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:
“Behold now this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“It is snowing and death bugs me
as stubborn as insomnia.
The fierce bubbles of chalk,
the little white lesions
settle on the street outside.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Painting dissolves the forms at its command, or tends to; it melts them into color. Drawing, on the other hand, goes about resolving forms, giving edge and essence to things. To see shapes clearly, one outlines them—whether on paper or in the mind. Therefore, Michelangelo, a profoundly cultivated man, called drawing the basis of all knowledge whatsoever.”
—Alexander Eliot (b. 1919)