A Very British Coup

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A Very British Coup Page 17

by Chris Mullin


  The mention of these words caused the eyes of the audience to glaze over. Seeing this, Sir Monty added, “I need not trouble you with the details.”

  He paused and looked around the table. “Suffice it to say that the effective life of a nuclear warhead is between four and ten years. After that time it has to be transported to the Royal Ordnance Factory at Burghfield for renewal. The simplest way to dispose of our nuclear arsenal would be, therefore, to dismantle each warhead as it arrives at Burghfield.”

  On the landing outside, the rattle of cups foreshadowed the coming of the Wrens with tea. Sir Monty joined the palms of his hands as though in prayer. “However,” he said, “I imagine you would wish to complete the run down of our nuclear arsenal in somewhat less than ten years. There is some scope for speeding up the process at Burghfield. Reasonably, I estimate that you could dismantle all the warheads within three to five years.”

  This news he announced with just a trace of a smile. Sir Monty was a rare phenomenon among the defence establishment: a scientist who was opposed to nuclear weapons. He was a Jew born in Poland, the son of a goldsmith from Poznan. When the Nazis over-ran Poland he was living with an uncle in Golders Green. His parents were despatched to the concentration camp at Treblinka and he never saw them again. By the end of the war he was a student at Imperial College. His PhD was on the effects of radiation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki provided no shortage of case studies. From that time onwards he was convinced of the evil of nuclear weapons.

  For years Sir Monty had concealed his aversion to the bomb, at least to his professional colleagues. He had taken care to speak in the measured, balanced tones expected of a scientist. He hoped that he still did so, even though he found it hard to conceal his excitement. He was within two years of retirement and had long despaired of seeing an end to the bomb in his lifetime. Now, suddenly here was Harry Perkins and his government pledged to rid Britain of the bomb. And here was Montague Kowalsky sitting at a table in Chequers, telling them how to go about it. Truly, these were exciting times.

  The Wrens served tea and left. Jim Evans puffed at his pipe and Mrs Cook waved away the smoke with her hand. Ted Curran had a question. “How do we make sure,” he asked, “that no future government is able to revive a nuclear weapons programme?”

  The faces of the Chiefs of Staff simultaneously assumed a pained expression.

  “You cannot be sure, but you can make it extremely difficult and very expensive,” Sir Monty replied with what he hoped was the appropriate air of scientific detachment. “You must close and disperse the facilities at Aldermaston and the Royal Ordnance Factory near Cardiff. That is where the components for the warheads are made.”

  He paused to sip tea. “Also, as soon as all existing warheads have been dismantled you must close and disperse the facilities at Burghfield.”

  “And how many people will be put out of work?” It was Wainwright’s first contribution to any of the discussions that weekend.

  Funny how the Treasury never worried about putting people out of work if it involved cutting public spending in any other department, thought Joan Cook. Only when it comes to saving money on bombs that they start worrying about lost jobs. From the look on the face of Harry Perkins, she could see that he was thinking the same.

  “There are about 5,000 people employed at Aldermaston,” said Sir Montague calmly. “And maybe another 2,000 at Burghfield and Cardiff. You may also lose some jobs in the naval dockyards at Devonport and Rosyth. As regards the Polaris submarines or the Tornados and Jaguar planes which carry warheads, these need not necessarily be scrapped. They can easily be adapted for conventional use.”

  Wainwright pressed the point. “So you would estimate at least 10,000 lost jobs?”

  “If I may make a personal observation?” Sir Montague turned to the Prime Minister. He was not in the habit of offering his opinion, but with the exception of Wainwright, the ministers seemed well disposed.

  Perkins waved his hand as if to say, “All right by me.”

  Sir Monty proceeded to offer his opinion. “With proper planning there is no reason why these people should lose their jobs. Many of them are highly skilled. Certainly the scientists could be redeployed.”

  “Exactly,” said Mrs Cook. Wainwright did not respond.

  Jock Steeples spoke next. “You have said nothing about disposal of the American warheads based in Britain.”

