Ted
Heath's government feared - at the height of the 1973
oil crisis - that the White House was planning to invade
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to secure fuel supplies,
according to Downing Street files released today.
Suspicions about Richard Nixon's administration as it
struggled to shake free from the Watergate scandal, the
documents show, were reinforced when the prime minister
was only belatedly informed of a worldwide nuclear alert
declared by the US.
The files, handed over to the National Archive in Kew
under the 30-year rule, expose a disturbing and
acrimonious episode in "the special
relationship" between London and Washington.
In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur war, America
blamed Britain for failing to open its military bases.
The defeated Arab nations then imposed an oil embargo on
the west.
The US defense secretary, James Schlesinger, told
Britain's ambassador in Washington, Lord Cromer,
"it was no longer obvious to him that the US could
not use force".
Schlesinger had already clashed with Lord Carrington,
the British defense secretary. The ambassador's
interview was no more amicable. "Couthness is not
Schlesinger's strong point," he said in a cable to
London. "One or two of his remarks bordered on the
offensive."
But
it was the substance of Schlesinger's remarks which set
alarm bells ringing. "[One] outcome of the Middle
East crisis," he told Lord Cromer, "was the
[sight] of industrialized nations being continuously
submitted to [the] whims of under-populated,
under-developed countries, particularly [those in the]
Middle East.
"Schlesinger did not draw any specific
conclusion from this but the unspoken assumption came
through ... that it might not ... be possible to rule
out a more direct application of military force".
A week later, in mid-November, Henry Kissinger, the
US secretary of state, warned that if the Arab oil
embargo continued unreasonably and in definitely,
America would have to decide what counter-measures were
necessary.
In the grip of an international security crisis,
Heath commissioned a report - titled Middle East:
Possible Use of Force by the United States - from Percy
Cradock of the joint intelligence committee.
The 22-page survey, delivered to the prime minister
in December, warned that the most likely US military
action was the seizure of oil-producing areas. Such a
move might be triggered by a resumption of the
Arab/Israeli war and protracted oil sanctions.
"The United States might consider it could not
tolerate a situation in which the US and its allies were
at the mercy of a small group of unreasonable countries.
We believe the American preference would be for a rapid
operation conducted by themselves to seize oilfields ...
The force required for the initial operation would be of
the order of two brigades, one for Saudi operation, one
for Kuwait and possibly a third for Abu Dhabi.
"The build-up would require the presence of a
substantial US naval force in the Indian Ocean,
considerably more than the present force. After the
initial assaults ... two [extra] divisions could be
flown in from the USA."
British bases such as that at Diego Garcia would
probably have to be used, Cradock observed. The Russians
might well fly troops into the region to defend the
Arabs. US/Soviet confrontations were unlikely but could
not be ruled out.
"The greatest risk of such confrontations in the
Gulf would probably arise in Kuwait where the Iraqis,
with Soviet backing, might be tempted to
intervene." NATO allies, including Britain, would
be pressed to provide political and military support.
During the Yom Kippur war, in October 1973,
Schlesinger had told Carrington that: "The
Americans had paid £14m for facilities in Diego Garcia
and might be expected to be allowed to use them."
But
it was the full-scale nuclear alert - declared on
October 25 that year, supposedly in response to Soviet
fleet movements in the eastern Mediterranean - which
most infuriated Ted Heath.
The prime minister, the documents reveal, only learnt
about it from news agency reports while in the Commons.
"Personally," he told his private secretary
Lord Bridges, "I fail to see how any initiative,
threatened or real, by the Soviet leadership required
such a worldwide nuclear alert.
"We have to face the fact that the American
action has done immense harm, both to this country and
worldwide."
