by John Hackett
13 December. Round-ups of intellectuals and some workers’ leaders are reported from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia. These do not appear to be very successful, and reports appear in Western newspapers of communiques from an organized ‘underground’ in these countries and what is by now almost an open dissident movement in Poland.
20 December. Black African forces advancing, in some disorder, from Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are now known to be commanded by Soviet, Cuban, and Jamaican officers. These clearly do not have their troops under disciplined control.
24 December. The UAR announces that it has discovered an Iranian plan to send forces into the Gulf states. It threatens that if this happens it will take direct military action against Iran, including air attack on Tehran. Iran threatens immediate retaliation and asks for US help.
25 December. In a Christmas message to the world, the ‘lame-duck’ President Carter proposes high-level discussions with the Soviet Union in accordance with the Agreement for the Prevention of Nuclear War of 1973, to consider means to end tensions in Africa and the Middle East. His proposal is that there should be a standstill of military forces all round the globe in their existing positions. There should also be a ban on the export of all arms to either side in Africa or the Middle East. He proposes that the US Navy enforce the blockade of the west coast of Africa; meanwhile the Soviet Navy should enforce the blockade of the east coast of Africa and the Gulf, with assistance to be invited from the US Navy. Both superpowers are to enforce a blockade of arms-carrying ships passing through the Mediterranean.
26 December. The Soviet Union says it will talk only to President Thompson after his Inauguration Day on 20 January. It blames lame-duck President Carter for much of the world’s present ills, but meanwhile agrees that a standstill should be enforced by both the US and the USSR.
28 December. Iran declares that it is not bound by the standstill agreement. Acting contrary to US advice, it reinforces its existing troops in Oman and secures an invitation from the United Arab Emirates to send defensive forces to Abu Dhabi. Television pictures, secured by an American camera team, of Iranian troops landing in Oman, and of armoured cars with Iranian markings alongside Omani troops, are distributed worldwide, and are triumphantly used by the Russians to support their claims of Iranian belligerency. The USSR says this is a blatant breach of the standstill, and that US naval forces (which are supposed to be co-operating in preventing such breaches) have connived at it.
29 December. A Soviet submarine sinks an Iranian transport. A US intelligence ship is attacked by missiles in the Gulf of Aden.
The Soviet attacks on the 29th can with some justification be called the first shots of the Third World War. Symbolically they were fired at sea and in Middle Eastern waters. Both maritime affairs and the Middle East had each been a focus of intense Soviet interest and planning for many years (see Appendix 2).
Having got over the initial shock of the submarine attack, the Iranian government set in train measures to assume complete control of the waters of the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. The luckless US intelligence ship, limping slowly towards Mombasa, following a friendly offer of help from the government of Kenya to the outgoing President in his last days of office, was to be joined by a US carrier group which had been on passage south in the Red Sea, on a routine relief of the standing US Navy Indian Ocean Force. Having cleared the Straits of Bab el Mandeb this carrier group was under orders to carry out an armed reconnaissance of Aden, where it located and identified beyond doubt the group of fast missile boats of Soviet origin which had attacked the US intelligence ship. Also reported was a formidable force of the latest Soviet maritime strike-reconnaissance aircraft. A request to Washington for approval to strike both fast missile boats and maritime aircraft was not approved, and the intelligence ship remained, for the time being, unavenged but still afloat.
It was possible, without too much loss of face, either domestically or externally, for the US Administration to refrain, with due public claim to be acting in the best interests of keeping the peace, from taking immediate offensive action in response to the attack upon the intelligence ship. Instead, the US carrier group made all speed to join the damaged ship and escort it to Mombasa, while strong protests were made to Moscow, coupled with demands for an international court of enquiry, apologies and compensation. Then came news that a Soviet patrol submarine of the Tango class had been brought to the surface in the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian antisubmarine forces and the crew taken prisoner. In short, the first essay by the Soviet Navy in the actual use of force in support of Soviet policy had misfired.
After its initial errors, the Soviet naval command (perhaps smarting under a stern rebuke from the septuagenarian Gorshkov, and acting upon his advice - as Admiral of the Fleet and even after his retirement, Gorshkov had been insisting for years on the necessity of Soviet mastery of the seas for the triumph of Marxism-Leninism) ordered the Victor class nuclear-powered fleet submarine which had been detailed to intercept and trail the damaged US intelligence ship to sink her by torpedo. This she did, despite the presence of the US carrier group, without being detected, let alone destroyed. The confidence of the Politburo in the Soviet Navy’s capacity to act in support of their political objectives was restored. The naval staff ‘Correlation of Forces’ paper (see Appendix 2) was carefully read. It had become apparent that naval-air operations involving actual combat differed drastically from the peaceful penetration of ocean space with propaganda cruising which the Soviet Navy had learned to carry out in such exemplary fashion since it first took to the oceans in the 1960s.
Difficulty was experienced by the new Soviet fleet commander in establishing satisfactory relationships with the various political regimes and armed force commands in the Middle East. Hitherto the Soviet presence had been based upon political agreements drafted by the Soviet Foreign Office and covering in great detail the respective commitments of the contracting parties. Deviation from le pied de la lettre was strongly discouraged. Everything had to be referred to Moscow.
