ABSTRACT
One of their key achievements as far as the British negotiators of the Polaris Sales Agreement were concerned was their success in decoupling US willingness to move ahead with support for the UK's Polaris programme from the other, more contentious aspects of the Nassau accord, including the establishment of a multilateral nuclear force, with its new mixed-manned element. The protracted debates over the MLF during 1963, where the Ministry of Defence had often been pitted against the Foreign Office, with Downing Street acting as arbiter, were another illustration of the inextricable linkages between defence and foreign policy. One of the first nuclear subjects to be considered by the new DOPC machinery was the size of the Polaris force. By June 1963 it had become widely recognised by ministers that current levels of defence spending could not be sustained over the long term and were having a deleterious effect on the economy.
