Jim Walsh SURPRISE DOWN UNDER: THE SECRET HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS by Jim Walsh Jim Walsh is a visiting scholar at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science program at MIT, where he is completing a dissertation analyzing comparative nuclear decisionmaking in Australia, the Middle East, and Europe. ustralia is widely considered tactical nuclear weapons. In 1961, of state behavior and the kinds of Ato be a world leader in ef- Australia proposed a secret agree- policies that are most likely to retard forts to halt and reverse the ment for the transfer of British the spread of nuclear weapons? 1 spread of nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons, and, throughout This article attempts to answer Australian government created the the 1960s, Australia took actions in- some of these questions by examin- Canberra Commission, which called tended to keep its nuclear options ing two phases in Australian nuclear for the progressive abolition of open. It was not until 1973, when history: 1) the attempted procure- nuclear weapons. It led the fight at Australia ratified the NPT, that the ment phase (1956-1963); and 2) the the U.N. General Assembly to save country finally renounced the acqui- indigenous capability phase (1964- the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty sition of nuclear weapons. 1972). The historical reconstruction (CTBT), and the year before, played Over the course of four decades, of these events is made possible, in a major role in efforts to extend the Australia has gone from a country part, by newly released materials Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of that once sought nuclear weapons to from the Australian National Archive Nuclear Weapons (NPT) indefi- one that now supports their abolition. and a set of unregistered documents nitely. In short, Australia is a coun- It is a remarkable story, and certainly released by Australias Department try whose nonproliferation credentials one of the untold successes of the of Foreign Affairs and Trade.2 are impeccable. nuclear age. The Australian experi- These materials provide an unusu- But there is another side to this ence also raises important questions ally detailed view of the internal pro- story. Newly declassified documents for theorists and policymakers. How cesses of a country wrestling with describe repeated attempts by ele- is it that Australia went from nuclear its nuclear future. Using these and ments within the Australian govern- aspirant to nonproliferation leader? other sources, this study attempts to ment to acquire nuclear weapons. In What factors influenced the Austra- explain why the Australian govern- 1958, for example, Australian offi- lian governments nuclear ment first sought and then renounced cials approached the British govern- decisionmaking? What does the Aus- nuclear weapons. ment regarding the purchase of tralian case suggest about the nature The Nonproliferation Review/Fall 1997 1 Jim Walsh THE ATTEMPTED ments came from the Defence Com- ritory since 1952, though the Aus- PROCUREMENT PHASE mittee,5 which concluded in 1958 that: tralians were not privy to any weap- (1956-1963) In the absence of disarma- ons-related information coming from ment agreements, it is inevi- 10 From 1956 to 1963, Australias ef- table that the trend towards the tests. forts to acquire nuclear weapons fo- nuclear weapons will con- Developments in Europe did not tinue and intensify. Present cused on procurement, i.e., gaining indications are that in the go unnoticed in Australia, and access to nuclear weapons via a third near future countries other memos arguing for an Australian party. Procurement is thus distinct than the U.K. and the U.S., nuclear capability often cited devel- e.g., France and Japan, will from indigenous development. It also have the technological ca- opments in NATO.11 Nuclear differs from arrangements such as pacity to manufacture weapons proponents in Australia the North Atlantic Treaty nuclear weapons and can be knew that the Americans had no in- expected to develop this ca- Organizations (NATOs) dual key pacity successfully in the tention of selling nuclear weapons, system, since Australias intent was next few years.6 but the nuclear sharing controversy to acquire weapons that would be un- Evidence supporting these expec- itself seemed to confirm that nuclear der purely national control. tations was not difficult to find. The weapons were going to become an During this phase, there were at Australians had only to look at essential part of modern war-fight- least three initiatives pertaining to the NATO. Indeed, the actions of NATO ing and that any self-respecting ad- vanced, industrialized country would procurement of nuclear weapons by countries appear to have had a pro- elements within the Australian gov- found impact on nuclear thinking in have its own atomic arsenal. ernment. They included: 1) discus- Australia. At the time the Australian Australian officials expected more sions regarding the purchase of Defence Committee made its