- LONDON -- Relations between
Britain and the United States fell to their lowest ebb ever as the world
came to the brink of nuclear war in 1973, British archives released yesterday
show.
Cabinet documents released from secrecy after 30 years show Prime Minister
Edward Heath was furious when he found the US in a nuclear face-off with
Russia without having told Britain or other NATO allies.
The action came as the US prepared plans to invade Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
to seize their oil fields as oil prices rocketed after the 1973 Arab-Israeli
war.
When Soviet Russia threatened to intervene in the war on the side of the
Arabs, US President Richard Nixon put US forces on worldwide nuclear alert.
That took the superpowers nearer nuclear conflict than at any time since
the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the only other time US forces had been put
on Alert Stage 3.
The files suggest Mr Nixon s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger misled
the British Ambassador in Washington, Lord Cromer, over the US alert, even
though it covered American troops stationed in Britain.
Mr Heath only learnt what had happened from news reports several hours
later whilst sitting in the Commons alongside Foreign Secretary Sir Alec
Douglas-Home. In a blistering memorandum to his private secretary Lord
Bridges, Mr Heath demanded to know what had happened.
I wish the highest priority to be given to this with no attempt whatever
to hide any defects there may have been in our system at home or the ambiguities
in President Nixon s conduct he said.
He also ordered Britain s spy chiefs on the Joint Intelligence Committee
to produce a detailed assessment of the American action.
Personally I fail to see how any initiative, threatened or real, by the
Soviet leadership required such a worldwide nuclear alert, he said.
On the other hand we have to face the fact that the American action has
done immense harm, I believe, both in this country and worldwide.
I have found considerable alarm as to what use the Americans would have
been able to make of their forces here without in any way consulting us
or considering the British interests .
The JIC assessment agreed with Mr Heath that the US action was probably
not justified. It also said Dr Kissinger, who had been speaking to Lord
Cromer as the alert came into force, had failed to reveal the true extent
of what the Americans were doing.
American planning to invade Arab oil nations followed the slashing of oil
production by the Arab nations to send prices rocketing while imposing
an embargo on sales to the Americans over their support for Israel in the
war.
The British archive documents make embarrassing reading, given continuing
US-Saudi tensions over their support for Israel in the war.
One document, titled Middle East Possible Use of Force by the United States,
said that if faced with deteriorating conditions such as a breakdown of
the ceasefire between Arab and Israeli forces following the Yom Kippur
War, or an intensification of the embargo, we believe the American preference
would be for a rapid operation conducted by themselves to seize the oilfields.
It cited a warning from Defence Secretary James Schlesinger to Lord Cromer
that the US would not tolerate threats from under-developed under-populated
countries and that it was no longer obvious to him that the US could not
use force .
The embargo which lasted until March 1974, cut off only 13% of US oil imports
but caused steep petrol price rises and petrol queues around the world.
US retaliatory plans were confirmed by Dr Kissinger in his memoir Years
of Upheaval. He said: "I ordered a number of studies from the key
departments on counter measures against Arab members of OPEC if the embargo
continued." By the end of the month several contingency studies had
been completed.
The bitterness between the US and Britain continued for months and involved
acrimonious exchanges between Lord Cromer and Mr. Schlesinger. Lord Cromer
wrote to Sir Alec: "I have remarked before that couthness is not Schlesinger
s strong point. One or two of his remarks bordered on the offensive, though
I think I gave as good as I got."
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- The Telegraph Group, London, Washington Post and AP
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- Comment
From Gary D Chance
1-3-4
-
- "That took the superpowers nearer nuclear conflict
than at any time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the only other time
US forces had been put on Alert State 3."
-
- Seymour Hersh in his book "The Price of Power: Kissinger
in the Nixon White House," Summit Books, a division of Simon &
Schuster, Inc., New York, 1983, reports differently on pages 124 and 125.
-
- There was a Def Con 1 alert for 29 days in October 1969.
Alert State 3 above probably refers to what is actually called Def Con
3. This is a readiness alert. Def Con 1 is war.
-
- According to Seymour Hersh the B-52s were all grounded,
loaded with nuclear weapons and set to take off. Further, tactical jet
fighters were also loaded with nuclear weapons with some actually sitting
out on the end of the runway ready for take off but subjected to possible
sabotage with the nuclear arms aboard.
-
- This Def Con 1 went on and on for 29 days until it was
deemed irresponsible to keep the B-52s grounded. They had to be kept flying
to maintain good condition so that finally the training and flying missions
were resumed.
-
- Read about it in Hersh's splendid book.
-
- So what's all the fuss about after the October War in
1973? Nixon and Kissinger did far worse in October 1969 trying to impress
the Soviets. They must have been suffering from a JFK complex.
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