battered intellectual jetsam, left high and dry by the
fast-receding tide of sanity in the Labour Party. Now
the last feeble flickers of multilateralism have been
extinguished; and darkness has descended.
28.
Labour's even-handed approach to the United States
and the Soviet Union suggests an attitude of mind which
would undermine and destroy the American commitment to
the defence of Europe. Simply to dismiss as dangerous
expensive nonsense the arguments on the basis of which
successive British governments (including Labour ones)
have maintained our independent deterrent is to deny
reason and ignore history. Noone who has this
country's real interests at heart could be so wickedly
irresponsible.
29. But the defence policies of the Opposition not
only to ignore reality. They are also quite
incompatible with the maintenance of deterrence, and
continued membership (probably even the existence) of
the Atlantic Alliance. To abandon flexible response,
eject American nuclear facilities from Britain, and
abandon (perhaps unilaterally) Britain's nuclear tasks
would have consequences we should do well to
contemplate.
At the very least, it would
hand the Soviet Union a major military, political
and propaganda advantage at no cost to themselves;
11