origi- and more countries to acquire nuclear tactical nuclear weapons; 2) the ac- nal recommendation to seek nuclear weapons, but they also believed that quisition of a nuclear capable deliv- weapons, the United States had be- nuclear weapons would play a grow- ery system; and 3) a proposal for gun stationing tactical nuclear weap- ing role in the force structure of their nuclear weapons on-demand. This ons in Europe, and a number of existing nuclear allies, the United section reviews each of these epi- American alliesincluding Britain, States and Great Britain. The De- sodes, but begins with a brief over- France, Italy, and West Germany fence Committee report cited above view. were declaring their interest in gain- went on to note that: ing greater access to nuclear Nuclear weapons in various applications are being in- Australian Perspectives weapons and weapons-related infor- creasingly introduced into mation. The Eisenhower administra- In the 1950s, Australian thinking the armament of the great tion, in turn, signaled that it was open powers for employment in all about nuclear weapons, like much of to some kind of nuclear sharing.7 aspects of offensive and de- the thinking in Europe and the United fensive warfare. [ .] Mod- At a North Atlantic Council meet- States, included an expectation that ern weapon systems are ing, France, West Germany, and Italy becoming so complex and nuclear weapons would spread and even announced plans for the co-pro- costly that in many cases become a common feature of mod- their adoption would not be duction of nuclear weapons.8 Some ern military forces.3 Inside players justified unless they were years before, the United States had given maximum effective- in the worlds capitals had already endorsed its New Look doctrine, ness by the incorporation of been told that France would likely join nuclear warheads.12 which promoted nuclear weapons as the nuclear club, and many began to a way to counter the rising costs of The vertical proliferation of anticipate that China would also gain conventional forces, and the United nuclear weapons throughout the al- membership. The belief that nuclear Kingdom had announced that it lies force structure encouraged the weapons would spread and that this would reduce expenditures on con- Australians to seek their own nuclear spread would necessarily affect Aus- ventional weaponry in order to fo- weapons. At first glance, this might tralia could be seen in everything cus resources on its nuclear seem counterintuitive. After all, if from army training manuals to state- deterrent.9 Australia had, in fact, the allies had sufficient stocks of ments by the prime minister.4 One hosted British nuclear tests on its ter- nuclear weapons for every contin- of the more authoritative assess- 2 The Nonproliferation Review/Fall 1997 Jim Walsh gency imaginable, Australia would 1958, and September 1958), the Min- cision to approach the United King- not need nuclear weapons of its own. istry of Defenceoften at the urg- dom was not the first time Austra- Australian military and political lead- ing of the Air Servicesought to lian leaders had expressed an interest ers drew a different conclusion, how- revive the issue of nuclear weapons in nuclear weapons, but it did repre- ever, and they did so for two reasons. procurement. sent the first formal finding that Aus- 17 First, Australias military officers tralia should procure them. argued that if Australia were going Attempts to Buy the Bomb Following the Defence to be a full and respected participant Australia first formally considered Committees recommendation to in collective security arrangements the subject of a nuclear weapons seek tactical nuclear weapons, the such as the Australian, New capability for Australian forces in Defence Department pressed Aus- Zealand, United States security 1956.13 The initial proposal to seek tralian Prime Minister Robert treaty of 1951 (ANZUS) or the nuclear weapons came from Athol Menzies to follow through on the rec- Southeast Asia Collective Defense Townley, the minister for air, who ommendation.18 In March 1957, the Treaty (SEATO), then they had to wrote to the defence minister re- Australian government met with Sir be able to deploy and use the same questing that Australia procure Dermot Boyle, the British Air Chief, weapons as their allies or face being nuclear bombs for the RAAFs and Lord Carrington, Britains For- relegated to a secondary role, with Canberra and Avon Sabre aircraft.14 eign Secretary for Commonwealth attendant diminution of status and While Townley and his successor Relations. Prime Minister Menzies political leverage. Second, if one pushed the idea among their minis- and the Commonwealths ministers believes that tactical weapons are terial colleagues, Air Marshal F. R. for defence and external affairs really high-end conventional weap- W. Shug Scherger lobbied his fel- asked the visiting delegation whether ons, then it becomes easier to imag- low service officers in Australia and Britain could supply Australia with ine their use as instruments for Britain.