Post by stevep on Oct 19, 2020 16:00:04 GMT
Berlin
March 10th 1965
“Chancellor von Sternberg, Members of the Reichstag. I stand before you as the third Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to visit your country and the first to address your ranks. This is not the first time I have come to Berlin, though. Twenty years ago, I was here as an officer of the Allied Expeditionary Force. We came then in war and were victorious. The world had been shattered by war.
In twenty years, Germany has come far, from the depths of destruction to a new and peaceful country. All of Europe and all of the free world supports you in this. All men deserve the right to live in peace, in justice and in freedom. That is what is at stake here in Berlin, that is what is at stake in Germany and in Austria-Hungary and that is what is at stake all over the world. For it is all over the world that free men are standing together in defence of liberty - in the trackless depths of African plains, in the searing sands of the Levant, in the soaring mountains of India and in the jungles of Indochina. That unifies us - the unshakable drive to protect the rights of man to be the master of his own destiny.
Today, I am here in peace, as a friend and as an ally. Together, the British Empire and Germany stand, alongside the other great nations of the free world. We stand, against aggression and oppression, against tyranny and wickedness and against the threat of communism from the Soviet Union. Britain stands and will continue to stand. We have given our word and we will keep it. Whatever needs to be done, we will do. Whatever price we must pay, we will.
As we go forward, we go forward together.”
...............................................................................
Whitehall
October 17th 1964
“How many of these have you done before, Sir Richard?”
“Formally, three. Effectively, though, it would just be the one back in 1945 with Richard Harcourt as the only de facto change of power. Even then, Harcourt and most of his ministry had been part of the Coalition Government through the war. Churchill in ‘48 didn’t need more than a brief outline of the major changes and Eden was already right on top of matters. Really, you’d have to go back forty years for the last real change of government.”
“Just a few things have changed in that time.”
“Rather.”
Sir Richard Hannay, Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, sipped from his cup of tea and hoped that they would not have to wait for much longer. The Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms were far from the most salubrious of environments for any sort of meeting, lying as they did over a mile below the surface and being quite sparsely appointed apart from the round table in its centre. It always seemed to be altogether too cold in here, something that was accentuated by the only other occupants being the Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Mountbatten, and the Director-General of the Intelligence Services, Sir Miles Cuthbertson, the latter being a fairly cold and controlled chap at the best of times.
He looked down at the precisely worded brief prepared on the new Prime Minister by the Cabinet Office. Stanley James Barton, aged 46. Born in Kempston, he had a grammar school education followed by work as an engineer and in a steel mill. Volunteered on the outbreak of war, assigned to the Royal Fusiliers and served in Norway, Spain, North Africa, Italy, France and Germany, rising to the rank of colonel, winning the MC, the DSO and being mentioned in dispatches four times. Elected to Parliament in 1945, he rose through the ranks of the Labour Party as a strong speaker favoured by the anti-communist Right of the party. Unexpected rise to power after the death of Gaitskell in ‘56 was followed by a purge of firstly the soft centre and then the hard left, with heavy backing from key unions and churches. Married with three children, but keeps them out of the public eye. Few if any friends. Stern, serious and taciturn to the point of grimness, extremely hard working and possessed of a profound sense of duty. Economic with speech but a fine orator. Viewed as a hard, reliable man with a powerful sense of justice.
“Who else are we waiting for?”
“Only Sir Obo Macinreish; he’ll fly out with us for the last part, which will be just you and the PM, M.”
The door to the briefing room opened to reveal the familiar figure the Cabinet Secretary; the latter being a flying monkey tended to stick out in most crowds.
“Good day, gentlemen.” ooked Sir Obo as he flapped across to his customary perch. “The Prime Minister will be down directly; his motorcade has just arrived back from the Palace.”
Sure enough, less than a minute later, the door opened, admitting the new Prime Minister, whilst his detail of Scotland Yard bodyguards and the military aid carrying the atomic Gladstone bag remained outside. He was a tall, powerfully built man with receding black hair and a heavy, stern brow whose deep blue eyes fixed all who crossed his path with a steady gaze. He took his place at the round table and looked down at the agenda.
