A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) (37 page)

Catesby turned to the PM and shouted, ‘Prime Minister, we can longer guarantee your safety in this location. We must evacuate you and your essential staff to Q-Whitehall.’

‘I agree,’ shouted Heath.

Catesby leaned over the Permanent Secretary. ‘The Prime Minister would like to have a word.’

The PM leaned over and said, ‘We need, Permanent Secretary, to evacuate to the war room in Q-Whitehall.’

‘Q-Whitehall,’ echoed the Permanent Secretary. ‘For god’s sake, I’ve been urging relocation there ever since we declared a State of Emergency. Thank god someone’s finally listened.’

A few minutes later they had descended through the basements of Downing Street and into the tunnel system. The Permanent Secretary was led back up into the Treasury building at number 20 and into the waiting ambulance. As a result, the nervous breakdown of one of the UK’s most senior civil servants had been kept from public view and treated with dignity.

It was raining again when Catesby walked back over Westminster Bridge. The surprising thing wasn’t that one Permanent Secretary had broken down under the pressures of 1974, but that others had not. The senior civil servant had caught a bad dose of Red virus. Its victims were not just the targets of the
witch-hunts; the Red virus destroyed the hunters too. Madness was in the air.

Agency News:
7 February 1974

Heath Calls Snap Election

The Prime Minister has called a snap general election in response to the coal miners’ threat of industrial action. Edward Heath has appealed to the miners to suspend their planned strike action during the three-week election campaign.

After a week with no sign of a breakthrough in talks with the National Union of Mineworkers, the Prime Minister has decided to call an election to ‘let the voters decide who governs the country’. Mr Heath said the country was ‘fed up with industrial action’ and has called on people to use their vote to show the miners how they feel.

State of Emergency to Continue

The crisis began in the autumn when war in the Middle East sent oil prices soaring. The miners introduced an overtime ban in November – and the electricity workers followed suit.

Mr Heath responded by introducing petrol rationing and declaring a State of Emergency and a three-day working week

The miners, however, have stood firm and support for them appears to be strong despite widespread power cuts.

It now seems almost certain that the miners will go ahead with their industrial action, which is due to start in three days’ time.

Conservative MP Enoch Powell shocked colleagues at Westminster by announcing he would not be standing in what he called ‘an essentially fraudulent election’. In a letter to his constituency chairman he wrote: ‘I consider it an act of gross irresponsibility that this general election has been called in the face of the current and impending industrial situation.’

Today has also seen the second in a series of one-day strikes call by ASLEF, the rail drivers union, which has caused more disruption to services.

CIA HQ, Langley, Virginia:
16 February 1974

It was a Saturday, but Angleton was still at his desk. He gazed through a haze of cigarette smoke and tried to catch a fleeting glimpse of the deceptions hidden in the mist, but they remained in hiding. He was lost in a wilderness of mirrors. The Watergate nonsense was also dragging him and everyone else into the mire. For the first time he began to wonder if his position was secure. But, he thought with a smile, Britain was in even more of a mess than the USA. It was a country that he knew well. He had been educated there at a leading public school before going to Yale. Some said that he still spoke with a slight English accent. Despite the betrayals of Philby and the others, he remained fond of Britain. Perhaps he could do something to help the Brits, to put them back on the right path while he still had the power to do so.

The latest cable from London had come directly to him bypassing the Director’s Log. Angleton knew that the DCI wouldn’t be pleased. On the other hand, the Director would never find out.

From OSO London Station to ADOCCI:

Despite the best efforts of SM/DOGGED, who remains our most important asset within the British Security Service, MI5 are still restricted and squeamish about doing the things that need to be done to counteract Communist subversion in the UK.

The upcoming UK general election poses a dilemma for US interests. In some ways, it’s a pity there has to be a winner – and maybe there won’t be. Edward Heath has proved a weak and ineffectual Conservative Premier. On the other hand, the return of Labor under Harold Wilson could be dangerous. The following are very serious points of concern:

– A new Labor government would impose severe reductions in UK defense spending.

