I HAVE TRIED, I HOPE COOLY AND CLINICALLY, TO SIFT THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF ON THIS ISSUE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00364R002204280070-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 19, 2007
• Sequence Number: 70
• Publication Date: June 28, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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503 - Foreign Affairs and Defence 28 NNE 3 Foreign Affairs and Defence 504
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I have tried, I hope cooly and clinically, to sift the
wheat from the chaff on this issue. I have tried to discover
the answer to my own questions. I have tried to reconcile
what is apparently irreconcilable. It would be a very
serious matter indeed if serious doubt remained that the
single act of changing the policy on firing at such short
notice, with extremely limited consultation, resulted in a
substantial acceleration of the war and subsequent loss of
life on both sides when there were serious hopes that it
could have been brought to an end.
Mr. Stanbrook: Will the right hon: and learned
Gentleman give way?
Mr. Morris: If that were conclusively proved, it would
be a national and personal disgrace. I believe that some
doubts have been raised by my hon. Friend the Member
for Linlithgow. I have sought 'o set them out. "
Mr. Stanbrook. rose
Mr. Morris: They will not go away. The highest
tribunal is necessary to examine the facts, the state of the
deliberations, the intelligence available and, in particular,
the log of the Conqueror.
Mr. Stanbrook: Will the right hon. and learned
Gentleman give way?
Mr. Morris: No. The case that I have made out must
be answered.
6.29 pm
Mr. Julian Amery (Brighton, Pavilion): I do not want
to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon
(Mr. Morris) into all the minutiae of the questions that he
raised. In commenting on his speech, I would only say that
had the task force failed to achieve its objective 8,000
miles away from home with no adequate air cover-and
well it might have failed-had it transpired that the
Belgrano had played a part in preventing the task force
from achieving its objective; and had it later transpired that
the Cabinet here at home had "prevented the sinking of the
Belgrano, the Government would have been open to the
gravest possible censure. When one is at war, one has to
take every opportunity to destroy the enemy when and
where one finds him.
Mr. John Morris: Does not the evidence show that the
circumstances that the right hon. Gentleman poses are
w y hypothetical? If what he says were true, theSTAT
juation would be wholly different, out it was not.
7 Mr. Amery: War proceeds on the basis of hypothesis.
One does not know how it will turn out. Clearly; the right
hon. and learned Gentleman does not understand the
conduct of war. The operation was very risky. We had no
certainty of achieving our objective. We had to take every
opportunity that we could to destroy the enemy. I see no
possible ground, with the islands invaded and the
Argentines established on them, on which we could
responsibly have allowed any important element of the
Argentine fleet to get away.
I was greatly saddened by the speech of the right hon.
Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), on two counts.
The right hon. Gentleman has rightly achieved a reputation
for having the most" logical mind in the House of
Commons, yet I 'found myself unable to follow the logic
of the two possible scenarios that he deployed in
questioning the rationale of the independent British
deterrent.
The basis of the rationale, as I see it, is this. If it is in
the power of Britain to destroy 20, 30 or 40 Soviet centres
of population, there can be no advantage that the Soviet
Union or any other power can gain by attacking this island,
conventionally or nuclear-wise, that would compensate for
what it would lose if we were to use our deterrent. I cannot
see how any rational regime in the Kremlin could order the
invasion of Britain conventionally or threaten us with.
blackmail, if it knew that it was running the risk of
unacceptable damage being inflicted on its people by us.
That is well within our power.The right hon. Gentleman
may think that it would not be rational, and that there
would be an irrational element in the attack. It is difficult
to conduct an argument'of this kind on the basis that one
side or the other is irrational. I fail to see the logic in
believing that the Kremlin is more prepared to risk the
destruction of 20 or 30 cities than we are to commit
national suicide. Therefore, in my opinion the deterrent
should protect us against that threat.
I am saddened for another and deeper reason. The right
hon. Gentleman is a great patriot. Of course, the analogies
with 1940 are not consistent. The situation now is very
different, and the nature of the weapons ? has greatly
increased their destructive power. However, what I heard
him say just now was reminiscent of what many patriotic
Frenchmen said in 1940, not least the hero of Verdun.
The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey)
urged that we should put the British and French nucle
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[Mr. Amery]
deterrents on the Geneva negotiating table. I do not see the
sense of that. We have no capability of overkill; still less
have the French. The only countries that have the power
of overkill are the United States and the Soviet Union. It
is their responsibility to try to achieve a balance of
deterrence at a lower level. We cannot make a serious
contribution without going below the minimum force that
we require to maintain a deterrent of last resort.
The people of this country understand that. Although
the right hon. Gentleman for Down, South doubted.
whether they were convinced of the need for a deterrent,
everything that I saw and heard in the election campaign
suggested to me that there was a strong feeling that Britain
must have its own independent deterrent - I am not
talking about any particular' system. The President of the
United States understands that, and I salute his resolve not
to bring the British and French deterrents to the negotiating
table. He knows that nothing would do more damage to'
the cohesion of the Alliance. It was not always so. There
have been American Administrations in the past who
would have been glad to deprive Britain or France of an
independent deterrent. That is not true today. Mr.
