route from Gibraltar, and it would be at least a week before 

it got on station. However, it was good news because, after all, if they think it’s 

there, it is as good as having it there, because they are going to be very careful. 

Back in the United Nations, we dragged ourselves through this awful meeting. 

I then, afterwards, stopped to speak to my French colleague near the conference 

room door. The Soviet representative that day happened to be an admiral. He 

brushed my shoulder on his way out. He did not stop; he did not look at me. But 

as he went by, floating over his shoulder came: “Are our submarines being of 

any help?” 

Soviet admirals were not the only ones whose behavior was perplexing. 

One particular thorn in our side was, for most of that war, Admiral Stansfield 

Turner, U.S. Navy, retired, ex-Central Intelligence Agency, whose daily 

briefing on morning television we watched with bated breathe. The problem 

was that he was much too good. His predictions about what the Brits were going 

to do next were really very close to the truth, and it was possible to imagine the 

Argentines sitting around taking notes. We never managed to think of a way to 

restrain the phenomenon of the retired military analyst, but it is something that 

allies need to be aware of. 

In the real war, one problem proved to be that of providing air crews with 

reasonable living conditions. It soon became obvious that the combinations of 

a vast increase in flying hours and rough living conditions on Ascension-there 

were tents on lava with generators lying next to them operating all the 

time-were exacerbating air crew fatigue and increasing the risk of accidents. 

I was asked to find some mobile, air-conditioned, soundproof accommodations 

complete with ablutions and kitchens, if possible. And, as it happened, the 

United States Air Force had just exercised their collapsible concertina city units 

in the Middle East and were very pleased with them, I knew that the kits were 

still on an Air Force base in New Mexico and they had been designed to fit into 

“X number of C-141s. I went to the Pentagon and wound up talking to Colonel 

Michael Ryan, who now is a lieutenant general. Discussion with him revealed 

that the concertina city was designed for people who thought big, like the 

USAF. It came in five-hundred-man modules. “Would that do?” I pleaded economy of scale, and asked if I could I have a third of a module. “Well, the problem 

is, of course, that the second C-141 might have the five hundred-man kitchen 

in it.” And I said, “Well, forget all that. Just let us have a third of a module. I’ll 

take whatever is in it.” Mike got on the phone, and a couple of telephone calls 

later, he put his hand over the mouthpiece and said: “You do want this stuff 

don ’ t you, because when I put this phone down, it ’ s moving.” 

I excused myself, roared back to the British Embassy, got on the phone to 

London, and said the same thing. The chap in the operations room at the time 

81 
Luncheon Address 

was a rear admiral who had a terrible reputation for eccentricity. He said, 

“Good! Don’t bother about the kitchens; we don’t need any kitchens.” I said, 

“Look, forget it, it is already rolling down the runway and on its way.” He 

responded, “I don’t want the kitchens.” I put the phone down. I subsequently 

found out that the kitchen was, indeed, on the second C-141. The chaps in 

Ascension were very glad to see it; in fact, they were very glad to see the whole 

thing. It was a boon and a blessing. 

My largest acquisition came once it was certain that our efforts on the 

Falklands would actually be crowned by success. It became apparent that we 

were going to need to improve the Port Stanley airfield substantially once it was 

captured. So I went to see the 5-3, Operations, people in the Pentagon, General 

Philip Gast and Rear Admiral Bob Hilton. They were used to my forays by this 

time, but even they blanched a bit when I said I wanted to buy an airfield. I went 

into some detail about seven thousand feet of runway, a parallel taxiway, a 

parking apron, arrestor gear, and so on. For the first and only time in the war, 

they hesitated. They apologized for not having an immediate answer, and I was 

asked to come back the next day. They explained that the AM-2 steel matting 

they had available was allocated as war stocks, and it was owned by the U.S. 

Marines, and they thought that they might be difficult. Well, when I got back 

the next morning, Bob Hilton was all smiles. We could have the matting from 

the Marine stocks and they were prepared to d$iver it to Baltimore for shipping. 

It subsequently became the new Port Stanley airfield and was used as a base for 

Phantoms, Harriers, and C-130s. 

It may seem from all this that the word “cooperation” does not-accurately 

describe what was happening; one-way traffic appears to be rather more 

accurate. After all, the United States provided invaluable help to the United 

Kingdom, but, in doing so, attracted much abuse from Latin America at a time 

when great efforts had been made to further U.S. interests in that part of the 

world. So what did the United States gain by backing Britain? Well, for one 

thing, I suppose, you could say the satisfaction of having backed the winner 

and, once the dust had settled, certainly the realization that the power of the 

Argentine military Junta was gone and democracy had been given a chance to 

take root. But there were other things, too. There were many lessons learned 

from that war, both on the political and military fronts. There was a great deal 

of mutual debriefing after it was all over to make sure that the benefits were 

shared. 

From a personal point-of-view, I really cannot tell you how fortunate I was 

to be in Washington in 1982. Right from the outset I was given nothing but 

encouragement and help from the Pentagon. Whenever I appeared in front of 

somebody with a problem-and nearly all of them were pretty demanding-I 

was welcomed as a friend. And almost invariably, my request was dealt with, 

in front of me, and on the telephone. The only obvious exception was the AM-2 

matting. I was never asked to sign for anything, nor was I ever asked to put 

82 
Falklands War 

anything in writing. They listened to my story, they took my word for it, and 

they acted immediately! Bureaucrats with objections, or paperwork, or 

whatever, were brushed aside until the followup much later. Much later! It was 

all very heartwarming, and a hell of a good time to be an ally of the United 

States. 

83 

Session Two 

Acquisition 
General Robert T. Marsh, US. Air Force, retired, was inducted into the 

U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943 and trained as an aircraft mechanic and 

aerial gunner on B-17s and B-24s. Subsequently, he received an 

appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from which 

he graduated in 1949. He earned bachelor of science degrees from the 

University of Michigan in instrumentation engineering and 

aeronautical engineering in 1956. In July 1950, the general joined the 

Armed Forces Special Weapons Project as an atomic weapons 

assembly officer at Sandia Base, New Mexico, and in December 1952, 

he was assigned to Headquarters, 7th Air Division, at South Ruislip, 

England. Following graduate school, the general served in a wide 

variety of research and development offices at Wright-Patterson AFB, 

Ohio; Los Angeles AFS, California; Andrews AFB, Maryland; and the 

Pentagon. In May 1877, General Marsh became Commander of 

Electronic Systems Division, Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, and in 

January 1981, he became Commander, Air Force Systems Command. 
Introduction 

General Robert T. Marsh 

I am very pleased to be here with so many distinguished airmen and air 

power historians and to have the opportunity to rejoin many of my old friends. 

I have no idea why Bryce Poe asked me to participate this afternoon. I am not 

a fighter pilot; I am not a bomber pilot; I am not a transport pilot. In fact, I am 

not a pilot. Also, we are going to talk about the immediate post-war period 

through the 1950s and slightly into the 1960s, and I think it is perfectly obvious 

that I cannot give you any mature insights into the happenings of those days. 

However, I might try to recall for you a few personal impressions of these 

events you are about to hear. These will be the impressions from someone who 

was a relatively junior officer at the time. 

First, we are going to review the aircraft procurement program of the Royal 

Air Force during the 1950s and early 1960s, along with the American 

involvement with that program. During this period, I worked on our missile and 

space programs almost exclusively and did not track closely the many ongoing 

aircraft programs. As an outsider, it appeared to me a fairly orderly effort to 

move ahead on the part.of the Royal Air Force with their advanced fighters; and 

I thought the V-bomber program seemed well managed and under control, as 

well. I also was very much impressed with British progress in developing 

vertical and short takeoff and landing capabilities. Was the process as logical 

and tidy as it appeared? Wait until you hear what it was really like from Robert 

Jackson, a prolific and first-rate aviation author and defense correspondent for 

the North of England Newspaper Group. 

I happened to be stationed at South Ruislip in England with the 7th Air 

Division from 1952 through 1954, and it was during that time that the United 

States provided B-29s to the United Kingdom. Of course, the U.S. Air Force 

was totally preoccupied with its bomb wings rotating into the various bases in 

England and worrying about its ability to carry out our war plans. But, even as 

a young staff officer at that time, I wondered about the role of the Royal Air 

Force B-29s. Many of us speculated as to what their real mission was and, 

especially, whether or not they were atomic weapon capable. We have today Dr. 

William Suit, a historian from the Air Force Materiel Command History Office, 

who is going to address those questions for us. 

87 
Session Two: Acquisition 

And finally to Skybolt. I had hoped that General Schriever* would be here 

this afternoon so we could watch his reaction as this story unfolds. I happened 

to be have been stationed at the Ballistic Missile Division, one of General 

Schriever’s organizations in the early 1960s, and, by coincidence, I car-pooled 

with the deputy program manager of Skybolt, a very good friend of mine. We 

had about an hour and a half trip to Los Angeles International Airport where the 

organization was located-an hour and a half up in the morning and an hour and 

a half back at night-so I learned as lot more about Skybolt than I ever wanted 

to know. I had great respect for this man and his judgement. He surely 

impressed me that the program was making very good progress against its 

objectives, and he was absolutely dumbfounded when it was cancelled because 

of so-called “technical uncertainties.” I will also never forget his comments 

several days later during one of our trips after Skybolt had its 100 percent flight 

success, an event that took place about two weeks after the cancellation was 

announced! But that is only half of the story. We are fortunate to have Dr. 

Ronald Landa from the Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office to 

tell us the whole story. 

* 

From June 1954 through April 1959, then Major General Bernard A. Schriever 

headed a small group of officers who developed such key aerospace systems as the 

Thor, Atlas, Titan, and Minuteman missiles and several Air Force launch systems 

including the man-in-space program. While Commander of Air Force Systems 

Command, General Schriever vehemently opposed cancellation of Skybolt by Secretary 

of Defense Robert McNamara and personally authorized the successful test of the 

missile after its cancellation, thus embarrassing the Department of Defense. See his 

comments in Jacob Neufeld, ed., Research and Development in the United States Air 

Force (Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1993), pp. 77-78. General 

Schriever attended the morning session of the symposium, but was unable to return in 

the afternoon. 

88 
Session Two Presentions 

RAF Aircraft Procurement. 1950-1 965: The American Involvement 

The Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force Under the Military Defense 

The Origins of the Skybolt Controversy in the Eisenhower Administration 

RobertJackson ........................................... 91 

......................... 101 

RonaldD.Landa .......................................... 117 

Assistance Program William W . Suit 

Questions and Answers ...................................... 133 

89 
Robert Jackson, Aviation author and defence correspondent for the 

North of England Newspaper Group, has written over fifty books on 

aviation and military topics including operational histories of the P-51 

Mustang, the F-86 Sabre, the Hawker Hunter, and the English Electric 

Canberra (B-57). Other works include histories of the Soviet Air 

Force, the U.S. Air Force in Great Britain, the Berlin Airlift, the air war 

over France in 1940, and the air war over Korea. 
RAF’ Aircraft Procurement, 

The American Involvement 

1955-1965: 

Robert Jackson 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I should like to speak for a while about some 

aircraft which the Royal Air Force wanted, but did not get; about other aircraft 

which the Royal Air Force did not want, but got anyway; and about the odd 

aircraft which the Royal Air Force wanted, needed, and eventually acquired. 

Setting aside earlier RAF acquisitions which came about with the assistance 

of the U.S.. government-the loan of B-29s to Bomber Command, for example, 

and the supply of Canadair-built F-86 Sabres to equip the squadrons of the 

Second Tactical Air Force in Germany-the threshold of American involvement 

in British military research and development was crossed in 1954, with the 

establishment of the Mutual Weapons Development Team (MWDT) in Paris. 

This organization, headed by Colonel Willis “Bill” Chapman, USAF, was 

set up to examine and encourage promising European military projects which 

might otherwise have withered and died through lack of funds. In the mid195Os, the MWDT was concerned with the development of a lightweight strike 

fighter for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-an aircraft that eventually 

emerged as the Fiat G.91-and was collaborating closely with the Bristol 

Engine Company on development of the Orpheus, the turbojet that was selected 

to power the lightweight fighter. This early Anglo-American collusion laid a 

firm foundation for future cooperation which, as we shall see later, was to prove 

of great importance to both nations. 

For the British military aircraft industry, the years 1955 and 1956 marked 

a time of excitement. The industry had at last thrown off the shackles of 

wartime policy, which had dictated the development of existing designs rather 

than the initiation of new ones, and a new range of advanced combat aircraft 

were coming to fruition. The Vickers Valiant, the first of the so-called Vbombers that would form Britain ’ s strategic nuclear deterrent force, was already 

in service, and the other two-the Avro Vulcan and Handley Page 

Victor-would reach the squadrons of RAF Bomber Command by the end of 

the decade. Already, designs of supersonic successors to these aircraft were on 

the drawing boards. 

91 
Session Two: Acquisition 

Prototypes of a Mach 2 fighter, the English Electric P.1-which was 

developed into the Lightning interceptor-were flying, and the prototypes of 

even more advanced fighter and ground attack aircraft were under construction. 

If all went well, within a few years these aircraft would provide the RAF with 

a strike and air defence force second to none. 

But all did not go well. In April 1957, the Defence White Paper, with its 

emphasis on missiles in preference to manned combat aircraft, announced the 

demise of most of these promising projects; the Blue Streak intermediate-range 

ballistic missile would assure strategic deterrence, and long-range surface-to-air 

weapons, such as the Bloodhound, would assure the integrity of U.K. airspace. 

The English Electric Lightning, then at an advanced stage of development, was 

seen as the last manned fighter that would enter RAF service. 

One part of the RAF that could not be replaced by missiles was the 

Transport Force, the structure of which revolved around the needs of the army, 

in particular the rapid reinforcement of overseas garrisons following the planned 

reduction in manpower when National Service ended. The Suez Emergency of 

1956 had shown Transport Command's resources to be woefully inadequate, 

and in 1957, the War Office presented Duncan Sandys, the Secretary of State 

for Defence, with demands for a new long-range freighter, for tactical transport 

and for short-range transport, the latter requirement to include helicopters. At 

this time, the workhorse of Transport Command was the Handley Page 

Hastings, with three squadrons of Blackburn Beverley aircraft providing a 

heavy transport force and the Vickers Valetta used for short- and medium-haul 

work. Far East reinforcement was the task of one jet-equipped squadron, No. 

216, with Comet C.2s. Two more squadrons earmarked mainly for Far East 

reinforcement were due to reequip with twenty Bristol Britannia turboproppowered transports, but industrial and technical difficulties, coupled with a lack 

of orders for the civil version, meant that production was very slow. The first 

Britannia squadron, in fact, did not begin to equip until the summer of 1959. 

The most pressing demand was for a new strategic freighter, capable of 

carrying up to thirteen tons over a range of three thousand miles. This requirement coincided with studies for a Beverley replacement, and one of the types 

under consideration was the American Lockheed C-130 Hercules. At first, the 

C-130 was considered by the Air Staff to be too small to meet the strategic 

requirement and too large for a tactical transport, but the army needed a new 

aircraft quickly-by 1963 at the latest-which left little time to adapt or 

develop a British type. A Hercules purchase was the obvious solution to the 

problem, with the C-133 as a possible alternative. The problem was that these 

aircraft, being American, did not fit in with the British Government policy of 

the day, which insisted on buying British equipment. So in 1958, various British 

alternatives were considered; although, it should be mentioned that the C-130 

idea was by no means dead and buried. In 1961, a version powered by RollsRoyce Tyne engines and designated BAC 222 was proposed jointly by 

' 

92 
RAF Aircraft Procurement 

Lockheed and the British Aircraft Corporation to meet Operational Requirement 

351, which was written around a medium-range, short takeoff and landing 

freighter with a thirty-five thousand-pound payload. 

In the event, the strategic freighter requirement, Operational Requirement 

323, was decided purely on political and industrial grounds in 1959. Short 

Brothers of Belfast, Ireland, had been building Britannia components under 

contract, but production was almost at an end. To haul itself into the future, 

Short had only one lifeline, the Britannic, a large turboprop-powered freighter 

which had been under development for some time. If production of the 

Britannic did not go ahead, a large part of Short’ s work force would have to be 

laid off, and in view of the fact that the company was largely Governmentowned and subsidized, this could not be allowed to happen. So the Britannic 

was ordered into production to meet Operational Requirement 323 for the 

strategic freighter; it would be known as the Belfast C.l in RAF service. 

The Belfast was not the aircraft the Air Staff wanted. For one thing, it was 

the only RAF aircraft to use the Rolls-Royce Tyne engine, which made little 

sense in logistic and engineering terms; for another, it would not be in service 

before 1966, three years after the required date, The Vice Chief of the Air Staff 

of the day remarked that the aircraft would be obsolete by the time it entered 

service, and he was right. Proving flights to the Far East showed that, since the 

aircraft had insufficient performance to clear some of the mountains it 

encountered on the direct routes, it had to follow roundabout routes, and it took 

a long time to get there, which defeated the object. The proving flight to Gan, 

in the Indian Ocean, provoked a caustic signal from the aircraft captain to 

Headquarters Transport Command; he stated that all was well, and there was no 

sign of scurvy in the crew! 

When the Belfast was ordered, it was envisaged that one of its primary 

functions would be to transport the Blue Streak long-range ballistic missile, and 

when that weapon was cancelled early in the 1960s, much of the Belfast’s 

ruison d ’etre disappeared. There was even less use for it after the late 1960s, 

following Britain ’ s withdrawal from areas east of Suez. The Belfast ultimately 

equipped only one squadron, and was eventually withdrawn in 1976. 

With Operational Requirement 323 met, albeit unsatisfactorily, there 

remained the question of Operational Requirement 351, the Hastings and 

Beverley replacement. In 1961, a principal contender for this requirement was 

the Hawker Siddeley 681, an advanced tactical transport featuring a high wing 

with moderate sweepback and a high tail surmounting an upswept fuselage 

equipped with generous loading doors and a loading ramp. It was to be powered 

either by four Bristol Siddeley Pegasus engines with vectored thrust nozzles-a 

somewhat ambitious scheme, seen in the light of later developments-or four 

Rolls-Royce Medway engines fitted with thrust deflectors. 

The Hawker Siddeley 681 project drifted on for a long time with no firm 

decision made on its future, and gradually the projected first flight target of 

93 
Session Two: Acquisition 

August 1967 and in-service date of 1968 receded. One stumbling block was 

range, and at one point consideration was given to the Lockheed C-141 as an 

alternative, but this ran into the brick wall of emphasis on all-British designs. 

In the end, the aircraft, still at mock-up stage, fell victim in February 1965 to the 

axe wielded by the newly elected Labour Government. With that government’s 

intention to withdraw from commitments east of Suez as soon as possible and 

concentrate the RAF’s main resources within the framework of the North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization, range was no longer a key issue. With the demise 

of the 681 project, the RAF’s tactical transport requirement was met by the 

C-130 Hercules, nearly ten years after this aircraft had first been considered. 

Sixty-six were ordered, the first entering service in July 1967, and a happy 

choice it proved to be. As one newly converted RAF Hercules pilot put it, 

“Route flying Hercs after the more staid aircraft is rather like the transition from 

sail to steam must have been.” 

In the helicopter field, there had long been a strong American bias, for the 

RAF had been operating the Westland Whirlwind, the license-built version of 

the Sikorsky S-55, since the mid-3950s. It is of interest to note that the RAF 

and Royal Navy were both using helicopters in the tactical transport role in 

Malaya before the US. Army adopted a similar procedure in Korea. By the end 

of the decade, operations in Malaya and elsewhere had revealed an urgent need 

for a twin-rotor tactical transport helicopter with a high payload capacity. The 

army favoured the Boeing-Vertol Chinook; instead, again mainly for political 

reasons, the choice fell on the Westland Belvedere, a military version of the 

Bristol Type 173. The Belvedere was a disaster. Its cramped cabin made it 

completely unsuitable as a troop transport, it had an airframe life of only sixteen 

hundred hours, and it never met its operational requirements. Fortunately, its inservice career, which began in 1961, was short-lived; from 1964 on, it was 

replaced by the Westland Wessex, a license-built version of the Sikorsky S-58 

with British turboshaft engines. As a matter of record, the RAF ’ s medium-lift 

helicopter force did eventually equip with the CH-47 Chinook, but not until 

1981. The subsequent performance of that type, particularly during the 

Falklands Campaign-where the sole Chinook operating with the Task Force 

performed Herculean tasks-surely indicated that the type would have been the 

correct choice twenty years earlier. 

Having examined the tribulations of the RAF’s transport force in the early 

1960s, let us go back a few years and look at the beginnings of mutual AngloAmerican interests in combat aircraft. 

During the early 1950s, a French engineer named Michel Wibault-whose 

company had built a range of commercial aircraft in the 1930s-had been 

working on the concept of vertical takeoff and its associated problems and had 

come up with a possible solution. His idea envisaged a turbojet engine using 

vectored thrust, with rotating nozzles that directed exhaust gases either 

vertically downwards or horizontally aft. Having failed to arouse French interest 

94 
RAF Aircraft Procurement 

in the concept, and seeking funds to develop his theme, in 1956 he approached 

Colonel Bill Chapman at the Paris office of the Mutual Weapons Development 

Team. At this time, the MWDT was already working with Bristol Siddeley on 

the Orpheus engine to power NATO’s lightweight fighter, so Chapman 

approached Dr. Stanley Hooker, Bristol ’ s Technical Director, and sought his 

views on the Wibault project. Initially, Hooker was intersted, but-mindful of 

the MWDT’s support for the Orpheus programme-he asked one of his project 

engineers, Gordon Lewis, to investigate the possibilities. After preliminary 

studies, Wibault and Lewis applied for a joint patent covering the design of a 

vectored-thrust engine known as the BE.52 in January 1957; this was further 

developed into the BE.53 Pegasus I, which was based on the Orpheus. 