– Wilson would also bring in budget and personnel reductions in the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, further hampering their already
limited effectiveness in tracking down subversives.

– An incoming Wilson government would increase trade with the Soviet Union providing greater opportunities for KGB activity in Britain.

At the moment, our best successes in the UK have been with the press and media. We have discussed with SM/REVEAL the possibility of a no-holds-barred anti-Wilson media campaign involving personal as well as political innuendo. Meanwhile, the FORUM FOR CONFLICT STUDIES is going from strength to strength. It has recently received a considerable financial boost from an anonymous millionaire benefactor. FCS has recently succeeded in placing front-page stories about ‘Sources of Conflict in Industry’ which suggest Communist influence in the Trade Union movement. Another brilliant FCS coup was getting a television documentary about the KGB sandwiched between two Labor Party political broadcasts. Perfect!

Angleton lit another cigarette. It was far from ‘perfect’, but it was better than nothing. Perhaps the answer to the British problem weren’t the security agencies – which were totally corrupted and penetrated by Soviet moles – but private armies and media propaganda supported by big money.

Mayfair, London:
19 February 1974

The banker eyed down his cue stick. He had finally agreed to give the colonel a game.

‘Difficult shot,’ said the colonel trying to put him off.

‘Shh,’ said the banker. He then gently and perfectly potted the black to win the frame. The banker smiled, ‘Who pays wins.’

Meanwhile, the general topped up his whisky. ‘What about you, JJ?’

The ex-SIS officer held out his glass. ‘Thank you.’

‘What a mess, eh?’ said the general.

‘Heath doesn’t deserve to win,’ said JJ. ‘We tried to give him some ammunition and he turned it down.’

‘Which particular ammunition?’ said the colonel.

‘The CIA docs about Soviet involvement in the miners’ strike for one.’

‘What was Heath’s excuse?’ said the peer.

‘He said the CIA investigation wasn’t definitive and he didn’t want to alienate the trade unions.’

‘Feeble,’ said the banker.

‘And Heath also said,’ continued JJ, ‘that he doesn’t want the Conservative Party to get its hands dirty with personal smear stories.’

‘We all know why that is,’ said the peer.

‘In some ways,’ said JJ, ‘it would be a good thing if Heath loses this election. It means we can replace him with a strong leader with a backbone – someone who will take on the unions and the Reds.’

‘Who do you have in mind?’ said the colonel.

JJ told them.

‘Nice pair of ankles,’ said the peer.

Pimlico, London:
22 February 1974

As soon as Catesby saw the Lisburn postmark on the letter he knew who it was from. But before opening it, he checked the letter for wires. It wasn’t heavy enough for a big device, but he didn’t want to lose a finger or an eye. He decided it was safe and slid out the latest from Captain Zero.

Beware, Mr Catesby. The Powers of Darkness are in the ascendant. This place is not so much a military headquarters as Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell. Our job is supposed to be public relations work and psychological warfare operation against the IRA, but there are other aspects that have nothing to do with Northern Ireland. Beware of something called Operation Clockwork Orange. It will be very interesting to see who wins the coming election and what happens next.

More anon. Meanwhile, stay cool.

CZ

Catesby put the letter in his suitcase. Since his safe had been cracked, he had found another way of hiding secret documents in the wilds of Suffolk. He wanted to protect Captain Zero. No one should ever leave anything lying around in a London flat. Ferret’s gang at the Security Service were the capital’s best burglars.

Agency News:
4 March 1974

Wilson Returns to Downing Street

Four days after an election that saw the first hung Parliament since 1929, Harold Wilson has entered Downing Street as leader of a minority government.

Following the failure of coalition talks between the Conservatives and the Liberals, Edward Heath announced his resignation paving the way for Wilson to become prime minister for the second time.

Labour remain 17 seats short of a majority and a new election looms.