Andropov may have hoped to tempt the Americans into
supporting his proposals and to persuade them to try to
establish a Brezhnev doctrine inside NATO. However,
President Reagan has been wiser than that, and we owe
him a great deal for his staunch stand in the matter.
The right hon. Member for Leeds, East said that Trident
was a more powerful weapon than we needed. Who is to
say? It will not be deployed for 10' years, and it then has
to last 30 years. I should have thought that we needed a
slight margin of insurance against the development of
better defence systems by a possible adversary, or
unforeseen developments in the world.
Then there is the matter of cost. Having negotiated
many weapons systems withthe Treasury, I have little or
no doubt that the Argus-eyed. Treasury officials would not
have allowed Trident to be adopted as our main weapon
system if they had been able to prove, even marginally,
that it was less cost effective than any other system. I do
not have time to go into the details, but I commend to right
hon. and hon. Members Lord Lewin's letter in The Daily
Telegraph on the matter during the election.
I come now to the question of cruise, Pershing and arms
control. We in' Britain and France have a certain security
by virtue of the deterrents that we possess. We are unlikely
to be attacked, for the reasons that I gave a moment ago.
Western Germany. is in a quite different position. The split
between Western and Eastern Germany, and the special
status of Berlin, obviously inhibit that country from
becoming a nuclear power in its own right. It has to rely
on the United States. Now, leading Americans in every
walk of life, military and political, have made it only too
clear that the United States would not expose its own
homeland to Soviet nuclear retaliation by seeking to
defend its allies outside the United States by striking at the
Soviet Union. So there is only one security for the
Germans, and that is to have American missiles deployed
on German soil-not in the sea, not far away, but on
German soil -in support of the American army in
Germany. Even that is not a 100 per cent. guarantee, but
it is a pretty good one.
The same applies in some measure to us in this country.
We have given hospitality, and rightly so, to major
American installations in this country. As has often been
pointed out by Opposition Members, these could be targets
for the Soviet Union. To prevent them from being targets
for the Soviet Union, it is a good thing that our own
deterrent should be supported and seconded by American
deterrent missiles in this country, backing up the
installations that they have already established here.
The talks on arms control at Geneva are naturally
conducted in terms of nuclear accountancy-the number
of warheads and missiles - but the real argument is
about Germany and Europe. It is about the relationship,
above all, of Germany towards the Alliance, and of the
United States to Europe. If the cruise and Pershing systems
were not deployed, what would be the impact on the
British Army of the Rhine? I do not know how long my
right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence would
agree to leave the British Army of the Rhine in Germany
without the backing of a proper missile system to answer
the SS20s. I do not know how long Mr. Weinberger would
be prepared to leave the United States Army if the missiles
were not deployed.
But, above all, consider the impact on Germany. If the
Germans no longer felt secure in NATO, what option
would they have except to turn to neutrality and seek
reunion with East Germany under Soviet aegis? That
would represent an irreversible shift in the world balance
of power. Those are the realities behind all the talk about
arms control. It is not a question of warheads and missiles
but of whether Germany remains in the Alliance, and
whether the alliance between the United States and
Western Europe holds together.
That was well and truly appreciated at the Williamsburg
conference by two leading men who are not in NATO. It
was appreciated by President' Mitterrand of France, a
member of the Alliance butnot of NATO, and a Socialist,
who underwrote at Williamsburg our general strategy for
defence. Perhaps even more significantly, it was
appreciated by the Prime Minister of Japan, on the eve of
an election-and Japan is the only country which has
ever suffered a nuclear strike. I think we must say that it
is imperative that we proceed with the deployment of the
missiles as well as with the maintenance, development and
modernisation of our own British deterrent.
We must not conceal from ourselves the fact that the
situation.-that confronts- -us As extremely fragile and
dangerous-rather more than has appeared as yet in'
speeches either in the election campaign, or in our debate
today. For the moment, the Soviets have the edge over the
West in Europe, in the middle east and in the far east, but
for how long? The cruise and Pershing missiles will be
deployed; the American rapid deployment force in the
middle east is taking shape; Japan has begun to rearm.
Overall, the Western powers are rearming - the
Americans at an impressive rate.
There is no way in which the Soviet Union can compete
in an arms race with the industrial West-it simply has
not the technological or industrial power-but here is
the danger; here is the rub that we must not ignore. There
must be a strong temptation to the Soviet Union to take
advantage of the window of opportunity that is still open
to it before it closes, and to try to gain some assets while
it can, whether in Europe or in the middle east. It is a very
dangerous situation and we have brought that danger on
ourselves-especially the United States under President
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Foreign Affairs and Defence 28 JUNE 1983
Carter's regime-but the danger is there and there is no
way that we can avoid it. To hesitate would only
encourage Soviet expansion.
I agree that to go forward also has risks, but even at the
height of the cold war, in 1955, suddenly the Soviets gave
way on Austria and we had the Austrian treaty. So while
there are dangers in going forward with our plans, there
is a much greater danger in running away from them. We
do -not know exactly what is happening on the other side
of the hill.
