Takeshita left the ZBC studio just after midnight near to despair. He had used his privilege as Chairman to sum up the situation as he had hoped it might be; he was fully aware of just how much more gloomy it truly was.475Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqNYIRvXixF
The big gamble of the TV summit seemed to have failed. The Soviet government in its paranoia about China and the Muslim fanatics had refused to take part. The US and Britain had virtually announced that they would not attend any Kenya conference that they could not control. The American naval force on Ascension island was rattling its nuclear saber, while a similar British force was off the coast of Africa facing a new, untried but victorious black Government, which had just taken control of the formidable nuclear armory built up by the former white South African government.
The English-language media, with its immense world-wide influence, mocked the TV summit as a "Rumble in the Jungle" and with hard-headed chauvinism pointed to the overwhelming military/industrial power of the West, and more particularly of the North Atlantic powers, if only they kept their cool and their courage. But not for the first time an almost united English-language press was becoming separated from its readers. The leaders in government and press were reckoning without the instinct for survival on the part of the man in the street, who'd been reached and influence in millions by the TV summit. The arguments of Ye Jaichin and Chairman Takeshita did in fact alienate most of the great power governments, but the man in the street does not think as a great power, nor even as a government; he thinks first as an individual and then as a member of a family or some slightly larger social body. Ye Jaichin and Takeshita touched two of the most powerful springs of action in the mind of man: the intense primal dread of sudden apocalyptic destruction by fire or flood, and the vaguer numbing fear that mankind by its greed and its numbers was destroying the environment upon which all life depended. These fears had been articulated by nuclear protesters and by the Green parties, but they were much more widespread than such minority movements suggested. What appealed so much to the vast, frightened but uncommitted public was that the two Asians on the summit were proposing to use poor and starving Africa as a kind of "test case" for action to deal with the root causes of these fears---overpopulation and poverty.
So although Ye Jaichin's bold proposal to start the twin process of reducing population in Africa and reducing consumption in the West was ridiculed next day in the Western media as impractical and undesirable, that was not what Compoll revealed as the public reaction. In Europe there was overwhelming support for participation in the Kenyan conference (over 80%) and more than 60% favored the Chinese agenda. In Britain and America the support for the conference was less overwhelming (but over 50%) and there was the same level of support for an agenda that dealt with lowering population growth and consumption while considering whether nuclear weapons were relevant to current troubles. In Africa, where Compoll was sketchier and run on a more elitist basis, it showed a shocking level of support for building an Africa Central Bank on the foundations of the Bretton Woods institutions---as proposed by Kalingba and Ye Jaichin. Clearly the idea of delinking had begun to fade and the recognition of interdependence was growing.
This public reaction to the TV summit was encouraging to Japan and China; it was troubling to the leaders in America and Britain who now found themselves not just isolated in their struggle with Africa, but increasingly unpopular with their own public, and that in an election year for both governments. For 24 hours after the TV summit there was intense consultation between London and Washington. Both governments eventually agreed that while it was not politically possible simply to boycott the Kenya conference, it would be out of the question to attend under duress from Africa. A joint Anglo-American Chiefs of Staff committee was set up to work out a feasible plan of campaign that would paralyze the guerilla forces within the short period before the Kenya meeting opened. Leaks from the highest political quarters made it clear that the use of nuclear weapons was being considered, but before any plans were finalized the Voice of Africa sent via its satellite by far the most complete and shocking pictorial account of the destruction of the gold reef and of Johannesburg.
In Britain and Europe the broadcast left the general public rather unsure of who was to blame, but very sure that the consequences of a guerilla war fought with nuclear explosives was horrifying beyond their expectations. In America there was an added horror when CNN added a brief documentary to the Johannesburg film pointing out that small nuclear bombs carried by one person could be used in conjunction with geological weaknesses to produce catastrophic results. "For instance, scientists in Egypt---Egypt!---have estimated that five or six small bombs buried at strategic points in the 600-mile San Andreas fault in California could trigger an earthquake that would destroy San Francisco and Los Angeles as effectively as a full-scale nuclear attack."
Within minutes of the broadcast the freeways running east to the Sierras began to fill with a steady stream of traffic, bearing weary town-dwellers to the "safe" country beyond the earthquake zone. The state authorities tried to stem the flood by reassuring broadcasts, but the plain fact was that the line of the San Andreas fault (an area of many thousand square miles) was being squatted on by thousands of illegal African immigrants and no one could guarantee that they had not hidden explosives in the hundreds of disused mine shafts or natural gullies which dotted the landscape. Within two days an estimated 2 million people left the big cities for areas they supposed to be safer, and they did not readily return.