When events began to move fast the weakness of this situation became manifest. Proclamation by the new United Arab Republic of the Red Sea as a war zone, and the closure of the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, for example, found a number of Soviet warships, naval auxiliaries and merchant ships in situations, sometimes at sea and sometimes in harbour, requiring diplomatic intervention with the national authorities. All that Flag Officer Soviet Middle East Forces (FOSMEF) could do was report to Moscow and await guidance. From the naval point of view his authority was similarly circumscribed. Soviet naval and air units in the Middle East ‘belonged’ to one or other of the main fleets - the Northern, the Black Sea, or the Pacific. In suddenly transferring to FOSMEF the ‘operational control’ of a number of surface warships, submarines and aircraft, far away from their main bases, the Soviet naval high command introduced a number of command inter-relationship problems, the resolution of which did not come easily to a commander and staff not bred to the use of initiative in matters of administration.
Even in the operational field FOSMEF found himself somewhat isolated. He had been briefed about the Middle Eastern situation before leaving Moscow, but there had been no time to explain to him precisely what was going on in Southern Africa. He knew, of course, that Soviet advisers, Soviet weapons and equipment, and Soviet bases were contributing to the military strength of the Confederation of Africa South People’s Army (CASPA). But who, precisely, was in command of all these Soviet activities and forces? What was the directive upon which Soviet actions were to be based? In desperation the Flag Officer decided to send a senior staff officer to find out what was going on. The officer, travelling in plain clothes and using civil airlines, arrived eventually in Beira, where he contacted a member of the Soviet military mission. But, alas, events had moved too fast. The Soviet Navy, having started off on the wrong foot, and then made a good recovery, had nevertheless failed to retain the control of events which effective implemen
tation of Moscow’s subtle and complex political operations called for.
As evidence built up, and could no longer be disregarded, that a state of hostilities might at any moment exist between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, contingency plans on both sides were brought out and dusted off. The difficulty for the Americans was that in addition to losing an intelligence ship they had lost the initiative. The Russians, on the other hand, though clumsy in execution, knew exactly what they were trying to do. Moreover, at this juncture, although they were deeply involved both politically and militarily in the Middle East and in Southern Africa, two additional factors favoured the Russians. First, the satellite status of their allies in the Warsaw Pact, while a prime cause of the growing dissatisfaction which had done so much to bring about the present Soviet pressure on the Americans, had always had the advantage of giving them firm control over all the Pact armed forces, their deployment and operation. Not so with the Americans. Although continually justified to the American people as being indispensable to the national security of the United States, the military alliances of which she was a member, and in particular NATO, had equally been justified by the governments of their other members to their peoples as being indispensable to their national security; hence decision-making had to be shared.
The Americans, therefore, unlike the Russians, would have to consult with their allies about any military action. But this was not all. Unless the Russians chose deliberately to attack within the NATO area, they could be reasonably certain that NATO would take no action to come to America’s assistance.
This inherent weakness in the provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty deserves explanation. When the Treaty was signed on 4 April 1949, the Soviet Union was not a major naval power. She had begun to establish a strong force of submarines based upon the Kola Inlet, where they would have ice-free access to the North Atlantic. But the seas and oceans of the world were not to be treated as extensions of sovereign territory. All that was needed was to include attacks upon the ships and aircraft of a member of the Alliance as cause for acting in collective defence, as with an attack across a land frontier. But surely, it was thought, there must be some geographical limit at sea. Clearly, the waters adjacent to the eastern seaboard of the United States had to be included. As to ocean limits, it was suggested that the boundary be placed at the maximum distance to which submarines operating from the Kola Inlet were likely to proceed on patrol. The Tropic of Cancer was chosen as the limit.
A number of arrangements had been made over the years to mitigate the unfortunate consequences to NATO of the Tropic of Cancer boundary. Chief amongst these was the pooling of Allied naval intelligence. This clearly could not be limited to the North Atlantic Treaty area. After all, wherever in the world the maritime trade of the member nations was to be found, most of it would sooner or later have to pass into the North Atlantic. How could measures for its protection there be co-ordinated without full knowledge of sailing times and routes? And how could the most economical use of shipping be organized, for the support of peoples and a war effort, unless a worldwide view of the available resources could be taken NATO plans provided, therefore, that a Naval Control of Shipping Organization should be set up, and also a Planning Board for Ocean Shipping. It was through the members of these groups, acting informally as individuals and in conjunction with the worldwide shipping community, that an appropriate response began to be evolved to the Soviet Navy’s activities in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.