Plainly, there must be no provocation, but patiently and
resolutely we must go forward with our plans, both to
defend ourselves and to help those countries and
movements which are on our side and are our friends. We
have to convince Moscow that we shall not accept Soviet
imperialism as a valid and legitimate element in the world.
If we succeed in doing that-it will not be easy; it will
call for great patience and resolution-internal pressures
inside the Soviet bloc, economic, social and national, may
well bring about important reforms and changes in the
Soviet system. One would like to think that the Soviet
empire could turn into a Soviet commonwealth, with real,
not cosmetic, independence, for its different members. Is
that wishful thinking? Perhaps it is, but it is well-nigh
certain that weakness or hesitation on our side will lead to
6.45 pm
Mr. John Hume (Foyle): I have come here to represent
a new constituency in the north-west of Ireland. It contains
the ancient and historic city of Derry' and the town of
Strabane. It is a commentary on the politics of the north
of Ireland-or the fact that there is a problem there-
that never before has someone with either my religious or
my political persuasion stood in this House to represent the
city of Derry.
I represent an area which has the unenviable distinction
of having the highest unemployment rate of any
constituency represented in this House, with 38 per cent.
in Strabane and 28 per cent. in Derry. Those are statistics
which interact seriously and severely with the political
crisis in the north of Ireland, because that same area has
borne more than its share of the brunt of the atrocities that
have taken place in the north of Ireland over the past
decade. It is the interaction of the economic situation with
the political situation that requires a great deal of attention
if the problems of that part of the world are to be resolved.
People have wondered about the rise in the political
strength of extremism in the north of Ireland. There is no
greater example of the reasons for extremism in that area
than that we now have a generation of young people who
were only four years old in 1969 and 1970 and have grown
up in a society in which they have always seen security
forces and violence on the streets, in which they have been'
continually searched simply because they are young
people, and in which, when they reach the age of 18, they
have no hope of any employment because they happen to
have come of age during the deepest economic crisis for
a long time. Therefore, there are resentments, and there
are sadistic people who play upon those resentments, point
to a British soldier and say, "Get rid of him and all your
problems will be solved". That simplistic message has an
appeal to young people, and people such as myself and
members of my party, who seek to show that the problems
are rather more complex, have a difficult task.
Foreign Affairs and Defence 508
If the Government were to take seriously the economic
crisis in the north of Ireland and make a sensible and
determined attack on the problems of youth employment,
they would also be making a determined attack on the
problems of extremism.
The debate is about defence and foreign affairs. In the
Gracious Speech there is reference to the major issue
between Britain and Ireland-the problems of Northern
Ireland. It also happens to be one of the most serious
human issues facing the House. Having come here after
surviving over a decade on the streets of Northern Ireland,
I have to say with some bitterness that I do not see much
evidence that there are many hon. Members who think that
it is an issue of great human concern.
We have been told repeatedly by Ministers, Secretaries
of State and Prime Ministers, of whatever party, that
Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom.
We are told by the Prime Minister that we are as British
as Finchley.
I should like hon. Members to take any part of the
United Kingdom over the past decade and to imagine the
following things happening. Imagine 2,000 people being
killed on the streets in Yorkshire, 20,000 people maimed
and injured, and #430 million spent on compensation for
bomb damage; two new prisons built and a third under
construction; the rule of law drastically distorted, with the
introduction of imprisonment without trial; senior
politicians and policemen murdered, and innocent
civilians murdered by the security forces and by
paramilitary forces. Imagine a shoot-to-kill policy for
people suspected of crime being introduced from time to
time instead of their being arrested. Imagine jury courts
being disbanded, plastic bullets used on the streets and
innocent children being killed. Imagine paramilitary
organisations engaging in violence and the type of
interrogation methods that led to the British Government
being found guilty in the European Court of Human Rights
being introduced. Imagine hunger strikers dying in prison
in Yorkshire and representatives of the paramilitary being
elected to this House to represent Yorkshire.
If those things had happened on what is commonly
called the mainland, can anyone tell me that those events
would not have been the major issue in the general election
campaign? Can anyone persuade me that any speech made
since that election would not have referred to that issue?
However, the only hon. Members-who-have referred to it
were leaders of two parties in Northern Ireland.
Nevertheless, we are told -that we are as British as
Finchley.
Does any hon. Member believe that Northern Ireland
is as British as Finchley or any other part of what is called
the mainland? Do any hon. Members honestly believe that
in their hearts? If so, where is the evidence of their
concern? The truth is that if every hon. Member spoke his
heart, he would say that he has psychologically withdrawn
from Northern Ireland. The' truth is that, Britain has
psychologically withdrawn from Northern Ireland. Britain
and Northern Ireland would be healthier places if that
psychological reality were translated into political reality.
The extent of the problem in Northern Ireland today can
be summed up by the desperate indictment of a brick wall
that has been built between two sections of the community
in Belfast to keep them apart and to protect them from each
other. That is happening in what is described as a part of
the United Kingdom.
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