Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

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Early July 1984:

The assassination of Petra Kelly rocked West Germany with shock and outrage felt nationwide. Her killing, the brutal manner of it too, saw one of the country’s most-outspoken and therefore well-known politicians lost to the nation. She was the face of The Greens to many and while not liked by everyone in life, the nation mourned her in death. Who would do such a thing, to a woman as well? Kelly was murdered in Bonn and the next day in that small government city, there came the allegations that her murderer was an American. Local media reported that a United States diplomatic official, who it was claimed was a CIA spy too, had been due to meet with her (for reasons unspecified) and was afterwards seen leaving the building where she was later found dead. His name and the claim that he worked for the CIA were revealed; a picture of him was made public too. There was ‘proof’ that the media had, irrefutable evidence. They ‘why’ was missing but everything else was there. The police and West German government spokesmen refused to comment; no comment came from the US Embassy either. That named man – not a suspect in the eyes of the West German police – left the country as soon as possible. He was being framed and his superiors ordered him pulled out of the country because as a CIA officer, the revealing of his identity put him and the intelligence agency in danger. That was sensible as far as the CIA saw it; others disagreed. It looked like he had run rather than face questions and that the CIA had something to hide. Government-to-government relations weren’t put under strain from this with official contacts smoothing things over though there was a strong public reaction. Elements of the West German media wouldn’t let the story go. Further questions were asked as to why had Kelly been in contact with the CIA (she hadn’t) and what had been the motivation for the CIA to kill her (they hadn’t)? Her real killer, a West German petty criminal, wouldn’t be telling anyone what he did and who told him to do it. The Stasi – acting on Moscow’s orders – cut his throat and dropped his corpse in the Rhine to be found later and not connected with such an assassination.

Kelly was regarded as the de facto spokesperson of The Greens by many West Germans. The party that formed the governing coalition with the SPD was often in chaos with refusals by some to vote along party lines in the Bundestag – making that ‘fun’ for the SPD and Chancellor Vogel – and outrageous statements made in public by others. Alongside Kelly, two more politicians with the party were known to the public as they were often in the news plus had interesting personal histories. Joschka Fischer, the former revolutionary street fighter with alleged ties to domestic terrorists, was one and the Gert Bastian, a retired general, was the other. Fischer was a pragmatist politician and while wild at times, worked often with the SPD as he tried to get things done in the country which would follow the intent of the policies of The Greens if not to the exact manifesto wording. Bastian was one of several Generals for Peace from across West Germany and the Low Countries. They were former senior military officers which spoke out regularly as a group against nuclear weapons based in Germany – both sides of the Iron Curtain – and demanded their removal… the funding of the Generals for Peace had been questioned many times with unproved allegations that that came from across the Iron Curtain. Bastian was also involved in a personal relationship with Kelly; he was separated from his wife and older than her with it being said by some that he was violent & controlling towards her with she resisted strongly. Kelly was known for her strong environmental views – more so than being against nuclear weapons – and also outright opposition to crushing of political dissent and refusals of nations in the Eastern Bloc to follow internationally-agreed behaviour on human rights. She was no friend of East Germany despite efforts by the regime there to make use of The Greens for their own ends and had embarrassed East Germany in public by partaking in a publicised demonstration inside East Berlin about nuclear weapons in their country and also how political prisoners were held in that other Germany. Stasi operations to have The Greens shape West German public opinion & debate for their own ends had been frustrated by Kelly: she refused time and time again to make excuses for their behaviour when others would. She also had recently had questions about East German interference within the party which she was committed to. Others had asked similar things, but none with the prestige and public recognition that Kelly had. She was identified as problem for East German and Soviet maskirovka efforts in West Germany in the lead-up to the war: the plan called for the country to stay neutral and be at the head of many Western European countries doing the same. With her alive, that was deemed to be at risk. Blaming her death on the Americans, and having West Germans themselves do the accusing once they were given the right breadcrumbs, went according to plan. Bastian and Fischer both believed that there was a link to the CIA with her death: many other West Germans would too when new ‘revelations’ later came.