The danger of public panic spurred the United States government to immediate action to prove their military might. Jointly with the British they hastily implemented the first plan of action, rather tentatively put forth by the Joint Chiefs of Staff after preliminary study. Their intelligence had established what they thought to be the exact locations of the terrorist headquarters---in Lagos for the Black Hand and in Monrovia, Liberia, for ARM. Since both places could be reached by sea the plan was for the two naval task forces already based on Ascension Island and armed with tactical nuclear weapons (tactical meant having just about 4 times the impact of the Hiroshima bomb) to approach these ports and demand a cessation of all guerilla activity, plus the total dismantlement of both headquarters and their sophisticated communications equipment, under threat of nuclear destruction of the areas concerned. The task forces would then stay to police and enforce the ceasefire.
In these early days of 1986 both the British Parliament and US Congress were in their Christmas recess, but political activity and debate about the Africa-West confrontation remained intense. In America it became focused on the nationwide straw poll organized by Compoll for the dozen candidates of both parties who sought the Presidential nomination for 1988.
In Britain, where there was the usual closing of ranks when faced with a national emergency, the main political debate was inside the all-party Commonwealth Group which had to decide whether to step out of line and risk the charge of unpatriotic conduct in the face of an enemy. After the TV summit the leaders of the Group met nearly continuously at the home in Belgravia of their Chairman, Edward Heath, when he'd been Britain's Prime Minister was greatly respected. What finally tilted the balance for action was seeing a video recording of Thabo Mamabolo inspecting the nuclear arsenal that his government had inherited intact from his predecessors. The threat of nuclear confrontation seemed to outweigh any domestic political dangers. Late on Wednesday evening Heath and two former Cabinet ministers slipped out of London unnoticed and flew to Paris. There they were able to telephone the Commonwealth Secretary-General in Lagos who listened to their proposals and readily agreed to receive them, and lodge them, next day.
At first light on Friday, January 8, 1986, the cruiser HMS Glamorgan from Admiral Woodward's task force was standing off Lago s Bay and asked to communicate directly with President Ayotunde. The British ultimatum was then quickly conveyed: the operational HQ of Black Hand in Lagos must be dismantled to the satisfaction of a landing party from the cruiser; Ayotunde must give an undertaking not to permit any further guerilla activity to be organized from Nigeria, and to enforce this the cruiser would remain on patrol.
President Ayotunde replied that the Royal Navy had caught him on a very busy day, as he was due to meet three Privy Councilors, ex-ministers from Britain. Since there were no headquarters of the Black Hand in Lagos he could not dismantle them, but if the landing party cared to inspect any part of the city he would be glad to arrange it.
There was a long pause and then a more authoritative voice came over the radio link: "This is Commander Jones, chief signals officer for the task force; Mr. President, we met in happier times at the Signal Corps College; I would just like to ask if we could send a naval party to inspect Lever House?"
"Of course, Jonesy. That, as you probably know, is the old Unilever HQ which we gave to the Commonwealth Secretariat when it came here in October. It is there that you will find your ex-ministers too. Maybe they could do the job for you.
"Of course, your search party must not carry any arms or I cannot guarantee their safety or return."
Several minutes elapsed before Commander Jones returned to the link to say very formally that the authorities had decided that a search would not be needed, but that task force would stand out to sea to ensure that there was no further guerilla activity.
On the tape as broadcast over Nigerian and Black Hand radio there is a last, very faint, whisper from Commander Jones: "God, what an almighty screw-up!"
At dawn off the Liberian coast, a few hours later, a similar tragicomedy was being played out in Monrovia. Here the landing party was being welcomed ashore by beaming Liberians, who had been forewarned by members of ARM in the US Navy, and taken to the house that the CIA had identified as ARM's headquarters. They found nothing---till they reached a dark cellar where there was dozens of suspicious bags. The search party brought in more light (which was helpful to the Liberian photographers) and opened each bag, carefully ran the stuff through their fingers, smelled it, took samples, and identified it as heroin, cocaine, and marijuana---in all, about $15 million-worth at street value. The Liberians told them with straight faces that the drugs were all seized from American tourists or servicemen. It has subsequently been admitted that this was in fact the Liberian drug HQ, primarily supplying the US Navy and organized by ARM through their members in the American armed services. The photographs of US Marines sniffing cocaine, which appeared in that day's Africa Rising magazine, were soon a high-priced souvenir throughout West Africa.
