Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

Well the British can still follow the OTL 1981 Defence White Paper and have as planned in Germany reduce its NATO land commitment by about 2,000, giving a total of 55,000. This was to be achieved by the withdrawal of a divisional headquarters.

Justin Trudeau was born on, of all days, Christmas Day of 1971, about nine months after Margaret and Pierre Trudeau got married (Justin was probably conceived on their wedding night or honeymoon; the announcement that she was pregnant was on July 23, 1971, according to Justin's Wikipedia page), so Pierre is Justin's dad (especially since Margaret didn't start her affair with Kennedy until 1977, when Justin was five years old)...

Waiting for more, James G...

(76)

June 1982:

After the East Berlin summit between Andropov and Kennedy, it had been said by many that Soviet troop withdrawals from East Germany would never happen. They had already begun. Even if they did, such had been further remarks, they would be a sham, a maskirovka. The withdrawals were real. They were ongoing too. First it had been a motorised rifle division followed by an artillery brigade of self-propelled heavy guns. Now it was a tank division being removed from East Germany as the Soviet Group of Forces Germany cut back significantly and openly on offensive strength. As was the case before, NATO was ignored by the Soviets as they made contact with the military missions inside East Germany from the Western Allies of World War Two to notify them of the withdrawals and thus invite them to watch and verify. This time it was Military Unit #59308: a formation that NATO intelligence had correctly long-identified as being the 16th Guards Tank Division. T-62 tanks, BMP-1 infantry combat vehicles and BTR-60 armoured personnel carriers along with thousands of soldiers started leaving their garrisons across the northeastern part of East Germany. American, British and French military intelligence officers watched them go. An overfly by an American satellite a week later caught sight of the advance elements of what was pulled out – this was hardly something done overnight but rather a process which took several months – at a staging area in northern Poland. Whether that 16th Guards was going any further east than Poland, no one knew. Regardless, it was pulling out of East Germany just as Gromyko had told the world that the Soviets would do. NATO intelligence was trying to work out which Soviet units would be next. Another tank division or a motorised rifle division? Another artillery brigade or maybe the transfer out of one of the independent air defence regiments? Of nuclear-tipped tactical missiles talked about in East Berlin too back at that summit, there was no sign yet of them moving though NATO wasn’t sure that they would know if they were gone or not gone even if the Soviets gave them pointers… which they might or might not. No one knew for certain. All that was known was that Andropov clearly wanted the West to know that he was doing what he had had his foreign minister said. Speculation was rife that this could be causing friction back in Moscow and maybe Andropov’s position would be imperilled as some might say he was threatening the security of the Motherland. That was something else unknown. It was, in the words of the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was in Western Europe during June at several unofficial speaking engagements on NATO’s future, a ‘known unknown’.

Out of East Germany continued the passage of Soviet troops, pressing towards the apparent twenty-five percent mark set by Gromyko. Was that four or five divisions? It depended: the Soviets would answer that question. While it was taking place, as was the case from the moment it was announced back in February, the uproar inside NATO continued. There were those who continued to deny it was really happening and called it all a clever lie. Others reminded everyone that the Soviets weren’t going far. There were those who asked where those missing troops would soon end up and said that NATO needed to worry about that. Comments were made that no matter what, even if every Soviet soldier eventually left East Germany – Gromyko hadn’t said anything like that –, there shouldn't be the reduction of a single soldier in the service of NATO. That view was contrasted by those saying that NATO should start to talk about, not actually do yet, their own troop withdrawals. No, no, no! Several governments were quietly looking at the possibility of using their funding for troop numbers elsewhere if NATO matched the Soviets in a pull-out of their own troops from West Germany. Other government reacted with speculation on increasing defence budgets in response to all of this. NATO lacked leadership on the issue. The Secretary General and the North Atlantic Council were answerable to politicians. Those politicians were divided. An alliance of so many members had many opinions, many different characters. Things were said in public were often different to what was said in private. Effort was made to put a united front on alliance-wide that the Soviet troop withdrawal was welcome but that NATO wasn’t considering matching this. That position was a compromise agreement, a diplomatic fudge and no one was happy with it.


