by James Philip
The new Secretary of State had been the junior United States Senator for Arkansas since January 1945, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1949, and its Chairman for the last four years. He was also a convinced segregationist – probably the clinching argument that had handed Dean Rusk his seat at the top table in 1961 – who was also, famously, the only member of the Senate to vote against a 1954 appropriation for Joseph McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, under the purview of which McCarthy unholy inquisition against alleged Un-American Activities was pursued. A former Rhodes scholar and attorney who had been admitted to the bar in Washington DC in 1934, he had gone into politics while he was lecturing in law at the University of Arkansas, first being elected to Congress in 1942. He was exactly the sort of independently minded and motivated political animal that was incomprehensible to many non-Americans. To an outsider his liberal multilaterism and opposition to right-wing anti-libertarian dogma, or any trammelling of existing civil liberties by the government sat diametrically opposed to – and apparently irreconcilable with - his trenchantly avowed segregationist position, and the gusto with which he had helped filibuster, for example, the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Only in America could a man have made his mark sponsoring a program - the Fulbright Program in 1946 - providing for educational grants in overseas countries to promote understanding between the United States and those countries; yet a few years later vehemently object to the Supreme Court’s decision in the 1954 Brown v Board of Education case, whereby Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren had ruled that Kansas’s State-sanctioned segregation of public schools amounted to a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. Only in a country as big and as diverse as America could a man like William Fulbright have prospered, and eventually, albeit by default, become the safe pair of hands into which his President had belatedly entrusted the Unites States’ self-evidently bankrupt foreign policy.
Outside several inches of fresh overnight snow carpeted the wooded slopes of the Catoctin Mountains as the ‘conference’ began. The Secretary of State was still trying to get a handle on Walter Brenckmann, the obscure US Navy captain who had tried to sound the alarm bell before the recent near-catastrophic breach in Anglo-American relations, whom Bobby Kennedy had – pretty much single-handedly - persuaded the President to appoint as the new Ambassador to the Court of Balmoral. Fulbright was not one of those who resented, or saw the President’s younger brother as some kind of impediment to good governance. The Attorney General had emerged wiser from the recent farrago; and for the first time he could envisage the younger sibling as a genuine Presidential contender in say, ten years time. But that was for the future and the pressing problem was the here and the now.
Walter Brenckmann did not immediately stand out in a crowd. He was of average height, a year or two shy of Fulbright’s age and greying. His voice was confident, and he gave a man a long, contemplative stare, unblinking while he was in conversation. His wife was a little older, very grey, and slim without being wiry. Clearly she was one of those calm, pragmatic women who were behind most happy families and most successful men. Walter Brenckmann had stipulated that if the President wanted him to go abroad again in the service of his country then it would be ‘as a team with my wife’. Basically, before the October War the Brenckmann’s had been planning to retire to Florida and if they could not do that, they would at least be together for what remained of their declining years.
Walter Brenckmann was not just the guy who had warned the State Department that the ‘special relationship’ had fallen into disrepair and become a ticking time bomb; if he had not tackled that mad woman in the Oval Office the President and half his Administration might have been killed. One way and another, the former Naval Attaché had a lot of credit in the bank. If he wanted his wife in on this ‘conference’, that was okay.
Oliver, as Lord Franks, the fifty-eight year old new British Ambassador insisted on being called had instantly established a rapport with the Massachusetts home-maker as they sat next to each other in comfortable chairs around the fire in the Main Lodge. For her part, Joanne Brenckmann was clearly charmed by the suave, scholarly Englishman.
“I should start by thanking you,” Fulbright declared, bringing the informal session to order as he fixed Oliver Franks in his sights, “for the dossier of information regarding the state of former US Bases in the United Kingdom and the detailed inventory regarding the disposition of munitions and recoverable war stores.”
The British Ambassador smiled. He had been as surprised as his American hosts to receive abstracts of the same survey reports and damage assessments recently compiled for the Unity Administration at home only days, in some cases, hours, after they had been submitted to his sponsors in England.
“When Mrs Thatcher makes a promise she keeps it, Bill,” he rejoined, pursing his lips for a moment. “I confess,” he smiled, “the lady is something of a revelation to us all.”
Joanne Brenckmann cleared her throat.
“Is it really true that she’s cheered everywhere she goes, Oliver?”
“Apparently. I think she’s struck a chord with our people in the United Kingdom. She’s like a real breath of fresh air.”
“Is she really a blond?”
Lord Franks chuckled.
“No, dear lady,” he shook his head. “Although, in a certain light...”
Walter Brenckmann entered the fray.
“Actually, she’s very new to all this. Which means she’s got none of the pre-war baggage, and hardly any of the guilt of many of her closest senior advisers. She was just a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Pensions, a relatively very junior member of the Government before the war. Albeit I believe she was the youngest woman ever to be appointed to such a post, and the first Member of Parliament among those elected in the 1959 election to be so promoted. This ‘Angry Widow’ thing plays incredibly well with the people in England because it chimes with the common experience of, well, everybody over there in a way that even now, I don’t think a lot of Americans understand.” He looked to Lord Franks.
