From: Sir Arthur C.B.E. Wholeflaffers �.S.�. <nospam@newsranger.com>
References: <bt2hje$285r$1@pencil.math.missouri.edu>
Subject: Re: [southnews] Nixon planned to invade Gulf in 1973 for oil
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In article <bt2hje$285r$1@pencil.math.missouri.edu>, Dave Muller says...

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America secretly planned to invade the Gulf States and seize their 
largest oilfields in response to the 1973 energy crisis.

Files released to the British National Archives under the 30-year rule 
for classified documents show President Richard Nixon's administration 
considered a 10-year occupation of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi 
while it developed alternative energy sources. But Britain's spy chiefs 
told the Government an invasion could trigger the total alienation of 
the Arabs and much of the Third World. There would be domestic 
dissension in the US and a big split between the US and Europe, they added.

Heath infuriated by Nixon's secret nuclear stand-off

/ANGUS HOWARTH/

THE full fury of the Tory prime minister Edward Heath when the United 
States staged a nuclear face-off with the Soviet Union without informing 
Britain or other NATO allies is disclosed in the secret files made 
public today.

The decision by Richard Nixon, the then US president, to put his forces 
on worldwide nuclear alert after the Soviets threatened to intervene in 
the Arab-Israeli war of October 1973 marked one of the gravest moments 
of the Cold War.

It took the superpowers closer to nuclear conflict than at any time 
since the Cuban missile crisis, the only other occasion during the Cold 
War when US forces were put on a stage three alert.

Nixon, already mired in the Watergate scandal, and Henry Kissinger, the 
US secretary of state, had wanted to send a clear signal to the Soviets 
not to intervene on the side of the Arabs.

The files suggest that Mr Kissinger apparently misled the British 
ambassador in Washington, Lord Cromer, over the US alert, even though it 
covered American troops stationed in Britain.

Mr Heath only learned what had happened from news reports several hours 
later, while sitting in the Commons alongside the foreign secretary Sir 
Alec Douglas-Home, who was preparing to make a statement on the crisis. 
The prime ministers embarrassment was compounded by the fact GCHQ, the 
secret "listening" agency, had discovered what had happened but had not 
passed the information on to Downing Street or the Foreign Office 
because it was assumed they already knew.

In a blistering memorandum to his private secretary, Lord Bridges, Mr 
Heath demanded to know what had happened. He said: "I wish the highest 
priority to be given to this with no attempt whatever to hide any 
defects there may have been in our system at home or the ambiguities in 
President Nixons conduct."

He added: "We have to face the fact that the American action has done 
immense harm, I believe, both in this country and worldwide."

At the same time, British spy chiefs secretly warned that the US would 
be prepared to invade Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to seize their oilfields 
following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The intelligence agencies believed the US was ready to take action to 
prevent further disruption to their oil supplies. It followed the 
decision in October 1973 by the Arab nations to slash oil production, 
sending prices rocketing, while imposing a complete embargo on the US 
over its support for Israel.

In Britain, the government, which adopted a more pro-Arab line, was 
still forced to draw up plans for petrol rationing after panic buying 
led to filling- station shortages in southern England.

Although the war in the Middle East was over after three weeks, an 
assessment drawn up for ministers by the joint intelligence committee, 
including the heads of MI5 and MI6, concluded the US would rather risk 
military action than be held to ransom again by the Arabs.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the Foreign Office secretly blocked an 
application for asylum from the former Chilean ambassador Alvaro Bunster 
because they did not want to offend the military dictatorship of General 
Augusto Pinochet.

Asylum requests by Mr Bunster and seven of his staff were quietly 
downgraded to requests for permission to reside and work in the UK in 
order to avoid "embarrassment" with the new regime.

Mr Bunster had been forced out of the embassy by the military attachi, 
Admiral Buzeta, after Gen Pinochet seized power in a notoriously bloody 
coup ditat on 11 September, 1973.

*This article:*

http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1032004

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