“Good morning, gentlemen. This all seems rather straightforward, except for the last item. What could be so secret that even the code word is censored?”
“I don’t know myself, Prime Minister; that will be a matter for Sir Miles to discuss with you at that point. Now, if Sir Richard is ready?” Macinreish cocked his head towards Hannay.
“Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The purpose of this meeting is to make you aware of the threats, deployments and emerging commitments facing the British Empire across the world and to provide your new government with the necessary information to form future decisions and policies. Admiral Mountbatten will begin with the current balance of power.”
"As of midnight, we have a total of 250 Blue Streaks, 320 Black Arrows and 238 Red Kings deployed operationally, the majority of those still being in the British Isles. RAF Bomber Command can field 638 Vulcans, of which 584 are currently operational, consisting of 132 with six Blue Steels apiece, 96 with 4 Skybolts each, 80 with four Grand Slams and the remaining 276 carrying megaton gravity bombs; 380 operational Vengeances and 68 Vindicators in the Pathfinder Force with Blue Steel and megaton bombs; and 360 Valiants carrying a mixture of Violet Suns, Blue Danubes and Orange Heralds. The other 16 Valiant squadrons are conventionally armed, with half deployed through the Middle East, Africa and the Med and the other half out in India and the Far East; they can be equipped with atom bombs, poison gas or germ weapons as needed. The Royal Navy has 14 ballistic missile submarines in service, of which there are four deployed on patrol in the Atlantic, two in the Med and two in the Pacific, each carrying 24 Green Knight SLBMs, whilst there are another 240 on the battleships, in addition to the 120 Supermarine Excalibur strike bombers on the aircraft carriers. The Army has 24 strategic guns, each with four megaton shells, and 240 White Knight medium range missiles."
"Can that force provide sufficient strategic firepower to destroy the enemy?"
"On current projections, yes, but with caveats. Even in the worst case modelling of 50% losses or failures, that still allows for sufficient coverage of the Soviet base of 896 DSTs, or Designated Strategic Targets in the USSR and their empire. There are a further 287 in China, 69 in Ottoman Turkey and 42 in Indonesia. We are still in the process of coordinating our targeting with the Americans and French as part of the Allied Strategic War Plan, but we have to be prepared for the circumstances where we have to strike independently."
"Is that a realistic proposition, going to war without the Americans?"
"The strategic situation can change extremely quickly, Prime Minister, far more quickly than we can put an alternate force structure together. Think of 1960."
"Mr. Eden kept me fully appraised of our actions during the crisis, so I'm not ignorant of the possibility. Indeed, we might have to do so at some point. Do we have enough to do it, though?"
"Until perhaps 1970. Soviet advances in anti-ballistic missiles, SAMs and interceptors will degrade the effectiveness of our force, even as it shrinks with the retirement of the Valiants. We plan to counter that with more stand-off weapons for Bomber Command, the supersonic Supermarine Victory bomber, multiple warheads on the land and sea based missile force and strategic warheads on sea launched cruise missiles. They are building up the offensive capacity just as fast as their defensive efforts, though. Indeed, the threat posed by Soviet nuclear and conventional forces is of the gravest kind. The Soviet conventional forces in Poland and Eastern Europe are, in a word, formidable, but the Allied armies present in Germany and Austria-Hungary have an advantage at this time in equipment and relative power. Their tanks and planes are improving, but remain five years behind us. It is their nuclear threat that is much more concerning.
We currently estimate that they have upwards of 250 of their 600 SS-4s and SS-5s targeted on the British Isles, along with over 200 Blinder and Bounder supersonic medium bombers and at least 6 of their ballistic missile submarines. Now, the Royal Navy is quite confident that it can get every missile submarine within our defensive area and Fighter Command has an extremely capable defence against bombers and tactical missiles, but we won't have enough Violet Friends and other ABMs to have an optimum defence against Soviet medium range missiles for several years to come. Countering any Soviet LRBMs that are employed against us would be additionally difficult, as will any weapons launched from the Krasnya Oktyabr space battle station."
