The Ka of Gifford Hillary (3 page)

‘Which ever way we do decide there is going to be the most frightful outcry from the side our verdict goes against. Either the scientists and New Lookers, or the warriors of the Old School, are certain to raise Cain. They’ll write to every newspaper and shout from every roof top that we are betraying the nation. The Government may well have to face a vote of confidence in the House with the unhappy knowledge that many of its staunchest supporters will be against it; although, of course, as an offset to that one can be certain that a proportion of the Opposition will be in favour of whichever decision is adopted. The issue is a non-party one, but it is bound to split the nation; and it is in the belief that, if you will, you could be of great assistance in carrying the ship of Government over these dangerous rocks on a spate of public opinion that I asked you to come here tonight.’

I made no comment. There was nothing new to me about the problem. Like most other people who habitually scan a few of the more serious papers, I had read dozens of so-called ‘informed’ articles on it by every type of expert both scientific and military. In what way Sir Charles thought that I could materially influence public opinion I had not the faintest idea; so there seemed nothing useful that I could say. After sipping his brandy he went on:

‘I need hardly add that I shall not ask you to do anything which would be contrary to your own convictions; neither have I any intention of endeavouring to influence your judgement. I propose only to lay a variety of opinions before you. Should you form the same conclusion from them as I have, I shall then tell you what I have in mind. If not, that will be the end of the matter, and I shall only request that you will not divulge any information which you may have acquired during the course of this evening.’

‘That’s fair enough,’ I agreed. ‘Naturally I haven’t a notion what you have in mind; but if we do see eye to eye in this I’ll willingly give you such help as I can.’

He nodded, and smiled at me like a wise white owl through his thick-lensed glasses, with the heavy tortoise-shell rims. Then he asked: ‘Do you know anything about the workings of my Ministry?’

‘Not much,’ I replied, ‘except that the majority of its staff are hand-picked bright boys on about Colonel’s level from all three Services, with a few Foreign Office types, scientists and economic experts thrown in. I only know that much because a nephew of mine has recently been posted to it.’

‘Really! What’s his name?’

‘Johnny Norton. He put up a pretty good show in the war and in Malaya and has since passed out near the top from the Air Staff College; but he’s only a very junior Wing Commander so he thinks it quite a feather in his cap to have been selected for the Joint Planning Staff.’

‘And he’s right, of course, because we do skim the cream. I haven’t met him yet; but in due course he is sure to have to sit in for his G. One at one of the bigger conferences, and I shall then. Has he told you of the system by which we get the answers to our riddles?’

‘Gracious me, no. Johnny is much too security minded even to drop a hint about the nature of his work.’

Before proceeding further with this account I feel it only right to state that the details of my secret conference with Sir Charles have no bearing on my personal tragedy. It was the action which I took as a result of it which later had such disastrous consequences, and I am recording the details only because they explain that action. In consequence any reader of this document who is uninterested in future strategy and our measures for countering the threat of Soviet aggression will lose nothing by omitting the next few thousand words and resuming this account in
Chapter 4

Sir Charles’ friendly grin came again and his pale blue eyes smiled through the pebble lenses as he proceeded to enlighten me. ‘The Joint Planning Staff, which forms the backbone of my Ministry, is the only equivalent that Britain has ever had to the German General Staff, but it is infinitely smaller. It had its modest beginnings in Palestine in 1937 with a single team of a Lieutenant Commander, a Major and
a Squadron Leader. Even during the war it was never expanded beyond six teams of three each with the addition of a few civilian specialists. It is divided into two sections, the STRATS, or Strategic Planners, who deal with more immediate problems, and the FOPS, or Future Planners, who tackle questions of long-term policy. Every single problem concerning any theatre of war, or possible theatre of war, or redistribution of forces, or creation of new bases, or undertakings to the N.A.T.O. countries, or terms of reference for special inquiries, or directives to force commanders, or important innovations in any of the Services, is submitted to one or other of these two sections. In addition they are expected to think for themselves, and on any matter which they may decide requires attention draw that of their superiors to it by writing papers which begin: “In anticipation of the wishes of the Chiefs of Staff.”’