In the summer of 1957, details of the proposed engine were passed to Sir 

Sydney Camm, Hawker Aircraft’s Chief Designer, who authorized Ralph 

Hooper, one of his senior project designers, to examine the project. Hooper, 

impressed by the apparent simplicity of the idea, went to work on the 

design-at this stage little more than a thumbnail sketch-of an aircraft to fit 

around the engine, and in June 1957 it was allotted the project number P.1127. 

The first P.1127 brochure, depicting a single-seat ground attacWreconnaissance 

aircraft, was shown to Colonel Chapman of MWDT when he visited the Farnborough Air Show in September 1957. His reaction was generally favourable, 

although he pointed out that, to meet NATO requirements, the aircraft’s 

estimated combat radius would have to be doubled. 

It was not only Chapman’s reaction that was encouraging. At that year’s 

annual Anglo-American Aeronautical Conference, a paper presented by Mr. M. 

Q. McKinney described the work already done in America on vertical and short 

take-off aircraft, from which it emerged how US. interest in the field was 

expanding. The 1958 Conference, which was to be held in the United States in 

July, was to be attended by Mr. E. T. Jones, the Deputy Controller (Overseas 

Affairs) at the Ministry of Supply, and the Hawker management went to great 

lengths to brief him on the P.1127’~ potential beforehand. 

In the meantime, a redesigned P.1127, more compatible with NATO 

requirements, had been presented to the MWDT, and it met with an enthusiastic 

reception. In June 1958 the MWDT agreed to pay 75 percent of the development costs of the Pegasus engine, and in September, aviation pioneer, Major 

Alexander de Seversky, adviser to the USAF Chief of Staff, underpinned the 

undisguised American enthusiasm for the project by recommending bypassing 

a Fiat G.91 replacement with an aircraft possibly based on the P.1127. 

The enthusiasm, unfortunately, was not reflected at this stage in the attitude 

of the U.K. government. Available research funds were being eaten up by other 

projects, and none were available for allocation to the P.1127 airframe 

development programme. As a result, Hawker Aircraft had to proceed with 

P.1127 development purely on the basis of a private venture while the Air Staff 

set about drafting an operational requirement to cover the concept. This 

95 
Session Two: Acquisition 

emerged in April 1959 as Operational Requirement 345, and Specification 

ER.204D was issued to cover the P.1127, but it was not until October 1959 that 

Hawker received a preliminary contract and a niggardly 575 thousand to enable 

further design work to be carried out, and not until June 1960 did the Company 

receive a contract for the building of two prototypes. 

The prototype P.1127 made its first tethered hovering flight in October 

1960, and began conventional flight trials the following May. Shortly afterwards, a government contract was placed for a further four aircraft, later 

absorbed by a tripartite agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany, 

the United States, and the United Kingdom. Under this agreement, the three 

nations purchased nine more aircraft for a joint vertical/short take off and 

landing (V/STOL) evaluation programme, which was undertaken at RAF West 

Raynham from May to November 1965. The P.1127 was now known as the 

Kestrel FGA.l. 

Meanwhile, a rather unfortunate red herring had floundered across the path 

of V/STOL development in the United Kingdom. In 1960, Hawker, seeing little 

prospect at that time for a P.1127 production order, turned its attention to 

proposals for a more advanced V/STOL aircraft that would more adequately suit 

the NATO requirement, then emerging in draft form. The new Hawker design, 

the P.1150, was to be powered by an advanced version of the Pegasus vectoredthrust engine using a new type of exhaust boost known as plenum chamber 

burning (PCB), which involved the burning of fuel in oxygen-rich air and at 

higher pressures than in most reheat systems. However, when NATO Basic 

Military Requirement (NBMR) No. 3 was issued in 1961, it called for a larger 

and more powerful V/STOL design capable of supersonic speed at altitude, so 

the P.1150 was replaced by a new design, the P.1154. It was to be powered by 

a new engine, the Bristol Siddeley BS.lOO, again using PCB. 

Problems began to emerge at an early stage, and they had nothing to do 

with the design of the aircraft. First of all, mainly because of France’s 

reluctance to participate in a joint venture to bring NBMR No. 3 to fruition, 

NATO withdrew the entire requirement. In mid-1962 the Air Staff and the 

Admiralty attempted to draft a joint requirement for a combat aircraft based on 

the P.1154, but this was doomed from the outset. The RAF wanted a single-seat 

low-level strike aircraft with a secondary intercept capability, while the Royal 

Navy needed a two-seat all-weather interceptor for aircraft carrier operations 

with low-level strike as a secondary requirement. The two were directly 

opposed to one another, and late in 1963 the Royal Navy opted out of the 

P.1154 programme and ordered the McDonnell F-4 Phantom instead. The RAF 

pursued the P.1154 project alone, until it was cancelled by the Labour 

Government in January 1965. 

It was a Conservative Government, though, which in February 1964 

announced the intention to buy the F-4; 130 Phantoms were to be acquired to 

replace the Sea Vixen as the standard fleet defence aircraft, but this order was 

96 
RAP Aircraft Procurement 

later reduced to 52. In Royal Navy service the aircraft was to be designated 

F-4K Phantom FG.1. 

In February 1962, McDonnell had proposed to the U.S. forces a Phantom 

powered by Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan engines, and in November 1965, to 

appease the British aircraft industry, the then Minister of Aviation, Roy Jenkins, 

announced that the Spey was to power the British Phantoms. Before that, in 

May 1965, the Phantom had also been ordered for the Royal Air Force; at this 

stage it was anticipated that the total British procurement would be some 290 

aircraft. The RAF Phantom, designated F4M, was to replace the Canberra and 

the Hunter in the reconnaissance and strike roles. 

The decision to acquire the Phantom for the RAF came as a direct result of 

an unfortunate episode in the story of British military aviation, and one which 

caused a good deal of bitterness in both the industry and the RAF. I have 

already mentioned that the P.1127 V/STOL project had to proceed as a private 

venture because government funds were channelled into other projects. One of 

these was Operational Requirement 339, calling for an advanced tactical strike 

and reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Canberra. Various designs were 

tendered, and that submitted by the Vickers/English Electric consortium, soon 

to become the British Aircraft Corporation, was accepted in January 1959. The 

name of the new aircraft was TSR-2. 

The development of TSR-2 was somewhat protracted and its research and 

development costs escalated, partly because of some early technical 

problems-mainly associated with the Olympus engine chosen for it-but 

largely because every phase of its development was under the control of a 

separate government committee. As we all know, if you ask a committee to 

design a horse, the end product will probably be a camel. 

The TSR-2, however, was no camel. By February 1965 two prototypes 

were flying and work was progressing on a third, together with twenty 

production aircraft, five of which were partly complete. Flight testing had 

already indicated that when TSR-2 entered service, the RAF would have the 

most advanced and capable aircraft of its kind in the world. 

It was not to be. Early in 1965, as we have seen, a newly installed Labour 

Government cancelled two key projects, the Hawker Siddeley 681 tactical 

transport and the P.1154 supersonic V/STOL aircraft. TSR-2 was kept going 

for a while so that comparisons might be made between it and the General 

Dynamics F-111. At that time, Prime Minister Harold Wilson, acting on faulty 

advice from people who had launched what amounted to a smear campaign 

against TSR-2, believed that some f300 million might be saved by buying the 

American aircraft. His Cabinet thought so too, and the final nail in TSR-2’s 

coffin was hammered home on April 6, 1965, when Chancellor of the 

Exchequer James Callaghan, in his Budget speech, announced that the project 

was to be cancelled forthwith. The assassination was to be complete; no trace 

of the project was to survive. 

97 
Session Two: Acquisition 

On February 1, 1966, Defence Minister Denis Healey announced that the 

U.K. government was to buy fifty General Dynamics F-111s to carry out the 

task for which TSR-2 had been intended. The 1966 Defence White Paper, 

issued later that month, stated that the F-111 would bridge the gap until the 

advent of an Anglo-French variable-geometry aircraft, then under joint study. 

In 1967, however, these aspirations suffered two blows in swift succession. 

First, the French government announced that it was pulling out of the variablegeometry project on the grounds of cost; second, the British government 

realized that the planned purchase of fifty F-111s could not possibly be supported because of escalating costs. In January 1968, by which time the first 

nineteen F-111K aircraft for Britain were taking shape on the General Dynamics assembly line, the British order was cancelled. The excuse given was that, 

with the progressive withdrawal of British forces from the Far East and the 

Arabian Gulf by 1971, there would no longer be a need for a long-range tactical 

strike and reconnaissance aircraft. 

The cost to the United Kingdom of the cancellation was f50 million, but, 

Prime Minister Harold Wilson explained, by not buying the F-111 the country 

was actually saving an estimated f400 million. As aviation writer Bill Gunston 

pointed out in his book on the F-111, it was a pity that Britain could not go on 

forever ordering aircraft and then cancelling them. By saving f300 million in 

cancelling TSR-2 and then saving another f400 million in cancelling the 

F-111, the nation seemed to be on to a good thing. 

As things turned out, the only beneficiary in this sorry affair was the SAC, 

which received forty-eight aircraft of the British order completed to FB-111A 

standards. The episode did, however, help to push Britain along the road of 

European collaboration which led eveqtually to the Tornado. 

It will be obvious by now that the RAF’ s acquisition of American aircraft 

in the 1960s came about as a result of accident rather than design, and of the 

machinations of governments whose policies were poles apart. On the one hand 

there was a government determined to cling to the vestiges of the Empire in an 

attempt to maintain Britain’s previous standing in the world; on the other, there 

was a government determined to dismantle what remained of the Empire as fast 

as possible, a task it accomplished with great efficiency. The overall effect was 

to create chaotic conditions for both the British aviation industry and the RAF. 

The RAF, luckily, recovered; the industry never did. 

But the picture was not entirely one of gloom. There was, so to speak, a 

jewel in the crown, an aircraft, which in the opinion of many, represented the 

finest fruit of Anglo-American cooperation. It traced its ancestry back to the 

Sopwith Camel of 1916, and when Sir Tom Sopwith-who literally lived 

through a century of aviation-first saw this aircraft demonstrated, he remarked, 

“NOW I’ve seen everything.” It was, of course, the Harrier, born of the P.1127 

and Kestrel programmes of the early 1960s and still the subject of ongoing 

development by McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace. 

98 
RAF Aircraft Procurement 

In April 1982, the armed forces of Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. 

To use an expression popular at the time, “the Empire struck back,” after 

George Lucas’s film, and in a matter of weeks, the Falklands had been restored 

to the Crown. Without the Harrier and its naval version, the Sea Harrier, that 

mission would have been impossible to fulfill. And without the funding, the 

encouragement and the enthusiasm generated in the early years by far-sighted 

people in the United States of America, it is probable that the Harrier would 

never have seen the light of day. 

99 
Dr. William Suit, Historian, Air Force Materiel Command History 

Office, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, received his Ph.D. in history 

from Kent State University, Ohio, in 1988 and joined the Office of 

History at Air Force Materiel Command later that year. Among his 

publications is the “Logistics of Air Power Projection” in Airpower 

History, and he has presented papers on “USAF All-Wing Aircraft” at 

the Society of Historians of Technology annual convention and “The 

Role of Air Force Systems Command and Air Force Logistics 

Command in operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm,” at the Center for 

Air Force History Symposium on the Gulf War in April 1993. 

Currently, Dr. Suit is completing a monograph study on “The Road to 

Stealth: N-1M to the B-2A.” 
The Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force 

Under the Military Defense Assistance Program* 

William W. Suit 

Immediately following World War 11, both the United Kingdom and the 

United States anticipated a well-deserved respite from global confrontation and 

war. Accordingly, the two nations drastically cut back their expansive wartime 

military establishments and reduced new military hardware procurement. 

Washington and London both viewed their existing arsenals as adequate for 

defensive needs, requiring only minimal upgrading in the immediate future. 

With their common foes vanquished, each nation could safely modernize its 

forces at a measured pace. However, between 1945 and 1949, an increasingly 

hostile Soviet Union acquired jet aircraft, long-range bombers, and atomic 

weapons, thus forcing the U.K. to accelerate its military reequipment plans. 

Without comparable aircraft and weapons with which to strike back at the 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in kind, the RAF Bomber Command was 

temporarily rendered only marginally useful as a strategic air arm. The U.K. had 

to look to its own resources to develop atomic weapons, but Bomber Command 

acquired eighty -seven American Boeing B-29 Superfortresses for use as interim 

long-range bombers until the command received the British-produced jet 

bombers that would form the core of the jet-age RAF strategic striking force. 

Though only a minor early episode in a long series of post-World War I1 AngloAmerican collaborative efforts, the transfer of the B-29s serves as an excellent 

example of how the two countries aided one another as they adjusted to their 

new world roles.‘ 

In August 1945, three major powers stood intact amid the ruin: the Soviet 

Union, the U.K., and the U.S. Continental Europe was ravaged, Japan had been 

absolutely defeated, and China seethed with civil war. The war had wrought 

many changes made apparent only with time. The United States emerged 

considerably more powerful militarily and economically vis-h-vis the U.K. or 

the U.S.S.R. than was recognized at the time. Brutally savaged by Nazi 

Germany, the Soviet Union suffered far worse than its leaders dared to admit. 

Nevertheless, the Soviets pressed on with expensive military modernization. At 

* 

This paper was published subsequently as “Anglo-American Amity: Transferring B-29s to the Royal Air Force,” in Air Power History (Winter, 1994), pp. 30-39. 

101 
Session Two: Acquisition 

the same time, the U.K., the world’s second economic power, enjoyed no stay 

from adversity. As the leader of a fading empire teeming with unrest and nearly 

bankrupted by two world wars, the U.K. faced imminent decline in wealth, 

military power, and worldwide political influence. Adapting to the changed 

world, Britain simultaneously rebuilt its economy and transformed itself from 

leader of an empire to first among equals in the British Commonwealth of 

Nations? 

The combination of fiscal austerity and the emergence of the Soviet Union 

as a military threat placed RAF Bomber Command in a bind. In 1946, confident 

that World War I1 had exhausted the world’s capacity for major armed conflict 

into the immediate future, the Labour government adopted the Ten-Year Rule, 

as had been done following World War I, which stated that the government 

assumed no major war would occur in the next decade. Atomic energy research 

continued unabated, but under the umbrella of the Ten-Year Rule, the Ministry 

of Defence slowed military equipment research and acquisition. The decline in 

defense expenditure produced a greater impact on the RAF, and Bomber 

Command in particular, than on the Royal Navy or the British Army because 

rapid advances in aeronautical technology rendered the aircraft on hand obsolete 

far more quickly than ships or tanks. For the same reason, procurement costs of 

aircraft accelerated far more rapidly than those of ground or sea armaments. The 

Exchequer did provide enough money to begin reequipping Fighter Command 

with jet-powered Meteors and Vampires, but Bomber Command, as the logical 

choice to perform Britain’s future atomic warfare role, faced a more lengthy 

reequipment pro~ess.~ 

The propeller-driven Avro Lincoln served as the standard post-war RAF 

bomber until replaced by Washingtons and Canberras in the early 1950s. 

Basically an improved model of the World War I1 workhorse Lancaster, the 

Lincoln fared poorly when compared to contemporary American bombers and 

was certainly inadequate for use against the Soviet Union. Lacking a 

pressurized cabin, the Lincoln could attain a top speed of 290 mph, a service 

ceiling of 22,000 feet, and a range of 2,250 miles with a fourteen thousandpound bomb load. By comparison, the U.S. Air Force B-29B, with a 

pressurized cabin, could reach a top speed of 354 mph, a service ceiling of 

35,900 ft, and a range of 3,960 miles carrying a ten thousand-pound bomb load. 

The Boeing bomber could carry up to twenty thousand pounds of bombs on 

shorter mission^.^ 

As the world leaders in jet engine research and production, the British 

recognized that the Lincoln’s replacement would have to be a jet aircraft, and 

thus made no effort to develop an advanced propeller-driven bomber similar to 

the USAF’s B-36 or B-50. In 1945, as a first step toward creating a jet bomber 

force, the British Air Staff issued specification B.3/45 for a light twin-jet 

bomber to replace the DeHavilland Mosquito. From this program emerged the 

very successful English Electric Canberra light bomber, which entered service 

102 
Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force 

in 1952. In 1946, the Air Staff issued specification B.35146 for a highperformance, special-weapons-capable four-engine jet bomber to serve as a 

follow-on for the Lincoln. This specification led to the creation of the VBomber program which ultimately produced the swept-wing Vickers-Armstrong 

Valiant, the crescent-wing Handley Page Victor, and the delta-wing Avro 

Vulcan. The Defence Ministry did not expect these bombers to begin entering 

service until 1955. Attempting to fill the gap between the time the Lincolns 

became hopelessly obsolete and the new V-Bombers entered service, the Air 

Staff issued specification B.14/46 for a less sophisticated interim bomber, the 

ill-fated Short S.A.4 Sperrin, which was expected to enter production in the late 

1940s or the very early 1950s: 

The RAF quickly realized that the Short S.A.4 would be rendered obsolete 

soon after it entered service. The Air Staff therefore decided to lessen the 

performance requirements for one of the V-Bombers, and issued specification 

B.9/48 in 1948 for the Vickers-Armstrong Valiant, an aircraft more advanced 

than the Sperrin but not as sophisticated as the Victor or Vulcan. Thus, in 1948 

the financially strained U.K. found its Ministry of Defence and aircraft industry 

committed to the development of five jet bombers. Mindful of its experience 

with the Stirling, Halifax, and Manchester bomber development prior to World 

War 11, the RAF balked at channeling all effort into one four-engine bomber 

design for fear it might make the wrong choice. Fortunately, the establishment 

of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program by the U.S. Congress in 1949 

provided the RAF the opportunity to bypass production of the expensive Sperrin 

and acquire admittedly less capable, but “free,” B-29s for use as an interim 

bomber.6 

The possibility of the United States providing large-scale military 

assistance to the Western Union was first broached during the Anglo-AmericanCanadian security talks held during the spring of 1948. As preparations 

progressed for the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 

plans for the creation of a comprehensive military aid program developed as 

well. All parties agreed that for the aid program to be more palatable to the 

American public and less provocative to the Soviet Union (primarily a French 

concern), the recipient countries should formally request assistance from the 

US., rather than have the Americans independently offer military aid. In this 

way, the U.S. would be portrayed internationally and domestically as coming 

to the assistance of friends, rather than unilaterally embarking on a program of 

military expansion. In March 1949, after the Truman administration received 

indications of bipartisan support in Congress, U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. 

Lewis Douglas initiated informal discussions on the implementation of the 

proposed program. The Mutual Defense Assistance Program, commonly 

referred to as the Military Assistance Program, as envisioned by the Americans, 

would meet the overall needs of the Western Union and those of other key 

allies. Accordingly, the U.S. State Department encouraged the Western Union 

103 
Session Two: Acquisition 

countries to draw up a list of military hardware needed by the various member 

countries within the context of the Union’s requirements and the individual 

members’ capacity for military production. On March 16, 1949, a Western 

Union consultative committee presented a preliminary request for aid to the 

U.S. State Department. In early April, the NATO charter member states signed 

the North Atlantic Treaty, and the Truman Administration announced the 

Western Union request for assistance. However, the fate of the Military Assistance Program rested with Congress. Acting as a conduit, Ambassador Douglas 

informed Secretary of State Dean Acheson of British concern over impending 

congressional action on the program. Douglas wrote that the British were not 

concerned about the amount of dollars eventually appropriated “if the dollars 

bear no direct relation to [the] real value of the equipment.”’ 

The previous month in the House of Commons, Secretary of State for Air 

Arthur Henderson had hinted what “real value” meant in British terms. While 

explaining the RAF reequipment program, Henderson outlined the financial, 

time, and technical constraints imposed on bomber development. He noted that 

production quantities of the twin-jet bomber (Canberra) had been ordered and 

that work progressed on the advanced bomber program. Notably, he did not 

mention the interim bomber. Apparently, satisfactory progress on the Canberra 

and Valiant, coupled with the prospect of acquiring B-29s from the U.S., 

mitigated the need to produce the Sperrin. The S.A.4 program continued as a 

research project and Short eventually built two test aircraft, but B-29s and 

Canberras filled the interim bomber role? 

