Polaris 'revenge weapon' says Mgr. Bruce Kent

PROTESTS against the building of nuclear submarines were made at a public C.N.D. meeting after the launching at Birkenhead last Friday of the fourth Polaris submarine.
Mr. Nettleton, general secretary, said it had not been possible to persuade any Government spokesman to put the case for Polaris. Mr. Healey had said on an earlier occasion to the Anglican Bishop of Chester that the rightness or wrongness of the issue "was a matter for the politicians."
Mr. Ivor Montague, defence expert of the Communist Party. described Britain's Polaris fleet as "the entry fee to the Big League." Economically beyond our means, at a cost of £370 million, the weapons were already obsolete with three submarlines yet to be commissioned. The Americans were giving up Polaris in favour of Poseidon.
Mgr. Bruce Kent said Service chiefs had made it clear that Polaris was not a bluff. but was there to be used, if necessary, as a revenge weapon. Traditional Catholic morality and the Vatican Council had condemned without question the use of such weapons.