  Sir Monty ran a hand through his white hair. “The Americans,” he said, “are another matter. If you ask them to go, they will take their warheads with them, probably to Germany and Spain. They will take with them their submarines, planes and other delivery vehicles.” He paused as though deliberating whether to venture another personal opinion. Why not? he thought. “After they have gone, you will want to dismantle all the storage facilities on the bases. Otherwise there would be nothing to prevent their return under another government.”

  Kowalsky looked innocently around the table. He hoped he had not overstepped his brief. Wainwright and the Chiefs of Staff, seated in a cluster at the opposite end of the room, looked aghast.

  Unabashed, Sir Monty added one last personal observation. “I imagine,” he said mischievously, “that the Americans will not be very keen to go.”

  14

  The President was on a fishing holiday in Maryland when the cables from London confirmed that the British were going through with their plan to evict all American bases. And not just the bases. In his broadcast to the nation, recorded in the Great Parlour at Chequers that Sunday evening, Perkins had specified that the Americans would also be asked to withdraw from General Command Headquarters (GCHQ) at Cheltenham, to close Menwith Hill in Yorkshire and the chain of other communications facilities used for monitoring all telephone, telegram and telex traffic to Europe and the United States. The timetable, said Perkins, would be a matter for negotiations, but he envisaged that the American withdrawal would be complete within three to five years.

  Within an hour of the broadcast the President was reading the full text in his log cabin by the Potomac river. Two fishing rods and a gaff were propped up against the wall by the door. Laid nearby were two gleaming salmon, the day’s catch. The President was slouched in a folding camp chair the bulging canvas of which was hard put to accommodate his considerable frame. He sat there clad in an anorak, gumboots and old tartan trousers splashed with mud. Around him, motionless and with their arms folded, stood aides dressed incongruously in blue blazers and trousers with impeccable creases.

  No one spoke while the President ran his eye down the three foot length of teletape. After several minutes of intense concentration he put the tape on the table, unwrapped a spearmint chewing gum; then he shouted so loudly that even the fish in the Potomac must have heard. “Damn, blast and shit,” he said.

  There followed a hurried conversation with Secretary of State Morgan over a scrambled radio telephone. Morgan was already in his office at the State Department. Their brief conversation over, the President walked out of the cabin and strode to a waiting jeep. Behind him doors slammed as aides and secret service agents climbed into their vehicles. Then the little convoy set off bumping along the rough forest track. After twenty minutes they came to a clearing in which stood a white helicopter, its fuselage emblazoned with a circular coat of arms around which was written in clear black letters, “The President of the United States.” Two hours later, the President, still in gumboots and mud-spattered trousers, was back in the Oval Office.

  They were seated in a semi-circle of easy chairs around the fireplace, logs freshly lit burning in the grate, and a portrait of George Washington above the mantlepiece. The President sat to the right of the fireplace, to his left Admiral Glugstein still in evening dress, having driven to the White House directly from the Hilton Hotel where he had been hosting a dinner for the head of the Chilean navy. Marcus J. Morgan, the Secretary of State was next. Morgan had brought with him a pile of cables from London, the latest saying that the Chiefs of Staff were threatening t
o resign. Opposite, on the sofa, was the President’s national security adviser, Anton Zablonski, who was leaning forward with hands on his knees like a crouching rugby full-back expecting the ball to come his way at any moment. Beside Zablonski sat the CIA chief, George McLennon. On the way up in the elevator McLennon had been composing small talk to break the ice. He had planned to ask the President about his fishing trip, but changed his mind when he saw the look on the President’s face. This was no time for small talk.

  With the exception of McLennon, they were all big men with heavy jowls and large bellies. The heaviness of their jowls lent gravity to the occasion.

  The President spoke first. “Let’s be clear. There is no way we can afford to lose Britain. No way at all.” Zablonski was nodding in agreement. The President went on, “We lost China in 1949 and got by. We lost Vietnam in 1975 and got by. But if we lose Britain, we’re done for.”

  “Right on, Mr President,” whispered Zablonski.