It was the British Ambassador in Washington who first communicated to the President of the United States the urgent plea of shipowners not to over-react to Soviet naval provocation. It was pointed out that the Iranians would be bound, in exercising control of shipping in the Gulf, to ensure that the movement of oil cargoes to countries other than the United States would continue. The Japanese, for example, remained almost totally dependent upon Middle Eastern oil. Provided the oil was not cut off at source - and Iran would not connive at this - all was not lost. By switching the destinations of many cargoes already on the high seas and by relying on buffer stocks and alternative sources of supply, the United States should, it was argued, attempt to ‘ride the storm’. The important thing was to determine, if possible, the political objectives which the Soviet Union hoped to achieve by bringing naval pressure to bear on the USA’s Middle Eastern oil supplies, and to consider its best counters.
The Soviet naval attacks and the Iranian response had the effect of alerting NATO - already apprehensive of the consequences of disturbances in Poland and tension in Yugoslavia - to the possibility of a direct connection between events in Europe and those in the Middle East. Indeed, the NATO Military Committee, in reporting upon the blowing up of an oil well in the North Sea shortly after Soviet ships had been in the vicinity, on 3 January 1985, drew attention to it. That the Russians had denied responsibility and had suggested that the incident provided ‘good reason for Western Europe to keep out of present troubles’ was significant.
The fact that the oil well happened to be British had an effect which may not have been foreseen by the Kremlin. The action taken immediately by Britain had the tacit approval of the Political Sub-Committee of the North Atlantic Council, meeting in emergency session. This was to announce the setting up of a Northern Seas Environmental Control Agency (NORSECA) by agreement between the North Sea countries concerned, with an executive situated at Pitreavie, the Maritime HO of the RN Flag Officer, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and his RAF colleague. Already known, and well practised, as an Air-Sea Rescue Co-ordination Centre, and accustomed to conducting operations in concert with both civil and armed forces authorities around the North Sea, the Pitreavie HQ was able to put into effect quickly and smoothly the plans for NORSECA, which had been maturing for some years. The initial phase required the establishment of standard shipping routes through the North Sea, adherence to which would be mandatory if the right of uninterrupted passage through the area was to be enjoyed. The routes led clear of oil and gas installations, and moving fishing zones were also declared, using the standard medium of Notices to Mariners.
The implementation of this scheme, a possibility for some years, was facilitated by a major change in the NATO command structure which had been put into effect in 1983 (see Appendix 3). It had long been recognized that the command structure, particularly as it affected the naval and air forces in the Atlantic, North Sea and English Channel, had ceased to correspond to strategic and operational realities. It was indeed questionable whether it ever had.
Sweden, Soviet Russia, Poland and East Germany, as individual states whose shipping and fishing vessels were regular users of the North Sea, were invited to be represented, if they wished, on the NORSECA Council, in addition to the littoral states. Meanwhile, the British naval C-in-C arranged with his RAF colleague (C-in-C Strike Command) for armed surveillance of the Soviet group which appeared to be responsible for blowing up the North Sea oil well.
Elsewhere events had been moving at an equally dramatic tempo.
31 December 1984. Riots take place in East Berlin, with West Berliners standing on vantage points near the Wall, under full TV cover, cheering the rioters on. The riots are put down by Soviet troops, taking over almost at once from the East German police, much more firmly and bloodily than those in Poland the month before.
It must be observed here that television coverage, which was to play a very important part in the events described in this book, was in these incidents of such significance as to deserve fuller treatment.
All television news coverage in advanced countries is undertaken by lightweight electronic cameras, capable of recording their images on 25 mm videotape, or of having their material beamed live from the scene. On 31 December ENG (electronic newsgathering) cameras from many countries were in position at many places along the Berlin Wall, and were able to secure - and to send out live throughout the world - shots of the rioting.
One sequence was, however, secured from within East
Berlin itself. An American documentary unit happened to be working on a programme on the German Democratic Republic. The director, who had won acclaim at the time of the Vietnam War for his strongly anti-war attitude, had been given considerable latitude to move about Berlin by the East German authorities. By chance he was on his way, with his camera crew, to interview an East German trade union leader when rioters began to threaten the trade union headquarters. His camera crew, their electronic equipment readily available, had secured some particularly vivid pictures, many of them in close up, before the police became aware of their presence. When two plain clothes officers intervened to stop their recording, the East German driver of the car in which they had been travelling shouted ‘Give me the tape’, grabbed the roll of recordings, and disappeared into the crowd. The cameraman, his recordist and the documentary director were immediately arrested, but the next day the film, smuggled across the wall by dissidents, appeared on West Berlin screens. The pictures on it made plain, beyond any possibility of argument, that the rioters were not the usual run of urban malcontents but men of responsibility and discipline. The film also contained some ugly shots of East German police firing deliberately into the crowd, and pursuing and savagely beating the rioters.
The American crew and the director were charged with having instigated the riots, and, for good measure, with being responsible for the death of two policemen. The fact that the director had a high reputation as a left-wing sympathizer added to the irony of the situation, but did nothing to help his case.
The Federal Republic makes no move. There is now some strain between Western Europe and the United States. The stoppage of the flow of oil from the Middle East and hindrance to shipping in the Mediterranean is beginning to hit the EEC, which claims that its own interests in the dispute are not being considered. The Community asserts a right to import oil from Iran and to complete freedom of movement for the shipping of its members and insists that it must be a party to the coming summit discussions.