Copy No. 4

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

May 31, 1963

Conversation with Denis Healey - May 21, 1963

I spoke to Denis Healey after a meeting of the Defense and Foreign
Policy Committees of the parliamentary Labor party which I addressed. During
the question period, the opposition of the some fifty people present to the
concept of a NATO multilateral force was obvious. Healey spoke of the need to
give up the British deterrent and the folly of present U.S. NATO nuclear policy.
The consensus in the Labor party was against the multilateral force.

I asked whether Wilson had made this clear in Washington. Healey re-
plied that Wilson was a good listener and many people had the unfortunate habit
of mistaking silence for assent. Healey could assure me that Wilson was not
overly impressed by our policies. There were a number of people in Washington
whose every effort to construct a European policy had failed. They were now
desperate. If the multilateral force collapsed their governmental careers would
be finished. This is why in the name of meeting European wishes they were
pressing schemes which no European wanted. Given the British electoral situa-
tion, he could not make these views public. But they were predominant in the
leadership group of the Labor party.

As for cooperation with Europe in the nuclear field, Healey was sceptical.
He thought France would never agree and he was not sure it was desirable in any
event. He argued that Labor's policy placed Britain in an ideal situation.
Labor would take over in possession of an obsolescent deterrent. It could then
decide who would pay more: the U.S. for giving up the deterrent or France for
joining Europe.

Healey argued that the best solution was to associate Europe in the
control of the U.S. deterrent. I asked him what that meant concretely. He