On the Fence with MLF

Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein has his own ideas about the U.S. proposal for a NATO fleet of Polaris-firing surface ships manned by crews of several nationalities. "Utter and complete poppycock!" he cried in the House of Lords last week. "How," he snorted, "can a ship fight effectively if one-third of its crew is Portuguese, one-third Belgian and one-third, say, Danish? The thing is just not on. You might as well man a ship with a party of politicians."

Many British politicians and military experts share Montgomery's mistrust of the multilateral force (MLF) and its sponsor--the U.S. Indeed, though Prime Minister Harold Macmillan nominally agreed at Nassau last December to support the NATO force, his government has been hoping ever since that MLF would quietly capsize of its own complexity.

Naughty Questions. The British approve of its primary aim, to satisfy West Germany's demand for a bigger role in NATO's nuclear defense, but argue that they cannot afford to build their own independent Polaris submarine fleet and contribute as well to MLF, whose 20 to 25 ships are expected to cost $5 billion over a ten-year period. Thanks to Washington's success in selling MLF to Germany and then to Italy, it seemed at first as if the fleet might be built with only a token contribution from Britain.

However, when Aldo Moro took over as Italy's Premier-designate last month, Washington realized that his fragile government is in no position to honor its commitment to shoulder MLF's cost, or even to participate. Thus the U.S., which has promised to contribute 40%, and persuaded the Germans to pledge another 40%, has finally put pressure on Britain. To Whitehall's dismay, Washington announced that its top MLF expert, Admiral Claude Ricketts, deputy chief of naval operations, would fly to London this week to discuss the government's technical reservations and satisfy British complaints that they have so far received nothing but "computer answers" from the Pentagon. Said one British official gleefully: "We've got a lot of naughty questions."

Compelling Logic. Britain's main objection to MLF is that it is primarily a "political" scheme to promote NATO solidarity. However, if Britain decides not to support MLF, it faces one of two unpalatable alternatives. Either the project will be abandoned, with the likelihood that the Germans and other European nations will ultimately develop their own nuclear weapons; or the force will come into being anyway, and in time may develop into a truly European deterrent, exclusive of Britain.

In either case, Britain might seriously strain its ties with the U.S. by refusing to participate. Recalling that only a few years ago the government argued with compelling logic against membership in the Common Market, the Sunday Telegraph concluded last week: "What is so sad is that once again we seem to be climbing reluctantly into a back seat on the bandwagon only after it has started to move."

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