  “If we were prepared to invest two-billion dollars a year and forty thousand American lives to try and save a dump like Vietnam, then the sky’s the limit when it comes to saving Britain.” The President spoke slowly, every phrase punctuated by the sound of his jaws processing chewing gum. “Whatever the cost we’ve got to stop those bases falling into enemy hands – and by enemy I mean the British government.”

  For a moment there was no sound save the crackling of the log fire. The President looked at each man in turn. “Gentlemen, this is war. I want to know how we get rid of Harry Perkins and his government.” He nodded towards Morgan. “Marcus, you first.”

  The Secretary of State ran a plump hand across the stubble on his unshaven chin. “To start with, Mr President, we gotta play for time. Emphasise the technical difficulties. Slam in a nice bill for compensation. Demand the return of every piece of equipment that we’ve ever installed in the British defence system, down to the last paper clip. Meanwhile we get our European allies to pile on the pressure, get the bankers to heat up the economy a little and quietly prepare for the worst.”

  “Anton?”

  Zablonski sat up straight, slicked back his hair and tightened the knot of his tie as though he were rising to address an audience of thousands. “I reckon,” he said firmly, “it’s about time we stopped babying the British. Tell them straight to get into line or else. We could start by organising a trade boycott and, if it comes to the worst, we could blockade the ports.”

  “That’s plain crazy.” McLennon could not restrain himself. “If we do that we’ll end up taking on the whole world.”

  “So what would you do,” snapped Zablonski, “put Perkins down for a Nobel Peace Prize?”

  McLennon ignored this. In his view Zablonski was a dangerous lunatic who enjoyed far too much access to the President. Lunatics like Zablonski had already driven half the world to Communism and, if they continued to have their way, it would not be long before the other half followed.

  “We have one thing going for us,” said McLennon. “British public opinion. Perkins is not as popular now as he was six months ago. That dispute with the power workers was very damaging. On top of which many people in Britain are worried about the Soviets. We must play that one for all it’s worth.” He paused to look across at the President who was making notes. Play Soviets, the President had written on a pad of white paper embossed with his seal.

  “And here,” McLennon went on, “I must pay tribute to the British intelligence boys. We often laugh at them, but I must say they have got their media sewn up tighter than a gnat’s ass-hole. Apart from a Communist rag, which no one takes seriously anyway, every national daily, every Sunday paper, just about every local newspaper from Surrey to the Scottish Highlands is on our side on this one. So is the BBC and most other television networks. All hammering Perkins and his crew every day. All playing the Soviet threat for everything it’s worth. In most countries we have to pay for that kind of coverage. In Britain we get it for free.” There was envy in his voice. If only the American establishment had a media half as friendly, half as unenquiring. “Sooner or later,” he said, “public opinion in Britain is bound to swing our way.” He paused and looked at Zablonski. “Unless we screw it all up by declaring war on them.”

  “George is right Mr President, we gotta play this cool.” It was Marcus Morgan. McLennon looked up in surprise. It was not often he had the Secretary of State on his side.

  “What we need,” Morgan went on, “is a bit of so-phist-ication.” The word rolled slowly off his tongue. Sophistication was not something widely associated with corporate lawyers. “If Anton had his way, we’d be training British mercenaries in Camp Hale by now.”

  “As I see it,” said Admiral Glugstein, who until now had sat back in silence, “our key objective must be to maintain the installations.” He pinched his trousers at the knee to preserve the crease. “The warheads are no problem. If the worst comes to the worst we can play the Brits along by flying them out to Germany or Spain. The submarines can also be temporarily relocated, if necessary. But the infrastructure, that’s another matter.”

  The admiral’s polished shoes gleamed in the light of a lampshade. His cuffs protruded a full two inches from the sleeve of his dinner jacket. “Yes sir,” he went on, “we got thirty billion dollars tied up in infrastructure. Communications, storage facilities and the like. If we lose that little lot we’re in trouble deep.”

  “That’s where the British military come in.” Morgan had taken a cigar from his top pocket and was fumbling for a lighter. “Providing we hand over to the British military, they should be able to babysit for us until the next election.”

  “And if Perkins wins the next election?” jeered Zablonski.