In West Germany, Chancellor Schmidt was trying to weather this diplomatic crisis. His country was a major member of the alliance and its frontline in combined defence of the Continent. West Germany had large numbers of troops and was a major contributor to NATO. There were NATO troops on West German soil… but many of them were legally there due to post-war agreements made back in the Forties. Schmidt did not want NATO to withdraw troops from his country nor cut back on commitments to send troops to West Germany in crisis or war. He was of the opinion that the Soviets were up to something and this was a time to be wary, not blissfully ignorant of Soviet behaviour elsewhere in the world and for everyone to be deluding themselves that those men in Moscow were full of honest intentions. This was a position shared by many West Germans: the public and many in government. Schmidt’s problem though was that there were those openly clashing with him over such an approach while at the same time agreeing with him. They wanted Schmidt’s position on this matter just without Schmidt. He was the leader of the country’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) in a parliamentary alliance with the Free Democratic Party (FDP). This partnership was strong because the FDP liked being in government and Schmidt had led the country well through the past eight years where it mattered: economically. West Germany had done better than others in Western Europe when oil shocks from the Middle East had come and recession had reared its ugly head. His economic policies had kept him in power with support from the people. However, when it came to certain elements of foreign policy and other domestic matters, Schmidt had made mis-steps that were now coming back to bite him. He had supported Ford and his GLCM deployment, pushed for it in fact. Kennedy had then cancelled that and Schmidt had talked with the French about a pan-European deal with nuclear missiles: the leaks of those talks distorted what Schmidt wanted and made it look like he was eager to turn Germany – West and East – into a nuclear battlefield. Oil shocks, including the most recent with first Iran and the Iraq-Kuwait, had led Schmidt to push for a major increase in domestic nuclear power which had given rise to protests and the electoral polling rise of the Greens that had alarming levels of public support and there were many allegations of foreign financial support (none of which could be proved) too. Schmidt was held responsible by many for the rise in attacks made by the Red Army Faction. The FDP leadership was with him, but his own party establishment believed him to be out of touch with what the public wanted. He was being seen as warlike, especially since the issue with Soviet troop withdrawals begun. Schmidt had no idea that he was on shaky ground domestically.

Relations with the Kennedy Administration had got off to a bad start for Schmidt. Soon after Kennedy took office, Schmidt had been in the Middle East. He made some remarks while in Saudi Arabia about Israel and how West Germany shouldn’t keep silent on the Palestinian issue. Israel had hit back hard: the Israeli Prime Minister spoke of Schmidt’s war record and how he had served in the Nazi regime’s army. This had caught the attention of Kennedy with Israel long being an issue he was passionate on. He had taken an instant disliking to Schmidt as the new president had sided with Israel. There had been the Ulster issue as well where Kennedy saw West Germany chancellor as working with Britain to undermine him there – flights of fancy in the president’s mind – but, more-importantly, there had been the unilateral decision from Washington to cancel the GLCM deployment without saying anything to West Germany first. Bonn had raged at the mistake and Kennedy hadn’t been best pleased. Who did the West Germans think they were? East Berlin earlier this year had then happened. Kennedy had gone to East Berlin first before travelling to Bonn, not the other way around. Schmidt had been unimpressed and let Washington know. Kennedy had made some un-presidential remarks about Schmidt which had got back to Bonn. Schmidt had decided to not hit back, to be the bigger man and for the sake of his country, say nothing more, but that had rankled him. When Kennedy had refused to publicly back the position of Schmidt over NATO’s continued strength in unity by not allowing open talk of withdrawing troops out of West Germany, Schmidt had snapped. He had his ambassador in Washington tell Mondale that the United States had the responsibility as the leader of the Free World to act with that leadership. West Germany, Western Europe and the West all looked to the United States for leadership when opposed by what Schmidt said were Soviet tricks. Kennedy had been duped and he needed to support West Germany by making it clear that there would be no withdrawals of American troops from his country. When that was relayed to Kennedy, there was a heated exchange of words during a telephone call between Washington and Bonn. During June, as more Soviet troops left East Germany and there came no encouraging words still from Kennedy that he wasn’t about to match those withdrawals of his own sometime in the future, Schmidt started to get worried. The White House wasn’t saying anything on this, making no commitment. He again started to talk with fellow leaders across Western Europe about a joint position on this where all of them would make Kennedy understand that he needed to commit to NATO in public. Schmidt started to try to push the American president into doing something that he wouldn’t want to do. Domestically, Schmidt believed he was secure with his party behind him, his parliamentary coalition partners in the FDP with him, even the opposition CDU & CSU parties as well. The Greens were a nuisance and ignored. West Germany would take the lead and get a commitment from Washington with Schmidt certain he knew what he was doing. He was about to make another mis-step.

Ford was all over that pipeline following the invasion of Iran and applied pressure to stop it. I haven't moved further with that, unsure on how it will go. It doesn't suit the agenda of the Kennedy Administration to kill it at the current time in the story and if and when it did, the pipeline would probably be too late in the advanced stages with contracts signed / money spent / work started if it went ahead. I'm unsure.

