page_title: 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement
section_title: Sputnik crisis
hierarchical_section_title: 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement / Negotiation / Sputnik crisis
caption_attribution_description: English: President Eisenhower lays the cornerstone of the new Atomic Energy Commission building in Germantown, Maryland, on 8 November 1957. AEC Chairman Strauss and JCAE Chairman Durham assist in the ceremony.
context_page_description: The 1958 US–UK Mutual Defense Agreement, or UK–US Mutual Defence Agreement, is a bilateral treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom on nuclear weapons co-operation. The treaty's full name is Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Cooperation on the uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes. It allows the United States and the UK to exchange nuclear materials, technology and information. While the US has nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries, including France and other NATO countries, this agreement is by far the most comprehensive. Because of the agreement's strategic value to Britain, Harold Macmillan called it "the Great Prize".
  The treaty was signed on 3 July 1958, after the Soviet Union shocked the American public with the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957, and the British hydrogen bomb programme successfully tested a thermonuclear device in the Operation Grapple test on 8 November.
context_section_description: The successful development of British thermonuclear weapons came at an opportune time to renew negotiations with the United States. The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, on 4 October 1957, came as a tremendous shock to the American public, who had trusted that American technological superiority ensured their invulnerability. Now, suddenly, there was incontrovertible proof that, in some areas at least, the Soviet Union was actually ahead. In the widespread calls for action in response to the Sputnik crisis, officials in the United States and Britain seized an opportunity to mend their relationship. At the suggestion of Harold Caccia, the British Ambassador to the United States, Macmillan wrote to Eisenhower on 10 October urging that the two countries pool their resources, as Macmillan put it, to meet the Soviet challenge on every front, "military, economic and political".
  Macmillan flew to Washington, DC, for talks on 25 October. He had concerns that the disastrous 10 October Windscale fire might prove a stumbling block in negotiations, as it might reflect badly on British expertise and provide ammunition for opponents of closer co-operation with the UK. He ordered extra copies of the report into the fire to be destroyed, and for the printers to destroy their type. He immediately sensed how shaken the Americans had been by Sputnik. It placed the Eisenhower administration under great public pressure to act on the deployment of IRBMs by a shocked and distraught nation.
  Eisenhower and Macmillan agreed to form a study group headed by Sir Richard Powell, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, and Donald A. Quarles, the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, to consider how the deployment of IRBMs to Britain might be expedited. Another study group, under Strauss and Sir Edwin Plowden, the head of the UKAEA, would investigate nuclear co-operation and the exchange of nuclear information. The personal relationship developed between Plowden and Strauss would be crucial in converting the latter over to the idea of providing information to Britain.
  By December, most of the issues with the IRBM negotiations had been ironed out, and a formal agreement was drawn up on 17 December, although it was not until the end of the month that it was definitely determined that Britain would receive Thor and not Jupiter missiles. However, the nuclear submarine propulsion effort was running into trouble. Under the July 1956 agreement and a February 1957 directive from Eisenhower, Royal Navy officers had been assigned to study the US Navy's nuclear submarine programme. By October 1957, its head, Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, felt that their questions were slowing the deployment of the Polaris submarine-launched IRBM at a critical time. He feared that any delay might cause Congress to favour land-based missiles. By December, the British liaison officers were complaining of slow response to their questions. Rickover proposed that Westinghouse be permitted to sell the Royal Navy a nuclear submarine reactor, which would allow it to immediately proceed with building its own nuclear-powered submarine. The British government endorsed this idea, as it would save it a great deal of money.
caption: Eisenhower (left) lays the cornerstone for the new Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) building in Germantown, Maryland, on 8 November 1957. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) Chairman Carl T. Durham (centre) and AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss (right) look on.
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