Kelly’s death came when NATO foreign ministers were meeting in Stuttgart: that timing was deliberate on the part of those who had her killed. There was to be a protest march there in that West German city against NATO’s continued raised military alert following that Warsaw Pact invasion of Poland with rumours present that REFORGER & mobilisation might be coming and that also further nuclear weapons were being brought into the country. Neither of those allegations were true and none had come from outside either for once again, the West German peace and anti-nuclear movement – quite the chaotic yet strong force – did a lot of Moscow’s work for them. Bastian wasn’t invited to the meeting; he hosted an ‘alternative summit’ in the city at the same time and ignored remarks that maybe he should have been a little more upset about his partner’s death at this time. Instead, Bastian denounced NATO nuclear militarism in West Germany. Other members of The Greens wanted to talk about Kelly’s murder and the stories of Soviet massacres in Poland but Bastian kept the focus on the allegations of what the politicians were supposedly discussing as they prepared for war. That must be stopped! The West German people needed to stop the coming war!

One thing which NATO ministers certainly weren’t talking about in Stuttgart was doing anything aggressive with regards to what had happened in Poland. No new nuclear weapons were arriving in West Germany and there were no incoming troops. Actually, troops were still leaving the country as the United States continued to remove selected forces which it been planning to for some time and that schedule wasn’t cancelled or even delayed. This caused contention in Stuttgart. The Americans were in the process of removing what they had already said they were – the complete 3rd Armored Division and the forward brigade of the 1st Infantry Division to join what had already left – in the face of Soviet and Warsaw Pact aggression against Poland. There was a further American withdrawal of some military units from Spain, agreed under Ford following Spain’s transition to democracy, and while Spain wasn’t in NATO, this all still mattered. This attitude of the United States where such a process couldn’t be delayed infuriated others. Andropov was dead, Ustinov was invading other countries and there could easily be a delay made. That was put to Mondale but he had instructions from Kennedy on this matter that it was to continue as planned. Some troops had already gone to Britain and these being withdrawn now were going home to the US mainland. There remained strong defensive forces still in West Germany and enough to counter the reduced Soviet military presence in East Germany. That was the position of his country. The feeling from some others – not all though – was that in this time of danger, the Americans were abandoning them. Opinions were voiced by a few that the ‘real’ reason that Kennedy was continuing with his troop withdrawals despite Soviet behaviour was that he wanted to have troops available to invade Mexico and/or Cuba. That might or might not have been true but then came the discussions away from the official summit talks when it came to a NATO-wide position on the worsening situation in Latin America. If the United States went to war with Nicaragua, they would probably go to war with Cuba… and then end up fighting the Soviets too if not directly then indirectly. Should a Soviet action take place in response, a likely reaction, it would probably be in Western Europe. Mondale wouldn’t be drawn on that issue. He asked for diplomatic support from allies over his government’s position on Mexico but didn’t apologise for the previous instances of the United States acting there without consulting allies first. Nor could he promise that wouldn’t happen again. Was the United States purposely trying to antagonise its allies at this time of great strain and looming danger? Because that was how it was looking. Furthermore, was Kennedy soon to drag them all into a war, one which they didn’t want to be part of? As before, away from the official talks, some NATO foreign ministers – under government instructions – were holding preliminary and speculative talks on what to do if that happened. These were meant to be secret, for if they were revealed, and if spun right, the fall-out could be quite dramatic diplomatically.

This is a clusterfuck, to put it mildly...

Waiting for more...

Original content supported by research to create a fictional story. The sixth one which I have done.




A heck of a lot more active measures to come now that the gloves are off.


Will do. Just to say, I was plotting out writing plans last night and - roughly - have enough for 300 more updates already. I need more hours in the day!

Bastian and Kelly were real people. He was an ex general and in 1992 he killed her before Stasi links could be revealed. A bad guy.
Loads more to write.

Nice, it took only 60 pages and the big war might finally begin, lets hope it last until page 100.

