“What are the papers saying about the Cabinet reshuffle?” Margaret Thatcher inquired brusquely as she cautiously stood up, attempting to find her balance without provoking fresh waves of pain from her damaged lower back.
“Very little,” Sir Henry Tomlinson said. “The ‘Irish measures’ seem to be attracting the most attention.”
“Hum!” The Prime Minister sighed.
Since neither the Kennedy Administration nor the Government of the Irish Republic thought that smuggling advanced weapons across the North Atlantic to enable ‘criminals’ to shoot down aircraft in England was a big thing; the Unity Administration of the United Kingdom — the UAUK — had taken steps to ensure that in future both would understand exactly how big a thing it was!
One hundred and eighty-nine people — one hundred and forty-seven men, thirty-six women and six — three boys and three girls under age of ten — children had been killed in last Monday’s terrorist outrages. There had to be consequences or those complicit in those ‘war crimes’ would go on to commit further, heinous atrocities in the name of their godforsaken cause. Margaret Thatcher felt personally responsible for ensuring that there were consequences.
This was not the time for half measures.
One. As of midnight yesterday the trans-shipment of goods of any description to ports or airports or by road from the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland to the Irish Republic was absolutely prohibited.
Two. The United Kingdom had asserted the absolute right to stop and search any vehicle, aircraft or vessel at sea on route to, or suspected to be on route to the Irish Republic.
Three. Diplomatic relations with the Irish Republic had been suspended indefinitely.
Four. In the absence of effective action by the Irish Republic the United Kingdom reserved the right to strike at — after the event or pre-emptively in self-defence — and destroy, without let, hindrance or notice ‘terrorist’ targets within the Irish Republic.
Two days ago a third terrorist, a former British army non-commissioned officer, had been captured in Gloucestershire. The man had been living rough in the country. When cornered he had tried to kill himself but only succeeded in shooting off most of his right ear.
Margaret Thatcher had authorised the use of ‘special interrogation techniques’ on all three IRA men in custody. It was the first time she had signed off on torture but she had done it without a qualm.
“Via the Swedish legation the Irish Prime Minister is claiming that our quote ‘Imperialist bully boy tactics amount to a blockade and that it will inevitably lead to a second great famine,” Sir Henry Tomlinson declared, his tone blandly neutral.
“Well,” Margaret Thatcher huffed irritably, “he should have thought about that before he allowed the IRA to embark on a proxy war in support of his party’s avowedly ‘United Ireland’ platform!”
The Cabinet Secretary would have reminded his Prime Minister that although the Irish Taoiseach’s Fianna Fáil party did in fact still publicly pay lip service to the goal of reuniting the six counties of Ulster with the twenty-six counties of the south, it no more wanted to actually attempt to govern the north than it wanted to discredit itself with its natural constituency by going to war with the IRA. However, right now the Prime Minister’s emotions regarding the person of her Irish counterpart, former IRA man Sean Lemass were too raw, and the feelings abroad in the country were too febrile for the voice of reason to have any chance of prevailing. Perhaps, there would be time later when reason might have a chance to be heard?
Privately, Sir Henry Tomlinson was a little surprised, and enormously relieved that the extraordinary force of nature that was Margaret Thatcher, had — for all her faults and inexperience in government — firmly vetoed any ‘loose talk’ of immediate military action, or reprisals, against the Irish Republic.
In this troubled age a wise man was always thankful for small mercies.
Chapter 4
Fifty-eight year old Marshal of the Soviet Union Hamazasp Khachaturi Babadzhanian was the last of the hastily called conference’s participants to arrive; having flown up from the Advanced Headquarters of Army Group South at Ardabil in Azerbaijani Iran that morning at first light.
As his Mil Mi-6 helicopter had rattled over the miraculously intact city of Sverdlovsk from the airport, Babadzhanian had secretly wondered how long the Yankees and the British would leave this untouched place and others, like Chelyabinsk to the south unbombed. It now seemed likely that had the collective leadership — with whom he was meeting that afternoon — authorised a second city-killer strike on Baghdad after the destruction of Tehran that Kennedy, and or, his lackeys the British, would have attempted to complete the work they had left unfinished in the Cuban Missiles War.
The other thing he wondered about; and this was a thing that was probably giving the collective leadership more than a little pause for thought, was why the Americans had let that woman be the one to issue the ultimatum?
‘The Soviet leadership is hereby given notice that any further use of nuclear weapons by it, its allies or its proxies will result in an all out strike by the United Kingdom against the forces of the Soviet Union and any surviving concentrations of population or industry within the former territories of the Soviet Union, or in any territories deemed to now be under Soviet control.’
There was no mention of Yankee B-52s or missiles standing ready in their invulnerable silos in the American Midwest.
Just: ‘RAF bombers stand ready at the end of their runways at four minutes notice to go to war. Other RAF bombers are airborne at this time ready to strike within minutes of the receipt of the order to attack!’
Babadzhanian did not speak English. However, he had listened to the woman deliver her message a dozen times; trying to learn what lay beneath the words. Although he did not understand the words she was saying — other than in the translation, obviously — he completely understood the unbending steel in that woman’s voice.
While both his armies — 3rd Caucasus Tank Army on the right and 2nd Siberian Mechanised Army on the left, and his Army Group mobile artillery — were equipped with a small number of tactical, essentially battlefield nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union, what was left of it, no longer possessed a viable strategic first strike strategic option. Apart from a couple of dozen turboprop Tu-95s and a handful of operational jet Myasishchev M-4 Molot long range bombers the Red Air Force had no means of attacking the continental United States of America. Although some kind of attack might be mounted against the British, all the available intelligence suggested that the United Kingdom retained a functioning air defence system, so even this ‘option’ was to all intents, theoretical and therefore not to be trusted. Possessing nuclear weapons was no use unless you could use the damned things!
This was clearly not a problem for the British or for the Americans. In the last seventy-two hours RAF V-Bombers had moved into position at Malta, Cyprus and at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia.
Babadzhanian did not believe for a single moment that the Red Air Force’s claims to have rebuilt ‘an impregnable umbrella of radars, missiles and fighters’ over the ‘home cities of Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk’ was worth a bucket of bear shit!