The Englishman nodded sagely.
“I think you’re right, Walter. Although, obviously, you’d be a better judge of the mood of the American people than I.”
The Secretary of State listened to the brief interchange.
“Our two countries have signed up to a lot of good intentions,” he said to the British Ambassador. “In good faith. Between ourselves we can agree on that much, I hope.” Nobody demurred. “Moreover, the President has issued Executive Orders, realistically, to the limit of his powers to make good on several of his promises.”
Grain ships and tankers had already set sail from Gulf and east Coast ports bound for the United Kingdom. Badly needed pharmaceuticals including stockpiled antibiotics had been flown across the North Atlantic but it was only a start and they all knew it.
Fulbright went on.
“We’ve got problems of our own that we need to address before we can talk about re-integrating our militaries, for example.” This was an understatement of monumental proportions. As they spoke a root and branch purge – there was no other word for it than ‘purge’ – was being jointly conducted by the FBI, the National Security Council, and the Secret Service of the senior command of the US Atlantic Fleet, what remained of the Air Force Department, and of at least eight State National Guard Divisions. The Department of Defence was not, and would not be for some time, in a position to categorically declare that the nation’s military was actually under the command and control of the President of the United States of America. The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Curtis LeMay – the man who more than any other responsible for putting down the insurgency and winning the Battle of Washington – was roaring around the North American continent ruthlessly restoring a particularly rough and ready form of absolute ‘command and control’. Without LeMay nobody knew what would have become of the country in recent weeks. The man was a genu
ine all-American hero. “Which means,” Fulbright apologised to the British Ambassador, “in the event of a crisis in the United Kingdom’s sphere of influence,” essentially Western Europe and the Mediterranean, “at this time I cannot foresee the United States being in any position to offer more than symbolic military assistance in the foreseeable future.”
“I think that is understood in England,” Oliver Franks said sombrely. “I think most of the uncertainties in this area revolve around the, er, elephant in the room.”
“Which elephant would that be?” Joanne Brenckmann queried, raising her coffee cup to her lips.
“Red Dawn,” he husband murmured.
“I understood this Red Dawn thing had shot its bolt?” The wife queried.
“In America, for the moment.”
“There are many areas of the World which are complete blind spots to both the CIA and to British Intelligence,” the Secretary of State explained. A part of him was questioning why he was about to divulge his country’s most secret intelligence to a housewife from Cambridge, Massachusetts who had never even held a Government job; the other part of him reflected that in this new World so brutally burned out of the old, such oddities constituted the ‘new normal’ of business as usual. “There are indications that Red Dawn may have subverted what before the October War was Turkey and areas of neighbouring countries. It is unclear whether Red Dawn will target the Balkans and perhaps, Italy, or strike south into the Middle East. Frankly, we have no idea what military clout Red Dawn may have accumulated, how many people have been persuaded to side with it or even if the populations of the areas in which it may – and I emphasise the clause ‘the areas in which it may’ – be operating have been assimilated into its foul movement. Our British ‘allies’ have informed us that they are doing what they can to reinforce their existing forces in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean. Currently, a relatively small combined air, sea and land force has secured strategic control of the island of Cyprus. This will be crucial if Red Dawn strikes into the Levant, Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq because a base in Cyprus will allow us to fly in supplies and to operate aircraft in support of Israel and Jordan, the only two inherently sympathetic coherent military powers in that region.” Realising he was extemporising more than he had intended, the Secretary of State paused to draw breath and collect his thoughts.
“Oh,” Joanne Brenckmann murmured. “You really think war is inevitable?”
Her husband sighed; as always his wife had cut through the hyperbole to the nub of the matter and voiced the nightmare of both the American and British governments.
“Not inevitable,” the Secretary of State parried. “But possible. Light munitions and other military stores are being sent on every aircraft and ship bound for the United Kingdom. Normally, there would be an Airborne Division of a Marine Expeditionary Force ready for mobilisation and transportation abroad at two to four weeks; presently, those forces are deployed on policing duties at home. Most of Strategic Air Command is locked down. The Atlantic Fleet is either mothballed or effectively unemployable. Basically, the Federal Government can’t risk a new general mobilization of forces until the internal security situation has been resolved. We don’t know if there will be another war. If it doesn’t happen for six months or a year we might be in a good place to fight it. If it happens before then,” he shrugged, quirked an apologetic grimace in Oliver Franks’s direction, “I’m afraid our British friends may be on their own.”
Chapter 10
Monday 20th January 1964
Government Buildings, Cheltenham, England
The Prime Minister had been at her desk since six o’clock that morning and now, nearly five hours later, she showed no signs of flagging. Sir Henry Tomlinson, the head of the Home Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet knocked lightly at his mistress’s open door.
Margaret Thatcher looked up for a moment.
“Come in, Sir Henry,” she said in that friendly soprano she seemed capable of finding no matter what the time of day, or how tired she was feeling. She finished reading the paper on her desk, initialled the bottom of the page and looked up, again.