  “That,” said the President with a thin smile, “is item two on today’s agenda.”

  The RAF DC10 bringing Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Gibbon to Washington touched down at Andrews Air Force Base at around 9 am Washington time. Officially he was coming to talk to the American air force about an updated version of the F-18 which the RAF were hoping to buy. The visit had been scheduled months in advance. Unofficially, however, he had come to give the Americans a full briefing on the Chequers weekend and to sound them out on what was to be done. Although he was met at the airbase by a USAF staff car, he was driven not to the Pentagon, but to the State Department. To avoid the possibility of recognition he was dressed in civilian clothes. He entered the State Department by a service entrance at the rear of the building and was taken immediately to the office of the Secretary of State.

  If anyone had suggested to the air marshal that what he was engaged upon was treason he would have replied crisply that, on the contrary, he was engaged in an act of patriotism. If pressed, the air marshal would have argued that the citizen’s loyalty to the State was conditional upon the State recognising a responsibility to provide protection for the citizen. By withdrawing from the Atlantic alliance the British government was failing to honour its share of the bargain. Therefore, the air marshal was perfectly entitled to withdraw his loyalty from the State. He was not alone in this line of thinking. In one way or another such arguments were to be heard around the dinner tables and in the drawing rooms of gentlemen’s clubs the length and breadth of St James’s. They were to be heard in the officers’ mess at the Army Staff College at Camberley. And in the boardrooms of some of Britain’s grandest corporations. They were even, on occasion, to be heard between the four walls of a permanent secretary’s office in Whitehall.

  Very often such arguments were embellished by the suggestion that the loyalty of many government ministers was in doubt. If there was any treason going on, it was argued, it was more likely to be found in the Cabinet Room or behind the Georgian façade of Labour party headquarters at Walworth Road. To say nothing of some of the Marxist trade union leaders who made no secret about where their loyalties lay. This reasoning rarely made the newspapers, at least not in so crude a form. But it was what many very important people in Britain were thinking as the
winter of 1989 faded into spring of 1990.

  Of course no one in their wildest dreams would have envisaged a situation where any British Cabinet minister or even a Marxist trade union leader would actually undertake a trip to Moscow for the specific purpose of briefing the Soviet Foreign Minister on the secret deliberations of the British government. Everyone knew that Soviet sympathisers were a little more subtle than that.

  Yet here was an air marshal, who only hours before had been party to the highest level and most secret deliberations of the British government, seated in the office of the American Secretary of State, spilling the beans with gusto. Call it treason or patriotism or what you will.

  Marcus J. Morgan was in shirtsleeves, which did justice to his mighty biceps. Cold winds blew outside, but inside an air conditioner hummed gently. Or was it an extractor fan absorbing the endless screen of cigar smoke which wafted up from behind his paper-strewn desk? On a table by the window was a scale model of the B-1 bomber, the biggest, fastest and most expensive ever built. The air marshal gazed longingly at it and wondered aloud if the Royal Air Force would ever be able to afford a squadron of B-1s. “Don’t worry,” Morgan assured him, “Britain will get her share just as soon as we’ve extended the runways at Mildenhall.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight right from the start,” said Morgan after the air marshal had told him there was talk of resignations, “we don’t want to see any resigning. The battle’s only just beginning and we’re going to need you boys to stick in there. So stay stuck in.” The air marshal nodded. He could see the point, though he had never before heard the Chiefs of Staff of His Majesty’s armed forces referred to as “you boys”.

  “Another thing,” said Morgan after the air marshal had told him of the plan to dismantle the British warheads. “Instead of taking the warheads to Burghfield, just fly them to Germany and we’ll take care of them for you until the all clear sounds. Then you can have them back again.” He flicked the ash from his cigar into an ashtray made from the wing of a Soviet MIG shot down over Afghanistan. “You can put a few through Burghfield to keep Perkins happy. If necessary, soup up the figures a bit.” The air marshal nodded again. Yes, he thought that could be done. The real problem would be when the time came for Burghfield and Aldermaston to be dismantled. When that happened there would be no hope of Britain ever again maintaining an independent deterrent.

 

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