Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

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May 1981:

Bobby Sands died on May 5th. He’d been elected to Parliament less than a month beforehand though, naturally, didn’t take up his seat as he remained in jail on his hunger strike. It was there in the Maze Prison that he died: legal arguments would commence over whether his death certificate should read ‘starvation’ or ‘self-imposed starvation’. Other prisoners would later die too though it would be Sands who would be remembered for his was the first striker, the first to die and the one elected to Parliament. That act of becoming an MP while on hunger strike in jail had brought international attention beyond what had already came and saw the worldwide reactions to his death. Those reactions were unwanted by the British Government though welcomed by others, those being the ones who’d been pushing for recognition of ‘the cause’.

Soviet diplomatic statements were joined from those across the Eastern Bloc – including Poland which was seeking to distract their people from their mourning over the demise of the Pope – in criticising what was deemed an ‘imperialist conflict’ in Northern Ireland. State sponsored events were organised to commemorate Sands’ death with a major effort made to play up the propaganda effect when there had recently come negative comments on deaths in Poland and other allegations of restrictions behind the Iron Curtain. From communist-led Iran, the street on which the British Embassy sat, where diplomats hadn’t long returned to after leaving during the revolution and the Soviet invasion, was renamed Bobby Sands Street with signs saying Winston Churchill Boulevard removed. Libya’s dictator was quite moved by what he regarded as a sacrifice and praised the ‘struggle for freedom’ in public though wanted to see more before he would consider starting to send arms to the IRA again. Within Australia, France, Norway, the Palestinian occupied territories and Portugal, there were local events in protest against Britain and in commemoration of Sands.

In many parts of the United States, there was condemnation of Sands and the IRA rather than Britain. Not all Americans were duped by IRA propaganda nor wanted to fill the cash buckets send around bars to donate money to ‘the cause’. Many more Americans wouldn’t want to give financial nor moral support if they were aware of many of the links the IRA but also other Irish Republican terror groups had with regimes around the world that were enemies of the United States. Regardless of the sensible behaviour of many, there came the idiocy from others. Sands got his martyrdom from plenty of Americans. The President of the United States was included among those. As before, he ignored established diplomatic protocol and went on the attack with a public statement that was quite inflammatory. He just couldn’t stop himself it seemed… though there might have been something more to that than initially met the eye. In a private message back to London, the British Ambassador made note of troubles that Kennedy was having getting his keynote domestic legislation through Congress. Lawmakers were sceptical of the universal free healthcare bill being pushed by Kennedy surrogates through the House of Representatives and even with Speaker O’Neill on side, that was still being held up. The ambassador speculated that Sands’ death might be rather convenient for Kennedy as a foreign distraction at times of domestic problems. This was the first time that something previously only speculated had been treated with such seriousness as to go in an official diplomatic communique: other ambassadors from various countries in the coming months and years ahead would say the same thing when it came to Kennedy make a big deal of foreign affairs when he faced domestic trouble at home, including his later personal scandals.


There were some in Whitehall who wanted to tell the American president where exactly to stick his outrageous comments upon Sands’ death, that being where the sun didn’t shine. Those were private remarks though, not ones that left Cabinet. Thatcher brought her top-level of government together in response as they had an emergency meeting. Some ideas mentioned before when the hunger strike started were looked at again. Mondale had either passed on Carrington’s warning from their Brussels meeting that Britain wouldn’t stand for this to see it ignored by his president or he hadn’t done so at all. Regardless, fair warning had been given and it had been disregarded. There were other hunger strikers and Britain wasn’t about to cave into their demands. All indications said that Kennedy really didn’t give a damn about diplomatic niceties and would carry on with his attacks against Britain each time one of them died too. The Cabinet decided to act. There was a lot of risk involved yet the belief was that it was worth it and the response was something that a lot of thought had been put into.

As an ongoing courtesy going back many years, the CIA station chief in London was invited to the weekly meetings of the Joint Intelligence Committee, an official government body. The next meeting after Kennedy’s statement saw the meeting moved to a new location at the last minute. There were some urgent repairs needed at the building where it was held which included workmen showing up in hardhats and standing around smoking or eating bacon & egg sandwiches. Didn’t the station chief get the message over a change in venue? He was taken out for dinner that night as a form of apology with a nice meal brought for him by the head of MI-6. That committee chairman, Sir Antony Acland, an experience diplomat with the FCO, showed up to the dinner towards the end and carefully explained the displeasure in Whitehall at Kennedy’s behaviour. The next day saw an interruption in communications traffic passed on between Britain’s GCHQ and the NSA at Fort Meade either direct or through intermediate stations across the UK. There were technical difficulties and apologies were sent for the delay which last exactly twenty-four hours and not a second more. GCHQ’s director flew out to Maryland afterwards to personally apologise for those technical difficulties yet also to get his opposite number to understand that Anglo-American relations were being put at risk by the American president. If only someone could talk some sense into him…?