“The Cabinet awaits, Prime Minister,” the eminence grise of the Unity Administration reminded her with a half-smile. “Forgive me, but you really do need a private secretary.”
The Angry Widow viewed him with the briefest flicker of exasperation.
Peter Thorneycroft, her recently re-appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer had told her that about an hour ago. Chancellor of the Exchequer, that almost made it sound like her Government had something like a pre-war Treasury rather than stacks of hurriedly printed, virtually valueless paper currency and a mile high pile of ‘I owe yous’ that it was never going to repay in a million years. The post of Chancellor might still be a non sequitur but one day, hopefully soon, it might mean something again. Sometimes that was the beauty of giving a thing a proper name.
“You’ll be glad to hear that Lady Patricia has laid on tea and light refreshments,” the Cabinet Secretary declared.
Lady Patricia, the wife of the Foreign Secretary, Sir Thomas ‘Tom’ Harding-Grayson, had accompanied the ‘peace mission’ to Washington DC and had made herself indispensible to Margaret Thatcher as a non-political feminine confidante, dresser, and general pressure release valve. She had also proved diplomatically adroit at keeping all the people the Prime Minister did not need to see at arm’s length.
“That’s most considerate of her,” the Prime Minister declared, picking up her handbag and following her Cabinet Secretary out into the long cold first floor corridor of the draughty old mansion that now accommodated what passed for the seat of Government of their sorely abused land.
Before the war the Cabinet had comprised twenty-one ministers. Edward Heath had attempted to mimic this in his UKIEA; Margaret Thatcher had resolved that a Cabinet of no more than twelve members including the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, currently the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir David Luce, was sufficient in the present circumstances. Of the eleven other members of her Cabinet, the Foreign Secretary was a political appointment with no Party affiliation, and of the other ten members six were drawn from the Conservative and Unionist Party of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and four from the Labour and Co-operative Party.
The Prime Minister headed the Conservatives who included in their number the Unionist Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Sir Basil Brooke, who had elected not to attend this Cabinet conclave due to the fluidity of events in Ulster. In this case ‘fluidity’ was a euphemism for the near civil war that was tying down over twenty thousand British troops badly needed in the Mediterranean. Northern Ireland was a canker that was going to have to wait for another time; likewise the disgraceful behaviour of the Government of the Republic in Dublin in at best tacitly, and at worst, deliberately inflaming the sectarian tensions at play in the north.
The other Conservative Party ministers around the oval table were: William Whitelaw, the forty-five year old Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border, at Defence; Peter Thorneycroft reinstated in the post he had held for several years in the 1950s at the Treasury; Airey Neave at Supply, which now also oversaw Transportation; Iain Macleod at the Ministry of Information; and holding down the Scottish Office, the one largely intact pre-war ministry, John Scott Maclay, the fifty-eight year old MP for Renfrewshire.
The labour ‘faction’ was led by James Callaghan, the leader of the Labour and Co-operative Party, who was Margaret Thatcher’s deputy. Unlike in Edward Heath’s Administration, if anything happened to her he would automatically become the next Prime Minister and would remain so as long as he retained sufficient support in the country and Her Majesty’s confidence. He also held the portfolio of Secretary of State for Wales. To balance the ‘unity’ of the Unity Administration of the United Kingdom, the posts of the Home, Labour and Health departments had been assigned to Labour Party nominees; respectively Roy Jenkins, Anthony Crossland and Christopher Mayhew.
&nbs
p; Charles Anthony Raven Crosland, the forty-five year old MP for Grimsby, was one of the finest minds in British politics, and would have risen high in his Party and in Government regardless of the intervention of the October War. His Ministry of Labour portfolio included a brief to explore options for re-creating a new national education system. Schools were currently the responsibility of the Emergency District Administrations, while at present the surviving Universities were left to their own devices, other than where their funding was directly related to Government defence research, development or other priority projects.
Forty-eight year old Christopher Paget Mayhew, who had been MP for Woolwich East, the seat of his old friend and mentor Ernest Bevin was a pro-Arabist with liberal views that before the October War had sat uncomfortably within his own Party. Margaret Thatcher had hesitated before rubber-stamping his appointment to the Health Ministry, but James Callaghan had offered no obvious or better qualified candidate, so she had accepted Mayhew, albeit on probation.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” the Prime Minister chimed as she entered the room to a squealing of chair legs on the wooden floor. It irritated her that she was the only woman in Cabinet. Women had suffered the vicissitudes of the recent war and its dreadful aftermath, in fact, by any logically applied standard women and children had suffered the most; and yet they were barely represented in the higher echelons of the UAUK. She would have nominated a woman from her own Party if one had been available with any of the necessary qualifications – necessary qualifications, that was a nonsense, she was a grocer’s daughter from Grantham with degrees in chemistry and law and was learning by trial and error as she went along – and Jim Callaghan had been oddly reluctant to promote the cases of women in the Labour movement. The name of Barbara Castle – the fifty-three year old left-wing Member of Parliament for Blackburn - had been mooted briefly; but not forwarded as a cabinet nominee. So many things to do and no time whatsoever to spare. “Does everybody have a copy of the agenda?”