ABSTRACT
The Anglo-American talks in the Bahamas were conducted with such haste that many crucial issues connected with the formation and operation of a British Polaris force, and its implications for the UK’s deterrent posture as a whole, had simply not had time to be properly considered. One obvious area was the size and composition of a force suitable to meet UK requirements. As we have seen, this had been a subject of prolonged debate in the confines of the BNDSG, and had received some ministerial discussion in the first half of 1962 when orders for the number of Skybolt missiles and warheads had to be decided, but estimations of the damage capability of Polaris, and what size of force would be sufficient to meet a specific and agreed national criterion of deterrence, had been absent from the British delegation’s deliberations at Nassau.
