We were not in the great discussions at the critical time—certainly no more than were France and Germany, who had no nuclear weapons.

The status symbol argument is the only argument advanced by the Government. The Prime Minister never advances military reasons; he uses only the status symbol argument. But to test it, we cannot look at this in isolation, as he does. We must project it into the future and see it in the context of the developing world situation and particularly in the context of developing East-West relations. These I read somewhat differently from the Prime Minister, whose speech I heard at the Guildhall and again in the House.

I agree with him that the Cuban crisis was the turning point, but I see it like this: at this crisis both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev looked over the abyss into the real possibility of nuclear war, and both of them, with great political courage, with their various different internal problems which they had to face, drew back. Thus Cuba was a turning point.

Both these men, in command of the great forces in the world, recognised fully and for the first time that nuclear weapons cannot be used because they involve mutual suicide. They realised that nuclear weapons cannot be used of intent—leaving aside for the moment accidents—to start a major conflict between major Powers. Simultaneously—because it is the same thing—they recognised that there is a field of common interest between them as well as the remaining great conflicts. This was shown in the Test Ban Treaty which not only, thank Heaven, removed the danger of the pollution to the atmosphere, but also, and in a sense primarily, stopped experiments upon which depended further serious technical advance in the development of nuclear weapons.

The real significance of the Test Ban Treaty is that both Russia and America realised that it was in their interests to stabilise the nuclear balance where it was and, to stop the experiments which could enable it continuously to develop at ever higher and more dangerous levels of equal terror. They also, again as part of this, recognised that they have a common and mutual interest to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, because they cannot enforce the test ban agreement if other nations are testing, and they cannot extend the common interest between them unless each of them retains an effective monopoly of nuclear weapons.

It is this, as I see it, that makes the Conservative Party's and Prime Minister's status symbol argument so dreadful an argument, because this argument of a ticket of entry is an open invitation for the spread of nuclear weapons.