‘Then they must have their plates full,’ I said with a smile.

‘Yes. The hours they work would make every shop-steward in the country faint; they get no overtime for it either. It seems that there are just as many urgent problems to be dealt with in the cold war as in a hot one; so it’s not at all unusual for the STRATS to be still at it at two o’clock in the morning preparing final briefs for the Chiefs-of-Staff’s daily meeting eight hours later. Most of them work on Sundays too, although there is no meeting of the Chiefs. It gives them a chance to catch up.

‘But to go on with what I was saying. Each problem is first argued out by a team of G. Two’s. They state the object of the paper, set out the arguments for or against this and that, and give their conclusions. It then goes to a team of G. One’s who reargue it, redraft it and pass it on to the Directors of Plans of the three Services. The Directors of Plans argue the pros and cons in their turn, amend it as they think fit and submit it to the Chiefs of Staff. The Chiefs, who in the meantime have been separately briefed by their own personal staffs in their respective Ministries, then discuss it. If they are not satisfied that the recommendation is the best answer to the problem they refer it back with their comments to the J.P. for further consideration. If they are satisfied they pass it, and copies are sent for action to whatever departments may be concerned. That is the drill with regard to all bread-and-butter
Service matters. But all questions of major importance, or ones in which the Foreign Office, or other Ministries, may be concerned, are placed before me; and on issues of the highest import, such as this business of the New Look, I, of course, have to consult the Cabinet.

‘I’m telling you all this because I want to impress upon you that the papers they produce are not just cock-shies at a subject setting forth the views of a few clever but possibly prejudiced people. Initiated by promising young officers who are full of enthusiasm, and who sometimes have most revolutionary ideas, they go up stage by stage till they receive the well-balanced scrutiny of the men who have had greater experience of such problems than any others in their profession. So in their final form these papers embody the consolidated opinion reached by a majority among a selection of men all of whose brains are well above par and some, probably, as fine as any in the country.’

Reaching a long arm over the back of the sofa, Sir Charles picked up some sheets of foolscap clipped together at the top, handed them to me and said: ‘This is a paper got out some months ago on the New Look. I want you to read it and tell me what you think of it.’

The first page of the paper had a printed heading with TOP SECRET in inch-high letters above a red line; the rest of it was stencilled. Great skill and experience had evidently been used in drafting it, as it did not contain a single redundant word and the whole subject had been reduced to the barest essentials. It was only three pages in length and consisted of a number of neat paragraphs each with a separate sub-heading.

In effect, it stated that while we could not afford to fall behind our potential enemies in the development of thermonuclear weapons, it was essential that we should retain a sufficiency of orthodox formations to enable us to meet aggression in cases where it was unlikely that either side would resort to nuclear warfare—such as that which had taken place in Korea.

It referred to our undertaking to keep four divisions on the Continent, to our commitments elsewhere, and to the vital necessity for adequate convoy protection to keep Britain’s sea communications open in the event of a major war.

In conclusion it stressed the danger we should run if we
were caught changing horses while crossing the stream; and expressed the opinion that no further major reduction of forces would as yet be acceptable to any of the three Services.

When I had finished it I glanced across at Sir Charles and said: ‘This doesn’t seem to get you very far, does it?’

Again the boyish grin, that contrasted so strongly with his thatch of white hair, flashed out. ‘It doesn’t get us anywhere. Mind you, normally there is a great deal of give and take between the three Services, but that could hardly be expected where the New Look is concerned. The airmen feel that in any major war they, practically alone, will be called on to hold the baby. The soldiers fear a still greater reduction in their numbers unless they can make a case for taking over a big share of the airmen’s responsibilities, and the sailors know that they are fighting for their very existence. It is not surprising that their views are entirely irreconcilable.

