Losing an Empire and Finding a Role: Britain, the USA, NATO and Nuclear Weapons, 1964- 1970

In this book, Kristan Stoddart revises several public misconceptions regarding Britain, the United States and NATO in the nuclear weapons field. Based on the latest declassified evidence collected both in the UK and the USA, Stoddart shows that despite losing its empire Britain was finding a role – a role based on the defence of the NATO area at the expense of large scale extra-European commitments. Its primary method of achieving this was through nuclear weapons with an upgraded capability in Polaris. This story takes in a vast geographical scope involving some of the key actors in world politics at the time including Prime Minister Harold Wilson, US President Lyndon Johnson and French President Charles de Gaulle, with the tensions of that triangular relationship at the heart of Britain's renewed and refocused nuclear empire.