US Navy public relations made the best it could of the Liberia raid. They claimed that they had had great success in cleaning up a drug ring and that photographs of empty rooms showed how thoroughly the Navy had cleaned out ARM's spy nest, but no one was fooled. The Administration knew that it and its oldest and only ally, Britain, had both been humiliated. Both Governments were reduced to issuing statements that until there was a formal declaration that guerilla and terrorist activities against the West had been abandoned they would not lift their nuclear blockade nor would they attend any conference with representatives of terrorist regimes.
That Friday evening, after the fiasco of the task forces had been played out all day on television, Arlen Specter, US Senator from Pennsylvania, the dove-like and least successful of the Presidential aspirants, had his turn on national TV before the Compoll straw poll, which was to be announced that Sunday. At the final moment Specter dropped his carefully prepared show and appeared alone to plead with the Reagan Administration to go to the Kenya conference, to take a lead there in trying to knit the Africa, Europe "and this great nation" together again. He broke every rule in the candidates' book, speaking well of foreigners who were in disagreement with America and pointing out how weak America had become because it put its trust in great deterrents that did not deter. He spoke openly about the extent of the mutiny in the armed forces and revealed that officers in the very task force that had visited Liberia had had to discipline large numbers of their men because they had mutinied when they learned what their mission was.
Senator Specter's last 3 minutes were devoted to a plea for the restoration of America's relations with blacks in Africa, and blacks in its midst, in America's cities.
Because it was so odd, Specter's speech was repeated in the news and received a sprinkling of favorable comment. But what mattered most was that on Sunday morning when the Compoll result was announced he had moved from 7th place to first in the Presidential stakes, with a 10% lead over his nearest rival. Careful analysts noted also that he was the only candidate to make inroads into the black vote.
In Britain the full news of the Lagos farce had reached the Admiralty mid-morning on Friday, just as ministers were hoping to get away for an early weekend. With a defense committee meeting called for noon and a Cabinet meeting at 2 p.m., all such hopes were dashed. At the defense committee the chiefs of the armed forces simply told ministers that the British bluff had been called. Their nuclear threat had not forced Nigeria or the Black Hand to promise to desist from terror; it would deter Thabo Mamabolo from using the sophisticated nuclear armory now under his command, but it could not stoop him from becoming the dominating military force in sub-Saharan Africa.
PM Thatcher bitterly complained that this was not the advice the Chiefs of Staff had given previously. The 1st Sea Lord replied rather lamely that they had not been advised that they would find three British former ministers in residence at the spot they were supposed to 'obliterate' by naval bombardment.
The Cabinet meeting 1 hour later was opened by the Defense Secretary who quickly passed over the British humiliation in order to give his colleagues some fresh bad news, still coming in, of the American contretemps in Liberia. There was a mournful silence, broken by the Foreign Secretary saying that West Germany had announced that it would be going to Kenya and there was strong pressure from Europe to get Britain to the conference table also. The old Commonwealth had joined in this chorus, with Australia in the lead and Canada warning of cataclysmic disaster if the problem of feeding Africa was not tackled on a global scale.
"Even in the US," he bored on, "the conservationists are beginning to gain voting strength as the fearful results of the second year of drought becomes more apparent...."
PM Thatcher cut the Foreign Secretary short: "I spoke to the President of the United States just before this meeting. We both agreed that we had suffered a setback, but we are both wholly determined to carry on with our agreed policies. We will not attend a conference under terrorist threat; we will not alter our international economic policies under blackmail, whatever our more craven allies may demand." A quick glance round the table was enough to cow any opposition, and the meeting adjourned.
SCAN's World Roundup that evening began with some sorry pictures of hundreds of white South Africans, with nothing but one suitcase apiece, being bundled onto trains for the long journey down to Cape Town and their new homelands. There were no overt signs of brutality, but the pictures (provided by the "South African National News Service") roused a feeling of cold fear in the comfortable white homes of Europe and America. This item was followed by the rather shrill statements of "no surrender" from London and Washington.