There was a lot more that could have been done. Carrington could have tried again with Mondale. The ambassador in Washington could have requested an audience with Kennedy. Thatcher could have personally called the president. Further ties could have been properly cut in the intelligence field and creative problems could have popped up in the defence co-operation field. Cabinet had discussed these options though discounted any successes from them. The idea instead was to get other Americans to talk to Kennedy themselves and remind him of the value of relations with Britain in a field that mattered to the United States more than anything else: British contribution to American intelligence-gathering. Kennedy wasn’t a fan of the CIA – he had less of an issue with the NSA and the other alphabet soup of agencies in the intelligence field – but the belief was that this approach would work. Whitehall also understood the significance of Vice President Glenn in the US Government and were quite sure that the heads of the CIA and the NSA would go to him first as he was someone already seen on their side: Glenn carried more weight with Kennedy than anyone British did. Doing anything more could cause a major break in Anglo-American relations and that wasn’t what Thatcher nor Cabinet wanted. They just wanted to remind Kennedy that Britain had influence and couldn’t be treated in this manner.


This gentle approach tied into other important matters at the time that Britain didn’t want to see put into jeopardy by doing anything stupid (stupid as being the idea from one of those in Cabinet to have the National Grid enforce technical difficulties on the supply of power to an American airbase: such a thing was something seen as being very unfriendly) to destroy relations with the United States. Kennedy was temporary after all. Four years at least, eight years at the outset. There were so many others across the Atlantic who were long-standing friends of Britain even with this Anglophobe in the White House.

Guatemala was showing further hostility towards Belize and the latter nation in Central America relied on British support. If push came to shove, if the now-communist Guatemala decided to forcibly annex Belize, they would have to fight British troops on the ground there. Maybe Guatemala might make that mistake if there were visible signs of open hostility between London and Washington? Furthermore, Cabinet was still looking over the proposals from Defence Secretary John Nott (not long in his post at the MOD) to restructure the UK Armed Forces in times of real economic pressure. His white paper was due to be presented to Parliament next month. With the Soviets acting as they were in leading aggression elsewhere in the world but in Europe, yet still with an almighty strong military force of theirs sitting across the Iron Curtain, the white paper reflected that with a recognised need for Britain to remained committed to NATO defences yet also be able to play a (limited) role elsewhere in the world. Money was tight, oh-so-very tight. American co-operation was needed for these twin commitments to be made. There was a deal in the pipeline – going back several years – for Britain to have access to the family of cruise missiles which the Americans had developed not just for ground launch with GLCMs but naval and airborne systems too. Ford’s Pentagon under Rumsfeld had pushed cruise missile work and Britain had been involved in that. The cruise missiles were soon to be built and Britain would get its share of them on favourable terms thrashed out initially between Callaghan and Ford. Pushing Kennedy too far could see that all thrown out of the window. Britain had to be careful. Kennedy seemed sometimes to act without thinking – that new speculation on motives was only speculation at the moment: not officially recognised – and why twist the tiger’s tail when it can just be tapped?

Well for the British to save money and mantain some significant, somekind of hindsight will be needed as some military program really need to go:

- The Nimrod AEW it's money sinkpit that never give any significant result and in the end, after having spent a billion of pound , that had bought the E3A Sentry...as originally planned
- The SP-70 it's the same, only instead of only the UK, also Germany and Italy are involved in this waste of time and resources (maybe a general program for upgrade the M109, better if other nation are brought in to share the cost)

London is hoping that Kennedy will get the message. That depends on whether he gets distracted elsewhere in the world. They might be in luck there. Though that could turn out to be a temporary reprieve and not so good in the long run.

Just catching up. Had been worried about Guatemala threatening Belize as well. Could be a lot more likely with Kennedy being such a idiot.

Belize didn't actually get independence until 21-9-81 OTL in large part because of the threat from Guatemala and British troops stayed in the colony for a while afterwards to deter such an attack. Its possible that with a communist Guatemala and an anti-British moron in the White House they could have to fight to do that.

To bad the Royal Navy cannot send this HMS Ark Royal to show force and to remind Guatemala to be nice.

In May 1981 the Royal Navy has one Invincible-class aircraft carrier (HMS Invincible) and two under construction and two Centaur-class aircraft carriers (HMS Bulwark and HMS Hermes) who might be used if i am correct.

A conflict between Guatemala and its backers v Belize and Britain will be in 1982. Still figuring it out. As to Belize, it isn't the South Atlantic but then there are other matters to play into it. this time next week (hopefully) I shall have the conflict.
There will be no Falklands War. Argentina hasn't been put in the economic situation it ended up in plus Britain's worldwide defence commitment in this story is stuck to whereas in OTL things went different with a weakness publicly shown (as far as Argentina was concerned).
I'll get to it soon enough.

Something different before then. International diplomacy then events in the Middle East; the latter concerning 'the game with Saddam' which will come after an historic meeting in Vienna.