The hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) has very clearly exposed the sheer unreality of the Government's independent nuclear deterrent bluff—and a very expensive bluff it is. I agree with everything that he said on that subject.

But the issue is a little wider because both Government and Opposition look upon defence as a collective enterprise to be conducted through N.A.T.O., CENTO and S.E.A.T.O., and on that subject Dean Acheson, in his speech at West Point on 5th December which annoyed everybody so much, said one thing that I believe makes sense: In proposals to discuss with our N.A.T.O. allies a sound plan for military defence, agreed political policies and agreements and institutions for economic expansion are all interdependent and mutually inter-acting … The weakness in the allied position lies … in that, lacking agreement on political purposes and courses of action, the alliance may be an actual impediment to action. That is the American view, of course, and they acted on it, first of all, in the matter of Skybolt and, secondly, in the matter of Cuba. That was the original cause of their new attitude over Skybolt. Whatever may be the validity of the technical reasons advanced for dropping the Skybolt programme, there is not much doubt that there was also the political motive that the Administration wished to assert the principle that the United States alone should control nuclear weapons in the Western alliance and should alone take the decision when to use them. That is the view that the President acted upon and has since asserted as a matter of principle over Cuba.

The House may recollect that on 31st October in the Debate on the Address there was some reference to the article by the Washington correspondent of The Times of 24th October, who pointed out that an entirely new situation had been created for America's Allies, as well as for the Soviet Union, by the action of the United States over Cuba. He said that the President had in fact assumed the supreme political authority that was always inherent in the American nuclear deterrent. He added: The firm belief of the United States Administration is that as the leader of the alliance, with control of most of the nuclear power available to the West, if has a right and duty to defend itself and its allies—even to the extent of bringing about a nuclear exchange.It is also firmly believed that in the present urgent situation there will be no time for consultation, that a threat of war cannot be met by committee decisions. That is the context of the Government's new defence policy.

The point was rubbed home by the then Washington correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, Mr. Peregrine Worsthorne, on 23rd December, when, in a penetrating analysis of American policy, he said that he had it from advisers of the President in the White House that the United States not only insisted upon taking decisions on these matters without consulting its allies if the situation was urgent, but also without consulting its own people. He said: What is perhaps not sufficiently realised in Britain is that the thermo-nuclear age is bringing about a change in the relations between the United States Government and the American people as it is between Washington and the allies …Britain and Europe have to reckon with not some lightly formed American impulse prompted by national ambition but rather with the deepest purposes of a President at the very peak of his authority, convinced that he has at last found his historic mission as the leader of the West as a whole…As with so much else in Washington these days, the full measure of Mr. Kennedy's concept of thermo-nuclear leadership found its practical expression in the recent Cuban crisis. Neither the Allies nor the American public nor Congress were really consulted. That is the reality of the position, and the American Under-Secretary of State, Mr. George Ball, told the N.A.T.O. Parliamentarians on 20th November that" Cuba is still with us".

American policy has not changed. The menace of further aggressions against Cuba still hangs over that island. American policy is a policy of cold aggression, accompanied by preparations for and threats of hot aggression in which it expects to involve its allies, if necessary to the point of nuclear exchanges and without their being consulted. This is only one sample of the kind of thing for which we may be called upon to fight, or, rather, to submit to extermination without consultation.

The Government's reaction to this situation has been to give the United States a free hand and to say that we will support them whatever they do, and never mind about the Charter, never mind about international law, never mind about Britain's trading interests, and never mind about the survival of our people.

On the other hand, paradoxically, the Government say that we ought to have an independent nuclear deterrent by grace and favour of the United States. I cannot make out whether the Government delude themselves with this paradoxical policy or are merely trying to deceive the people, but in any case it does not make sense.

General de Gaulle's policy is the other term of our defence problem. On the one hand we are bounded by American policy and America's claim to dictate to her allies, and on the other we have President de Gaulle, who can at least say "No", which is something our Government do not appear capable of doing.

General de Gaulle has also been bitten by this idea that he should have an independent nuclear deterrent. From the military point of view, his pretention is even more absurd than that of our Government. It is based on the idea that when the new type Mirage aeroplanes are ready they will be able to carry atom bombs equal to about three times the size of the Hiroshima bomb. But of course by the time these planes become operational they will be obsolete and will not be able to arrive without being shot down. A modern atomic bomb is about 50 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb and the modern hydrogen bomb about 1,000 times as powerful.

The military basis of this policy is completely unreal. The only thing to be said is that President de Gaulle is at least logical about his policy, in the sense of Cavour's, the Piedmontese statesman's, definition a century ago, that French logic consists above all in turning obstinate when circumstances change. That seems an apt description of President's de Gaulle's policy and pretensions today.

But at least President de Gaulle is logical about it. He says, "We must have our own nuclear weapons and our own means of delivering them made by ourselves. We cannot accept the Nassau Agreement because it is a mere delusion to believe that if we pool our forces or put them into a multi-national force under American command we can pull them out at a moment's notice for our own purposes. We would merely disrupt the multi-national force and its whole system of communications and command and paralyse it at the moment when it might be wanted."

A further point is that the Prime Minister is discreetly vague about just what he wants his independent nuclear force for. But President Kennedy was much more outspoken about that, because at a Press Conference on 10th January, when asked by correspondents what was the purpose of this policy, he explained that perhaps the British Government were thinking of being faced with the same situation as that with which they were faced at Suez when the alliance was divided and Britain did not have enough nuclear weapons at her disposal to stand up to a nuclear challenge to that policy.