Finally, the late edition of SCAN (on the Saturday breakfast shows in Europe, midnight in New York) brought the news from Moscow that the Soviet Union had broadcast to North Africa that if their incitement to violence and subversion in the Central Asian Republics did not cease, "appropriate measures" would be taken against those responsible. No clarification of the term "appropriate measures" was given, but few people needed reminding of the SS20s located within the Central Asian Republics.
So once again, within a week, the world had gone back to the brink and was looking into the abyss. A curious hush seemed to descend, as if those in power everywhere were scared to move or speak for fear of upsetting the delicately-poised balance.
The three ex-ministers returned to London from Lagos but were adamant that they would say nothing at all in public till they had spoken to "those with responsibility". A little later that morning, after a flurry of phone calls between private secretaries, PM Thatcher reluctantly left Chequers at the Queen's urgent request for an audience at Windsor (where she had reluctantly gone from Sandringham).
It has since emerged that Queen Elizabeth II told PM Thatcher how in the past few days she had received more than her usual flow of telegrams from Commonwealth governments, and in addition she had received several telephone calls from heads of state, which was not common practice. Both the Canadian and Australian Prime Ministers had spoken to her several times, and in the past 24 hours she had been spoken to by India's Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, President Ayotunde of Nigeria and, last evening, by the Commonwealth Secretary-General.
There were two issues that were raised with her as Head of the Commonwealth: one was that Mr. Thabo Mamabolo had agreed to join the Commonwealth now that the "usurping government" had fled. All those who had spoken to her supported this proposal. But they wanted the approval of the Head of the Commonwealth before any action was taken, and they wished to avoid any embarrassment to her as Queen of England.
To each caller Queen Elizabeth had said that she would be happen to receive the Socialist Republic of the Union of South Africa into the Commonwealth if it were the Commonwealth's wish, and she had promised to speak to her Prime Minister as soon as possible---which was why she had felt she could not wait until the regular Tuesday audience. But there was a second item raised by all her callers: this was an urgent request that the United Kingdom should attend the Peace Conference in Kenya and participate fully as the founder of the Commonwealth, which they described as "the only existing example of a cooperating international order." The Queen had thought this a very fine tribute to the UK and its government.
PM Thatcher replied that it was too bad that the Commonwealth showed its high regard for the United Kingdom in so many hostile ways. The Queen very sympathetically said she understood how far apart the UK and the Commonwealth had drifted and how hard it would be for Mrs. Thatcher to attend any conference without promises of a "ceasefire" from Africa. But she still believed that the Commonwealth could help in this matter.
The Queen then revealed---to PM Thatcher's astonishment---that she had already that morning received "your predecessor on his return from Lagos; for I have never refused a prime minister an audience immediately it is requested." he had told her that the Commonwealth Secretary-General had offered assurances, after consultation with the governments of Liberia and Nigeria, that he could arrange a cessation of hostile activity by the Black Hand and ARAM on condition that Britain agreed to attend the conference in Kenya, which was charged with preparing a post-conflict order acceptable to the majority of the world. For this conference to be successful the US must also attend, and the ceasefire offer by ARM depended on American acceptance of the invitation.475Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxrI1ZrCMTZ
"I told him that if the Commonwealth Secretary-General had any such proposal he should make it directly to the United Kingdom Prime Minister or to me as Head of the Commonwealth to pass on to my Prime Minister. Within one hour he had done so by telephone, and I have now passed the message to you for your independent decision. I would only add that if you advise me in a way contrary to the wishes of the rest of the Commonwealth governments I should have a very difficult choice to make between the Commonwealth and my Kingdom."475Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfTvmzcDRUV
Queen Elizabeth rose and PM Thatcher began to leave, agreeing to report back after consulting with the Cabinet. At the door Mrs. Thatcher turned and in a low voice asked: "Are you asking for my resignation?"
"No, and if you offered it at this time I would not accept it."
On the short journey back to Chequers the car radio carried the results of the Compoll in America and described Senator Specter's success as a stunning blow against President Reagan's hawkish policies. An hour later President Reagan and PM Thatcher talked together on the telephone at length. No record of the conversation is available, but the result was apparent within 24 hours when it was simultaneously announced in London and Washington that having received assurances of an end to international terrorism the US and the UK would send representatives to the preparatory meeting for the Peace Conference in Kenya. Their continued participation depended on the strict observance of the pledge to cease all acts of terror.475Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNbH2NLLpGh