Congress began hearings on the Military Assistance Program in the summer 

of 1949. Throughout these and subsequent hearings key, committee members 

expressed serious misgivings about providing military aid to the U.K. Surprisingly, the British requested what appeared to be a modest amount of equipment: 

seventy B-29s, which as surplus stock were valued at $7.5 million. This sum 

represented less than that of any other country’s request except for 

Luxembourg.’ Given the extent of sniping at the U.K. in Congress, it appeared 

that the British request might be held up. During an early August hearing, 

Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas (D-California) expressed concern 

about Argentina purchasing British Land Rovers instead of American Jeeps and 

Congressman John Vorys (R-Ohio) questioned the licensed production of 

British-designed jet fighters in French factories. Vorys complained, “We cannot 

be pouring arms into Europe and having any of them selling any of that stuff to 

create dollars or anything else. . . . we had an awful lot of talk about the jet 

planes that Britain sold to the Russians.”’” The following week, Senator Brien 

McMahon (D-Connecticut) suggested that the U.S. should use the Military 

Assistance Program as a means of encouraging the North Atlantic Treaty 

signatories to persuade the U.K. to give up its atomic energy program.” Senator 

Arthur Vandenberg (R-Michigan) sounded a similar note the next day when he 

stated that because the U.K. had requested military aid, it was “inconsistent for 

104 
Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force 

the British to spend two, three, or four hundred million dollars on atomic 

energy.”’* 

Congressional exasperation with the U.K. soon tempered as a string of 

events drove home the realization that the world was an unpredictably 

dangerous place and the U.S. should help its key, but troubled, ally. In rapid 

succession between August and October 1949, the U.K., with the largest and 

most stable economy in Europe, devalued the pound; the Soviet Union 

detonated its first atomic weapon; and the communists triumphed in China. In 

the midst of these events Congress moved quickly, and on October 6, President 

Truman signed into law the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949, which 

authorized the dissemination of $1.45 billion in equipment and cash. The RAF 

received the first Superfortress the following March and the eighty-seventh in 

June 1952.13 

On March 21, 1950, speaking for the Labour government during debate 

over the 195CL1951 Air Estimates, Secretary of State for Air Henderson 

explained that “these aircraft [B-29s] will be absorbed into the front line 

strength of Bomber Command, and will obviously greatly increase the effective 

striking power of our bomber f~rce.”’~ Headded: 

As I explained to the House last year, we have concentrated our efforts 

on a long term development of advanced four-engined jet bombers [the 

V-bombers], capable of speeds, heights and ranges far greater than 

those which have been attained with our piston-engined bombers. 

Although good progress is being made in developing these types, we 

are still in a transitional period. The B-29 and the Canberra will, 

therefore, as they become available in large numbers, constitute the 

main equipment of our bomber striking force until such time as the 

advanced types to which I referred begin to come off prod~ction.’~ 

Some members of Parliament, while grateful for the assistance, expressed 

dismay with the Defence Ministry’s temporary inability to equip the RAF’ s 

long-range bomber units with domestically produced aircraft. Summing up this 

frustration, Conservative MP John Profumo asked, “What are the long-term 

implications of this aerial Americanization?”’6 Comparing the RAF’ s heavy 

bombers to the Royal Navy’s capital ships as a tool of power projection, he 

argued that the RAF “must not be put in a situation in the future where it relies 

on a foreign Power however friendly it may be, to provide replacements, spares, 

and possibly amrn~nition.”’~ Expressing fears about foreign policy complications, Profumo warned that “the time may come. . . when we may wish to act 

on our own, and to use our own initiative in starting action. And when action 

has been started, we want to know that our Chiefs of Staff can give orders 

without the ‘by your leave’ of any foreign country.”’8 A more pragmatic 

Conservative MP, Harold Macmillan, harbored some qualms about accepting 

105 
Session Two: Acquisition 

American aircraft, but anticipated receiving more advanced U.S. bombers if the 

E29s proved inadequate.” 

The first four E29s, renamed Washingtons by the RAF, arrived at RAF 

Marham, Norfolk, on March 22, 1950, amid great fanfare.” These bombers 

represented only a token shipment. The greater task of preparing the follow-on 

aircraft and shipping the initial spares and support equipment required much 

more time and effort. The outbreak of the Korean War and subsequent U.S. 

mobilization added urgency to the program, but also complicated its execution. 

Initial plans called for seventy aircraft to be withdrawn from storage, refurbished, and flown to England by March 1,1951. In addition to overhauling the 

aircraft ’ s mechanical systems, the USAF depots and contractors also installed 

and safety equipment, Norden bomb sights with C-1 autopilots, gun laying 

radars and fire control computers, and new Wright R-335CL57M engines. These 

new fuel-injected engines replaced carburetor-equipped engines, thus raising the 

combat ceiling of the aircraft to over thirty-six thousand feet. An additional 124 

bombers were to be delivered over the following year, but this quantity eventually fell to 17. Poor planning, contractor labor difficulties, bad weather at the 

contractor’s (Curtiss-Wright) Columbus, Ohio, facility, and competing USAF 

demands for B-29s caused the delivery schedule to fall behind. These delays 

temporarily left Bomber Command with two squadrons short of aircraft and two 

squadrons trained but without aircraft. By the summer of 1951, the shifting of 

part of the workload to a second contractor (Grand Central Aircraft Company, 

Tucson, Arizona) and to the USAF’s Warner Robins and San Antonio Air 

Materiel Area depots put the deliveries back on schedule.” 

Providing support equipment and initial spares proved as difficult as 

meeting delivery schedules. The U.S. agreed to supply everything immediately 

necessary to support the bombers. However, under terms of the Mutual Defense 

Assistance Act, recipient countries were to provide sustaining support for the 

equipment provided. The USAF was not supposed to be a source of sustainment 

stocks. Initially the USAF provided flyaway kits (similar to present day airtransportable War Readiness Spares Kits), which included spares and repair 

equipment adequate for limited operations. These proved insufficient to keep 

the bombers airworthy. To alleviate this shortcoming and allow the RAF time 

to establish spares and supplies sources, the USAF substantially increased initial 

logistics support, shipping bulk quantities of ground handling equipment, test 

equipment, overhaul equipment, tools, and spares to the U.K. Also, until the 

RAF became self-sufficient, the USAF made its B-29 support facilities at RAF 

Burtonwood available for Washington maintenance. After adding in the cost of 

logistics support, the transfer of B-29s to the RAF became the single most 

expensive program (approximately $84 million) managed under the Mutual 

Defense Assistance Program during fiscal year 1950.” 

A USAF Military Assistance Advisory Group B-29 training detachment 

trained RAF flight crews, who then formed the nucleus of the RAF Washington 

106 
Transfer of 529s to the Royal Air Force 

Conversion Unit, which in turn trained additional RAF Washington flight 

crews, and USAF B-29 maintenance specialists trained RAF maintenance 

personnel. When these RAF maintenance personnel became proficient with the 

B-29, they instructed additional British crews. Due to the complexity of the 

aircraft and the expected short duration the aircraft would serve with Bomber 

Command, Washington squadrons adopted in tofo USAF training, maintenance, 

and administrative procedures, right down to the reproduction of USAF spares 

order forms. As agreed to under provisions of the Mutual Defense Assistance 

Program, the RAF established independent B-29 support capabilities, relying 

on RAF maintenance units (the 22nd MU, 23rd MU, 53rd MU and 58th MU) 

and a contractor (Scottish Aviation) for routine maintenance and depot-level 

support and the Bristol Aeroplane Company for engine overhaul. By July 1952, 

the Washington Conversion Unit had completed its instructional mission, 

whereupon the R4F redesignated the unit No. 35 Squadron.23 

The RAF assigned almost all Washingtons to eight medium bomber 

squadrons within Bomber Command's No. 3 Group. These bomber squadrons 

included Nos. 15,44,57, and 149 at RAF Coningsby and Nos. 35,90,115, and 

207 at RAF Marham. The Supply Ministry received three of the B-29s for use 

by Vickers Armstrong Ltd. as test aircraft, and No. 192 Special Duties Squadron 

operated four RB-29s from RAF Watton until 1958 in an electronic intelligence 

and electronic countermeasures ~apacity.'~ 

Though deciding what mission the Washingtons would assume ultimately 

rested with the Ministry of Defence, the USAF preferred that strategic bombing 

be left to the Strategic Air Command. Indeed, since the end of World War 11, the 

U.S. and U.K. had not engaged in any formal detailed joint strategic bombing 

planning. The RAF did not know what targets SAC would attack in the event 

of war and the Americans could only speculate on the progress the British were 

making with their atomic weapons program.= The creation of NATO prodded 

the Americans into recognizing the inevitability of joint planning. As General 

Omar Bradley, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, noted in testimony before the Senate 

in August 1949: 

at the present time we are the ones that are capable of carrying out 

strategic bombing, with possibly some assistance from other nations. 

But as the Atlantic Pact becomes operative and the organization 

functions, then very specific spheres of influence and function would 

be probably determined by the Atlantic Pact Council and Defense 

Council.26 

With the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force locked in a bitter fight over 

strategic (atomic warfare, long-range bombers vs. aircraft carriers) roles and 

missions, the Navy-apparently afraid to endorse a strategic role for any air 

force-wanted to limit the RAF's Washingtons specifically to a tactical role. 

107 
Session Two: Acquisition 

In a memorandum to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble, 

Deputy Chief of Naval Operations and Naval Deputy on the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, stated that he approved the transfer of B-29s to the United Kingdom 

“subject to such employment for tactical p~rposes.”~’ 

Bomber Command entertained different designs. With its Lincolns and 

Lancasters capable of reaching very few strategic targets in the Soviet Union, 

Bomber Command was de fact0 limited to tactical operations. Acquisition of 

the B-29s restored the RAF’ s strategic bombing capabilities, and Bomber 

Command made clear it intended to regain a strategic role. The RAF could not 

launch a city-busting bombing campaign against Russia with eight squadrons 

of conventionally armed B-29s, but Bomber Command ’ s Washingtons could 

attack the Soviet Union ’ s strategic bomber bases. Speaking at the USAF Air 

War College in 1948, Air Vice Marshal T. M. Williams declared that “the 

primary role of an Air Force is the strategic offensive,” and that “if we are to be 

effective in the early stages of the next war, we want a bigger and better Bomber 

Command than we had at the beginning of the last war.”% Writing in the July 

1950 issue of Flight, Air Marshal Sir Hugh P. Lloyd noted, “With the advent of 

air power as the dominant factor in war, its effects can be felt immediately by 

the people. . . . Hence, it is vital that we should be capable of immediate 

reprisal-a reprisal so devastating in its results as to deter any enemy.”29 

Acquisition of the B-29s was a first step toward reacquiring that ~apability.~” 

The U.K. engaged in several military operations during the period the RAF 

operated B-29s. In the early 1950s, the RAF participated in the campaign 

against communist insurgents in Malaya and Royal Navy aircraft fought in 

Korea, but no Washington squadrons engaged in these combat operations. 

Between August 1950 and March 1953 the RAF’s B-29s did participate in 

seven joint exercises, most often taking the role of enemy bombers attacking 

various British cities. The exercises showed that piston-engine bombers stood 

a poor chance of reaching a target guarded by radar warning systems and jetpowered night fighters. Jet fighters handily engaged most Washingtons and 

Lincolns, but the swift jet-propelled Canberras usually avoided interception. 

However, Britain contained a much denser air defense system than did the vast 

Soviet Union. Therefore, the propeller-driven bombers probably would have 

fared better against Soviet defenses. Still, the facts could not be ignored: though 

lacking the Washingtons’ range and bomb-load capacity, Canberras clearly 

were much more survivable. When English Electric began manufacturing the 

light bombers in quantity, the RAF reequipped Washington and Lincoln 

squadrons with Canberra~.~’ 

Bomber Command also was anxious to reequip its Washington squadrons 

with Canberras because the B-29s proved to be very difficult to maintain. 

Though the RAF was to establish its own sources of supply, the USAF 

continued to be the primary source of critical spares. The Americans had kept 

seventy-one B-29s as war reserve materiel for Bomber Command and, as noted, 

108 
Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force 

provided large amounts of initial and supplementary spares and equipment 

support. Unfortunately, the Korean War broke out and the USAF quickly 

depleted many EL29 spares stocks. The war reserve B-29s were cannibalized 

for parts, but Bomber Command’s maintenance squadrons and Bristol 

Aeroplane still suffered from a lack of critical spares. Without an adequate 

supply of replacement parts, Bristol was forced to reassemble the Wright 3350 

engines using worn components that should have been replaced. As a result, the 

number of hours between required overhauls fell to 60 hours for engines 

overhauled by Bristol, compared to 260 hours for engines overhauled by 

American contractors for the USAF. Not surprisingly, Bomber Command ’ s 

B-29s never met anticipated aircraft utilization rates.32 

Bomber Command returned most of the Washingtons to the U.S. between 

July 1953 and July 1954. About a dozen had been scrapped in the U.K. or 

destroyed in mishaps. One of the three Ministry of Supply Washingtons was 

destroyed in a ground collision in 1955 while the other two concluded several 

years of flight test work in Australia and were scrapped in 1957. The four 192 

Squadron special operations Washingtons remained in service until 1958 when 

they were broken up and their useable components ~alvaged.3~ 

The transfer of the B-29s to the RAF and the question of their use as atomic 

weapons ’ carriers provided the springboard for ranging speculation. In 1946 the 

United States unceremoniously ended joint Anglo-American-Canadian atomic 

energy research, causing the U.K. to embark on an expensive independent 

atomic energy program. The British program progressed satisfactorily and on 

October 3, 1952, the U.K. detonated an atomic device on Australia’s Monte 

Bello Island. Theoretically, the British nuclear reactor at Windscale could have 

produced enough fissionable material for thirty bombs by the end of 1952. 

However, John Simpson, a learned expert on the British atomic energy program, 

estimated the stockpile of Blue Danube atomic bombs to be a much more 

modest total of one device as of 1952 and between four and seven as of late 

1954.34 The first Valiant did not enter service until mid-1954, the number of inservice Valiants did not reach squadron strength until the following year, and 

Canberras could not carry the multiton Blue Danubes. Therefore, during these 

first years, the Washington was the only RAF aircraft capable of delivering the 

few British bombs to targets in the Soviet Uni0n.3~ Pronouncements and 

writings of various public officials added credence to the speculation regarding 

the aircraft ’ s atomic role. For example, in the spring of 1953, RAF Air Marshal 

Sir John Slessor wrote: “Today I believe the Pax Atlantica depends as surely, 

and probably more permanently, on Anglo-American air-power, of which the 

decisive expression is the long-range atomic bomber. . . . It is the great 

deterrent. . . . This is, in fact, the place of the bomber in British policy.”36 

During a March 1950 session in the House of Commons, Conservative MP P. 

B. Lucas expressed misgivings that the B-29 might be obsolete, but on a 

positive note added that “above all it has the capacity to carry the atom bomb.”37 

109 
Session Two: Acquisition 

Not surprisingly, historians disagree on whether the RAF’ s B-29s played 

an atomic role. Margaret Gowing states that “the British received American 

B-29 (Washington) bombers, but these did not carry atomic bombs.”38 Peter 

Malone, while discussing the atomic-capable USAF E29s stationed in 

England, noted that “there is no evidence the RAF’ s Washingtons were 

similarly modified.”39 C. J. Bartlett takes a position similar to Gowing’s, 

concluding the RAFused the B-29s only to train future Valiant bomber crews?’ 

R. N. Rosecrance concludes, “British acquisition of B-29s under MDAP, then, 

is probably largely to be explained by British needs for the period 1952 through 

1954 when U.K. bombs would begin to be a~ailable.”~’ John Baylis is of the 

opinion that “quite apart from the information on atomic energy from 1958 

onwards, the United States also contributed to the British delivery systems 

throughout the 1950s. American B-29s had filled the gap until the V-bomber 

force was ready.”42 Michael A. Fopp remarked that “on occasions, large covered 

objects were wheeled out on bomb trollies, under heavy guard, from ordnance 

stores at Washington bases. These same objects were quietly removed when the 

Washingtons were dispensed with and taken away by U.S. Air Force aircraft.”43 

None of the authors who promote the view that the RAF used the Washingtons 

in an atomic role offer concrete evidence to support their assertions. 

As yet, the RAF has not indicated that its B-29s played any role in the U.K. 

atomic weapons program. If the U.K. did possess atomic weapons prior to the 

acquisition of operational Valiant bombers, the RAF would have been wise to 

have modified some Washingtons for their use and to have trained flight crews 

for atomic warfare. But, as Margaret Gowing notes: 

one of the strangest elements in this story [the British atomic energy 

program] is that although the Chiefs of Staff visualized atomic bombs 

as part of the air striking force, they did not, except briefly in 1946, 

invest the development of the aircraft to deliver them with the same 

overriding almost mystical, pri0rity.4~ 

Though logic appears to suggest an atomic role for the Washington, no crisis 

erupted during 1953 or early 1954 that would have required the RAF to place 

its atomic bombers, if the U.K. possessed any bombs at the time, on alert and 

actually load the devices into aircraft. The issue is, therefore, relegated to the 

realm of “what if,” and would carry no significance, except for the fact that 

modifying the Washingtons for atomic warfare would have violated the U.S. 

Atomic Energy Act of 1946.45 

By the early 1950s, the B-29 was fast becoming obsolete. However, the 

RAF, the USAF, and their common adversary still found them useful. Indeed, 

through 1953 the B-29 was still the USAF’s primary medium bomber and a 

Russian reverse-engineered copy of the Superfortress, the Tupolev TU4, 

served as the Soviet Air Force’s long-range bomber through the mid-1950~.~‘ 

110 
Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force 

As noted, the RAF never intended the Washingtons to fill its long-term need for 

a strategic bomber. The B-29s were intended only to bridge the gap until 

domestically produced jet bombers became available, and they served this 

purpose well. Acquisition of the aircraft enabled Bomber Command to maintain 

a strategic bombing capacity, saved the British taxpayer tens of millions of 

pounds, and allowed the engineering and production capacity that would have 

been consumed by further Sperrin production to be applied to other endeavors. 

Later, other American military aircraft also entered service with the RAF. As 

the economies of scale allowed the U.S. to develop sophisticated weapon 

systems at a lower unit cost than could be achieved in Europe, the RAF and 

Royal Navy purchased select American aircraft, such as the McDonnell Douglas 

F-4 and the Lockheed C-130. Of course, the British aerospace industry 

continued to produce sophisticated aircraft, and the U.S. armed forces purchased 

licensed-manufactured British-designed aircraft, notably the English Ele.ctric 

Canberra (Martin Aircraft, USAF designation B-57) and the BAe Harrier 

(McDonnell Douglas, U.S. Navy/Marine Crops designation AV-8). 

Undoubtedly, the most significant pooling of resources between the U.S. 

and U.K. involved atomic energy technology. Collaboration in this arena made 

the Anglo-American special relationship truly special. As the world of missiles 

and hydrogen bombs arrived, the cost of developing and maintaining a credible 

British nuclear deterrent made collaboration with the U.S. almost imperative. 

Reversing the restrictions of the McMahon Act, the U.S. and the U.K. agreed 

on June 15, 1955, to a new limited sharing of atomic energy information. The 

two nations followed up this agreement in early 1958 with an exchange of notes 

that restored Anglo-American atomic cooperation to the level achieved during 

World War 11. American scientists assisted in the development of the first 

British nuclear-powered submarine and contributed to the design of the nucleararmed Blue Steel air-to-surface missile carried on the Victor and Vulcan 

bombers. In the 1960s, the US. supplied Britain with technology required to 

construct nuclear submarines capable of carrying U.S.-provided, though Britisharmed, Polaris missiles. President John F. Kennedy offered the same package 

to France, but French President Charles DeGaulle rejected the offer. The Royal 

Navy is currently replacing its Polaris submarines with larger submarines 

capable of carrying US.-designed and manufactured Trident missiles armed 

with multiple British warheads. The closeness of Anglo-American military 

collaboration remains unparalleled. However, given the demise of the Soviet 

Union and Warsaw Pact it remains to be seen if this special relationship will 

continue on such a close basis.47 

Anglo-American military collaboration has allowed the U.K. to maintain 

a post-World War I1 military capacity exceeded only by the U.S. and Russia. 

This has been accomplished even though, during the same period, the U.K. 

slipped from the status of global economic giant to that of the sixth largest 

industrial power. Tied together by bonds of history and mutual self-interest, the 

111 
Session Two: Acquisition 

U.S. and the U.K. shared many post-World War I1 triumphs, such as the Berlin 

Airlift and the Gulf War, and weathered diplomatic strains, such as those 

brought on by differences over the Suez Crisis and the Vietnam War. Of 

overriding importance, however, during the 1950s and 1960s, Western defense 

rested overwhelmingly with the U.S. and the U.K.-in particular with the 

ability of SAC and Bomber Command bombers to reach deep into the Soviet 

Union. Until supplanted by intercontinental ballistic missiles in the mid-l960s, 

strategic bombers held the U.S.S.R. at bay. In the long line of Anglo-American 

air power agreements and arrangements, the loan of the B-29s to the RAF 

serves as an excellent example of how the two countries regularly aided one 

another in this mission. 

Notes 

1. Peter M. Bowers, Boeing Aircraft Since 1916 (New York: Aero Publishers Inc, 1972); 

Michael A. Fopp, The Washington File (Tonbridge, Kent: Air Britain and the British 

Aviation Archaeological Society, 1983). The United Kingdom received a total of 87 B-29 

variants, 83 B-29 and B-29A bombers and four RB-29 reconnaissance aircraft. Both books 

provide the RAF and U.S. Air Force serial numbers for the B-29s transferred to the RAF. 

Though lacking in some respects, Fopp’s monograph is the only published work that 

examines British acquisition and use of the Washingtons. 

