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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- Britain Furious at Nixon
Over 1973 Alert, Records Show
By Beth Gardiner
Associated Press Writer
December 31, 2003
LONDON (AP) - Britain's prime minister was furious at President Nixon for not telling him that U.S. forces were going on worldwide alert during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, according to records released Thursday.
Prime Minister Edward Heath learned of the alert - considered a high point in Cold War tensions - from news reports, the papers said. They were released under rules requiring that some secret documents be made public after 30 years.
Britain's intelligence listening post, Government Communications Headquarters, had learned of the alert but did not tell Heath's office or the Foreign Office because officials assumed Heath and Douglas-Home already knew about it, the papers showed.
Nixon said he put U.S. troops on high alert for just under a week, starting on Oct. 25, 1973, to show the Soviet Union that America would not allow it to send military forces to aid Arab states fighting Israel. The alert covered U.S. forces stationed in Britain.
Heath wrote in a memo that he thought Nixon's move, which came in the midst of the Watergate scandal, was unnecessary and harmful. "Personally I fail to see how any initiative, threatened or real, by the Soviet leadership required such a world wide nuclear alert," the prime minister wrote. "We have to face the fact that the American action has done immense harm, I believe, both in this country and worldwide."
The spy chiefs said they did not know what intelligence the Americans possessed, but said "we are inclined to see the U.S. response as higher than necessary to achieve the desired effect."
A British intelligence memorandum released late Wednesday said [Nixon] gave serious consideration to sending airborne troops to seize oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi during the 1973 Arab oil embargo, The Washington Post reported.
The document reportedly said that if faced with deteriorating conditions such as a breakdown of the cease-fire between Arab and Israeli forces following the Yom Kippur War or an intensification of the embargo, "we believe the American preference would be for a rapid operation conducted by themselves" to seize the oil fields.
It cited a warning from Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger to the British ambassador in Washington, Lord Cromer, that the United States would not tolerate threats from "under-developed, under-populated" countries and that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force," the newspaper said.
This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGASD35CWOD.html
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