Three on a Horse

Top British defense officials listened politely in London last week while a U.S. Navy task force argued the merits of a missile-firing surface fleet manned by mixed NATO crews. The Britons' real feelings toward the multilateral force (MLF) were best expressed in a sardonic limerick that made the rounds of Whitehall:

Hooray for the Multimixed Force,

German, British and Yankee, of course!

Each produces a knight,

And the plan is to fight-Ordeter-with all three on one horse.

Behind U.S. efforts to sell MLF was the ill-concealed fact that military Washington does not really believe in it either. Privately the Pentagon considers it at best a gimmick to postpone "proliferation" of independent nuclear forces to other nations, which it wants at all costs to prevent or delay.

"Monstrous Nonsense." Charged with the halfhearted mission of winning British support for the $5 billion MLF was Admiral Claude Ricketts, U.S. deputy chief of naval operations, who has doubled of late as the Pentagon's Multi-mixmaster. Strategically, he argued, a force of 25 Polaris vessels cruising Europe's shallow coastal waters could not easily be destroyed by Soviet submarines or aircraft. Said Ricketts: "Each addi tional weapons system enhances the credibility of other systems." But R.A.F. Marshal Sir John Slessor called it "mon strous military nonsense," and many other British defense officials agreed.

The State Department's main justification for MLF is not military but political. It is aimed primarily at satisfying West Germany's demand for an equal voice with Britain and France in NATO's nuclear councils, and the Germans are already pledged to match the U.S.'s offer to shoulder 40% of the cost.

Without British backing, however, MLF will never get off the drawing board; the U.S. is not willing to share the financial and political responsibility with Germany alone.

But the British, who are already committed to building a $1 billion Polaris submarine fleet by 1970, reply that they cannot afford to pour more money into anything as theoretical as MLF. Europe's most telling objection to the project is that even if the allies did chip in, ultimate control of its weapons would still rest with the U.S.

Who Needs It? The Kennedy Administration hopes nonetheless to win British as well as German support for the force. "We certainly don't need it," explained a high-ranking Administration official last week, "nor do the Europeans. But if it satisfies them, I think it is worth pursuing. If it doesn't, well, at least we made the offer."

All this merely obscured what ought to be the real U.S. policy: 1) an independent nuclear force for a truly united Europe; 2) full U.S. responsibility for the defense of Europe until that goal is achieved.

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