NUCLEAR ERROR Trident fiasco as Brit sub ‘fired dummy missile at the United States’ in first nuke test for four years
Unarmed Trident II D5 rocket, which can kill millions when fitted with warhead, experienced a serious malfunction during the practice launch off Florida
Carri-Ann Taylor
Published: 1:50, 22 Jan 2017Updated: 21:42, 22 Jan 2017
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2675087/trident-fiasco-as-brit-sub-fired-dummy-missile-at-the-united-states-in-first-nuke-test-for-four-years/
The British Bomb and the United States - Part One
President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Macmillan
President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Macmillan at the White House 25 October 1957, the day after they discussed exchanges of nuclear weapons information. From left to right: seated–Macmillan, Eisenhower, and NATO Secretary-General Paul Henri Spaak; standing—British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Spaak visited Washington for discussions of the broader NATO response to the Soviet Sputnik challenge. (National Park Service photo 72-2481-2 in collections at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library and Museum).
Prime Minister Macmillan was determined to “stay in the nuclear club”
U.S. officials (correctly) believed British wanted independent capability to strike Soviets
if Washington did not come to their aid
Dean Rusk saw danger of U.K. tending to “move in on our independence”
Washington, D.C., May 13, 2021—British leaders were determined to become a nuclear power after World War II in part so they could have a “seat at the top table” of international negotiations, according to a 1965 State Department intelligence report published today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive. London also wanted to be able to present its own “independent” deterrent to the Soviet Union to mitigate its reliance on U.S. forces, records show.
Documents obtained by the Archive provide important perspective on the recent British decisions to raise the ceiling on their nuclear stockpile, a move the Biden administration has yet to comment on publicly. The new materials explore several topics and events that underlie the secrecy-shrouded U.S.-U.K. nuclear relationship and reveal interesting attitudes toward nuclear weapons that officials kept scrupulously private.
For example, for many U.S. officials, Britain’s national nuclear program was an irritant; Washington pushed for London instead to join a multilateral force. The documents point to a number of American motivations, including high costs and the risk of proliferation, but it was also a question of control. “[T]he more the UK stressed its independence the more it tended to move in on our independence,” Secretary of State Dean Rusk observed.
Rusk went on to comment on the mixed advantage of being a nuclear power: “[T]he employment of nuclear weapons is not a path to freedom but a path to slavery” since the U.S. “has never had less independence than it has today in the areas affected by these weapons.”
Today’s posting—the first of a two-part series—begins with the late 1950s when President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan agreed to highly secret exchanges of nuclear weapons design information. It continues into the Kennedy administration and includes documents on the 1962 Skybolt crisis that led to a joint U.S.-U.K. decision to deploy Polaris re-entry vehicles on missiles carried by British submarines. It concludes with the early stages of British discussions with Washington of a Polaris follow-on that would be less vulnerable to Soviet anti-ballistic missiles.
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The British Bomb and the United States - Part One
by William Burr
Ever since the post-World War II years, the leaders of the United Kingdom have sought nuclear weapons so they would have a “seat at the top table” of international negotiations, according to a 1965 State Department intelligence report. Yet, the British nuclear program has involved a close association with the United States. During the early 1960s, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote to President John F. Kennedy that the British have been cooperative in nuclear matters because their “foreign policy for a century has rested on the proposition that it cannot afford a fundamental split with the U.S.” With that premise in mind, London has “accepted the status of junior partner in the firm in exchange for a special relationship which they believe affords them a unique opportunity to influence U.S. policy.”
Moar: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2021-05-13/british-bomb-united-states-part-one