Britain’s special relationship with USA was ‘SAVED by Kennedy’ in nuclear row

Indeed, it was only the close personal bond between the young US President and key British players, including PM Harold McMillan, that allowed London to maintain its independent nuclear deterrent, and its position at the so-called “P5 high table”.

The decision caused Charles de Gaulle to indefinitely veto Britain’s entry into a fledgling European Economic Community.  

In Union Jack, author Christopher Sandford recounts the day, in December 1962, when JFK flew to a conference in Nassau to discuss the thorny issue of the nuclear deterrent.

Britain had agreed to buy 144 US-made Skybolt rockets at a “advantageous” price , in return for allowing the US to base its nuclear submarines at Holy Loch. 

As part of the deal, Britain agreed to scrap its own Blue Streak surface-to-air system, which had already cost the taxpayer £62m to develop but which, because they were static, had been deemed to more vulnerable to Russian attack. 

What McMillan didn’t know, until it was almost too late, was that US defence secretary Robert McNamara had decided to axe Skybolt. Its budget had rocketed since the deal was struck – costing £30m a month just to develop – and decided Britain’s deal was a little too advantageous. 

“The issue was money,” said Sandford, last night.

“Britain was desperately strapped. After the Suez debacle, Britain was viewed as a spent force; virtually bankrupted – a busted flush,” said Sandford.

“Other presidents including Eisenhower and many of those immediately around JFK like   McNamara – who had been a systems man for Ford – focussed on the bottom line. 

“They saw Britain as Khrushchev saw Cuba: a sort of rocket base physically nearer to Europe than the US. They were happy to have missiles here, but under US control.”

But Britain had one important factor in its favour. 

Kennedy was an Anglophile who had detached himself from his father, the pro-Nazi former British Ambassador, Joe, and was enthralled by Churchill, even making a point of sitting in parliament to listen to some of his most famous speeches while a student in London. 

So it was that on December 18 1962,  just eleven months before he was to be murdered by an assassin’s bullet, JFK headed for an emergency summit with the British PM. 

To the chagrin of McNamara and most of his cabinet, the person sitting next to POTUS on that flight to Nassau wasn’t even American, but rather David Ormsby-Gore, an old friend and Britain’s ambassador to Washington. 

The pair were engrossed, with Ormsby-Gore even making use of Air Force One paper napkins to draw charts for Kennedy on who would pay for which part of the missile system.

“They’d met playing golf in the 1930s and soon found they were part of the same set. They were  both what one would have described as ‘bright young things’,” said Sandford.

“It was by Kennedy’s request that Gore was appointed US ambassador.  Even as a senator, Kennedy relied on him to feed him information about the UK and Russia. He chose to phone Gore’s farm in Shropshire, because he didn’t feel he could get the advice he needed in Washington DC.

“And Gore used those two hours on that flight to talk Kennedy into compromising with McMillan who was pacing the tarmac, desperately worried about Britain keeping its independent nuclear deterrent.”

Defying the criticism of his cabinet, Kennedy struck a compromise which was to see the UK adopt the Polaris missile system, by which its independent nuclear submarine would be fired by submarine. 

Kennedy explained his decision to McNamara in a private note, which stated: “I understand that it is foolishness for Britain to have its own system but you have to understand the motivation and psychology involved.

“This is a country that controlled the greatest empire on earth, who fought side by side with us.”

But it was Kennedy’s relationship with McMillan which underscored the Special Relationship.

“Kennedy met McMillan three times in the first nine months of his presidency – twice more than any other world leader – and  he spent more time with him on a one-to-one basis than he did with his own cabinet during that first year,” said Sandford.

And nowhere was this relationship more crystallised than during the 13-day Cuban Missile crisis.

It began, for McMillan, on the night of Sunday, October 21 – the fifth day of the crisis – when he was passed an urgent 250-word “eyes only” teletype from Kennedy informing him of “a most serious situation”. 

Following the disastrous CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion, Khrushchev had been persuaded by Fidel Castro to place medium and long range ballistic missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the Florida coast.

The first secure scrambled hotline between Washington DC and London had been installed just a year previously, and Sandford recounts the nightly calls by Kennedy to McMillan, often placed at 6pm – when JFK was “most alert”, and just as the 66-year-old patrician prepared to settle in bed with his favourite volume of Jane Austen.

With only his Attorney General brother, Robert, in the loop, “there was almost something of an illicit romance in the late-night exchanges of confidence,” said Sandford

“The White House had its new Dr Strangelove-like, state-of-the-art situation room in the the basemen  from which Kennedy would usually call at around six.

“And there was McMillan, crouching in cramped, book-lined quarters at Admiralty House because Downing Street had been evacuated over a subsidence fear, with his cocoa and Jane Austen”

While some critics characterise the conversations –  recordings of which can still be heard today – as one of JFK unburdening himself to an empathetic McMillan, “in reality the elder statesman contributed with good and workable ideas.”

Kennedy later admitted he had come close to “taking out” Cuba with a full-scale military invasion, which would have escalating the stand-off to nuclear war.

It was “Uncle Harold”, as JFK referred to McMillan, who persuaded him to find a middle way. “I think upon reflection you’ve gone too far (with those plans)”, said the PM.

“McMillan made a major contribution to keep Kennedy’s finger off the button,  and the transcripts indicate that,” said Sandford.

When McMillan wanted to show utmost sincerity, he would address JFK as “Mr President”, rather than “Jack”, “or dear friend”.

In one tense call he said: “Mr President, we really must pull back from the brink.”

And on October 26, McMillan hit upon a solution. 

“If we want to help the Russians save face, would it be worthwhile our undertaking to immobilise our missiles which are here in England during the same period—during [a] conference?,” he suggested.

That led to the decision to withdraw Jupiter ballistic missiles from Turkey and Italy.

“McMillan could see that Khrushchev needed a face-saving solution –  something he could bring back to the Politburo,” said Sandford.

“He also knew the ballistic systems were outdated and, tactically, removing them would have negligible impact.”

On October 28, the Soviet premier cabled Kennedy to say that he had “given a new order to disassemble the arms which you described as offensive, and to crate and return them to the USSR.”

Macmillan cabled  Kennedy that afternoon, saying: “Whatever dangers and difficulties we may have to face in the future, I am proud to feel that I have so resourceful and so  firm a comrade.” 

Kennedy wired back: “Your heartening support publicly expressed and our daily conversations have been of inestimable value in these past days.”

Last night, Sandford added: “There will always be a genuine cultural affinity between the US and Britain – just look at the excitement in the US today over the prospect of another royal wedding. 

“But the Special Relationship as we know it now may never have materialised had it not been for the strong personal relationships between Kennedy, McMillan and Gore during these two very big crises.” 

Union Jack: John F Kennedy’s Special Relationship with Great Britain, by Christopher Sandford,  published by The History Press, £20