A Very British Coup (21 page)

They moved on to tanks and it was the same again. Mrs Cook wanted to know if the figures included obsolete Russian tanks. Ted Curran wondered aloud whether precision guided missiles had not rendered the tank almost useless and, in any case, why had no mention been made of anti-tank weapons? Then they turned to aircraft. Did the figures include planes based in America, but earmarked for Europe? If not, why not? How many of the Soviet planes were interceptors? Why was no distinction made between interceptors and attack aircraft?

And so it went on. The beads of sweat that formed on the colonel's forehead showed clearly in the beam of the projector. By about the third slide the tone of crisp, military self-assurance that he had carried with him since Sandhurst had disappeared. General Payne, in the front row, fixed him with a glassy stare and did not let go for a full minute. The permanent secretaries were silently appalled. Surely the MoD could put up a better show than this? They must have known they were in for a rough ride. “Trouble with the chaps at MoD,” whispered Sir Peter Kennedy to his opposite number at the Home Office as they filed out when the show was over, “is that, until now, they've always had ministers who accept whatever nonsense is put in front of them.” He blinked rapidly as they came into daylight. “They don't seem to realise those days are over.”

*

Perkins was the first to surface on Sunday morning. Or at least he thought he was until he crossed the landing overlooking the Great Hall and saw Mrs Cook ensconced in one of the deep armchairs with the papers. “Morning Joan.” She looked up sharply as Perkins appeared at the balustrade.

“Ah, there you are, Harry. I want a word with you.”

“Fire away.” Perkins was leaning on the banisters which turned the first floor landing into a sort of gallery overlooking the hallway.

Mrs Cook, who was standing by now, shook her head. She placed the papers on the chair in which she had been sitting and indicated silently that he should come down. She was waiting at the foot of the stairs and without speaking, save a mumbled “Good morning” to the policeman on duty in the porch, they went outside. In the forecourt they turned left and through a gate in the brick wall that surrounded the south terrace. There had been a frost in the night and their feet made light imprints on the stone terrace. Mrs Cook did not speak until they were out of earshot of the house and going down the steps into the rose garden.

“Harry,” she said, “there's something you ought to know.”

“There's a lot of things I ought to know,” smiled Perkins.

“I had the Prison Room last night,” continued Mrs Cook. The Prison Room, an attic bedroom so called because it had once acted as a place of detention for a lady of the court who had fallen foul of Queen Elizabeth the First, stood apart from the other bedrooms at Chequers and could only be reached by a spiral staircase from either the Hawtrey Room on the ground floor or the Great Parlour immediately above. “After dinner I did some work on my despatch box and set off for bed around midnight. I was just about to cross the parlour on my way to the spiral staircase, when I heard voices.”

Mrs Cook described how she had hovered in the doorway and managed to identify the voices as belonging to Lawrence Wainwright, the Chancellor, and Air Marshal Gibbon. The parlour was lit only by a single lampshade on the mantelpiece
and peeping round the door she could see that the two men were seated, port glasses in hand, close by the entrance to the staircase. Not wanting to disturb them she retraced her steps down the main staircase and into the Hawtrey Room. From there she had entered the spiral stairway up which she crept until she drew level with the first floor. “The door leading from the staircase into the parlour was ajar and I had not switched on the light on the staircase for fear of alerting Wainwright and Gibbon. I couldn't hear everything, but Wainwright was saying he had planned to resign but Craddock had advised him not to.”

“Craddock?” said Perkins. “Would that be the D15 Craddock?”

“Who else?”

They had completed a circuit of the rose garden and were now back by the steps leading to the terrace. Mrs Cook indicated that her story was not yet finished and so they commenced a second circuit. “Wainwright said that Craddock had advised him to stay on at least until the Americans had been consulted.”

“The sly bastard,” said Perkins almost under his breath.

“Then Gibbon piped up and said that he'd be in Washington next week and would take the opportunity to sound out the Americans then.”

“Sound them out about what?”

“They didn't say, but I imagine it's got something to do with the bases. Gibbon did say something about seeing the Secretary of State and maybe even the President.”

As they returned to the house they ran into Wainwright on his way out. He greeted Perkins with a hearty “Morning Prime Minister”, but Perkins could not help noticing that Wainwright avoided looking him straight in the eye.

When they assembled in the Great Parlour for the morning session there was one new face among them. A small man in his early sixties with thick black eyebrows and a shock of white hair. He was seated on the right of Perkins who introduced him as Sir Montague Kowalsky, chief scientific
adviser to the Ministry of Defence. “Sir Monty's going to tell us how we get rid of the bomb,” said Perkins.

The small man gave a nervous smile. “Gentlemen,” he said and then, with a nod of the head in the direction of Mrs Cook, “and Madam.” He fumbled with the documents in front of him. “You should all have a copy of my paper. I shall make a short summary.”

He spoke with a central European accent. “A nuclear warhead is a very delicate instrument. To remain functional it requires constant maintenance and the regular replacement of sensitive components. Withdraw the facilities for main tenance and refurbishment and you lose the capacity to retain nuclear weapons.” Sir Monty's forearms rested on the table. “Warheads rely for detonation upon such elements as plutonium, tritium and in the old days, polonium.”

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.”

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 to 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.