The Greens went from 0 to 28 seats between 1980 and 1983 in RL. That was on the back of protests against GLCM and Pershing.
Here, there is talk - talk - of French missiles and massive increase in nuclear power. Plus a coming nuclear power plant accident. The Greens will grow suddenly and be a mess, because they were all over the place internally, when they get some influence in the place of the FDP after their collapse. That is my story plan for that with no more sketched out than that.

You mean the French are increasing their ballistic missiles arsenal.

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July 1982:

An attempt was made to kill President Kennedy on Independence Day. Shots were fired at the president during an official event on July 4th by a lone gunman. The wannabe assassin missed the president but his bullets struck four others: a White House staffer, the military aide (a US Marines officer carrying the nuclear briefcase), a Secret Service agent and a civilian. Kennedy was unharmed and swiftly taken to safety. The gunman was pinned down by agents and then dragged away… partly for his own safety as the Secret Service didn’t want to see him killed. Of those four shot instead of the president, the captain in the shiny uniform of the Marine Corps was killed and the civilian – a young woman – would be left in a coma; the other two who were hit were left with life-changing injuries. The bullets had been explosive-tipped: Devastators, legal and lethal. Kennedy spoke to the nation later that night and offered his condolences for the family of the dead and his prayers for the wounded. A couple of nights later, on a major television network, a comedian made a joke about the attempted assassination. He said that the president should check if the man who tried to kill him had recently paid a visit to see the Canadian Prime Minister. It got a laugh from the audience and the show’s producers signed off on the broadcast later that night. The comedian was fired the next day after an extraordinary backlash. Kennedy was divisive and there were many who might have wished him dead, but he was the president. The office was respected by the overwhelming majority of Americans even if the occupant wasn’t. Added into this the killing of that military aide and the hospitalisation of three others, the comedian was shown the door. He was apologetic in a statement made – he had a career to think of – but didn’t think he had done anything wrong. Yet, his network had received an unprecedented barrage of complains. Before the shooting, there had been many jokes made about the president’s ‘relations with Canada’ but in the aftermath of an attempt to kill the president, the mood rapidly shifted. Kennedy’s approval ratings went up afterwards. That brought comments from conspiracy theorists – there were many of them when it came to Kennedy’s presidency – that it had all been staged. Such comments weren’t broadcast on any major network who were fearful of the public backlash.

Mondale was in Mexico City a fortnight later and while there in the Mexican capital, Mexican security agents for their president shot and killed a man who came too near to their charge but also the visiting US secretary of state. This man was no assassin. It was an unfortunate incident and wouldn’t have usually happened with the Mexicans being so jumpy if it hadn’t been for the recent attempt on Kennedy’s life. Moreover, it came at a time when there had been shootings in Mexico City. The country was getting rich selling oil – which was what Mondale was in Mexico to talk about – and with that brought corruption which Mexico’s elite had down to a fine art. The corruption also came with violence though, something rather unexpected but which should have been foreseen when spill-over from Guatemala had seen many illegal weapons enter Mexico to end up in criminal’s hands. Mexico’s elite were getting wealthier while the majority of the people got poorer: there was nothing new there. Some of the latter were prepared to use much violence to get what the privileged few had and were using guns to do it, even in the better parts of the country’s capital. The security agents had been jumpy and overreacted regardless of all this yet it was a strange time in Mexico. When that shooting happened, Mondale was fast escorted away and then soon afterwards met with President López Portillo along with officials and trade delegates from both sides of the Rio Grande. There were deals to be signed, cooperation to be sought. More oil would soon be flowing northwards and heading south was money meant to be spent on infrastructure improvements throughout the country but especially the neighbouring parts of the country a-joining Texas and California. That infrastructure being roads, ports and pipelines. Plenty of that money was soon to be stolen by those who treated the Mexican state oil industry as their personal cash cow. Let the good times roll! In addition to all of that, Mondale joined with López Portillo in making a joint statement calling for the end to the recent (and escalating) violence in El Salvador. The shocking number of deaths which recent reports recorded coming from that little country were worth mentioning. Though El Salvador and Mexico didn’t share a direct border, it was one of the Central American nations south of Mexico where López Portillo had recently paid a major interest too. First it had been Guatemala with the last & lethal stage of its civil war before the Belize War and now the eruption of what certainly looked like civil war in El Salvador. Give peace a chance was the message from both men.