2. The relative decline of British power is described in David Dilks, ed., Retreat From 

Power, 2 vols., (London: Macmillan, 1981), and C.J. Bartlett, The Long Retreat: A Short 

History ofBritish Defence Policy, 1945-70 (London: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1972). For a study of the interrelationship between Britain ’ s economic performance and defense 

expenditure see Malcolm Chalmers, Paying for Defence: Military Spending and British 

Decline (London: Pluto Press, 1985). 

3. The state of the RAF at the close of World War I1 is described in Leonard Bridgman, ed., 

Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1945-6 (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd, 

1946), pp. 6a-30a. The state of the RAF in 1950, prior to the beginning of the Korean War, 

is described in Air Marshal Sir Basil Embry, et al., “The Commands of the Royal Air 

Force,” Flight, Jul 6, 1950, pp. 21-34, 58-64. The adoption of the Ten Year Rule and its 

impact on the RAF’s reequipment program is discussed in M. H. Le Bas, “The Royal Air 

Force, A Gallant Force Re-equips for the Jet-Atomic Age,”Air University Quarterly Review 

8 (Summer, 1955), pp. 34-35. 

4. Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1948 (New York: The 

MacMillan Company, 1948), pp. 34c-35c (The Avro 694 Lincoln); U.S. Air Force Aircraft 

Characteristics Summary, Air Materiel Command, May 1948, Bomber B-29B. 

5. Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1951-52 (New York: The 

McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1952), pp. 5Oc-51c (The English Electric A.l Canberra); 

C.H. Barnes, Shorts Aircraft Since 1900 (Fallbrook, Calif.: Aero Publishers, Inc., 1967), pp. 

424-27; Alfred Goldberg, “The Military Origins of the British Nuclear Deterrent,” 

InternationalAflairs 40 (Oct, 1964), pp. 600-602. In March 1949, Secretary of State for Air 

Arthur Henderson explained to Parliament the Government’s reasoning for bypassing 

development of improved propeller bombers and instead concentrating on long-range 

development of jet bombers. See Great Britain, Parliament, Hansard’s Parliamentary 

Debates (Commons), 5th series, vol. 462 (1949), col. 1931. 

6. Barnes, Shorts Aircraft, p. 427; Goldberg, “Military Origins of the British Nuclear 

Deterrent,” pp. 602-08; Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft 1954-55 

(New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, Inc., 1955), p. 48 (Vulcan), pp. 67-70 (Canberra), 

112 
Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force 

pp. 77-78 (Victor), pp. 101-02 (Valiant). In 1939 the RAF had three long-range bombers 

under development, the Manchester 111, Stirling, and Halifax. When the war broke out all 

three were rushed into production. However, initial experience indicated that the two-engine 

Manchester I (from which the Manchester 111 and later the Lancaster and Lincoln were 

derived) and the slow, low-flying Stirling were inferior to the Halifax. Fine tuning the basic 

Manchester design produced the RAF’s best World War I1 bomber. Had the RAF been 

forced to choose one bomber in 1939 the Lancaster might never have been produced. For 

RAF concerns regarding this point, see Air Vice-Marshal W. M. Yool, in H.G. Thursfield, 

ed., Brassey ’s Annual 1953 (New York MacMillan Company, 1953), pp 331-32. 

7. Dispatch, Douglas to Secretary of State, Apr 26,1949, U.S. Department of State, Foreign 

Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers (hereafter referred to as FRUS), 1949,4, 

pp. 295-96. Also see Dispatch, Douglas to Secretary of State, Mar 2,1949, FRUS, 1949,4, 

pp. 136-39; Dispatch, Douglas to Secretary of State, Mar 16,1949, FRUS, 1949,4, pp. 229- 

33; and Extract, Minutes of the First Meeting of the European Correlation Committee, 

London, Mar 25, 1949, FRUS, 1949, 4, pp. 245-48. For a comprehensive analysis of the 

establishment of the Military Assistance Program with particular emphasis on NATO see 

Lawrence S. Kaplan,A Community oflnterests: NATO and theMilitary Assistance Program, 

1948-1951 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office, 

Government Printing Office, 1980). Contemporary views of the program are presented in 

Stanley L. Scott (Maj Gen U.S. Army), “Mutual Defense Assistance Program,” Military 

Engineer, XLII (Nov-Dec 1950), pp. 429-32; and “U.S.: World Arsenal? How Mr. Truman’s 

Arms Plan Would Work,” U.S. News & World Report, Aug 5, 1949, pp. 13-15. West 

Germany and Italy joined the Brussels Treaty Organization in 1954 and the expanded 

organization adopted the official name Western European Union. 

8. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 462, col. 1931-33, Mar 15, 

1949; Barnes, Shorts Aircrafi, p. 427; Goldberg, “Military Origins of the British Nuclear 

Deterrent,” p. 608. 

9. For examples of surprised reactions to the British requests by Senator Claude Pepper and 

Representative John Kee, see U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations and 

Committee on Armed Services, Military Assistance Program: 1949. Joint Hearings Held 

in Executive Session before the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on 

Armed Services on S.2388, Aug 11, 1949, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 1949, p. 159; and U.S., 

Congress, House, Committee on International Relations, Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 

1949, Hearings Held in Executive Session before the House Committee on Foreign Aflairs 

on H.R. 5748 and H.R. 5895,81st Cong., 1st sess., Aug 4, 1949, p. 96. 

10. U.S., Executive Session before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, on H.R. 5748 

and H.R. 5895, Aug 4, 1949, p. 119. The U.K. never sold jet planes to the Russians. They 

did lease a number of jet engines to the Russians soon after the war, purportedly for testing. 

Much to the embarrassment of the British, what seems to have been tested was the Soviet 

ability to dismantle and reverse engineer the engines. 

11. U.S., Senate, JointHearings Held in Executive Session on S.2388, Aug 10,1949, p. 98. 

12. U.S., Senate, JointHearingsHeld inExecutiveSession onS.2388, Aug 11,1949, p. 160. 

13. The reasoning and clarification of intent for the joint Committee on Foreign Relations’ 

and Committee on Armed Services’ endorsement of the Mutual Defense Act of 1949 is 

contained in U.S. Code Congressional Service, 2, pp. 1073-End, 81st Congress, First 

Session, 1949, Legislative History, Executive Orders, Etc., Senate Report No. 1068, Sept 13, 

14. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 472, col. 1767, Mar 21, 

1950. 

15. Ibid., col. 1768. 

16. Ibid., col. 1816. 

17. Ibid., col. 1818. 

18. Ibid. 

19. Ibid., col. 1798. 

20. All Bomber Command Washingtons were either B-29 or B-29A models, though 

1949, pp. 1991-2039. 

113 
Session Two: Acquisition 

considerably upgraded. 

21. Maurer Maurer, AMC Hist Study No. 240, “History of USAF Activities in Support of 

the Mutual Defense Assistance Program, Part I - To 1 July 1950,” Historical Office, Air 

Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Apr 1951, pp. 37-40; Maurer Maurer, AMC 

Hist Study No. 241, “History of USAF Activities in Support of the Mutual Defense 

Assistance Program, Part 11 - 1 July to 31 December 1950,” Historical Office, AMC, 

WPAFB, Nov 1951, pp. 76-79; Maurer Maurer, AMC Hist Study No. 242, “History of 

USAF Activities in Support of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program, Part 111 - 1 January 

to 30 June 1951,” Historical Office, AMC, WPAFB, May 1952, pp. 139-43; Standard 

Aircraft Characteristics, B-29 Superfortress (Four R-3350-57 or -57A), prep by Air Materiel 

Command, Jul 1 I, 1952; Technical Instructions, Serial No: TI 3010-3, subj: Rehabilitation 

of B-29 Aircraft for Mutual Defense Assistance Program; “Superforts with Roundels,” 

Flight, Mar 30,1950, pp. 302-303. All unpublished documents cited are held in the HQ Air 

Force Materiel Command, Command History Office Archives, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, 

as original documents or in the form of photocopy reproductions. 

22. Maurer, “History of USAF Activities in Support of the Mutual Defense Assistance 

Program, Part I,” pp. 35-40; Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 

472, col. 1768, Mar 21,1950; Message 1620292, HQ USAF to COMGENAMC, WPAFB, 

May 18,1950, subj: Questions Asked HQ USAF by MAAG UK. 

23. History of the Military Assistance Advisory Group United Kingdom B-29 Training 

Detachment, Period Covered Mar 13, 1950 to May 31, 1950, HQ USAF B-29 Training 

Detachment, Jun 5,1950, pp. 1-6; Historical Data For Military Assistance Advisory Group 

United Kingdom, prep by Chief, Administrative Section, MAAG UK, circa Jul 1950, pp. 

9-14; Fopp, The Washington File, pp. 6-9. 

24. Fopp, The Washington File, pp. 6-17; Philip J.R. Moyes, Bomber Squadrons of the 

R.A.F. and TheirAircrafi(Landon: MacDonald, 1964), pp. 33-37,51-54,63-65,85-89,120- 

25. Ian Clark and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The British Origins ofNuclear Strategy 194.5-1955 

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 112-35, makes a convincing case that the U.S. and 

U.K. did not engage in joint strategic warfare planning, formal or informal, until the early 

1950s. 

26. U.S., Congress, Senate, Military Assistance Program: 1949. Joint Hearings Held in 

Executive before the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services on S. 2388, Aug 10, 1949,Slst Cong., 1st sess., 1949, p. 99. 

27. Memorandum for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, prep by Vice Admiral A. D. Struble, subj: 

Foreign Military Aid Program (JCS 1868/88), Jul 11, 1949, copy held in HQ AFMC/HO 

Archives. The U.S. armed services battle over roles and missions is examined in Steven 

Rearden, History of the Ofice of the Secretary of Defense, Vol I, and Alfred Goldberg, ed., 

The Formative Years 1947-1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), 

28. Air Vice Marshal T.M. Williams, “Air Strategy of the Future as Seen by The Royal Air 

Force,” lecture presented at the Air War College, Maxwell Field, Alabama, Apr 1, 1948. 

29. Sir Hugh P. Lloyd, “Bomber Command,” Flight, Jul6, 1950, p. 25. 

30. The ability to attack Soviet bomber bases and Russian cities after the RAF acquired 

atomic weapons, was of paramount importance to the RAF. Strategic Air Command 

bombers based in Britain could reach targets in the U.S.S.R. Soviet TU-~S, based in the 

U.S.S.R., and IL-28 light bombers flying from bases in eastern Europe could reach western 

Europe and Britain, but not the U.S. Until the Soviets acquired a fleet of intercontinental 

bombers-the mid-1950s at the earliest-a Soviet surprise attack against the U.S was 

unfeasible. The Defence Ministry feared that should war occur the Soviets would, therefore, 

use their atomic weapons against SAC bases in the U.K. and the capital cities of west 

Europe-in particular, London. Soviet and American capabilities and strategies and their 

impact on the U.K. atomic weapons and V-bomber programs are discussed in Nicholas J. 

Wheeler, “British nuclear weapons and Anglo-American relations 1945-54,” International 

Aflairs 62 (1986), p. 71-86. 

22, 161-63, 174-77, 194-99. 

pp. 385-422. 

114 
Transfer of B-29s to the Royal Air Force 

31. Fopp, The Washington File, pp. 20-22. For a description of British air combat 

experiences during the this period see Robert Jackson, The RAF in Action-From Flanders 

to the Falklands (Blandford Press: Poole, Dorsett, 1985), pp. 133-47. 

32. Maintenance difficulties with the Washingtons are discussed in Air 8/1696, Military AirU.S. Assistance in the Form of End Items, Mutual Security Act Papers, Appendix B, 

Maintenance of Washington Aircraft, Public Records Office (PRO), London; Air 8/1696, 

Conclusions of Air Council Meeting 14(52), Sep 11,1952, PRO, London, as brought to my 

attention by Col. Donald A. Walbrecht. Extracts of above on file in HQ AFMC Archives. 

33. Fopp, The Washington File, pp. 31-32. 

34. John Simpson, The Independent Nuclear State: The United States, Britain and the 

MilitaryAtom (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1983), pp. 90-95. 

35. For a thorough analysis of the early British atomic energy program see Margaret 

Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain anddtomic Energy, 1945-52,2 vols (New 

York: St Martin’s Press, 1974). Gowing served as the official historian for the U.K. Atomic 

Energy Agency and her study is the most authoritative published source. Some published 

memoirs that discuss early Anglo/American/Canadian atomic energy research collaboration 

include Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation, My Years at the State Department (New 

York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1969); Clement Attlee, As It Happened (London: 

Heinemann, 1954); Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan 

Project (New York: Harper & Row, 1962); David E. Lilienthal, The Journals ofDavid E. 

Lilienthal, vol2, The Atomic Energy Years, 1945-1950 (New York: Harper & Row, 1964); 

and Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol 1, Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City: Doubleday 

& Company, 1956). 

36. John Slessor, “The Place of the Bomber in British Policy,”InternationalAfiairs 29 (Jul 

1953), pp. 304-05. Though Slessor spoke of the V-bombers in this article, in reality the only 

operational long-range bomber in use by the RAF at the time was the Washington. 

37. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 5th ser., vol. 472, col. 1806, Mar 21, 1950. 

38. Gowing, Policy Making, p. 235. 

39. Peter Malone, The British Nuclear Deterrent (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1984), p. 

8. 

40. Bartlett, The Long Retreat, p. 53. 

41. R.N. Rosecrance, Defense ofthe Realm: British Strategy in the Nuclear Epoch (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 112. 

42. John Baylis,Anglo-American DefenseRelations, 1939-1 984, second ed. (New York: St 

Martin ’ s Press, 1984), p. 98. 

43. Fopp, Washington Files, p. 4. It is extremely unlikely that Fopp’s uncited “Bird 

Watcher” or RAF veteran sources observed ordnance crews working with atomic weapons. 

44. Gowing, Policy Making, p. 234. 

45. Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act), U.S. Code 38 (1947). Section 106, 

paragraph 3 of the Act forebade transfer to a foreign power any “model, instrument, 

appliance, note or information involving or incorporating restricted data.” Restricted data was defined as “all data concerning the manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons.” A 

B-29 carrying an atomic bomb would clearly have fallen under the restrictions imposed by 

the Act. 

46. As late as August 1989 the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Air Force still operated 

modified versions of the B-29. Presumably these were Chinese copies of the Russian TU-4. 

See “Chinese Keep Superfortress Flying,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, Aug 19, 1989, p. 283. 

47. Britain’s acquisition of American atomic weapon delivery systems is briefly discussed 

in David Reynolds, “A ‘Special Relationship? America, Britain and the international order 

since the Second World War,” International Aflairs 62 (1986), pp. 10-13. 

115 
Dr. Ronald D. Landa, Historian, Office of the Secretary of Defense 

Historical Office, the Pentagon, received his Ph.D. in history from 

Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., in 1971 and is a specialist 

in American relations with the Soviet Union ad Eastern Europe. He 

has taught at Misericordia College in Pennsylvania and George 

Washington University in Washington, D.C. From 1973 to 1987 he 

worked in the Office of the Historian, Department of State, where he 

edited numerous volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United 

States. Dr. Landa joined the Historical Office, Office of the Secretary 

of Defense, in 1987. In his spare time, he is writing a book on United 

States policy toward the Polish Underground during World War 11. 
The Origins of the Skybolt Controversy 

In the Eisenhower Administration* 

Ronald D. Landa 

The controversy over the Department of Defense’s 1962 cancellation of the 

Skybolt missile project defies easy explanation. Skybolt was an ambitious 

project-a two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile with a range of one thousand 

miles designed for carriage under the wings of both American B-52 and British 

V-bombers.? In the eyes of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan ’ s government, 

the project was progressing satisfactorily, giving the Americans little reason to 

renege on the seemingly firm commitment by President Dwight D. 

Eisenhower’s administration to produce the weapon. After John F. Kennedy 

became President in 1961, his administration contended that serious doubts 

about the project’s feasibility and cost had always existed and these doubts had 

been repeatedly communicated to the British. Explanations for the breakdown 

in communication tend to focus on the period just prior to cancellation.’ For a 

full understanding, however, one has to examine the period between 1958 and 

1960, when the program began and the confusion originated. 

The misunderstanding resulted in part from the multiple levels at which the 

two countries communicated and the varying appraisals of Skybolt’s prospects 

provided the British. As might be expected, the most optimistic assessments 

were given by the American contractor, the Douglas Company, and by the U.S. 

Air Force in their contacts with the Royal Air Force, Air Ministry, and Ministry 

of Aviation. 

* 

The views expressed in this paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily 

represent those of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The paper, which draws 

heavily on declassified British records at the Public Record Office in London, is an 

outgrowth of a longer classified study in preparation on Western European defense 

iss es during the Eisenhower administration. ’f The name “Skybolt” was not coined until January 1960 when Air Force Chief of 

Staff General Thomas D. White used it in a public speech and Congressional testimony. 

For a few months thereafter it was written as two words until the Air Force realized that 

its policy stipulated single-word nicknames. The weapon was earlier referred to as an 

advanced air-to-surface missile (AASM) and also as weapon system 138A. From 

February through June 1960, the overall program was known as system 638A. The 

missile alone was designated CAM-87A. For the sake of simplicity, “Skybolt” is 

employed throughout this paper. 

117 
Session Two: Acquisition 

The contacts had deep roots. British involvement with Skybolt dated from 

early 1958 when a joint RAF and USAF task group considered developing a 

common weapon system to meet both countries’ requirements for an air-tosurface missile. Later that year, American companies under Air Force contract 

successfully tested a prototype air-launched ballistic missile. When the USAF 

decided in January 1959 to develop this weapon, British requirements were 

written into the general operational requirement. British officials attended the 

bidders ’ presentations, helped evaluate their brochures, and submitted 

recommendations to the source selection board leading up to the choice in May 

of the Douglas Company as prime contractor.* 

At this level, problems were minimal and Skybolt may have been oversold. 

Occasionally, officials did admit doubts, such as when an Air Force representative suggested that the British thoroughly explore alternatives in the event 

Skybolt was cancelled or found unsuitable for carriage on V-bomber~.~ But 

Secretary of the Air Force James H. Douglas, Jr., later recalled that people in his 

Department generally worked hard to sell the project because “they needed 

some friends among the civilian talent of the Pentagon. . . . If they made a sale 

to the British, then nobody would think it was practical to kill Skyb~lt.”~ 

Indeed, the greatest skepticism about Skybolt existed in the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense (OSD), particularly in the newly created Office of the 

Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E). The sharpest critic 

was DDR&E ’ s Assistant Director for Strategic Weapons, John Rubel, who was 

responsible for monitoring the project. Not only did Rubel have reservations 

about various technical features, but he was also annoyed at the Air Force’s 

haste in selecting the contractor. In May 1959, DDR&E withheld weapons systems approval and allocated only $3 million, with another $3 million added in 

the fall, for the Air Force and the Douglas Company to study the concept 

further. Rubel spoke of the project’s “absurdity,” the Air Force ’ s unwillingness 

“to explain what it was doing,” and the “totally unrealistic so-called operational 

requirements.”5 And DDR&E candidly communicated its concerns to the 

British, usually through Frederick Brundrett, Chief Scientific Adviser to the 

Ministry of Defence, and his successor, Solly Zuckerman.6 

DDR&E was influenced by widespread doubts in the American scientific 

community about Skybolt’ s workability, but also misgivings existed among 

British experts. One considered the Skybolt concept impractical; another 

thought it might theoretically be possible, but found the claims made for the 

weapon overstated and predicted that the United States would eventually 

abandon the pr~gram.~ The decisive recommendation, however, came from a 

group of American scientists, the Fletcher Committee, which had been 

established by DDR&E especially to examine Skybolt. The Committee’s 

interim recommendation in October 1959 was to terminate the project, but it 

later recommended, though equivocally, that the weapon be approved for development. In February 1960, OSD decided to proceed with development, allo118 
Origins of the Skybolt Controversy 

cating $80 million in fiscal year (FY) 1961 funds on condition that DDR&E 

continue to monitor the program closely.8 

To this point there was little that distinguished Skybolt’s history from the 

early phases of many other weapon systems. After the spring of 1960, however, 

the program took on an essentially political character as higher governmental 

levels became involved. These included Department of State and Foreign Office 

officials, Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates, Minister of Defence Harold 

Watkinson, President Eisenhower, and Prime Minister Macmillan. 

OSD ’ s decision to proceed with development furnished a timely face-saver 

for the Macmillan government. It enabled that government to abandon its own 

costly and much-criticized Blue Streak missile program in the hope that Skybolt 

would make possible continuance of its independent nuclear deterrent through 

the end of the decade. By doing so, the Macmillan government acquired a 

greater stake in Skybolt’s success than the American government. Its strained 

efforts to ensure production of the weapon probably contributed more than any 

other factor to the subsequent eontroversy over cancellation. 

The chief British tactic was to maximize the utility of a single bargaining 

chip-the availability of a Scottish port for a U.S. Navy tender and dry dock to 

service the first of the Polaris nuclear submarines expected to become 

operational in late 1960. The British responded to an American request for the 

berthing facilities-the preferred site was the Gare Loch-by first promising 

that they could be used, then pulling back and dangling the offer in front of 

American officials, not only to obtain a firmer commitment on Skybolt, but also 

to acquire either Polaris technology or the submarines for themselves. 