(125)

Mid July 1984:

Colonel Gadhafi had spent the past couple on months lashing out against other countries. None of what he had done had brought him nor Libya any good. He would contest that assertion. To him, Libya was leading the Arab world where others couldn’t and wouldn’t. That had seen him first arrange for the assassination of the Egyptian president for signing a peace agreement – not a treaty – with Israel and then getting into a war with Egypt. It had been the Americans who he had ordered his aircraft to try to attack next and that had seen those jets shot out of the sky. This had been followed up by overseeing the slaying of an Israeli spymaster in Turkey – aggravating two more countries in that endeavour – for no real gain… apart from the appearance over Tripoli soon enough of Israeli strike aircraft. F-15s flew a long strike mission supported by Boeing-707 tankers and hit regime targets in the Libyan capital. Bombs fell among several Gadhafi compounds in the middle of the night and also a facility in the desert south of the city where Libya was hosting Palestinian terrorists in a training camp. Libyan air defences, smashed up already by the Egyptians, were hit with electronic jamming and were wholly ineffective when taken completely by surprise.

The intent on the part of Israel hadn’t been to kill Gadhafi. The cabinet in Tel Aviv which had authorised the strike wouldn’t have shed a tear if they had of but their aim was to punish him and sent him the message that his actions wouldn’t go without response. Israeli bombs came mighty close to killing Gadhafi regardless of intent. He was lucky to escape with his life when one of his palaces was blown partially apart. Gadhafi would later declare that one member of his family – an adopted little girl – had been killed by Israel. Whether she had been, whether she had even existed, that was debatable. Gadhafi claimed too that four Israeli jets had been downed and there was footage which apparently showed the wreckage of these. To the experienced observer, those certainty didn’t look like the remains of F-15s but maybe downed Libyan MiGs that Egyptian MiGs had eliminated the other month. Gadhafi raged on the airwaves as he spoke to his people and the listening world. Israel would be punished. America and Egypt had helped the Zionists and they would be punished too. The Libyan people would have their vengeance. When that punishment and vengeance would occur, nobody knew. The frontier with Egypt, with opposing armies lined up facing each other, remained silent. The unofficial ceasefire of artillery, air strikes and commando attacks carried on. Both sides were rearming with the Egyptians having gone to the Americans and the Libyans to the Soviets. Gadhafi would soon be welcoming a Soviet delegation and they would have something surprising to say to him when he asked for arms and support.


General Noriega had already had that conversation with the Soviets. Panama remained outside the Havana-led Latin American alliance of overt hostility towards the United States as an agreement had been struck exclusively with the Soviet Union for the participation of Panama in the war, a conflict due to begin in two months. Preparation for that was underway as the Panamanian Army – no longer the National Guard since Noriega had assumed power – slowly expanded in side and capability. In doing so, this was observed by the Americans as they watched how outside the Canal Zone, Noriega had his army show off. The Canal Zone was garrisoned by US Army and US Air Force units and the exercises were hard to miss. They watched as the Panamanians practised for what would only be one mission: taking the Canal Zone in a full-scale assault. There was no doubt of that desire on the part of the Panamanians in uniform to do this but whether they would, whether the political will was there, was another matter entirely. Such an action would bring war with the United States. A defence of the Canal Zone would be made with either victory or defeat coming in that: either way, everyone in Panama knew that in the end, Panama would eventually lose a conflict with the United States should it take that step. Well… everyone was supposed to know that.

Outside of the Canal Zone, the strip of territory which cut across the middle of Panama, there were protests against the American presence. These were supposed to be spontaneous demonstrations of patriotic Panamanians. That was entirely false. This was the work of the ruling National Democratic Party (quite the misnomer) who had their supporters out, joined by ordinary civilians coerced into joining in. The protests remained non-violent but they were big. At times, the crowds would surge forward and head towards the Canal Zone driven by behaviour of some inside the demonstrations though they didn’t cross into the Canal Zone. Panama was technically an ally, a friend of the United States. Noriega was meant to be an asset of the CIA. The assessment of the CIA when it came to this recent behaviour, one presented to Kennedy, was that the military exercises and state-organised demonstrations were the newest attempts at Noriega’s ‘diplomacy’ when it came to seeing the Canal Zone returned to Panama. Treaty negotiations were stalled and this was what Noriega now believed would work. How very wrong that assessment was.

Ghadaffi is in a difficult position. He has to maintain his pride, and that means not giving in. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't really have a decent way out here. Especially not with certain Soviet intentions.