‘Realising that, as a next move, I asked the three Chiefs of Staff to have the officers of their own Services in my Ministry in consultation with the Planners in theirs, to prepare separate papers on the subject: The results were very interesting.’

Standing up, Sir Charles gave me three more papers, all considerably longer than the first, and said: ‘Now while you read these I’m sure you won’t mind if I do a little work.’ Then he moved round to the other side of the table while I got down to reading.

The Admiralty paper was the shortest. It opened by taking the bull by the horns and stating somewhat bellicosely that Britain owed her rise to greatness and her security through the centuries to sea-power; so any suggestion that the Royal Navy should be reduced to an inferior status was unthinkable.

There followed paragraphs to the effect that: The employment of atomic weapons could not alter the fact that the country would become incapable of continuing to wage any form of war at all if, for more than a few weeks, its sea communications were severed. That the Russians were building great numbers of ocean-going submarines; so it was more important than ever before that we should increase to the maximum possible extent our building of submarine-killing craft of the latest design. That whereas airfields and rocket-launching sites presented fixed targets for nuclear missiles, aircraft carriers possessed the advantage of mobility; therefore,
should all land establishments be wiped out, the Fleet carriers might still survive as a means of retaliation, and guided missiles from them prove a last trump card which could give us victory. That the Royal Navy had ever adapted itself to changing conditions and had taken to the air simultaneously with the Army, developing in the Fleet Air Arm a weapon of proved value which could be operated with maximum efficiency only under the direction of naval officers; and that logically Coastal Command should form a section of that Arm instead of being the responsibility of the R.A.F.

It was a good vigorous paper full of blood and guts, but despite the buccaneering project of seizing Coastal Command, one could not escape the impression that the Admiralty were on the defensive, and, clearly, by their demands for more ships and craft of all sorts and sizes, their Lordships definitely favoured the Old Look policy.

The War Office paper was much more subtle, as it started off with the frank admission that in a thermo-nuclear war some of its present formations would prove of little or no value, although it qualified the statement further on by remarking that should certain of these be eliminated the difficulties of suppressing outbreaks such as had occurred in Malaya and Kenya would be enormously increased.

Having nailed the old flag to the mast, that by whatever means an enemy is rendered incapable of further effort large bodies of troops are still required to occupy the conquered territory, it went on to examine what the results might be should we succeed in inducing our allies to agree to our withdrawing our land forces from the Continent—that being the only practical means by which we could reduce our number of standing divisions. Such a withdrawal, and the precedent it would set, might so weaken the N.A.T.O. forces in Europe as to encourage our enemies to invade our allies’ territories while refraining from using nuclear weapons. In such an event, would we be the first to press the button? Our Government might well prove unwilling to plunge the world into chaos until all possible means of securing a ceasefire had been exhausted. Yet the price of such hesitation would prove ruinous. The forces the Russians could deploy were so overwhelming that within a few days Free Europe would collapse under their impact. In one stroke we should then
have lost the war potential of allies whose populations total over two hundred million, every advance base on the Continent, billions of pounds worth of war-like stores, and have the Russians on our door-step at Calais.

The Soldiers pointed out that they had already shown their willingness to accept radical changes by the Territorial Army’s handing over of Anti-Aircraft Command to the R.A.F. Regiment. Moreover they were even now examining the possibility both of reducing personnel and attaining greater flexibility by reorganising the Armoured Formations, eliminating a high proportion of old-type Artillery Units as atomic cannon became available, reducing the size of Divisions, and relieving Battalions of their heavier types of weapon.

The foregoing led to a statement that only by increased mobility could the Armies of the Allies hope to hold the greatly superior Land Forces of their potential enemies, and that the real key to the rapid movement of fighting units lay in an unstinted allocation of aircraft, particularly helicopters. Several other types of aircraft were then enumerated and it was insisted that, to obtain maximum efficiency, the pilots of these should obviously be integrated in the Army units concerned, as had been the glider pilots of the Airborne Divisions in the last war.