They also took advantage of a split between the State and Defense Departments on a key related issue. Defense sought British support for a proposal put 

forward by Secretary of Defense Gates whereby the North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization would establish its own medium range ballistic missile (MRBM) 

force consisting of land-based Polaris missiles under Supreme Allied 

Commander Europe’s control.’Neither the Department of State nor the British 

were keen about the proposal because they feared, among other things, that too 

many fingers would be placed on the nuclear button. But Defense believed that 

provision of Skybolt or Polaris to the British on a bilateral basis would seriously 

undermine the NATO proposal and initially opposed furnishing either to the 

British. 

A series of Anglo-American discussions held in Washington during 1960 

tangled Skybolt up with these other issues-the British desire to acquire Polaris, 

the berthing facilities in Scotland for American Polaris submarines, and the 

NATO MRBM proposal. During the first of these talks in mid-March, Defense 

and State representatives stood together in resisting British efforts to acquire 

Skybolt and Polaris. One British negotiator complained that the Americans were 

more concerned with the NATO MRBM project. They would “in due course be 

prepared to satisfy our needs, provided that we supported the MRBM project.”“’ 

119 
Session Two: Acquisition 

British lack of success set the stage for what would prove a primary source 

of confusion, a meeting between President Eisenhower and Prime Minister 

Macmillan at Camp David near the end of March and the “gentlemen’s agreement” it produced. Prior to the meeting, the State Department, while acknowledging that it remained inappropriate to provide Polaris so long as the NATO 

project was under consideration, persuaded Defense to relent on Skybolt. The 

revised position was set out in a memorandum to the President arguing that 

because Skybolt had no direct connection to the NATO project, it should be 

offered to Macmillan. The President was advised to say that “if and when” the 

weapon were produced, the United States would be prepared to sell it unconditionally. Wanted in return were the berthing facilities in Scottish waters. 

According to the memo, the British during the talks earlier in the month had 

appeared to be reserving agreement regarding the facilities “until they have 

obtained satisfaction” on Skybolt, Polaris, or both. But the President was 

advised to make only an implicit connection between the berthing facilities and 

Following a discussion of other issues at Camp David, on the afternoon of 

March 28, the two leaders took a leisurely drive by themselves to the 

President’s Gettysburg farm and back, during which the Skybolt and Polaris 

questions were raised.’* That evening, the British forwarded a draft memorandum representing Macmillan’s account of the discussion to the U.S. delegation. In it, Macmillan said how heartened he had been to hear Eisenhower 

support the decision to abandon Blue Streak and express a willingness to help 

the British extend the life of their V-bomber force by furnishing either Skybolt 

or Polaris missiles or perhaps both. The Prime Minister also requested approval 

of the text of an announcement to be made in Parliament of Blue Streak’s 

cancellation. Nothing was mentioned of the berthing facilities or the NATO 

project.I3 

The President’s advisers felt the memorandum did not square with what he 

was supposed to have said. A completely new document was prepared and 

given to the British the next morning representing Eisenhower’s understanding 

of the private conversation. The President’s memorandum had three parts: one 

reiterating American opposition to a bilateral arrangement to provide Polaris, 

another related to Skybolt, and a third addressed to the berthing question. With 

regard to Skybolt, the memorandum said that the United States was prepared to 

sell the missiles to the United Kingdom “in 1965 or thereafter.” It also noted 

that since Skybolt was still in its early stages, “this offer is necessarily 

dependent on the successful and timely completion of its development 

program.” It concluded with a statement welcoming “the assurance that, in the 

same spirit of cooperation, the U.K. would be agreeable in principle to making 

the necessary arrangements for U.S. Polaris tenders in Scottish 

The British responded with a slight revision of Macmillan ’s memo, which, 

in the view of the American advisers, still did not address the “careful 

Skybolt.” J 

120 
Origins of the Skybolt Controversy 

distinctions” made in the President’s. The British therefore came up with a third 

version, which the Americans agreed to that afternoon, March 29th. This 

retained reference to the possible acquisition of Polaris missiles, without that 

missile being specifically named, but tied it in a general way to the NATO 

MRBM proposal. With American approval of this wording, the two memoranda-the third version of Macmillan ’s and Eisenhower ’ s original-were 

exchanged and a “gentlemen ’ s agreement” con~ummated.’~ 

Thus, there was no single agreement or even a formal exchange of notes. 

The two documents contained different emphases and permitted different 

interpretations of what had been agreed. This allowed Macmillan to soften the 

impact of announcing Blue Streak’s cancellation in April. The more 

convincingly he could argue that a technically advanced, cheaper replacement 

would be available, the easier it would be to justify cancellation. His 

interpretation, one that has been accepted by many scholars, stressed the 

definite nature of American willingness to provide Skybolt, while playing down 

the reservations.’6 

Another set of talks regarding Skybolt took place during Minister of 

Defence Harold Watkinson’s visit to the Pentagon in June 1960. Watkinson had 

four tasks. First, he was to express British willingness, as indicated in a brief 

draft memorandum of understanding he brought, to purchase one hundred 

missiles. This would leave no doubt that the British wanted Skybolt, since 

Macmillan feared being “straddled between Polaris and Skybolt and getting 

neither one nor the other.” The Prime Minister had considered offering a 10- 

percent down payment, which, if accepted by the Americans, would “commit 

them to fulfilling the order even with a new administration.” But he was advised 

that this was not customary and would not be expected.” 

Second, Watkinson was to secure Secretary of Defense Gates’ approval, as 

the draft memorandum of understanding indicated, to begin negotiation in the 

near future of a detailed technical and financial agreement regarding Skybolt. 

Deputy Minister of Defence Richard C. Chilver was fairly certain that “we shall 

have no difficulty about this, provided the Americans understand that there is 

no suggestion that we are asking them to pledge themselves to develop Skybolt 

successfully.” The Americans were amenable to signing the memorandum. 

Their only reservations pertained to the language, which they modified to cover 

the chance that Skybolt would not be produced. For example, the British draft 

had indicated that the United States would “ensure” the weapon’s compatibility 

with V-bombers. The Americans changed this to read that they would “make 

every reasonable effort” to ensure compatibility. The British then added a 

phrase that the United States also would “make every reasonable effort to 

ensure the successful and timely completion of Skybolt development.” With 

these changes and a few minor alterations, Gates and Watkinson agreed to the 

memorandum of understanding. When a member of Watkinson ’ s delegation 

told Macmillan that it might be difficult to persuade the Americans to negotiate 

121 
Session Two: Acquisition 

a more detailed agreement for a weapon that was not yet in three-dimensional 

form, he “accepted this but thought that some sort of agreement should be 

reached, even if it was on the basis of ‘if the weapon works.”’18 

Watkinson’ s third task was more difficult. He was under instructions more 

or less to disconnect the two key features of the Camp David bargain-Skybolt 

and the berthing facilities. Watkinson informed Gates that since the Camp 

David meeting, Macmillan had second thoughts about the berthing facilities 

because of the probable adverse public and parliamentary reaction. Although he 

did not specify what had caused the change, it was obviously the impact of the 

Soviet downing of the American U-2 and the collapse of the Paris summit. 

According to one account, Gates indicated that “although the Camp David 

agreement might entitle the U.S. authorities to treat the two transactions as part 

of one package deal, it was not their intention to do so and they would not die 

in the last ditch about it.” Watkinson later complained that the Americans’ 

“rigid and legalistic outlook had led them to consider that the Skybolt and Care 

Loch propositions were closely interrelated.” Nevertheless, Macmillan felt that 

his Defence Minister had been able to disassociate them.” 

Finally, as a hedge against the cancellation of Skybolt, Watkinson tried, 

again unsuccessfully, to utilize American interest in the berthing facilities to 

obtain Polaris submarines. The task of selling the berthing facilities idea would 

be eased, he said, if the government could show evidence of British participation or partnership in the Polaris program. The Americans interpreted this to 

mean not only that the Prime Minister’s assurance at Camp David regarding the 

facilities was being set aside, but that some kind of a joint Polaris program had 

become a new condition for British acceptance of the facilities. The U.S. side 

resisted the British maneuvering. Defense officials indicated that if a 

satisfactory arrangement could not be worked out, they would seek facilities 

elsewhere, perhaps in West Germany. Watkinson reported that “we could not 

get the Americans to accept a swop” of the berthing facilities for Polaris 

submarines, although they were willing to consider other cooperative aspects 

for the facilities.2” 

During the summer, negotiations over the separate understandings about 

Skybolt and the berthhg facilities proceeded almost in tandem. Preliminary 

discussions began at the Pentagon in July on a British draft of a Skybolt 

technical and financial agreement. British Embassy officials explained that a 

detailed agreement was needed because the weapon had taken on a 

“predominantly political character,” and the British were fully relying on it for 

the maintenance of their independent nuclear deterrent. They acknowledged that 

the United States was “not committed to develop the Skybolt, but only to make 

every reasonable effort for this purpose.” Defense officials objected to the draft 

because its substance was “too far-reaching and binding” regarding a weapon 

that was in “an early stage and still problematical.” Its language went farther 

toward committing the U.S. Government to Skybolt than had the terms of the 

122 
Origins of the Skybolt Controversy 

Camp David agreement and the Gates-Watkinson memorandum of understanding. The British Joint Services Mission assured London that the Americans 

were not “getting cool over Skybolt and our share in it. . . . they simply do not 

like our draft.” The Americans produced a revised draft and proposed that it be 

the basis for formal negotiations to begin in August.” 

There was talk of postponing the negotiations several weeks to allow 

participants to go ahead with planned leave or travel, but Watkinson objected. 

He believed it essential that an agreement be signed before Congress adjourned 

at the end of August. Otherwise the administration might become preoccupied 

with the presidential election campaign and the talks could drag on indefinitely. 

Moreover, Watkinson had already informed the House of Commons that 

negotiations were underway. It would be embarrassing if the agreement were 

still unsigned when Parliament reconvened later in the fall. The negotiations 

began the second week of August at the Pentagon and reached virtual agreement 

on a text within a few days. Although the Ministry of Defence was unhappy 

with a few points, it secured Macmillan’s approval to have the agreement 

signed promptly to avoid the risk of having it put off until after the election.22 

On the other hand, the berthing facility negotiations that began the second 

week of August at the State Department quickly ran into trouble. The most 

important point of dispute centered on what the British could say publicly about 

consulting with the United States on the use of nuclear weapons by Britishbased American submarines even though operating outside of British territorial 

waters. The British also insisted on receiving an option to purchase Polaris 

submarines, which the Americans countered could only be done within the 

NATO MRBM framework. The Foreign Office had cautioned that “we not scare 

the Americans off altogether by insisting on too many conditions. We should 

deplore it if the Americans sent their tender and dry dock elsewhere in Europe.” 

Unlike the Skybolt negotiations, however, the British felt no urgency. “There 

is in fact no argument in favour of hurry except our desire not to appear to 

welsh the Americans over their interpretation of the Camp David agreement and 

of the exchanges between Mr. Watkinson and Mr. Gates. . . .” Watkinson, too, 

had recommended that the berthing facilities negotiations be kept “in play as 

long as possible, so that we retain some hold over the Americans on the Skybolt 

technical agreement.”23 

Given the British dilatoriness, State and Defense decided to link the two 

sets of talks. The British were informed that the signing of the Skybolt 

agreement would be delayed until the berthing facilities negotiations were 

concluded. Both could then be sent to the White House at the same time “to 

show the President how the Camp David agreement had been implemented.” 

When the British Embassy vehemently protested, State backed off and 

persuaded Defense to drop the linkage. In agreeing to sign the Skybolt 

document, the Americans said they had fulfilled their end of the Camp David 

bargain and they expected the British to do their best to reciprocate on the 

123 
Session Two: Acquisition 

berthing facilities. They stressed that “it would be good for our relations as a 

whole in the defence field if there was not too wide a gap in time between the 

conclusion of the two arrangements.” The British Embassy had the definite 

impression that the Americans would believe that “we had not acted in entire 

good faith if we took the one and boggled at the other.”24 

Because of the need to send copies to London for signature, the Skybolt 

agreement was not finally signed in Washington until September 27. The 

American commitment was limited, and there was an escape clause. The USAF 

was only to “make every reasonable effort to ensure the successful and timely 

completion of Skybolt development.” Termination of the project by either party 

was permitted after consultation with the other. Deputy Secretary of Defense 

James H. Douglas had belatedly inserted a sentence, which the British accepted, 

indicating that Skybolt was “purely a Research and Development program, no 

production having been authorized by higher a~thority.”~’ 

Meanwhile, some progress had been made in the facilities negotiations. As 

a result mainly of direct correspondence between Eisenhower and Macmillan, 

the Holy Loch had been selected as the site, a compromise between the Gare 

Loch desired by the United States and a less populated, remote location offered 

by the British. Moreover, Watkinson now argued that despite the political 

problems, it would be in the United Kingdom’s own interests to agree to the 

berthing facilities. “On the present time scale,” he averred, “it will be a very 

useful opening gambit for our defence relationships with the new American 

government, whichever party may form it.” In September, a breakthrough 

occurred when the British withdrew their request for an option to purchase 

Polaris submarines. Although Macmillan would have preferred better terms, he 

considered it wiser “to rest upon a gentlemen’s agreement than to try to tie the 

Americans up in a legal option which is in any case unenforceable upon a 

successor government.” Watkinson hoped the Americans would recognize that 

if Skybolt had to be abandoned, “they would have a moral obligation to help us 

to overcome, in one way or another, the difficulties this would cause for us. 

After all, they have got the Holy Loch and we certainly have not got Skybolt for 

some years yet. This would give us the necessary standing to reopen the Polaris 

submarine question or take any other action that seemed necessary if Skybolt 

failed.”26 

By October, however, there was still no agreement on the text of a public 

statement on consultation. Informed that under the circumstances Defense 

would prefer to forgo the Holy Loch facilities, the British dropped their 

insistence on the statement. Nevertheless, Macmillan ’ s public announcement 

on November 1 of the offer of the facilities included language about 

consultation that irritated Washington. A Foreign Office study concluded that 

although the Prime Minister’s announcement went farther than had been 

expected, the Americans “cannot legitimately claim that they have been 

bo~nced.”~’ 

124 
Origins of the Skybolt Controversy 

Earlier the British had received disquieting news about Skybolt. Citing 

formidable technical problems that still had to be solved, the DDR&E’ s Deputy 

Director hinted that if development were delayed, Skybolt might be dropped 

altogether. Confirmation came from a higher source. Deputy Secretary Douglas 

talked with Watkinson in London, indicating “we might be in real trouble on 

Skybolt.” He did not want to give the impression that Skybolt was about to be 

cancelled, but costs were turning out to be much higher than anticipated. 

Watkinson told Macmillan he hoped this did not signify that the Americans 

were “getting cold feet.” Macmillan remarked, “This is bad.”28 

Zuckerman was asked to take up the question directly with Gates during a 

trip to Washington. What he learned was not encouraging. While the administration recognized Skybolt ’ s political importance for the British, the President 

and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to Zuckerman, viewed it as “no more 

than a very costly R&D programme in which they had little faith.” Macmillan 

was so concerned that he wrote to Eisenhower inquiring whether there were any 

plans to scrap Skybolt. He recalled that Blue Streak had been cancelled on the 

understanding that Skybolt would be available “so long as it proved technically 

feasible.’729 

Macmillan ’ s message prompted a disagreement between Defense and State 

as to how the President should respond. An initial draft, in which Defense had 

a large hand, alluded to some of the project’s difficulties. In the view of State’s 

Office of British and North European Affairs (EUR/BNA), however, the draft 

was inappropriate because it implied that the United States was backing away 

from Skybolt. This could prove “acutely embarrassing” to Macmillan and might 

“tie the hands of the next administration.” Instead, EUR/BNA prepared for the 

President a more sanguine reply, indicating that he had “every intention of 

proceeding with the proje~t.”~” 

Zuckerman had been shown the initial draft, but was told that it had been 

torn up and replaced by one that omitted any mention of difficulties. Even so, 

Gates asked that Watkinson not “overplay the hand” and that he diminish the 

“politics” of the issue. The warning apparently had an effect. Watkinson alerted 

Macmillan to the need for preparing a public response if it leaked out that the 

Americans might cancel Skybolt. “From the start,” Watkinson minuted on 

November 4, “we have foreseen it as a possibility and, for that reason, you and 

I have been at pains never to say that we were certain of Skybolt. I have 

purposely talked in public about other possibilities and shall continue to do so.” 

That day Watkinson publicly suggested that alternatives to Skybolt might be 

contemplated. Completion was five years away and the weapon was likely to 

be modified “or indeed never appear at all.”31 

At Macmillan ’ s request, Watkinson prepared a confidential report on the 

likelihood of Skybolt being terminated, as well as on the cost and availability 

of alternatives. The report alluded to the American concerns about escalating 

costs, but pointed out that there was as yet no decision to cancel. An indication 

125 
Session Two: Acquisition 

would come when the Eisenhower administration published its budget proposals 

in mid-December. If release of these proposals stimulated speculation about 

Skybolt’s future, “our position should be that we assume the Americans are 

going ahead with this project, so far as it is technically feasible, and that we are 

relying upon them to do so.” If there were any hint before this that the project 

was about to be abandoned, Macmillan planned to make “the strongest possible 

representations to the United States Administration and to the President 

personally.” That administration, asserted the Prime Minister, had “a heavy 

moral commitment to us over 

A decision on Defense’s FY 1962 budget submission was made during the 

first week in December. Gates told Eisenhower that it contained no new money 

for Skybolt. Instead the previous year’s money would be spread out over two 

years. He explained that there is “considerable technical question as to the 

feasibility of this system, and although some of these can be solved if enough 

money is spent, there then arises the question whether this is the most efficient 

system a~ailable.”~~ 

When Gates traveled to Europe later in the month for the NATO ministerial 

meeting, his briefing papers highlighted Skybolt’s shaky status. He was to 

stress to the British that the administration could not commit its successor 

“irrevocably” to continuing the project. This would give the British notice to 

expect “a possible phasing back or termination . . . which in turn will permit 

them to recover from their exposed political position on this program by 

developing, well in advance, alternative solution^."^^ 

In London Gates informed Watkinson that the program was being slowed 

down. This would make it possible to decide in about two years whether to 

carry it to completion. A disappointed Watkinson expressed concern over 

Macmillan ’ s reaction, because he knew the Prime Minister viewed Skybolt as 

part of the bargain for the berthing facilities. Watkinson acknowledged, 

however, that the British government had “always understood that Skybolt was 

a research and development project subject to all the usual uncertain tie^."^^ 

The conversation strongly confirmed the doubts, which Watkinson admitted 

to Macmillan “always existed, whether we shall get Skybolt at all, or in useful 

time.” Watkinson planned to reiterate in Parliament that “we do not rely on 

Skybolt as a certain and necessary weapon.” But he did not want “to throw too 

much cold water on it, because there is still just a chance of its getting through.” 

He advised the Prime Minister not to raise the issue again because at such a late 

date the President would not alter his budget. After all, Watkinson pointed out, 

Eisenhower at Camp David had “never guaranteed success.” The President 

“could answer, with truth, that he has not killed the proposal but left it open to 

his successor to decide.”” 

The first tender for the Polaris submarines arrived in the Holy Loch at the 

beginning of 1961 amid a storm of protest. When the Skybolt program was 

cancelled nearly two years later, the Macmillan government claimed 

126 
Origins of the Skybolt Controversy 

betrayal-that the United States had broken its part of the bargain. So far as the 

Eisenhower administration was concerned, however, there is little basis for the 

charge. The British, especially Prime Minister Macmillan, tried to make more 

of the arrangement than was there. They certainly knew enough to discount the 

contractor’s and the Air Force’s promotion of the weapon. Despite the fact that 

Eisenhower and the State Department occasionally blunted Defense’ s warnings, 

the messages came through clearly, as the high-level reactions in London well 

reveal. What essentially happened is that the Macmillan government, after 

painting itself into a corner by abandoning Blue Streak and embracing Skybolt, 

hoped that provision of the berthing facilities would impose a moral obligation 

on the United States to join it in the same corner. The foregoing sketch, while 

omitting many details of the complex negotiations and paying little attention to 

internal differences within the two governments, suggests that the controversy 

might have been avoided or at least mitigated if the Americans had gone ahead 

with locating the berthing facilities in West Germany. 

The Skybolt controversy was essentially a legacy of the Suez crisis. Below 

the surface of the discussions regarding Skybolt lay a current of suspicion-a 

feeling that the other side might not be acting entirely in good faith. One is 

struck by American allusions to British duplicity, and British worries about 

being perceived in this way. On the other hand, fear of being let down by the 

United States haunted the British. Allegations of American undependability 

could always be offered as a rationalization for possible failure. 

Only a few of the high-level participants from Skybolt’s early 

history-Macmillan and Zuckerman for the British and Rubel for the 

Americans-were still in office in December 1962 when McNamara broke the 

news of Skybolt ’ s cancellation to Watkinson ’ s successor, Peter Thorneycroft. 

Rubel was at that meeting and recalls Thorneycroft responding bitterly that the 

British had “depended absolutely” on the United States for the weapon. According to Rubel: 

He said it in a way which evoked images of the most dire betrayal, and 

I remember reflecting at the time on his skill in evoking a sense of 

guilt, of obligation, on the part of the Americans who had, in fact, done 

nothing more than cancel a development that should never have been 

started, to which the British had contributed nothing, for which the 

Americans had no real military need, and which the British had 

identified as their “independent deterrent”?’ 

