The 1957 White Paper on Defence (Cmnd. 124) was a British white paper setting forth the perceived future of the British military. It had profound effects on all aspects of the defence industry but probably the most affected was the British aircraft industry. Duncan Sandys, the recently appointed Minister of Defence, produced the paper.
The decisions were influenced by two major factors: the finances of the country and the coming of the missile age. Where before combat in the air would have been between aircraft; high flying bombers carrying nuclear weapons and fast interceptor fighter aircraft trying to stop them, now the guided missile, particularly the surface-to-air missile threatened all aircraft. The emergent space age showed that missiles could also deliver those nuclear weapons anywhere in the world.
Famous quotes containing the words defence, white and/or paper:
“Education must have two foundations—morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defence for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“The next forenoon we went to Oldtown.... The Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the virtues of the white man. Yet this village was cleaner than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I have seen.”
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“The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)