Why NATO? Desmond Donnelly, MP On Being a Member of
Parliament Nigel Nicolson, MP, R. B. Thompson The Young Rebels F. Bowen Evans, Carl Bode 'Vice' Prosecutions A. E. Dyson Scotland Today 1. M. Reid, Ursula K. Duncan Leucotomy C. F.1. Baron The Derided Dr. Basil Lee Out of Print Frank G. Penney Mushrooms and Others William A. Proctor The Stage is Set Frank Sieverts Dr. Hugh.Criebton-Miller Lieut.-Colonel R. F. Gore Browne WHY NATO?
SIR,—Your leading article poses another and more important question, mentioned briefly by you in your reference to Lieut.-Colonel Lort-Phillips's The Logic of Defence. Daily it becomes more urgent to re- examine the whole basis of the British contribution to Western defence; and also to prick the bubble of Baldwinism that has settled on the argument like a huge soapsud.
Lieut.-Colonel Lort-Phillips is dead right when he says that the only value of the deterrent is to deter and not to defend; and you are right when you say that the thick heads of the defence chiefs must be
knocked together until they realise this. But my im- pression is that most of the professional defence chiefs agree with us—it is at the political level that the trouble arises. We have to begin with the Prime Minister, he is directly responsible for current British policy. We have got to realise that the chief thick head that needs knocking is Mr. Macmillan's; and that of his muscular bell-hop, Mr. Duncan Sandys. comes a close second.
At present we are committed to the deterrent, and in my view rightly so, because it does deter others from attacking us with H-bombs. But also, enough is enough and both sides are within sight of nuclear sufficiency. The difficulty comes when we face the next question—how do we meet the possibility of a major military threat which does not envisage the use of nuclear weapons?
It is no answer to reply that Mr. Macmillan, or
his successors, or the Americans will thereupon behave like hairy Samsons and pull down the pillars of civilisation as a reprisal. In those critical circum- stances—should they ever arise—the only way to keep the MacSamsons in their place will be to have proper conventional forces to meet the challenge.
Ah—but that costs money! 1 can see MacSamson and Duncan Samson getting worried, as it is election year—just as Baldwin once did when asked to con- sider the cost of defence. For my part, even in election year, I am prepared to advocate a shilling on the income tax as a small insurance against nuclear extinction, in a world in which conventional forces are a regrettable necessity; and until we arrive at the utopia of a disarmament agreement.—Yours faith- fully,
DESMOND DONNELLY House of Commons„SW1
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