127 
Session Two: Acquisition 

Notes 

1. Because of the furor over Skybolt’s cancellation, President Kennedy asked Harvard 

University political scientist Richard E. Neustadt to prepare a study of the controversy’s 

origins. Neustadt, who was given access to classified U.S. documents, also conducted 

interviews with British and American officials. He focused primarily on the years 1961 

through 1962 and only briefly sketched developments during the Eisenhower years. His 

report to the president, “Skybolt and Nassau, American Policy-making and Anglo-American 

Relations,” Nov 15, 1963, has been declassified in full. Much of Neustadt’s analysis has 

appeared in several of his publications, including Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1970); a section co-authored with Jay Urwitz in the Report by the 

Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy, vol. 

IV, Appendix K (Jun 1975); and a book co-authored with Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: 

The Uses ofHistory for Decision Makers (New York: The Free Press, 1986), pp. 108-10, 

190-92. Other treatments include Henry Brandon, “Skybolt: The Full Inside Story of How 

a Missile Nearly Split the West,” Times Weekly Review, (Dec 8,1963. pp. 29-32, and Jams 

A. Dewar, “Britain and the Skybolt Affair,” Aerospace Historian, vol. 18 (Sep 1971), pp. 

2. Memo, Air Commodore R.H.E. Emson, Apr 1, 1959, and Ministry of Supply paper, 

“Interdependence: Strategic Air to Surface Weapon Systems,” Apr 1959, attached to Note, 

Defence Research Policy Committee Joint Secretaries to the Committee, Apr 14,1959, both 

in AIR 2/15261, Air Ministry Records, Public Record Office (Hereafter abbreviated as 

PRO); Memo, Group Captain S.H. Bonser, “Weapon System W.S. 138A-Air Launched 

Ballistic Missile (Status as of 20th July 19.59);’ Aug 10,1959, AVIA 65/1661, Ministry of 

Aviation Records, PRO. 

3. Remarks by Leland P. Mebine, Programming Assistant, Office of the Assistant Secretary 

of the Air Force (Research and Development), described in letter, Air Commodore H.E. 

Dicken (British Joint Services Mission, Washington) to Emson, Sep 15,1959, AIR 2/15262, 

PRO. 

4. Oral history interview, James H. Douglas, Jr., Jun 13-14, 1979, p. 118, Center of Air 

Force History, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C. 

5. Memo, Rubel, “Skybolt Notes,” Apr 17 1964, CAM 87 Skybolt, Box 2, DDR&E Files: 

Federal Record Center Accession No. 68A1575, Record Group 330 (Records of the Office 

of the Secretary of Defense), Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland; 

Draft memo, Rubel for York, May 12, 1959, CAM 87 Skybolt 1959, Box 1, ibid.; Memo, 

Rubel for Director (Office of Review & Services), Jun 29,1959, ibid.; Diary entry for Dec 

23, 1959, George B. Kistiakowsky, A Scientist at the White House: The Private Diary of 

President Eisenhower ’ sSpecialAssistant for Science and Technology (Cambridge: Harvard 

University Press, 1976), p. 206. Unless otherwise indicated, all subsequent citations to OSD 

documents are to Record Group 330, Washington National Records Center. 

6. For an early expression of caution, see the comments by Deputy Secretary of Defense 

Donald Quarles and Director of Defense Research and Engineering Herbert York, as 

described in Brundrett letter to Air Marshal Sir Geoffrey Tuttle, May 1 1959, AIR 2/1526, 

PRO. See also the record of a meeting between Rubel, Watkinson, Zuckerman, and others, 

London, May 25, 1960, DEFE 13/195, Private Office Papers of the Minister of Defence, 

ibid. 

7. Memo, Rubel, “Skybolt Notes,” Apr 17,1964, GAM 87 Skybolt, Box 2, FRC 68A1575; 

Comments by Owen Wansbrough-Jones and Robert Cockburn, described in extract from 

minutes of the Defence Research Policy Committee meeting, Apr 21, 1959, AIR 2/15261, 

PRO. 

8. Memo, York for Rubel, Jul15,1959, CAM 87 Skybolt 1959, Box 1, FRC 68A1575; Ltr, 

Rubel to Fletcher, Jul 22, 1959, Skybolt, Box 4, DDR&E Files: FRC 63A1919. Known 

129-34. 

128 
Origins of the Skybolt Controversy 

officially as the Ad Hoc Group for Advanced Air-to-Surface Missiles, the Committee took 

its informal name from its head, Dr. James C. Fletcher, President of Space Electronics 

Corporation in Glendale, California. The Fletcher Committee met four times. Minutes of the 

first meeting, held at Glendale, California, August 6-7,1959, are in GAM 87 Skybolt 1959, 

Box 1, FRC 68A1575. Minutes of the second meeting held on October 6-7, 1959, also at 

Glendale, and the third meeting held on December 3-4, 1959, at the Douglas Company in 

Santa Monica, California, are in Skybolt, Box 4, FRC 63A1919. The committee’s interim 

report of October 20, 1959, recommending discontinuance of the project is in GAM 87 

Skybolt 1959, Box 1, FRC 68A1575. The final meeting was held on January 14-15, 1960. 

Recommendations resulting from this meeting are in the committee’s report of Janaury 12, 

1960, submitted as an enclosure to Fletcher’s letter to York of the same date in GAM 87 

Skybolt, Box 2, ibid. In a letter to Rube1 on January 22, Fletcher indicated that he did not 

believe that “the tenor of the group ’ s feelings were that a sufficiently large improvement had 

been made in the technical design and the relaxation of the operational requirements to 

justify changing the interim recommendations. I felt it more desireable to state that the group 

had avoided further questions about operational values and comparisons with other weapons. 

This, I realize, changes significantly the flavor of the final recommendations. . . .” ibid. 

9. Regarding Gates’ MRBM proposal, see Thomas C. Wiegele, “The Origins of the MLF 

Concept, 1957-1960,” Orbis, XI1 (Summer 1968), pp. 479-82, and Keith W. Baum, 

“Treating the Allies Properly: The Eisenhower Administration, NATO, and the Multilateral 

Force,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 13 (Winter), pp. 89-90. 

10. Remarks by Deputy Minister of Defence Richard C. Chilver, record of a meeting 

between the Minister of Defence and the Chiefs of Staff, Mar 24,1960, DEFE 13/212, PRO. 

11. Memo, Secretary of State Christian A. Herter for Eisenhower, Mar 27, 1960, Foreign 

Relations ofthe United States, 1958-1960, vol. VII, part 2 (Washington: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, 1993), pp. 860-61 (Hereafter abbreviated as FRUS). 

12. Eisenhower and Macmillan left Camp David at 425 p.m. and arrived at Gettysburg at 

458. They visited the residence of John Eisenhower, where the President introduced the 

Prime Minister to his son’s family. They then drove to the President’s farm, staying until 

5:20. After a brief stop again at his son’s residence, they departed for Camp David at 5:46 

and arrived at 6:18 p.m. They were together, without their aides being present, for almost 

two hours. President’s Appointment Book, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas. 

13. Memo for files, Foy D. Kohler (Assistant Sec State for European Affairs), Mar 29,1960, 

with attached draft memo, Prime Minister for President, undated, 741.5611/3-2960, Decimal 

Files, State Department (hereafter abbreviated as SD). Written in the margin of the draft memo was: “1st draft. 1O:OO p.m. 3/28/60. Camp David from British. FDK.” Kohler ’ s memo 

for the files, without the attached draft, is printed in FRUS, 1958-1960, vol. VII, pt. 2, pp. 

14. Memo for files, Kohler, Mar 29,1960, with attached memo, “Skybolt and Polaris,” Mar 

29,1960,741.5611/3-2960, Decimal Files, SD. Written in the margin of the attached memo 

was: “Original initialed by CDD handed to Amb Sir Harold Caccia 10:15 am 3/29/60. 

FDK’. C. Douglas Dillon was Under Secretary of State. 

15. Memorandum (written in the margin was: “1st Revision rec’d from British a.m. 3/29. 

FDK’), and memorandum (initialled by Macmillan), both undated and attached to Memo 

for files, Kohler, ibid. The text of Macmillan’s final memo is in tel 687, Washington 

Embassy to Foreign Office, repeated to UK Delegation to NATO, Mar 29, 1960 (DEFE 

13/195, PRO) and is also printed in FRUS, 1958-1960, vol. VII, pt. 2, p. 865. 

16. Alistair Horne, HaroldMacmillan, 2 vols. (New York Viking Press, 1989), 11, pp. 275- 

76; Andrew J. Pierre, Nuclear Politics: The British Experience with an Independent 

Strategic Force, 1939-1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 227; Nigel Fisher, 

Harold Macmillan: A Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982), p. 300; Peter 

Malone, The British Nuclear Deterrent (London: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 15; Lawrence 

Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (London: Macmillan for the Royal Institute of 

International Affairs, 1980), pp. 8-9. Macmillan informed Watkinson, who was in Paris 

along with Gates attending a meeting of NATO defense ministers, that as a result of the talks 

861-63. 

129 
Session Two: Acquisition 

with Eisenhower regarding Skybolt and Polaris, he was “fully satisfied that we shall get 

what we need.” Tel84, Washington Embassy to U.K. NATO Delegation in Paris, Mar 30, 

1960, DEFE 13/195, PRO. His diary indicated that by virtue of the exchange of memoranda, 

the United States would “undertake to let us have either missile through sale or gift.” Upon 

his return to London he asked the Cabinet to rely on the “firm agreement” for Skybolt. He 

also put more substance into the American comments about Polaris than was intended. He 

later wrote that although Eisenhower could not give a definite commitment regarding Polaris 

until the European nations had decided on the MRBM proposal, it was “certain” that Polaris 

could be obtained, “although at a heavy cost, in one form or another when we might need 

it.” Similarly, in a report to the Queen, the Prime Minister declared that he had received 

assurances that “we shall be able to obtain either Skybolt or Polaris when we need them.” 

Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 1959-1961 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. 

17. Minute, Macmillan to Watkinson, May 10,1960, DEFE 13/195, PRO; Record of a mtg 

betweeen Macmillan and Watkinson, May 20, 1960, PREM 11/3261, ibid.; Minute, 

Watkinson to Macmillan, May 24, 1960, DEFE 13/195, Correspondence and Papers of the 

Prime Minister’s Office, ibid. 

18. British draft memorandum of understanding on Skybolt, Jun 1, 1960, United States 

revised draft, Jun 2,1960, and British revised draft, Jun 3, 1960, all in UK Skybolt-Polaris, 

Box 1, ISA European Regional Files: FRC 67A4738; Extract from minutes of a meeting at 

Birch Grove House, Jun 13,1960, DEFE 13/274, PRO. A copy of the signed memorandum 

of understanding is in CAB 129/101, Cabinet Conclusions, PRO. 

19. Ltr, Zuckerman to Rubel, Jan 21, 1987, OSD Historical Office, The Pentagon, 

Washington, D.C.; Record of US-UK Talks, Jun 1, 1960, Gates-Watkinson Talks, Box 1, 

FRC 67A4738; British record of the Gates-Watkinson meeting, Jun 6, 1960, as described 

in Memo, F.J. Doggett (Ministry of Aviation), “Notes of Discussions with the U.S. 

Authorities on the Skybolt Agreement,” Aug 24, 1960, AVIA 65/1662, PRO; Minute, 

Watkinson to Macmillan, Jun 7,1960, PREM 11/2940, PRO; Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 

p. 254. 

20. Record of US-UK Talks, Jun 1, 1960, Gates-Watkinson Talks, Box 1, FRC 67A4738; 

Memo for record, Russell Fessenden (Dir, Office of European Regional Affairs, State), Jun 

8, 1960, 711.5611/6-860, Decimal Files, SD; Letter, Robert N. McGill (Acting Dep Dir, 

Office of European Regional Affairs, State) to Raymond L. Thurston (Counselor of 

Embassy, Paris), Jun 6,1960, NATO Strategic Force, Box 18710, NATO Adviser Files, Lot 

62D270, SD; Memo, Kohler for Livingston T. Merchant (Und Sec State, Political Affairs), 

Jun 4,1960, Sandys Visit 1958-Watkinson Visit 1960, Box 8027, ibid.; Minute, Watkinson 

to Macmillan, Jun 7, 1960, PREM 11/2940, PRO. 

21. Memcon, Philip E. Barringer (Office of Asst Sec Defense for International Security 

Affairs), Jul 8, 1960, Skybolt Agreement, Box 4, FRC 69A1390; Memo, Woodbury W. 

Willoughby (Office of British and Northern European Affairs, State (EUR/BNA)) for 

Kohler, Jul7, 1960, Skybolt, Box 8027, Lot 62D270, SD; Tel 1338, Washington Embassy 

to Foreign Office, Jul8, 1960, DEFE 13/195, PRO; Unnumbered tel, British Joint Services 

Mission to Ministry of Defence, Jul10,1960, ibid.; Memo for record, C.S. Weaver (Director 

of Foreign Programs, DDR&E), Jul21, 1960, Skybolt Agreement, Box 4, FRC 69A1390. 

22. Minutes, E.G. Cass (Ministry of Defence) to Chilver, Jul27, 1960; Chilver to Cass, JuI 

28,1960; and Chilver to D.G.W.L. Haviland (Ministry of Aviation), Jul28,1960, all DEFE 

13/195, PRO; Memo, Doggett, “Notes of Discussion with the U.S. Authorities on the 

Skybolt Agreement,” Aug 24, 1960, AVIA 65/1662, PRO; Minute, Chilver to Macmillan, 

Aug 18,1960, PREM 11/3261, PRO. 

23. Tel453 Saving, Washington Embassy to Foreign Office, Aug 28, 1960, DEFE 13/274, 

PRO; Tel3361, Foreign Office to Washington Embassy, Jul22,1960, DEFE 13/274, PRO; 

Minute, Watkinson to Macmillan, Jul 28, 1960, DEFE 13/195, ibid. 

24. Memo, Doggett, “Notes of Discussion with the US. Authorities on the Skybolt 

Agreement,” Aug 24,1960, AVIA 16/1662, PRO; Tel453 Saving, Washington Embassy to 

Foreign Office, Aug 28, 1960, DEFE 13/274, PRO; Tel 1720, Washington Embassy to 

252-53. 

130 
Origins of the Skybolt Controversy 

Foreign Office, Sep 1,1960, ibid. 

25. Minute, L. Williams (A.S./Air B.3) to P.S./Parl. Sec., Sep 13, 1960, and “United States 

Department of the Air Force and United Kingdom Ministry of Aviation Technical and 

Financial Agreement Concerning the SKYBOLT,” Sep 27, 1960, AVIA 65/1662, PRO. 

26. Minute, Watkinson to Macmillan, Aug 29,1960 [not sent], and extract from minutes of 

a meeting held in Admiralty House, Aug 31, 1960, DEFE 13/274, PRO; Memo (C. (60) 

123), Watkinson and Forien Secretary Home, “Facilities for United States Submarines in 

Scotland,” Sep 13,1960, CAB 129/102/1, Cabinet Office Meetings, PRO; Record of Cabinet 

Meeting (C.C. (60) 50th Conclusions), Sep 15,1960, CAB 128/34, ibid.; Minute, Macmillan 

to Watkinson, Sep 18, 1960, DEFE 13/195, PRO; Extract from minute, Watkinson to 

Macmillan, undated, ibid. 

27. Tel2086, Washington Embassy to Foreign Office, Oct 17,1960, PREM 11/2941, PRO; 

Memo, P. E. Ramsbotham (Foreign Office), “Polaris Base Agreement,” Nov 2, 1960, ibid. 

28. Minute, Zuckerman to Watkinson, Sep 22, 1960, ibid.; Record of a meeting between 

Watkinson and Douglas, Oct 21,1960, and minute, Watkinson to Macmillan, Oct 21,1960, 

with Macmillan’ s handwritten marginal comment, PREM 11/2941, PRO. 

29. Solly Zuckerman,Monkeys, Men, andMissiles: AnAutobiography, 1946-88 (New York: 

W. W. Norton & Co., 1989), p. 240; Msg, Macmillan to Eisenhower, Oct 26,1960, PREM 

11/3261, PRO. 

30. Memo, William C. Burdett (EUR/BNA) for Kohler, Oct 28, 1960,711.5611/10-2860, 

Decimal Files, SD; Memo, Kohler for Herter, Oct 29,1960,741.5611/10-2960, ibid.; Msg, 

Eisenhower to Macmillan, Oct 30,1960, PREM 11/3261, PRO. 

31. Zuckerman, Monkeys, Men, and Missiles, p. 241; Memo, Rubel, “Skybolt Notes,” Apr 

17,1964, GAM 87 Skybolt, Box 2, FRC 68A1575; Minute, Watkinson to Macmillan, Nov 

4,1960, PREM 11/3261, PRO; Hansard, Nov 4,1960, pp. 597-98. 

32. Minute, Macmillan to Watkinson, Nov 16, 1960; Note by Watkinson, “Skybolt,” Nov 

23, 1960; and Minute, Macmillan to Watkinson, Dec 1,1960, PREM 11/3261, PRO. 

33. Memo of conference with the President, Goodpaster, Dec 5,1960, Staff Notes, Box 55, 

DDE Diary Series, DDEL. 

34. Memo, Maj. Gen. Frederic H. Miller (Dir, European Region, Int Sec Affairs) for John 

N. Irwin (Asst Sec Def, Int Sec Affairs), Dec 9, 1960,092 U.K., Box 38, ISA Files, 1960: 

FRC 64A2170. 

35. Record of Watkinson-Gates meeting, Dec 12, 1960, PREM 11/3261, PRO. 

36. Minute, Watkinson to Macmillan, Dec 12, 1960, ibid. 

37. Quoted in Zuckerman, Monkeys, Men, and Missiles, pp. 250-51. 

131 

Questions and Answers 

Robert Jackson: I have a couple of questions here. One is from someone 

who wants to know if the Americans put pressure on us to buy their aeroplanes 

in the period which I was talking about. I have to go back a little bit here. I think 

that in the 1950s, it was a question of need. For instance, there was a vital need 

to make Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization strong as far as 

military aircraft were concerned, and for that reason, we acquired the Canadiar 

version of the Sabre. Ian Madelin, for example, flew the Sabre in Second 

Tactical Air Force of the Royal Air Force. So, there was that. For the same 

reason, the USAF acquired the Canberra, because it needed a tactical jet 

bomber, and we had it and they didn’t, so they got the Canberra. The pressure 

came after Cecil James’s mate, Duncan Sandys, had scrapped all our nice 

aircraft projects that were going on at the time. And the pressure didn’t only 

come from the United States. It came from British firms, as well. Rolls-Royce, 

for example, was very keen to have the Rolls-Royce Spey-engined version of 

the Phantom in RAF service and Royal Navy service. So there was a joint 

pressure from firms that were in desperation because they had lost out on all 

sorts of orders because of the 1957 cancellations, and so on. So I think that is 

the best thing I can do with that. 

But, to some extent we shot ourselves in the foot well before Duncan 

Sandys, because in 1953 we cancelled an aeroplane, which was just about 

complete in prototype form, called the Hawker P.1083. The P.1083 was, in fact, 

a super Hunter. It was a transsonic version of the Hunter in the F-100 class, but 

very much better. Its rate of climb, for example, was very much better than the 

F-loo’s, and it would have had a ground attack capability, also. So we would 

have sold the P.1083 to nations within our sphere of influence, but because we 

didn’t have it, they then went off and bought the F-100 instead. So we lost out 

very heavily on that, and it wasn’t anything to do with the 1957 business. It was 

the Air Staff who decided to scrap the project because it had an afterburning 

engine, and the thinking at the time was we didn’t really need aeroplanes with 

afterburning engines. The developed version of the Hunter, the FGA.9, would 

fulfill both the ground attack and interception roles until the Lightning came 

along. The Hunter 6, rather, would do the interception bit, and the FGA.9 would 

be the ground attack aeroplane. 

This brings me on to the next question, which I got from Lieutenant 

General Devol Brett, who wants to know a little more about the P.l and 

Lightning business. Now the P.l was a very advanced aeroplane for its time; it 

133 
Session Two: Acquisition 

flew in 1954 and was to be a quantum leap in technology. We were going from 

subsonic with mildly transsonic in the dive aeroplanes like the Hunter straight 

to Mach 2-plus with the Lightning. We had no middleman. The USAF, for 

example, had the F-86 then the F-100 then the F-104. We had nothing like that, 

nothing in the middle, because of the cancellation of the P.1083. So there is this 

huge jump. When it came into service, I think in July 1960, it was probably the 

finest fighter aircraft in the world. It suffered critically from a lack of range, 

which was cured to some degree by the provision of extra fuel tankage and by 

flight refueling. 

Oh, I should mention, by the way, that the original idea was to have a 

mixed fighter force composed of the Lightning and an aircraft which was 

cancelled in the Duncan Sandys period, the Saunders Roe P.177. That was a 

mixed power plant aeroplane, jet and rocket, designed to get to high altitude as 

fast as possible. It was based upon the same concept as the Messerchmitt 163 

of the Second World War, which some of you who flew B-17s and things might 

have come across over Europe. But the problem with the P.177, with 

hindsight-which is a wonderful thing to have-is it had no capability to 

engage aircraft flying at low level so, therefore, when the whole business went 

over to low-level operations, it wouldn ’ t have been much use anyway. But that 

was cancelled, so we were left with the Lightning, which suffered-apart from 

a lack of range, as I said-from the fact that it wasn’ t a multirole aeroplane, and 

it came in at the time when everbody was wanting multirole aeroplanes. We did 

sell some to the Saudi air force and to the Kuwaitis with limited ground attack 

capability-with rockets and bombs and things-but they were never really 

successful. 

