239. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the British Minister of Defense (Monckton) and the First Secretary of the Embassy in the United Kingdom (Dale), London, May 8, 19561

SUBJECT

  • Closer Coordination Between UK and US Military Forces

After delivering a speech to the Joint Services Club at Nuffield House in which he stressed the need for closer coordination between US and UK Armed Forces, Sir Walter Monckton elaborated his ideas in private conversation. He said that Britain was attempting to do too much with the resources available to it for defense and that it should give up projects in which it was already substantially behind the US. The increased degree of coordination which he recommended would not, he believed, require any change in US legislation barring interchange of information on nuclear weapons. With regard to the Air Force, for instance, he said that there was no British fighter plane at present under development which would be fully effective in the period beginning about four years from now. Rather than attempting [Page 659] to develop a plane suitable for this period, Sir Walter believed Britain should manufacture US types here under license. With reference to the Army he said that several weapons were under development here which would be obsolescent relative to corresponding US types by the time the British weapons appear. In these cases also, he recommended that Britain should avail itself of US experience in research and development rather than attempt to continue work on research projects which were bound to be both duplicating and obsolescent. On the other hand, he claimed that the British were doing well on some projects which could be of use to the US so that the flow of information would not be all one-way. He pointed to the coordination now existing in the field of ballistic rockets as the ideal to be sought in other fields of research and development.

As regards the Navy the Minister thought that more could be done in establishing combined forces. He cited Admiral Wright’s2 Carrier Group which contains US carriers [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]and British carriers [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] and said that the function of the British carriers should be primarily to protect the US carriers so that they can better utilize their superior offensive power. Thus, the Naval forces of each country could play a useful role in maintaining the free world’s military power.

The Minister maintained that it was essential for Britain to enter into many more arrangements of the kinds referred to above in order to reach its military objectives with the limited resources it possesses. He said that the Defense Ministry could not hope to achieve savings such as the Chancellor3 had requested in his recent budget message without such accommodations. It was clear that Sir Walter feels strongly on this subject and the frank expression of his views gives rise to the possibility that an approach may be made to the US Government.

  1. Source: Department of State, EUR Files: Lot 58 D 193, M–1 UK Defense 1956. Secret. Drafted by Dale.
  2. Admiral Jerauld Wright, Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic; Commander in Chief, Atlantic; and Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.
  3. Harold Macmillan.