In the closing months of World War II, Churchill was lobbied by foreign secretary Anthony Eden and chancellor Sir John Anderson to share Anglo-American nuclear secrets with the French, the documents showed.

Eden wrote to Churchill that the French had given the British access to their nuclear research before the German occupation in 1940, and may turn to the Russians if not admitted to the Anglo-American nuclear club. ``The French certainly consider that such a debt of honour exists and if we fail to pay it, the effect on Anglo-French relations may be very serious,'' Eden warned.

Churchill said he had never made ``the slightest agreement with France or with any Frenchman'' over Tube Alloys British code name for the bomb project. ``In all the circumstances our policy should be to keep thematter, so far as we can control it, in American and British hands and leave the French and Russians to do what they can,'' he wrote. ``I am getting tired of all the things that we must do or not do lest Anglo-French relations suffer,'' he added.