But the Lightning was a superb fighter for its day. I remember once 

watching an F-15 doing its business at an air show in the middle to late 1970s, 

twisting itself into knots doing its air superiority bit, and there was a voice 

behind me that said, “Ha, we did that in a Lightning thirteen years ago!” And, 

of course, it was an ex-Lightning pilot. I think that is the best I can do, General 

Brett, on that point. 

I do have another question here, if I can decipher it. Had an aerial refueling 

capability been considered when looking for a suitable tactical airlift aircraft in 

the 1960s? Not to my knowledge, is the best I can say. I don’t think so. I think 

that flight refueling really was a product of early 1960s, and it came about really 

as an effort to extend the V bombers’ range-to increase the range and 

penetration capability of the V force-and it devolved into other areas after that. 

Dr. William Suit: I have two questions. The gist of the first question is, 

Did the British attempt to acquire American B-29s that had been modified for 

atomic warfare, the so called “silver-plate” B-29s? The answer is, no, the 

British made no attempt to acquire them. Interestingly enough, when the 

Americans went to modify the silver-plate aircraft, they found that they did not 

have a bomb hoist, shackle, and rack system big enough to hold the American 

134 
Questions and Answers 

atomic bomb, so they bought British bomb hoists, racks, and shackles that were 

used for the “grand slam” conventional bomb. So, basically, they had British 

equipment on board them. They eventually switched over to Americanmanufactured equipment, but the original B-29s that were atomic capable had 

British racks and shackles. The only other thing that the silver-plate bombers 

originally had was a different radio set from that in the regular B-29s. There 

weren’t really that many modifications to them, other than all of the armament 

was taken off. 

The second question is, for how long did the RAF operate the B-29s? The 

conventional bombers were used until July 1954; that was when the last was 

returned to the United States. However, No. 192 Squadron operated four B-29s 

in electronic intelligence and electronic countermeasures capacity until 1958. 

The questioner also wants to know, where were the B-29s based? They were 

based at about eight different bases. I do not recall exactly which ones, but if 

whoever wrote the question wants to know, I do have the information in my 

briefcase and I can tell you afterwards. Also, a second part of this question 

asked if the U.S. aircraft were equipped with American or British nuclear 

bombs. I have read one historian who suggested that the Americans had given 

atomic bombs to the British some time between 1952 and 1954 to use on these 

aircraft. There is absolutely no reason to believe that at all. I’ve never found any 

evidence, or seen it written down by a official source, only speculation by 

historians. The question continues, and if so, were they integrated into joint 

U.S./U.K. planning? I believe that after 1953, the British B-29s were integrated 

into joint planning with the Western Union nations. As I mentioned, they 

participated in joint exercises and were flying in France and Germany, so they 

were flying throughout Western Europe with the French and Belgians and the 

Americans and the Dutch. So they were integrated, but they weren’t integrated 

for nuclear purposes. And the last part of this multipart question is, what was 

the eventual disposal of the B-29s. I believe they just sent the planes back. In 

1954, they would have gone to Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona, where they 

were cut up and used for scrap. By that time the United States had close to two 

thousand B-29s, the Air Force really had no need for them, and they were 

cluttering up the desert out in Arizona. They were cut up because they had an 

awful lot of aluminum in them. I suppose that is what happened to them. You 

would have to get individual aircraft cards to find out exactly where each plane 

went. 

Dr. Ronald Landa: The first question I ’ 11 try to answer, and the second I ’ 11 

defer; maybe someone else can offer some insight on it. The first question is, 

what weight would you attach to another complicating factor in the Skybolt 

saga, namely, that some U.S. interests saw the British request for Skybolt and/or 

Polaris as a hindrance to U.S. hopes for nonproliferation? McNamara ’ s Ann 

Arbor speech of June 1962 is collateral evidence. I focused on the Eisenhower 

period, so I didn’t really look too much at the Kennedy years, but early on when 

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Skybolt was being discussed in 1959 and 1960, there did seem to be some lower 

level mistrust or uncertainty about allowing the British to have these weapons. 

I didn’t really see that at higher levels, but at some lower levels there did seem 

to be some of that thinking. It is curious, though, that some of the people, 

particularly in the State Department, like the Director of State ’ s Policy Planning 

Staff, Gerard Smith-who became and still is a leading figure in 

nonproliferation-were strongly supportive of giving Skybolt to the British. He 

really argued against the Defense Department position, and I think he had the 

ear of Secretary of State Christian Herter. At the same time, Smith and a number 

of people who worked with him were strongly backing the MLF proposal as a 

way to discourage the French and the West Germans from obtaining their own 

nuclear capabilities. So, I think it is a very mixed picture, and you do have a lot 

of cross currents within the different agencies. Some of the people at State in the 

Bureau of European Affairs siding with Defense, and people in Defense taking 

the State position, so it is not a real clear-cut picture during the Eisenhower 

years. 

The second question, in the light of the fact that a successful testing of 

Skybolt took place shortly after its cancellation, was any assessment every made 

as to whether, after all, the system could have been an overall successful 

project? I am aware that the successful, or partially successful, test did occur. 

I don ’ t know if any overall assessment was done. Perhaps someone here knows 

if any post mortum or backward look at the project was ever done showing 

whether it could be successful. 

General Robert T. Marsh: I might footnote that last response, in that I 

have heard General Schriever say that he was chastised severely for having 

embarrassed the Secretary of Defense staff by approving and conducting a 

highly successful test of the Skybolt after it had been cancelled. 

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Banquet Address 
General Charles A. Horner, Commander in Chief, North American 

Aerospace Defense Command, Commander in Chief, United States 

Space Command, Commander, Air Force Space Command, earned his 

B.A. degree at the University of Iowa in 1958 and an M.A. in Business 

Administration from the College of William and Mary in 1972. He 

receive his pilot wings in November 1959, then flew F-100s for the 

492nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, RAF Lakenheath. Subsequently, he 

transitioned to F-105s. General Horner flew forty-one combat missions 

over North Vietnam in 1965; in 1967, he returned to Southeast Asia 

and flew seventy additional missions in F-105s in the Wild Weasel 

missile suppression role. During his distinguished career, General 

Horner commanded the 405th Tactical Training Wing, Luke AFB, 

Arizona (1979 to 1980); the 474th Tactical Fighter Wing, Nellis AFB, 

Utah (1980 to 1981); 833rd Air Division, Holloman AFB, New Mexico 

(1981 to 1983); 23rd North American Aerospace Defense Command 

Region and Tactical Air Command Air Division, and then Air Force 

Air Defense Weapons Center (1983 to 1985), all at Tyndall AFB, 

Florida. General Horner became commander of Ninth Air Force and 

U.S. Central Command Air Forces, Shaw AFB, South Carolina, in 

1987. In that position, he was the Joint Force Air Component 

Commander during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm from 1990 

to 1991 and a major architect of the air victory during the Gulf War. 
Banquet Address 

General Charles A. Horner 

It is an honor to be here this evening. I would much prefer to give a speech 

about space, but you would all be asleep in about three minutes and it would last 

until morning. So I will talk about Desert Storm instead. I believe that Desert 

Storm is important from an historical standpoint. It could well be a watershed 

event in military history. It is certainly an example of U.S. Air Force and Royal 

Air Force cooperation, probably an example unprecedented in combat since, 

World War I1 and Korea. And so, maybe, this is a good place to talk a little bit 

about what we saw and did. 

In one sense, it is difficult to analyze the history of Desert Storm, because 

we are too close to it. Some people, Dick Hallion, for example, have done a 

marvelous job of capturing factually what went on. The war does have to be 

looked at from a historical standpoint, and I think the only historians who can 

do it justice will be those sensitive to what air and space are all about, because 

Desert Storm represented the emergence of air power, not for the first time, but 

perhaps in the purest sense of the term. Personally, the war reinforced my belief 

in the importance of history. I have always been fascinated with the subject. 

Men like Ira Eaker and George Kenney were the folks whom I looked up to and 

studied while I was in college and in the Air Force. 

Fortunately, in the USAF we have a good history program. It is important 

that the books it prepares and sends out are read and appreciated. When I 

became CENTAF, I studied the lessons of the past thoroughly. In particular, the 

desert war as experienced by the British in North Africa during World War I1 

was extremely valuable. Then, when we went over as part of Desert 

Shield-while we were sitting there in September and October 1990 with very 

little to do except plan and prepare-the Office of Air Force History sent cases 

and cases of books. These books covered such appropriate subjects as the Royal 

Air Force fighting the Iraqis between World War I and World War I1 and using 

the RAF to control dissidents during several British campaigns. All of that 

helped shape what we did. Our two services are blessed by a rich history in 

aviation, although it is very short. 

We also had tremendous historical support during the war. We had 

historians in the Tactical Air Command Center twenty-four hours a day. They 

were under CMSgt. John R. Burton and he did a marvelous job. We failed in 

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Banquet Address 

one area, however. We could easily have set up television cameras in the 

Command Center and recorded everything that went on. You would have seen 

the interaction between the allies; you would have been able to go back and 

observe the councils of war. I don’t think General Schwarzkopf would have 

allowed this in his headquarters when we went in there for the evening 

briefings, however, because he was too busy swearing at his staff! But that is 

another problem the historians will have to solve. 

I will talk a little bit and tell some anecdotes that might be “lessons 

learned.” I am not going to pull any punches with this audience. I will say 

things that you may find disappointing or pretentious. I do this, not because I 

am right, but because this is how I saw it. This is my viewpoint, and it may 

provide clues to any of you who want to study this particular conflict and what 

we did. We vitally need to study this conflict. Much of what we did in Desert 

Storm was the result of all of the negative lessons we gained during the Vietnam 

War. During much of the organization of Desert Shield and Desert Storm, I was 

forearmed, because I used to work with General William M. Momyer, who 

served as Commander of Seventh Air Force in Vietnam, and then as 

Commander of Tactical Air Command. Some may not have liked “Spike” 

Momyer, but I guarantee he knew command arrangements and he often talked 

about how they worked in North Africa, Korea, and Vietnam. Thus, I was well 

versed in these kinds of struggles, and I am grateful for that. But even so, no 

matter how successful Desert Storm may have been, we obviously could have 

done much better. It is up to the young people to gain the lessons from that 

conflict. It is going to require absolute honesty and it will generate some 

controversy that will lead to a few hurt feelings. If you are married, you know 

that honesty is not a big problem. My wife is honest with me all the time. I 

don ’ t think I ’ m that fat and getting bald! 

Let me start with strategy. Much of what we did in Desert Storm began 

after General Schwarzkopf took command of Central Command, and after he 

visited my headquarters and the Air Component in November 1989. We had 

been practicing against a potential Soviet attack through Iran, working with 

airborne forces to block the passes and trying to hold the Russians in such a way 

that we could protect the oil fields. He sat down and said, “Guys that’s a great 

plan you wrote, but forget it. Stick it on the shelf. We’re not going to have a 

war with the Soviet Union; the Cold War is over.” He said that we either have 

to find a new enemy in the Middle East or we have to fold our tents and dissolve 

the command. Well, military guys don ’ t like to do that, so we started searching 

hard. 

The other thing he did during this visit was reaffirm that the Ninth Air 

Force commander would be Air Component Commander for Central Command. 

That was a bit worrisome for me, because that concept was not totally accepted 

by everyone, certainly not by the U.S. Marine Corps. It was very good for an 

Army guy to make that decision. I then asked: “We know who the Sea 

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Commander is going to be, it’s always the naval person. Now you’ve said that 

I am going to continue as the Air Commander. Who’s going to be the Land 

Commander?” He thought and said, “I will.” Then I told him, “Well, then you 

better be prepared for me to talk to you in a way you don’t want me to talk to 

you. Then, after we get done with that, you make up your mind, and I’ll do 

whatever the hell you tell me to.” He agreed with that, and that was the way we 

worked throughout the war. 

In April 1990, a few months later, we were getting ready for the big 

CENTCOM exercise, called Internal Look. The written scenario for this 

exercise was extremely vague: “Country Orange” was going to invade Kuwait 

and Saudi Arabia from the north! Now we had been forced into this “obscurity” 

by the State Department, which had been irate to find out that the original 

scenario identified Iraq as the country invading Kuwait. The Middle East desk 

officer at State, who had found out about the exercise through a symposium at 

my headquarters, called up Schwarzkopf and chewed him out. So Schwarzkopf 

phoned me and tore a very large strip off my posterior. In the final scenario, we 

changed the name of the invading country from Iraq to Country Orange, and 

that solved the problem. As it turned out, of course, Iraq did invade Kuwait, and 

the incoming U.S. ambassador to Kuwait-who could not get into his embassy 

because of the invasion-happened to be the same desk officer who had called 

Schwarzkopf on the carpet for suggesting that Iraq would ever invade Kuwait! 

While getting ready for Internal Look, I talked to Schwarzkopf about 

centralized control of air, all air. We talked about how we were going to 

integrate both ours and that belonging to our Arab allies, because we could not 

understand how to fight a war without involving at least two other countries-Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. 

I talked to him about neutralization of ballistic missiles. That threat did not 

appear on anybody’s radar at the time, but, in fact, two years earlier, the Red 

Force commander opposing me in another exercise had used medium-range ballistic missiles and drove me up the wall. Every time I would get my air forces 

marshaled out on the runway, he would plop one of these things full of poison 

gas on the airfield. Then everybody would have to put on their gas mask, and 

the exercise and all work would come to a stop. As a result of that experience, 

I got with General John Yeosock, then head of the Third Army, and we decided 

to use Patriot missiles to protect airports and ports. At that time, we thought 

Patriots had an antiballistic missile capability, which they did not have; they 

acquired it a few months later. 

We talked about strategic targets, and, God, I wish I could take that word 

back, because the words “strategic” and “tactical” are so misleading. They mean 

anything anybody wants. I was talking about hitting targets other than the 

enemy army in the field. In our scenario, Internal Look, the enemy army was in 

the field advancing, so we had to have an exercise to stop the advance, defeat 

the army, and then allow our troops to go on the offensive. Of course, General 

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Schwarzkopf’ s thinking was solely on the battlefield, and I started talking about 

targeting things like electrical grid systems, transportation networks, oil storage, 

and refineries to punish the country that was involved in this war. He picked 

that up later and talked about the “strategic campaign.” 

Another agenda item was how to get control of the Marine Corps Air. I was 

just way out in front of him on that subject. I wanted to take control of the 

Marine Air, but the Marines at the time were dead set against it. However, we 

had a change of command of the Marine Component to a guy named Walter 

Boomer, who is now the Deputy Commandant of the Marines. Boomer fully 

understood the importance of centralizing command and control of the air 

campaign. With Boomer in our headquarters we never had a problem. 

Schwarzkopf and I talked about the U.S. Army carving up air according to 

corps commanders. I’ll be darned, but three nights before the ground war 

started in February, after the air forces had been fighting for six weeks, one of 

the Army corps commanders came in and said, “I have to have three hundred 

sorties of close air support a day.” I got up and fell on my sword over that issue. 

Everyone looked at me and said, “Well, he fell on his sword; isn’t that quaint.” 

Then, after one corps commander did it, the other corps commander said, “I’ll 

need three hundred sorties, also!’’ Next, the Marine Corps field commander 

said, “I ’ 11 need three hundred!” Schwarzkopf, who had learned his lessons well, 

stopped this fragmentation. He said, “You people don ’ t understand. It’ s all my 

air, and I’ll use it any way I please.” That ended the argument, and we 

maintained a centralized command. But I always wondered what would have 

happened if Schwarzkopf and I had not had a meeting of minds on the use of air 

power. 

We talked about close air support and how to integrate it with the allies, and 

that paid off handsomely during Desert Shield. We took pilots from each of the 

groups and had them work with allied ground forces. The trouble was finding 

Arabic-speaking fighter pilots. We finally found one guy who had been an 

instructor at the Air Force Academy and spoke Arabic and we set him up with 

the Syrians. Our guy was up there eating Syrian food, working with the Syrians, 

and training them how to use close air support because the only U.S.-built 

airplanes they had ever seen before had shot at them. The Syrians were very 

distrustful of Westerners, a legacy of the French, I suppose. At night, they 

would not let him sleep in the encampment. They put up a big berm, circled 

their tanks, and pointed the barrels upwards. That was how they camped out 

every night in the desert on the border. Well, every night they would make this 

lone American sleep out in the desert with the wild dogs and snakes. One day 

I was in an F-16 up there flying close air support. I called this guy up one day 

and said, “I ’ 11 give you a little close air support practice.” It was then I found 

out that his call sign was ?Why Me?” 

We talked about targeting processes, and I can tell you that General 

Schwarzkopf was briefed on every target we selected. However, we did not 

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have any kind of a joint targeting board. The Army nominated the targets they 

wanted to hit. We had an overall plan that Schwarzkopf agreed with in principle 

that responded to the goals of the war. Every night we would brief him on what 

we were going to hit two nights later. The only targets he changed were those 

that the Army had nominated. He would say, “No that’s dumb, do this, or do 

this.” I just sat there and took notes. 

We talked about B-52s. You know you are dealing with somebody who 

does not understand air power when the first thing he says is “carpet bombing.’’ 

You can envision the old Vietnam War arrangement with B-52s bombing the 

jungle on each side of a road protecting the forces driving down the road. In 

April I really tried to get the point home to Schwarzkopf that that was not the 

way to use air power. General William Westmoreland owned our B-52s during 

Vietnam, and they were often misused. It was not until Linebacker I1 that we 

got to use them efficiently. Schwarzkopf often “lusted” after the B-52s, but 

common sense kept him out. 

We also talked about gaining control of the air; it was a religion with him. 

He understood that the first thing we had to do was gain control of the air. You 

know you have arrived when the U.S. Army tells you that! 

Well, we wound down Internal Look, and pretty soon the real world 

intelligence looked exactly like the exercise intelligence. On August 2, 1990, 

Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait. Schwarzkopf called me down to his headquarters, 

and we were in Camp David on Saturday morning, August 4, briefing the 

Cabinet and the President. I recall two things from that meeting that were 

historically significant. First, I had never seen so much ignorance in my whole 

life than that expressed in the questions asked by the Cabinet members. It was 

amazing! I don ’ t mean that disparagingly, but those guys knew nothing about 

warfare. In retrospect, I thought it was very useful, because they asked the same 

kind of questions the press would ask the President later. So, he heard all these 

dumb questions and he heard the answers that Schwarzkopf and I gave. 

The other thing that I recall was that the President was very well prepared. 

You could tell that the President knew war, because he talked about two 

subjects, thanks to his experiences in World War I1 and as a diplomat. The first 

tip-off had to do with the loss of life. He was absolutely adamant about keeping 

down the loss of life should war come-not only on the allied side but also on 

the enemy side. That concept directed all our targeting and all our tactics 

throughout the war. In retrospect, I am extremely grateful, because I believe that 

no matter what war we become involved in, we will have to live with these 

people on the same planet for the rest of eternity. The second tip-off was the 

role of the other nations. During that meeting, the President would ask Secretary 

of State James Baker, “NOW what does so-and-so think about this?” But he 

never got a good answer from State. So he finally said to the Secretary of 

Defense, Dick Cheney, “Dick, I want you to go to Jeddah, talk to the King of 

Saudi Arabia, and see what he thinks we ought to do, because his nation is the 

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one most directly impacted. Meanwhile I’ll call Margaret Thatcher and Francois 

Mitterand.” The President took care of two of the NATO Allies and wanted us 

to consult with the King of Saudi Arabia. That is something that would not have 

occurred to most Americans. We would be sitting there sorting out, “Okay, we 

need six of these and twelve of those, put them here and do that.” Instead, 

thanks to President Bush’s concerns, we left for Saudi Arabia on Sunday, 

August 5, and arrived on Monday night. 

The deployment went rapidly. I think that was a tribute to air power in 

terms of strategic airlift. We talk about strategic airlift and you read about it, but 

I think it’s like so many things: airlift is taken for granted, and that concerns 

me. Not that I am for or against the C-17 or anything like that, but I bet too 

often we don’t appreciate sufficiently the mobility aspects of our air power. We 

zero in on the things that “go boom in the night.’’ 

What helped me most during the deployment was the three years that I had 

been in my job. I had been through some very difficult times with the Saudis 

during the period when we were escorting the oil tankers up the Persian Gulf. 

At that time, the Saudis did not want an American headquarters in Riyadh. So 

in about 1989, I went to Ahmed Behrey, the head of the Saudi Air Force, and 

made a deal with him. I said I had been ordered to come over here and set up a 

headquarters, “NOW, I want you to let me do that, and I promise in return that 

the day the escort operation is over with, I will withdraw the headquarters and 

there will be no record of it and no one will know.” He let me do that, although 

he would have gotten in serious trouble with the king if the word had leaked 

out. We did it-we established the headquarters there, and when the escort 

operation, Earnest Will, was completed, I withdrew, put everyone on an 

airplane, and got them up and out of there. Three months later we were back for 

real-a real shooting war-and suddenly, no matter what I said, the Saudis said, 

“Fine.” I had been fortunate enough to establish trust. I had kept my word. 

