8 When we have brought about one or two ‘Thompson retreats’, we should flatter the new president and move back towards detente. We should not even insist on keeping all the ground gained for our Egyptian and other allies (some of whom might become inconveniently big for their boots) during the initial Thompson retreats. We should also play upon the President-elect’s vanity by manoeuvring the lame-duck Carter Administration into taking some of the preliminary steps in preparation for a possible war before Thompson’s Inauguration Day on 20 January. Then we should proclaim on Inauguration Day that ‘Democratic Administrations have always started wars in American history, while Republican Administrations have always stopped them’, and make Thompson feel he is a great peacemaker instead of the weak demagogue he is. This desirable timetable means that we need to move quickly.
9 The five (partly alternative) plans that might be put into effect quickly are: (a) Operation Middle East; (b) Operation India; (c) Operation Central America; (d) Operation Southern Africa; (e) Operation Yugoslavia. We know from our agents in the US that Thompson’s advisers — e.g., in last week’s so-called secret Think-Tank report and the Ex-Secretary’s report — are worried about all five of these, and are in the usual state of capitalist muddle about how to react to any of them. As will emerge, I recommend only Operation Middle East and Operation Southern Africa. I am opposed, for reasons I will state, to Operations India and Central America. I would also not yet implement Operation Yugoslavia. But let us keep the Americans worrying for a time that we may start any of them.
10 Operation Middle East. Some people in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Egypt have long wished to arrange coups d’état in the enormously oil-rich and effete states of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Gulf, and to proclaim a new United Arab Republic. We have hitherto restrained them from this. We should now actively and immediately encourage it. A Middle East planning team should be set up, and make daily reports to the Politburo each evening at 6 p.m. from now on. Primary (and attainable) objective: by Thompson’s Inauguration Day on 20 January, the new president should have to take steps to restrain Iran and to safeguard America’s oil, jumping humiliatingly through hoops plainly held by us. Secondary (but more difficult) objective: it will be a very great advantage indeed if thereafter Egypt remains in command of the oil of a new United Arab Republic, and we can remain in command of Egypt.
11 Operation India. Some of the Asian republics of the Soviet Union are frightened that the more successful (and unfortunately more capitalist) successor states of the old Indian Union may gravitate towards the China-Japan co-prosperity sphere; this is the so-called policy of ‘turning India into a hundred Hong Kongs’. Our Asian comrades say this could intensify pressures in the industrializing Soviet-Asian republics to move the same way, and even ‘bring a coup d’état in Khabarovsk’, where too many Japanese businessmen are now allowed on day trips from Tokyo in connection with joint Japanese ventures for the development of Siberia. It is therefore suggested, under Operation India, that friendly socialist states of the former Indian Union be encouraged to overrun successful capitalist neighbours (especially the smaller and most capitalist and most successful ones); this is the so-called strategy of ‘making those hundred Indian Hong Kongs into a hundred Goas’. I am opposed to a full Operation India at this juncture, because (a) I am not sure we would win (we would be allying ourselves with the weakest forces in the region, not the strongest); (b) I do not want to annoy China-Japan at this time (it is vital to keep China-Japan separate from America, instead of unnecessarily promoting an alliance between them); and (c) we should not disperse our effort in these next few critical weeks. By all means, however, make the Americans think uneasily that an operation in India may be in the wind. Perhaps we should encourage some ‘trade union’ strikes in appropriate places in capitalist India, and possibly some assassinations. I suggest that a second-rank KGB planning team be given this responsibility. Objective: to keep the pot boiling, but not to precipitate any actual changes of regime, except if some rotten Indian capitalist apples fall off the bough right into our buckets.
12 Operation Central America. Our Caribbean friends (among whom Jamaica is now rather more valuable than Cuba) say that the new President of Mexico is a dynamic and able man, who is dangerously liable to turn Mexico into a prosperous and breakthrough country. This could raise the danger of coups d’état against the governments of our Caribbean allies and the less successful semi-socialist governments in South America. The Jamaicans and Cubans are therefore eager to arrange a coup d’état in Mexico in these next few dying weeks of the lame-duck Carter presidency. I am opposed to Operation Central America on much the same grounds as I oppose a full Operation India: (a) we might not succeed; and (b) Mexico is altogether too near America, and an attempted communist coup d’état there might unite Americans around Presidents Carter and Thompson, possibly even leading to decisive American action, while our whole object is to find operations which will produce disunity, and where America cannot take decisive action because the outgoing and incoming Administrations will not agree. Once again, however, as with Operation India, there might be a case for a modified version of Operation Central America. An assassination of the Mexican president could be advantageous, done by somebody who cannot be traced to us, while we express the most effusive condolences to the still capitalist but much weaker Mexican vice-president, whose vanity will be assuaged by then acceding to office. A KGB team should report on the possibilities.
13 Operation Southern Africa. The Jamaicans are keen that the friendly countries in black Africa should extend external and internal guerrilla war against the ‘white homeland states’ of the former Union of South Africa and their associated ‘Uncle Tom’ states. There are three reasons why we should support this action, provided it can be organized in time. First, the economic success of the ‘Uncle Tom’ states, and the surprising continuing prosperity of the white homelands, mean that a process of right-wing coups d’état is liable to spread all up black Africa — and also, which naturally worries Jamaica, into the black Caribbean. Second, the white homelands do still follow a baaskap policy in some respects; many Americans, especially black Americans, will not regard them as respectable allies beside whom American troops should fight. Third, the confused military set-up in South Africa should create advantages for us. We have the capability there to keep on putting the Americans in very embarrassing situations indeed. With the troubles in the Middle East because of our operation there the Americans will also be anxious about the supply lines for oil round the Cape. In addition, I suggest (for your ears only) that the Red Army ‘volunteer officers’ we send to Southern Africa should be those whom we could not wholly trust to put down workers in Warsaw, and whom we would most like to have out of Moscow. Instead of repeating Stalin’s Red Army purges of the 1930s (which we have not the power to do), let us send the less reliable officers to lead bands of black natives wandering over the undefended veldt! The black natives will stop these gentlemen from being too liberal. It does not matter much that there will be no time for a coherent military plan, because Operation Southern Africa will not have a coherent military objective. The political objectives will be: (a) to put the Americans in an embarrassing position by compelling lame-duck President Carter to commit American forces to unpopular pro-white South Africa action, from which President Thompson will have to retreat embarrassingly; and (b) to make it clear to the international business world that continued investment in the white homelands and in the ‘Uncle Tom’ states will not remain peaceful and profitable for long. At the end of Operation Southern Africa it would possibly be desirable that at least one of the three white homelands should pass over to black rule, so as to mark Thompson’s humiliation.