Interview with David Owen, 1987

Item Information

Title:
Interview with David Owen, 1987
Description:
David Owen was the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 1977-1979, a period of some tension among NATO allies. The interview begins with the London summit of 1977 where President Carter met with sharp dissention on the part of Helmut Schmidt and Giscard d'Estaing over his views on civil nuclear power, specifically his resistance to fast breeder reactors which the Germans and French considered essential to their energy needs. This antagonism fed into further differences between the United States and its NATO partners, for example at the subsequent Guadeloupe summit. Turning to the issue of Euromissiles, he discusses Schmidt's Harvard speech and Mr. Owen's disagreement with the underlying concept of a European strategic balance. He claims the British came up with the two-track approach, by insisting that a weapons buildup be accompanied by arms negotiations. On the importance of the SS-20 missile, he states that many Europeans believed the Pershing should be modernized regardless. There follows a discussion of British decision-making over the acquisition of missile systems in the 1960s and 1970s. Mr. Owen next describes Anglo-French nuclear cooperation and its significance in the light of the Reykjavik summit, which showed that the U.S. and Soviet Union were capable of striking a deal strictly between themselves that might put European interests at risk. This leads to the point that Europeans should take greater responsibility for their own security. Another featured topic of the interview is the neutron bomb episode, including the harsh British and German reaction to Carter's reversal of position.
Interviewee:
Owen, David, 1938-
Date:
October 13, 1987
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
SS-20 Missile
Reagan, Ronald
Trident (Weapons systems)
Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968)
Thatcher, Margaret
Polaris (Missile)
Nuclear nonproliferation
Summit meetings--Iceland--Reykjavik
Cruise missiles
Nuclear arms control
Nuclear weapons
Antimissile missiles
Great Britain
Nuclear energy
Pershing (Missile)
Gorbachev, Mikhail
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Soviet Union
Giscard d'Estaing, Valery, 1926-
Gaulle, Charles de, 1890-1970
Attlee, C. R. (Clement Richard), 1883-1967
Carter, Jimmy, 1924-
Callaghan, James, 1912-2005
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994
Schmidt, Helmut, 1918 Dec. 23-
Vance, Cyrus R. (Cyrus Roberts), 1917-2002
Mitterrand, Francois, 1916-1996
Places:
United States
France
Germany
Extent:
00:39:20:14
Link to Item:
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_A44BCE09B6A44731A104406F24CCDD9D
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_A44BCE09B6A44731A104406F24CCDD9D