Sharp D. Cold War. Sex, Spies And Nuclear Missiles

Horncastle: Mortons Media Group Ltd., 2013. — 132 p. — ISBN 9781911276071.
The Great Garne
1963: an introduction
British secret agent James Bond has failed. He sits silent, frozen with bitter defeat at the Casino Royale’s baccarat table, having played sinister Soviet agent Le Chiffre ‘The Number’ and lost. He knew every trick of the game, took every precaution and weighed the odds carefully but in the end he ran out of money and out of luck. Now he knows he must fly back to Britain and face M’s forced sympathy and ‘better luck next time’, but he also knows that there won’t be a next time. It’s over. Then he’s handed an envelope and a note from CIA operative Felix Leiter. The envelope is stuffed with cash and the note says: “Marshall Aid. Thirty-two million francs. With the compliments of the USA.” Bond is back in the game.
This scene from author Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, published in 1953, was a perfect metaphor for Britain’s position at the end of the 1940s. Britain had been bankrupted by the Second World War but just when it seemed as though the nation would have to abandon what remained of its empire and cancel its defence projects, America stepped in with a blank cheque and catapulted Britain back into the fray and the top table of world politics.
The Yanks needed a strong ally in Europe to help stave off the growing Soviet menace and Britain was happy to oblige. Despite handing over billions of dollars though, the one thing the US refused to do was hand over its atomic secrets - so Britain simply used American cash to fund its own nuclear programme, plus a host of other military developments including the world-beating V-force bombers, the powerful English Electric Lightning jet fighter and the Royal Navy’s first nuclear submarine HMS Dreadnought. The American money helped to pay for costly adventures abroad too, such as Britain’s ill-judged intervention in Egypt during the Suez Crisis. Work began on Concorde and other expensive ‘prestige’ projects while British industry grew lazy on its successes and the nation’s roads and railways crumbled through lack of investment.