That was put in more general terms, with soldierly bluntness, by Air Chief Marshal Sir Guy Garrod in The Times of the 25th January, and since we have been quoting Air Chief Marshals in this debate I should like to contribute my Air Chief Marshal's remarks. He took issue with The Times for saying that not much belief is now given to the idea that the independent deterrent might be needed some day to support British military operations in conditions of Russian hostility and American neutrality. He said: On the contrary such a situation is highly probable.Imagine a so-called liberation movement instigated by Russia somewhere in the Near or Far East"— and of course any popular rising is always called a movement instigated by the Soviet Union— where we have important interests. We send a force to restore order and protect our interests. Russia objects to our action and threatens us with nuclear attack if we persist. The national interests of the United States may be directly opposed to ours in this small war in a remote area. If there is oil to be had, she may be eager to see our influence removed so that she can supplant us. This has happened before now.Is it seriously suggested that the United States would not use strong political pressure on us to withdraw and accept defeat? Without our own independent deterrent we should be forced to comply. The implication behind that idea is that when the United States disagrees with us and urges us to pursue a more moderate line—which would also mean that the United Nations would be saying, "Settle this thing by the peaceful means to which you are pledged under the Charter"—we would go ahead with a war for which, as in the case of Suez, the Government would be condemned internationally for being the aggressor, but would be prepared nevertheless to carry their aggression to the point of nuclear extermination, out of sheer bellicose fanaticism. The whole thing is insane. I cannot believe that the Government mean this kind of talk. They are not bereft altogether of a sense of responsibility for civilisation and for the survival of their own people. But this is what they say.

In one of two articles commenting on this policy The Times defence correspondent, on 8th January, took the line that it was very doubtful whether any Government could get the support of the people in subjecting them to the risk of nuclear extermination for the sake of a policy pursued in defiance of our Allies—and, I would add, in defiance of the United Nations—in some part of the world remote from our own soil. The whole conception implies, first, that power politics can be pursued with nuclear weapons, although we are so inferior in them that that would mean sheer national suicide, and, secondly, that the whole system of international relations to which we are pledged under the Charter is just a scrap of paper to which we need pay no attention.

The thing makes no sense whatever, It is intolerable that the Government should put forward this kind of thing and spend God knows how many millions of pounds trying to sustain this bluff.

But the Opposition's policy also needs drastic revision, in the light of the situation with which we are confronted by America's action and claim, in connection with Cuba, to be able to commit her allies to nuclear war—that is, to extermination—without even consulting them. First, I agree with every word of the Motion of censure put down by the Opposition, including the section condemning the Government for imposing further economic burdens upon the nation. But I point out that a policy of enlarging our conventional forces would cost at least as much, and probably more, and would also involve a return to some form of compulsory military service.

I honour those on my side and opposite who face that situation openly and say that they want compulsory military service. I do not want it and believe it is dishonest to try to pretend that that is not implied in the policy which the Americans are trying to force upon us, and which, as far as I can make out, is the official policy both of the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. It is no improvement on Tory policy. It is just as much beyond our means, and it just as much implies our forces being cannon fodder, or a burnt offering, for the vagaries of the Pentagon. I object very strongly to that.

It also means the nuclearisation of N.A.T.O. The Labour Party has said all along that it objects to nuclear weapons for the European members of N.A.T.O. and particularly to West Germany's getting nuclear weapons of any sort, as part of the N.A.T.O. forces or otherwise. Today, in response to Questions, the Minister of Defence made it clear that the Government have surrendered on this point, as on every other. But the Opposition must face the issue. I cannot believe that the idea of arming Germany directly or indirectly with nuclear weapons would be supported by our people. It is a crime against humanity to arm a country which refuses to recognise its frontiers as final, and lays claim to the territories of other countries.

There is also the question of the collective political control of N.A.T.O. The Labour Party still talks as though that were a feasible proposition, and adopts the attitude first adopted at the Margate Conference in 1953, which was that the Labour Party maintains full support for N.A.T.O. as a limited system of collective security in which all members have equal rights and duties, and collective policy is decided by common consent, not by one member, be it the United States, Britain or any other". In the first place N.A.T.O. is a military alliance which, by lining up some permanent members of the Security Council against others, which have retaliated by forming the rival Warsaw alliance, has completely wrecked, paralysed and stultified the collective security system of the United Nations, which depends on the unanimity of the great Powers in the Security Council. N.A.T.O. is the opposite of collective security and a return to the old balance of power which collective security was intended to replace. It is a grim farce to talk about equal rights and duties for members of N.A.T.O. when the United States has asserted and acted on the exactly contrary view. The Government have taken that lying down as they do everything else. They are the all-in appeasers, the Chamberlains of the third world war.

There is no reason why the Opposition should stand for this, and it is not a good idea to turn a blind eye to this completely new situation. I have the answer to it, and it is also the answer to the question put by the Prime Minister about how we may be independent in our foreign policy if we abandon nuclear weapons. I say that that is the only way to be independent, because nuclear weapons are not the banner of our independence but the badge of our servitude to the United States owing to our fear of the Soviet Union.

We have to apply the principle which the Opposition have often proclaimed, that our foreign policy should determine our defence commitments. On the foreign policy of the Opposition we could reach agreement with the Soviet Union tomorrow as regard Europe, the Middle East and the Far East, both on political settlements and disarmament. It is our allies who oppose these policies and pursue policies with which the Labour Party, at any rate, profoundly disagrees and which afford no possible basis of settlement.

What we ought to do is call attention to the fact that N.A.T.O. may legitimately be invoked only in cases of unprovoked aggression, and say that this means that so long as our allies pursue policies which we regard as provocative and dangerous we will not be committed to go to war. The acid test is whether they will come to terms with us on how to make peace. Unless and until they do that we should start pulling our troops out of N.A.T.O. and pushing the American bases out of here. We cannot be independent so long as we continue to pursue a policy which results in our being dragged at the chariot wheels of the United States pursuing a course which makes peace impossible and ultimately will make war inevitable.