http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,10513.0.html
http://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/2008/P3347.pdf
UK Prime Minister
H Wilson: “nuclear policy must help to provide some reassurance to (out-of-NATO-area) non-nuclear powers”
Defence,Cmd.2592, 23/2/65,P.7. "Our frontiers are in the Himalayas".1965.
His Labour Party had won UK General Election, 16/10/64 on a platform including Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament, but on that very day China made its first A-Test. India was agitated.
Wilson was supportive of India (he had been a protege of
Stafford Cripps, who had negotiated with
Jinnah and
Gandhi). UK had signed, 5/8/63 the
Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and was working in UN to produce (
5/3/70) a Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Bomb was the political equivalent of today's eco-Agenda.
On 22/2/66
Wilson: chopped CVA-01 and reduced
East of Suez presence;
- ordered 10 F-111K T.1 (followed 1/2/67 by 40 S.2). They would be cross-operated from Darwin with RAAF F-111C, deployed forward to Butterworth, Gan and other dotlets: US was wholly supportive of all this and contributed to the cost of Diego Garcia, which first must be ethnically cleansed. The unspoken presumption was that Forward Operating Bases would be provided in India.
Vulcans deployed as
Operation Matterhorn started this Aid-to-India from Tengah, 26/4/65. UK's hope was to deter India from squandering and proliferating on its own Bomb. We failed. So we quit the Indian Ocean completely 16/1/68.
