PREVIEW: Colleague Anatol Lieven recalls the early NATO years when Britain and France acquired nuclear weapons, and why? More later.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2025
⏱️ 1 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1955 NEVADA TESTING GROUND
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is John Batchel, a conversation with colleague Anatole Levin, Quincy Institute for Responsible |
| 0:06.4 | Statecraft. |
| 0:08.3 | Rie, the Eurobomb. |
| 0:10.3 | Does Europe get an independent atomic weapon, or many? |
| 0:14.8 | And Anatole remembers the original deployment of nuclear weapons to Britain as a member of NATO and to France as a member |
| 0:23.7 | of NATO, McMillan and de Gaulle. He remembers it as ceremonial and prestige, not to use them. |
| 0:32.9 | And now, here's Anatole to explain. Much more of this tonight. |
| 0:38.2 | Not really. I mean, both the French and the British nuclear weapons originally, and McMillan, for example, and I think to Goal as well, were absolutely clear about that. They were more about prestige than anything else. They were about maintaining the image of France and Britain as great powers on the world stage. |
| 1:00.0 | Practically speaking, they both knew that NATO was covered by the US nuclear deterrent. And so they never really had to think about the circumstances in which, in which these would be, could be used. |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.