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THE HEATHROW MANOEUVRES

- Was there an atomic threat?

WHEN TROOPS and tanks were sent into Heathrow Airport in the second week of January 1974, it was quickly clear that, whatever the truth was, the government wasn't telling it.

The official line was that "terrorists may try to mount an anti':";aircraft attack with missiles. Troops and police are attempting to cover areas over which aircraft pass low as they take off and land ’Ä¢.. "(Times, Jan 7th). The threat was almost universally assumed to come from Arab terrorists, such as the group arrested in Rome in September 1973. The terrorists possessed the SAM-7 Russian,surface-to-air missile, it was said. And according to the same Times report and others, the SAM -7 had a height range of 3000 feet and a radius of 3 miles, homing on a source of heat, such as an aircraft exhaust".

That any newspaper could publish these two facts simultaneously without comment is astonishing. Commercial airlIners frequently pass over central London at heights lower than 3000 feet, and on westbound approaches to Heathrow will almost certainly fly over West London at less than 2500 feet. Indeed, airliners on short haul 'routes or hops such as Heathrow /Orly, frequently do not rise above 5000 feet at all. An Arab terrorist armed with a shoulder-fired missile needs only to sit on his patio in Richmond and listen to Air Traffic Control on his VHF radio in order to pick off, say, the EI A flight incoming from Tel Aviv. But the 400 troops and police confined themselves to setting up checkpoints for one mile round Heathrow, plus "patrols as far as Windsor and Eton in the West, and as tar as t.;Chiswick in the East"{Daily Telegraph, Jan 7th). An occasional salty up the A4 to the Chiswick flyover is unlikely to have deterred the hypothetical terrorist, who might have been anywhere in the neighbouring 50 square miles. Whatever the troops went in for, it wasn't to protect airliners against SAM attack.

A further discrepancy in the official story was the use of Scorpion light tanks and Saracen, Saladin, and Ferret armoured cars by the troops. The use of a tank gun in a built up area is inconceivable; it could not have been fired without causing immense damage even to a deserted airport. Even the light guns on some armoured cars would be unusable. There was an official explanation for the tanks; the Army had to use "whatever. vehicles were available for transport and communications at ;short notice ..’Ä¢’Ä¢ "(Daily Telegraph, Jan 8th). This explanation was nonsense. There are five infantry battalions (of 400 men) stationed in and around London, anyone of which could have been posted to Heathrow. In fact, the government sent in the Blues and Royals, an armoured regiment who are equipped with tanks and armoured cars. They had come from Windsor Barracks, where at least 400 troops of the Grenadier Guards were available, together with some 30 to 40 trucks and land--rovers. Both the units sent (the Blues and Royals and the Irish Guards) also have sufficient normal transport available (again about 30 trucks and land-rovers) for 'transport and communication I purposes. As a last resort, the Cavalry Headquarters, Hounslow would have had plenty of transport, just 6 miles away from Heathrow. So the use of tanks and armoured cars was a deliberate part of the Government strategy.

As the siege of Heathrow continued, some details leaked out. Reports on January 10th, both here and in Europe, said that "it was triggered by the discovery, over Christmas, that a number of NA TO missiles and other weapons had been stolen from a Belgian Army base, apparently the one at Duren, near Cologne. II (Guardian, Jan loth)

"There was no evidence, " the report continued, "that SAM-7Is had been smuggled into Europe as a number of reports have suggested." This somewhat open -ended story from Richard Norton-Taylor and David Fairhall went on to point out the discrepancies in Home Secretary Robert Carr's statement on January 7th.

The reports, which came from both NATO and Belgian sources, were unclear as to exactly what weapons had been stolen. Although theY Belgian Army itself possesses no nuclear weapons, it administers the Duren depot (which is in fact inside the German border) on behalf of NATO. This depot is one of a network west of the River Rhine, which" includes Machrihanish and Glen Douglas in Scotland, and Alconbury, Chepstow, and Burtonwood in England. The depots arc administered by different armies on behalf of NATO. Like the British depots maintained by the UK and the US. Duren is . likely to hold nuclear munitions for use by tactical forces. And these could include Honest John atomic shells.

Meanwhile, the official line changed, to become the threat of an American Redeye antiaircraft missile in the hands of an unspecified terrorist group. This, once again, was nonsense - an attempt to cover up whatever the truth of the leak was. The Redeye missile is an exact equivalent of the SAI\1-7, heat-seeking, and with a range of 3000 feet or so. Like its Soviet brother it is portable and is fired from the shoulder.

There is little doubt that whatever did go on at Duren that Christmas night led directly to the Heathrow manouevres, - eleven days later, Precautions began immediately: ":Most major European Airports were put under heavy guard on Boxing Day." (Sunday Times, Jan 13th), And more than airports were involved: according to various reports, military guards were immediately deployed along the Belgian/Dutch and Belgian/ German frontier. The French Anti-Commando Brigade (CRS) was mobilised and on alert. A report in Canada (see Times, Jan 7th) said that Britain's Air Defence system was alerted on January 4th, due to fears of an (airborne) rocket attack.