"I thought we had a firm edge on the Reds in space."
"An edge, yes, sir, but perhaps not a firm one. The Soyuz is a damn powerful spaceship and gives them a capacity to get around the ether very fast; they will have a second one of them within 3 years based on our information. If they pursue a militarised version of the Kosmos, this will be even more threatening. Up against them, we have the four topline battlecruisers of the RSF and the Dreadnought as our main strength in space, which is insufficient to cover three Soviet vessels, anything the Space Nazis have squirreled away and what we estimate as two Chinese craft."
“Wasn’t the main contention behind Dreadnought was that it was the equivalent of four other spaceships. It is certainly more than that in cost.”
“It is certainly that, Prime Minister, but it can only be in one place at once and space is awfully large, as you once said about capital ships on Earth.”
Barton grimaced and nodded. “Very good, Admiral, I know when I’m being hoist on my own petard. Carry on.”
“Elsewhere in the world, the Chinese are the next largest threat, although that is localised to Hong Kong, Burma, Tibet and India. Their fleet remains well behind ours in technology and firepower and their air forces are still dominated by versions of Russian planes. Apart from Hong Kong, our relations have been warming over the last few years.
Indonesia is an ongoing annoyance, but Moscow has tended to keep their more exhuberant tendencies in check. The current view is that they will push towards the edge of war, but really don’t have the capacity or desire to move beyond it. The Turks haven’t given a real threat in years, but are the closest thing to a real threat in the Near East; the Arabs don’t present a conventional security threat.
Around the globe, we have substantive forces engaged in counterinsurgency operations in Malaya, Vietnam, Borneo and the Congo. Of these, the most significant is Vietnam, which is shifting into a more high intensity conflict, but the most convoluted is the Congo. Africa looms as a new front in the Cold War, with the Soviets backing the ALF with arms and advisors.”
Hannay now broke in. “That view is reflected by the consensus of the CID, Prime Minister, particularly the Commonwealth members. With the focus of South Africa and Rhodesia drawn by the Congo and their own growing internal threats, a large part of our contingency strength is drawn away from the fulcrum of the Empire at Suez. That in turn draws us and the Canadians into that theatre in greater strength. The Indonesian situation is having a similar effect on the Australians and New Zealanders.”
“Even as more pressure is put on India by Moscow to turn in on itself. Well, we can never say that our enemies are stupid.”
“No, Prime Minister.” Sir Obo flew up from his perch, clutching at a pile of papers and his banana. “The Director-General will now conduct the final portion of the briefing alone, so by your leave, Sir Richard, Admiral Mountbatten and I will depart; I shall remain without to return with you to Number 10, as there are a number of further meetings and telephone calls that have been scheduled.”
“Very well.”
Barton sat awkwardly as the men and monkey left the room and the door closed behind them. After a moment, Sir Miles began to speak.
“There are a number of matters that are of the utmost secrecy, Prime Minister. I have been geased so that I cannot speak to you about any of these when there are others present. Let us begin with the simplest of them all, the case of our man in the Kremlin.”
Very interesting. I think "The Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms were far from the most salubrious of environments for any sort of meeting, lying as they did over a mile below the surface and being quite sparsely appointed apart from the round table in its centre." sounds a bit excessive. Is the basis for this to prevent any form of espionage, including magical? Also it seems to suggest those are the main Briefing Rooms rather than for very specialised tasks like this.
Rather like the idea of Sir Obo Macinreish as Cabinet secretary although I can't remember any mention of such a creature before in DE? 
Only knowledge elsewhere of course is Wizard of Oz where they were among the villeins,
Only knowledge elsewhere of course is Wizard of Oz where they were among the villeins, Those are a hell of a lot of nukes, even given the larger size of DE and the casual mention of other 16 conventionally armed valiant squadrons "they can be equipped with atom bombs, poison gas or germ weapons as needed". Which shows the different viewpoint of the DE universe.
Steve