No one was listening to them down in El Salvador. General Romero took the fight to the rebels, urged on by his Argentinean and Chilean backers. There were massacres aplenty in the countryside, where the rebels were sought by government forces. It was in the cities where the rebels hit back. El Salvador’s not-so-communist guerrillas had ideological differences with those from Cuba, Guatemala and Nicaragua who had previously tried to tell them what to do but they had listened when it had come to urban fighting. San Salvador and Santa Ana were hit with shootings, bombings and kidnappings. The brutality of the government was starting to be matched by the guerrillas too. They were arguing among themselves and not united and therefore there was some effort made by individual groups to go further than the other in hitting back against Romero’s regime. One groups targeted innocent civilians in high-profile urban establishments (banks and large shops etc) with random gunfire while another group snatched & killed family members of regime figures before sending body parts back to the remainder of the family. The intention was to destabilise the regime and allow for victory for the rebels with each arguing that they had the best interests of the people at heart. Such outrages, combined with other less-severe strikes, only hardened the regime’s resolve. The army was ordered to kill more rebels. If rebels couldn’t be found, then civilians in the countryside who supported the rebels. How would the army know which civilians supported the rebels? Well… most of them did so kill as many as you need to so that the guerrilla problem is eliminated: such came the word from Romero, a man becoming more and more desperate as rebel attacks intensified. Noriega, Panama’s #2 strongman, came to San Salvador in the middle of the month and met with certain members of the military. He had connections in El Salvador among important officers. He’d return home afterwards to tell Torrijos that no matter what the outcome, El Salvador was a lost cause and Panama’s role there – supporting the government with arms, independent of Argentina and Chile – should cease. It was a mess and Panama could gain nothing from any further role. Noriega had connections with the CIA as well, ones which his president knew about but didn’t know about too. He told the CIA that the government in El Salvador could hold the line against the rebels. And Noriega had connections too with the Cubans. He told them that the rebels in El Salvador stood a chance of winning and overturning Romero’s regime. Noriega: friend to many and someone none of them – Torrijos, the CIA and Cuba – should trust. Yet trust him they did.

Over in Honduras (where Noriega dared not go with Paz García having recently being the smartest man south of the Rio Grande and realizing Noriega’s dishonesty), the restart of unrest following events after the Belize War was giving Honduras’ neighbours grave worries. Guatemala was still smarting after being defeated in that conflict and there had come attacks over the border from rebels fighting the regime in Guatemala City. The Hondurans had been unable to stop this like they had previously had much success at. Guatemala’s leadership was coming more and more under Cuba’s thumb and attention was directed towards Honduras as a base of operations for rebels against Havana’s new forcefully-adopted child. The Nicaraguan regime was angry at events in Honduras too. They shared a border with Honduras as well, one which, when major civil disturbances and then internal conflict erupted in Honduras, suddenly destabilized that frontier. Anti-Sandinista rebels struck into Nicaragua with a series of armed attacks. Borge and the Ortega brothers were united in their opposition to Paz García and his previous attitude towards allowing for those opposed to Nicaragua to operate inside his country. Now Paz García had no control over his borders, the border with their country. The Sandinista leadership made the decision that the ‘cocaine general’ – cocaine had been behind the fallout between Paz García and Noriega – was a threat to them. Cuba was focused internally at home, talking to the Soviets about getting shiny new weapons after some of their toys had done so bad against the British. Castro was reorganizing his military too while his spooks reorganized Guatemala. The Nicaraguan leadership was told that while Havana had a concern over Honduras, it wasn’t seen as the right time to do anything about that. The troika in Managua weren’t so sure. Maybe this was the right time. Cuba was thinking of itself, so should Nicaragua. Nicaragua was upon its feet now, thinking independently of Cuba and soon ready to start acting independently too. It wasn’t like anyone would stop them acting in Honduras if they chose to, was it?

Down in Panama, Torrijos was pleased that the first series of official meetings with the Americans over a future transfer of sovereignty over the Canal Zone started in July. State Department officials were in-country meeting with his men from the Panamanian Foreign Ministry. Mondale wasn’t due to visit nor was Torrijos due to attend these meetings. They were for diplomats to discuss things. Torrijos would be informed of everything though. He’d been told this would be a long process – how true that was turning out to be! – but the talks had finally started. Conflicts in El Salvador and Honduras, making money for the regime through the passage of Columbia’s most-famous export and any other regional distractions for Panama were now cancelled for the foreseeable future. Torrijos would keep Panama on its best behaviour and not antagonise the Americans like he had long been doing to get them to this stage. The low-level terrorism and the public protests against American control over rightful Panamanian territory were at an end. He was a civilian now, a democratically-elected leader. Panama was a respectable democracy and would be treated equally by the United States while these negotiations would occur. He had a plan to see all of this through to the end, where Panama got what it deserved: full sovereignty over the Canal Zone. No distractions, he had told Noriega, none at all while this was going on for nothing else mattered.