For some reason, the alert was stepped up during and after the first week in January. Troops moved into Heathrow airport on January 5th. On January 13th, the Sunday Times reported that armoured cars were patrolling all major German airports, and that heavy military guard had been placed on refineries, petrol barges, and depots. The Dutch Army patrolled its Belgian border from January 9th. Brussels airport was heavily guarded, as were major air\ports in Denmark, the N Netherlands, France and Italy. Whoever took the NATO weapons was still around and active two weeks later.

It also seems likely that a careful plot to infiltrate NATO had been worked out. A report from SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe) spoke of a Duren employee who "revealed the theft (and) refused to talk any more and to give details which could help investigators." (Daily Telegraph, Jan 10th). Nothing more was ever heard of this person, whom another report implied to be a conscripted Belgian Officer.

THE TRUTH?

Certainly, the official line on the Heathrow manouevres was greeted with derision, if not in the national press, at least in many other magazines. The story didn't, couldn't fit. A popular alternative was to view it as a rehearsal for the British Army 'coming back home', to practice counterinsurgency on the mainland - or as a preparation for the military coup on which Lord Chalfont and others were luridly speculating at the time. This story just doesn't fit either; far too many things were going on, extending far out of the reach of any British Military control, for the coup rehearsal theory to be plausible. There is some evidence, indeed, that this line of thought may have been encouraged as a cover-up by the Home Office. In mid January, Army Ferret scout cars and others followed a Workers Revolutionary Party demonstration through central London, apparently by coincidence. With the blitz of Private Army stories hitting Britain during the summer, these and all such events have - to the Left especially - become part of preparations for a 'fascist takeover I. But could the take-over story have been planted on ;he Left? -R was certainly unlikely as far as those Heathrow manoeuvres were concerned. (Although the 'continuing exercises' may be a different story. ::>Once you're on to a good thing ’Ä¢. . . . )

With the little information that !:has leaked out of Belgium and NATO, it is possible to reconstruct the events and lay a whole new interpretation on. them, however ’Ä¢

A terrorist group infiltrated the Belgian Army, culminating in the theft of some weapon or weapons from the Duren base early on Boxing Day. The theft was discovered some five hours later, by which time the group would have had time to travel to parts of Germany, Belgium, the~ Netherlands, or possibly France. By the time a watch was put on ports and borders, they might well have had time to get rather further afield. The weapon or weapons stolen could have been the atomic shells used in the Honest John gun, which is standard NATO equipment.

THE PEOPLE'S BOMB ?

If it became known that a terrorist group possessed an atomic weapon, the group would have unique power. Even if they had stolen it and then just buried it in a field, or merely sent an envelope of weapons-grade plutonium to the UN, they would h;~p. to be taken very seriously.

The political tactics of a 'People's bomb' have been considered elsewhere. (See "Towards a People's Bomb" by Pat Coyne in Undercurrents No.2). The ,more practical aspects of revolutionary atomic warfare might work like this.

It is necessary to select a target which is vital to the 'enemy' country's economy and will therefore be a real threat. It would also seem inappropriate to attack a city, however easy, since the urban population may well be that which you wish to win over. But an airport is an ideal target on two grounds:-

(1) It represents an immense amount of capital accumulation, both in terms of hardware and in terms of trading importance. (2) The entire transport system around a major airport is geared: to very fast movement of large numbers of people. It follows, therefore, that an airport's hinterland is the largest area of most-easily-evacuated population\.

The intensification of activity around mid January suggests that the group had surfaced with a threat to a major European airport. Although threats from the usual Arab terrorist/European anarchist/IRA groups are normally published, in order to win so-called 'moderates' to the government's side, on this occasion nothing was heard except vague references. Yet manifestly, a serious threat had been made to Western Europe, in harder terms than "intelligence reports".

Of course we don't mow what weapons they took, or where they took them. But one guide is the extraordinary deployment of tanks a short distance from Heathrow. It might well be that, given a group determined to get within a mile of Heathrow in a heavy truck, tanks alone could have stopped them. It would have been safe to shoot, as the population would have been evacuated. It would be almost impossible to set off the nuclear warhead as the result 01 a conventional explosion by a tank shell: each sub-critical mass; has to come together at the right place at the right time and speech Also, the neutron reflector around it must be intact. The Heathrow military deployment would be appropriate to the small but definite possibility of an atomic attack by terrorists.

But nothing happened. The precautions all over Europe. petered out a few weeks later, while Britain was in the throes of a three day week, the miners strike, general election and other Heath-mania. Since no bomb went off, no airliner was attack , and no radical demands were quietly met by any European Government (to our knowledge) we must assume that they failed . Since the terrorists' accompliCE inside the Duren base was caught it is possible that he broke down under psychological torture by NA TO, and may have assisted. in their capture a few weeks later - though no-one, apparent' , was brought to trial. But then it would have been impossible~¬Ý to try them without exposing the truth about the atom bomb. theft; and to do so would be politically inexpedient. Very inexpedient.

Ephemeral figures, quietly shot, their bodies burned they never existed. Was this the end of the European Freedom Fighters, and their Peoples' Bomb?

Duncan Campbell