Lord North Street, London:
Midnight, 4 March 1974

Harold Wilson may have returned to Downing Street as prime minister, but they weren’t going to live there. Mary didn’t like the flat at 10 Downing Street. Her favourite house had been the one in Hampstead Garden Suburb, but Lord North Street was infinitely preferable to the Downing Street goldfish bowl. They had both decided to remain in their Lord North Street house.

Wilson poured himself another whisky and stared into the darkness. It wasn’t an election that he had particularly wanted to win – and in a way he hadn’t won it. Labour had, in fact, won fewer votes than the Tories, but they had taken more seats, 301 against 297. After the votes had been counted, there were four days of tense uncertainty as Heath wooed the Liberals to form a coalition. In the end, the coalition attempt collapsed and, at four o’clock that afternoon, the Prime Minister’s Principal Private Secretary had telephoned to say that Heath was on his way to the
Palace. Three hours later, Wilson kissed Her Majesty’s hands and once again became prime minister.

Wilson was feeling very tired. He would now have to deal with the almost impossible challenge of heading a minority government that could fall at any time – and the spark and energy was no longer there. He knew he wasn’t a charismatic figure like Kennedy or Churchill, but he also knew that he was a decent human being with considerable political and technocratic skills. He was a realist, but one with a vision. But some parts of that vision he couldn’t express in public, because he would have been derided. He hated war and violence. His refusal to send British troops to Vietnam was personal as well as political. Likewise, and somewhat shamefully, he demurred from sending British troops to oust Ian Smith’s racist regime from Rhodesia. But, and this was a worrying question, would the generals have obeyed his orders if he had sent them to Rhodesia?

There were other things too that Wilson couldn’t admit, but these views would have opened him to attack from the left of his party. He aligned himself with the socialist wing of the Labour Party, but he was a pragmatist rather than a socialist. Just as part of him was a pacifist, another part of him – and a very Northern part of him – believed in trade, enterprise and hard work. And that coincided with his pacifist instincts. Trading partners don’t go to war with each other. The trade links he tried to forge with the Soviet Union were not just to secure valuable materials for the UK from the vastness of Russia, but also to turn Soviet missiles into consumer goods – and bring peace. How silly and ludicrous were the lies smearing him as an undercover Communist agent.

But Wilson was well aware that his most dangerous enemies were on the Right. A book that he had written in 1953,
The War on World Poverty: An Appeal to the Conscience of Mankind,
had raised a lot of hackles on the British Right and also in Washington. The book was a radical anti-imperialist manifesto and blueprint for first-world aid to developing countries. World poverty was never going to be solved unless the Soviet Union became part of the international financial community. Washington hated that
– and also his plea that ‘peaceful co-existence had to be turned into peace.’ That wasn’t on the Pentagon’s agenda. But Washington’s agendas had to be ignored. It was no secret that Wilson wanted Britain to break away from the USA’s political and economic stranglehold. And unfreezing the Cold War and creating economic relationships with the East Bloc was the best way to do so. No wonder the Americans had wooed the slavishly pro-US Gaitskell and tried to split the Labour Party.

For a fleeting moment Wilson felt his old energy come back. He remembered one of his finest hours, his ‘White Hot Heat of Technology’ speech in 1963. His vision of Britain was that of a scientifically and technologically advanced society earning her living through trade, but with a strong welfare safety net that would protect the vulnerable, the elderly and the ill. People are happiest and work hardest when they don’t have to worry. And education – it must be available to all. If you don’t educate your people, ‘the white hot heat’ will fizzle out.

Wilson poured another whisky and gave himself the luxury of reading the sports pages of yesterday’s Sunday papers. He knew that his beloved Huddersfield Town had drawn with Halifax Town – as if they were copying Labour’s election result – and seemed to be heading for a mid-table finish.

The Prime Minister peered into the darkness of his dim midnight study. He tried to discern the future, but there was only uncertainty and confusion. Price rises looked out of control, the balance of trade deficit was massive and inflation continued to rise. He knew that he would soon have to call another election – if possible, in the autumn. And then what?