Establishing and maintaining the coalition was a tremendous challenge. Of 

course, any student of history knows that the hardest job is working with allies; 

the easy part is dealing with the enemy. In Vietnam our attitude was, “All you 

short people get over here, we’re going to save your country.” I don’t think 

you’ 11 find that country on the map anymore. Saigon is now called Ho Chi Minh 

City. 

The first principle we established when we got to the Middle East was that 

we were strangers in the land. The host country was Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, 

United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Oman-wherever we had our forces. Our 

people, all of the coalition, acted that way: We asked! 

I can think of only one area where we did something because we could not 

get a positive answer. There is a room in the basement of Saudi headquarters 

where they keep records, seemingly every piece of paper the headquarters ever 

created. The record of anyone who signed out a recreation tent back in 1914 is 

probably in there. We needed that room because I had to get the joint air 

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headquarters out of the parking lot where it was operating in tents and get it 

under cover, because we were going to war. By December I had finally gotten 

tired of asking the Saudis, because they would say, “Well, let me check with soand-so.” They did that for about three months. I finally went down there with 

a crow bar and broke the lock, put their records in a temporary building, and 

then moved indoors. I don ’ t think the Saudi Director of Operations ever forgave 

me for that one, but he got over it. 

The second principle was that all the allies were equal. It did not matter if 

they were the Americans, British, French, Saudis, Kuwaitis, or from the United 

Arab Emirates. When everyone sat around the table at night, when we talked 

about what we were going to do and what needed to be done, every voice was 

equal and treated equally. I believe the same thing occurred at the national level, 

because you did not have “blank” calling back to check on the Americans to see 

what they were doing. You did not have Paris calling the French commander 

saying watch the Americans or watch the Arabs. We could sit there and discuss 

things as airmen. We could talk about what made sense from an operational 

standpoint. The French commander, who had his Jaguars there with x-payload, 

x-range. and x-capability, would say, “Okay, we will take these targets here, 

here, and here.” The Brits with their Tornados would say, “Okay, we’ll take 

these.” So we worked it just the way one would work it with a single force. 

I think the reason we did that as airmen was our common origin in the 

Royal Air Force. All air forces spring from the RAF. All air forces speak 

English. Even the French spoke English-on the air side-they did not on the 

ground side. 

Our problems were not among the airmen; we never had a single problem 

among the airmen. The problems were often between airmen and the other 

services. For example, the senior Canadian for air was a naval officer. He had 

two destroyers and a squadron of CF-18s. He immediately called his squadron 

commander and told him he could only fly over Canadian ships. Well, of 

course, the Canadian air officer came to me and said, “The man’s gone bonkers; 

would you go shoot him?” We got that sorted out. The naval officer and I had 

a rather difficult conversation, but fortunately I outranked him by two stars. 

Finally, he said, “Okay, but they can only do air-to-air.” Well, CF-18s are ideal 

for air-to-ground work; the Canadian guy was not cooperating. Fortunately, 

Mary Collins, their Assistant Secretary of Defense, came over and did a tour. 

I arranged an invitation to a dinner at the Canadian Embassy and managed to 

get seated next to her. She asked, “How ’ s it going.” “Well,” I said, “it’s going 

great, but it is really embarrassing for Canada.” “Oh?” she said! The next day 

the Canadian squadron was on the operational plan-dropping bombs. 

The French commander was an army guy who told the French air force 

units in the coalition that the only place they could fly was over the French 

army. We had six weeks of air war before the French army even moved out of 

bivouac. Just after the air campaign began, the French air commander came to 

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me, and he was almost in tears. I said, “Don’t worry about it.” We just put them 

on the schedule, and they flew where they were needed most and could be most 

effective. The army guy never knew what his air force was doing. He was just ._ bound and determined they could only fly over the French army. He probably 

thinks now that F-16s are part of the French air force! 

The most humorous episode, in some ways, concerned the Italians. The 

head of the Italian air force was Mario Alpino, a great guy. The night before the 

war started, early in the evening-the war was going to start at three o’clock in 

the morning-General Alpino came in and he was literally crying. I asked, 

“What’s the matter Mario?” He said, “My government can ’ t make up its mind 

whether it’s going to be in the war or not. I can’t fly until I get the go-ahead.” 

I said, “Mario, we all have governments; don’t worry about it.” So they flew the 

second night after the start of the war! The result of their first mission was 

unfortunate. Mario sent out six airplanes. Five of them could not get on the 

tanker, and so they came back and landed. The last guy got on the tanker, went 

to the target, and was shot down. For a while, there was a bitter joke about the 

highest combat loss rate belonging to the Italian air force: one thousand per one 

thousand sorties. That was not meant in meanness, but recognition of bravery 

and tragedy. 

Campaign planning was twofold. We had day-to-day planning where we 

observed whether or not the Iraqis would invade and considered what we would 

do. That changed every day because we got more forces and more munitions. 

At the same time, we had the “Black Hole,” where the strategic planning people 

sat, that dealt with the offensive use of air power. The Air Staff in the Pentagon 

earlier had started pulling together targets for the air campaign. They then 

brought over their plans and briefed me. The plans were excellent in terms of 

the counter-air portion of the campaign and in terms of things like nuclear, 

biological, and chemical targeting. However, they had nothing with respect to 

the Iraqi army. I kept asking, “What about the Iraqi army?” The response was, 

“Don ’ t worry about it, they ’ 11 surrender.’’ I did not believe that assurance 

because of my reading of history, and I certainly knew that Schwarzkopf would 

not buy it. Consequently, we had to create a plan that would take into account 

the enemy ground forces. That was the origin of the strategic planning cell. 

I brought out Brigadier General Buster Glosson, and you know Buster. 

Some say he has a low IQ, but he is very persuasive. I believe that he would 

have made an ideal SAC wing commander. We did not want anyone to know 

what we were doing, because at the time, you will recall, we were attempting 

to get diplomacy to work. We tried to get the Iraqis to pull out of Kuwait on 

their own volition, because, quite frankly, none of us wanted to go to war. 

Ultimately, we failed. Why did I call it the Black Hole? Any time a new guy 

came into the headquarters and we could spare him, we sent him down to Buster 

to work on that plan. Well, he would disappear, like he had fallen into one of 

those black holes in space, because he could not tell anyone what he was doing. 

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Of course, it was very easy to integrate the RAF guys and the Canadians 

into the planning cell, because they had all the clearances. The hard part 

concerned the other allies. For example, the Saudis knew we were planning 

something, but being very polite, they never asked. Finally, I just started 

sticking Saudis in there. We had a young prince, aTornado pilot who had blown 

out a knee playing soccer. He was grounded for six months, and we put him in 

there and he was doing all the planning for the Saudi, British, and Italian 

Tornados. He was sitting there with all this highly classified information around 

him labeled “Top Secret,” or “No Foreign Dissemination,” or “Shoot Anybody 

Who Reads This,” and so on. I walked by one night about two o’clock in the 

morning. He was in there working his heart out, and he saw me looking at him. 

He said, “I suppose after the war you’re gonna have to shoot me!” 

We integrated our planning efforts very early and again it was easy, 

particularly with the British and our NATO allies. But eventually we opened the 

doors to all members of the coalition: the Baharanians, Saudis, Kuwaitis, 

everyone had full access and it paid off. Not only did we work well together to 

establish those links of trust, but everybody knew there was no hidden agenda. 

We were blessed by great leadership in this country and in the other allied 

counties. We were given goals that were militarily achievable: “Get the Iraqis 

out of Kuwait, and cripple their nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare 

capability.” We were not given the goal of bringing democracy to Iraq. Some 

critics since then have said that we should have gotten Saddam Hussein. I can 

tell you that we were glad to stop the killing when we did. When I talk to people 

now, I point out to them very simply that even though the Iraqis were militarily 

ineffective, we were still losing people on the battlefield just stepping on mines 

and unexploded ordnance. There was not one American or allied life that was 

worth a Saddam Hussein. I believe we did exactly right. 

We did some things less well. For example, while we were planning the 

offensive air campaign, I would have hoped our diplomats were planning the 

peace terms. However, the hour we declared a cessation of hostile operations 

against the Iraqis, CENTCOM got a phone call that asked, “Would you go up 

and negotiate peace?” We said, “Hey, you’ve got the wrong folks; we kill ’em, 

we don’t tame ’ em.” We actually had to sit down in a room with a yellow piece 

of paper, and we just sat around there and said, “Okay, what do we want to tell 

these guys?” The first point was they had to return all prisoners of war. Second, 

they had to account for all the missing-in-action. Third, their forces had to 

withdraw so we did not have people bumping into each other and killing one 

another. We went through all that. Since then, I have felt that if I am ever 

involved in a war again, my first order is going to be “Somebody go over to the 

Secretary of State and have him get his team building their campaign plan!” 

Much has been written about the phases of the campaign. We had them, but 

they had no meaning other than the emphasis on where we were going to put 

our efforts. We were going to put our efforts at gaining control of the air and 

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Banquet Address 

trying to get targets like biological weapons storage areas. Then we turned our 

full attention toward destroying military targets. Some people become fascinated with the briefing charts. Remember, those briefing charts were made to 

send back to Washington, so they were usable at about the third grade-level. 

I was very proud of some things we did. Among them was the tempo of 

operations. We literally drove the air forces of all the coalition countries into the 

ground. If we had had to go another sixty days, the pilots would have been 

exhausted. We would not have been out of munitions, however; our logistics 

support was magnificent. Saddam Hussein was always convinced we had about 

three days of munitions available, but he was wrong. When we doubled our 

forces in November, we took our sixty-day level of munitions down to a thirtyday level, but in two weeks we had gone back to the sixty-day level. We were 

never even close to running out of munitions, but we did turn Saudi Arabia into 

a net importer of oil. They had forty tankers in-bound to the country every day 

bringing in oil. We used everything they produced. If you are going to fight an 

air war, by all means fight it on top the world’s largest supply of oil! 

We innovated at every possible chance. We were able to do that because the 

issue of survival was never in doubt. We knew that we were going to win, but 

we wanted to win as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So we empowered 

the captains and majors to make the decisions. We created a plan that had merit, 

put it out there, and let them all lead. I had three teams. A team would build the 

air tasking order for the day, two days in the future. Then they would see it 

through production-where it was typed up and printed-and then briefed to 

Schwarzkopf and approved. Then, they would go aboard the AWACS the day 

it was executed. They would know, then, why it was built the way it was. Then, 

when they changed it, that knowledge added meaning to the change. 

The longest time period we had for changing a sortie was with the B-52s, 

because they used an analogue bombing computer and they were hard to move 

around the sky. It was three minutes. We could retarget most of our other assets 

in seconds. 

We did things like set up an airfield right on the border, at King Kahlid 

Military City. I sent the best colonel I knew in the Air Force up there, and told 

him to build me an air base. He got there on December 15, and on January 17, 

we were landing airplanes. They would land, would not shut down, but would 

refuel, rearm, and launch again against the Iraqis. Then come back, land, rearm, 

launch, and go back again. We were getting five or six sorties a day out of some 

of those airplanes. We did not want that Vietnam “hit ’em in the nose and see 

what they say” tempo. We wanted to be unflinching-as vicious as possible-and to get it over with as soon as possible. 

One story I will share with you is a tough one for the Brits. They came into 

the war absolutely convinced about the importance of low-level attack. I had 

forbidden our people to go to low-level, except for the F-15Es and the F-111s. 

Our people quickly got the message; on the second night they went to medium 

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Gulf War 

altitude. But I would not let the A-10s and F-16s fly low. They could have 

disagreed with me over this decision, but they never argued. I finally asked 

Colonel Ervin “Sandy” Sharpe, Commander of the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing, 

“You guys love to fly low-level, why don’t you want to go low-level?” “Well, 

we decided we want to stay alive,” was the response. The French went low-level 

the first day and they had three airplanes hit, one seriously. It limped back 

across the border and landed. They never went low-level again. 

The Brits went low-level time and time again. Part of it was their mission; 

part of it was their weapon systems. I think part of it was their belief in lowlevel attack nurtured by the NATO war scenario under which they trained. Now 

I had a problem, because losses worked against us. Casualties are a serious 

liability in modern war: they get headlines in the press. It just is not the thing 

to have, and here were the Tornado guys taking horrendous losses. We lost four 

or five Tornados. I will say this. No one else even approached the RAF in terms 

of courage. Those guys were going through hell. I tried subtly to get them to 

back off, and I could not do it. They kept saying, “Give us the tough ones, give 

us the tough ones, give us the tough ones!” Finally, one night I did not know 

what to do, and unusual for me, I was trying to be a little bit diplomatic. It was 

the evening meeting of the air chiefs, and we were all sitting there. Thank God, 

we had Air Vice Marshal Bill Wratten. I don’t know if you know him, he was 

the senior RAF officer in Riyadh, and he is an absolute master of his profession. 

I said, “Here we are in the fourth day of the war. Things have been going good, 

but we’ve had losses. We need to do whatever we can to avoid that. Why don’t 

we form a tactics board and let it take a look at why we’re losing aircraft and 

determine how to stop the losses.” Bill looked over and said, “Yeah, let me head 

it!” He understood exactly what we needed to do. He sent off the Buccaneers 

with laser-guided bombs and put laser-guided bombs on the Tornados, and he 

went out and solved the problem. 

We had problems with intelligence. We put tremendous demands on 

intelligence. In modern war you don’t need to know where the factory is; you 

need to know where the load-bearing wall in the factory is. Film-based reconnaissance was too slow. We had not previously exercised national assets in 

warfare, so they were unprepared to integrate. It was not a question of wanting 

to; it was not a question of the attitude of the people. It was simply that units 

that do not exercise in peacetime are unable to perform in wartime. On the other 

hand, we received good support from human intelligence sources in Kuwait 

City. We were on the telephone with the underground there. The only problem 

was that we had to make sure there were no vendettas going on. Consequently, 

every target nominated from the Kuwaiti resistance was always cross-checked 

with another source. In one case, there was one building that looked 

suspiciously like a biological storage area, because it kept showing up cold on 

the infrared photography. We put six laser-guided bombs through the roof of 

that building. Now you will never get an in-flight meal on Kuwaiti Airlines! 

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Banquet Address 

We need to look at command and control. We had a fantastic capability 

with the AWACS anchoring the system, with Rivet Joint, and with the British 

Nimrods. We integrated and we internetted and we all worked together. But I 

am sure we can do better. 

Ballistic missile defense had to be the major lesson learned for all the 

countries involved, because ballistic missiles worked. They induced tremendous 

terror in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. They were significant, and while 

Patriots could counter them, we were unable to keep them from being launched. 

Air support on a rapidly moving battlefield? I think the Air Force is ready 

to do that. We have got to get the Army up to speed. They had a lot of difficulty 

in adapting to the rapidly changing battlefield. 

Mixed nations flying together: Thank God for NATO and for Red Flag. 

Target planning: Again, all the services now are flirting with air power. 

You cannot believe the “trash” being discussed in the Joint Staff as the Army 

attempts to regain control. Again, I thank God for the Royal Air Force, which 

very early in its history realized the importance of independent air power. 

Tactics: I believe we can learn whatever we want to with respect to tactics. 

How to handle the media? I think we all grew up, including the media. We 

must never be afraid of the media; we must treat them openly and honestly, and 

expect the’m to have integrity. 

Friendly fire was a very serious problem, even though the losses were 

relatively low and the incidents were very low. Nonetheless, modern weapons 

are so lethal that we cannot afford to make mistakes. 

I believe that the political leadership needs to study war as carefully as the 

military. I don’t know how they will do that, because they have such a short 

time to train. In this case, I think we were all blessed with leaders who had a 

truly broad view of the world. Certainly in our case, we had leaders who had 

been in a war. I talk about my two heroes here-George Bush and Dick 

Cheney-because they trusted us like professionals and permitted us to do our 

jobs as professionals. 

In Vietnam, the first casualty was integrity, because there was such a 

breakdown between the theater and the national leadership. The theater guys 

would tell the national leadership whatever they wanted to hear, so the airmen 

could get on with trying to fight a war the best they could. For the pilots, we 

would go to North Vietnam, bomb what we thought was right, and then come 

back and tell the authorities that we hit whatever they wanted to hear. In this 

war we swore we were not going to do that. If we were put in that position, we 

were going to resign; we were going to retire. This was never talked about; it 

was understood. 

One day one of my wing commanders called and said, “Boss, we just shot 

down two Iraqis about twenty to thirty miles inside Iran.” I said, “Did you know 

you were in Iran?” He said, “No, we were chasing them in the heat of battle and 

it sure felt good at the time, but I wish we hadn ’ t done it now.” “Well,” I said, 

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Gulf War 

“God bless you, sin no more, and keep flying and keep shooting Iraqis.” Then 

I called Schwarzkopf and said, “We screwed up; we shot down two Iraqis inside 

Iran. We knew we shouldn’t have been there. I’m not going to change any 

procedures and as far as I’m concerned the crews were innocent, they were 

doing their job.” He said, “Fine.” He called General Colin Powell and told him, 

and Powell told Cheney. 

I knew from my experiences in the Pentagon that there would be some 

“Under Secretary for Sewage Disposal and Married Family Housing” who 

would say, “We can’ t have this.” He would go to the Secretary of Defense and 

give him a point paper outlining the crisis that would occur in the year 2010 as 

a result of this action and would suggest a buffer zone to prevent further 

offenses. If you look at a map, the distance between Baghdad and the Iranian 

border is so short that if we had put a buffer zone in there, we might as well 

have just pulled the troops out and come home. I was in anguish over this 

incident. Because of some under secretary, I would be told to implement a 

buffer zone and I was not going to do it. I lined up my arguments, because I 

knew the word would come and Schwarzkopf would call me in and I would give 

it my best shot. I was not going to do it, and I was going to have to resign. 

But the call never came! 

After the war, I asked Secretary Cheney, “Did you every get any pressure 

in regards to our shooting down the Iraqis over Iran?” He said, “Funny your 

should mention that. One of my guys came to me and suggested that we needed 

to do something like a buffer zone, but I told him, ‘They ’ 11 know how to handle 

it. They’re running the war.”’ 

We heard the best news on that incident about three days after our pilots 

shot down the Iraqi aircraft. The Iranians sent word out over their air defense 

net that if anyone spotted an American airplane in Iran, not to shoot at it, they 

were just chasing Iraqis! 

I thank you for what you do. History is fundamental to the success of our 

military. It is important that we continue to learn, even though we think we did 

most things well. Your knowledge, experience, and sense of what is 

fundamental in modern warfare are indispensable. Thank you for letting me be 

here today. 

151 

Notable Anglo-American Aircraft 

of the Cold War 

A Pictorial 
A Famous Airlift to Save a City Brought Them Back 

The thousands of American aircraft based in Great Britain during World War I1 

were gone by 1946, and few thought they would ever need to return. When the 

Soviet Union halted all railway, road, river, and canal traffic into Berlin, 

however, the U.S. and its allies responded with a round-the-clock airlift 

composed of aircraft from the United States Air Forces in Europe and the British 

Air Force of Occupation. The first flight left Weisbaden Air Base on June 26, 

1948, and by the time the last Operation Vittles mission took place on September 

30, 1949, the Combined Airlift Task Force had delivered 2,326,204 tons of 

supplies and equipment to the city. 

RAF Avro Yorks, here parked at the unloading 

hangars at RAF Gatow in Berlin, delivered 

230,000 tons of supplies, over half the total 

British airlift effort. Courtesy, RAFHistorical 

Branch. (right) 

USAFE Douglas C47 "Gooney Birds" began 

the airlift. These are unloading supplies at 

Ternpelhof Airport, Berlin. (below) 

A Famous Airlift to Save a City Brought Them Back 

The thousands of American aircraft based in Great Britain during World War I1 

were gone by 1946, and few thought they would ever need to return. When the 

Soviet Union halted all railway, road, river, and canal traffic into Berlin, 

however, the U.S. and its allies responded with a round-the-clock airlift 

composed of aircraft from the United States Air Forces in Europe and the British 

Air Force of Occupation. The first flight left Weisbaden Air Base on June 26, 

1948, and by the time the last Operation Vittles mission took place on September 

30, 1949, the Combined Airlift Task Force had delivered 2,326,204 tons of 

supplies and equipment to the city. 

RAF Avro Lbrks, here parked at the unloading 

hangars at RAF Gatow in Berlin, delivered 

230,000 tons of supplies, over half the total 

British airlift effort. Cowfesy, RAF Historical 

Branch. (right) 

USAFE Douglas C47 “Gooney Birds” began 

the airlift. These are unloading supplies at 

Tempelhof Airport, Berlin. (below) 
SST 
A Temporary Deployment Became a Long-Term Presence 

In response to the Soviet threat to Berlin, the USAF temporarily deployed 

Strategic Air Command l3-29 bombers to England and opened a major 

maintenance depot for airlift aircraft at RAF Burtonwood. The 3rd Air 

Division (Provisional) was activated on July 16, 1948, at RAF Marham to 

coordinate USAF activities in the United Kingdom. The USAF presence took 

on a more permanent cast when the provisional designation was dropped on 

August 23, and the headquarters moved to South Ruislip near London. The 

USAF occupied several bases in East Anglia and began a major renovation 

and construction program.