Peter Vansittart - Secret Protocols

Trees were turning gold, then russet. Several times Claire appeared about to speak to me alone, to confide, but always desisted. There would be no twists of soul, no gleam from ‘Ogygia’, only a couple of London kids who would vanish in the first cold of winter, skating arm in arm in dainty lines on a thinning surface.

History, never in short supply but often procrastinating, abruptly went into quickstep, entire populations gathering like volunteers for the block. With few warnings, embassies were alerted by coded telegrams, the public alarmed by tall headlines, watching the sky as ancestors had awaited Spanish topsails or Old Bony’s grenadiers. Or in summer 1939, the last weeks of peace when the Pact was signed. All London slowed, in a brief silence that Estonians compared with that when a student pays his debts and Mother to a goose passing over her grave. No Danger, a Downing Street spokesman reassured, No Danger as such.

The Balance of Terror had tilted, Russia testing thermonuclear weapons, the Soviet Bloc and Maoist newspapers rejoicing in the Soviet megaton bomb. Fleet Street accused Russia of establishing suspect fishing bases on Cuba.

Tensions quickened. The Organization of American States expelled Cuba: Kennedy’s anti-Castro invasion fiasco in the Bay of Pigs had earlier incited angry demonstrations in many European cities. Not yet refuted were allegations that the CIA had dispatched poisoned cigars to Castro.

At the Embassy nerves were frayed, with scenes over misplaced memos, cryptic communiqués, dubious translations. What was Uthant? Who was Maria An Two Venus? How interpret Chudid or Fossil Algae? Even Mr Tortoise unexpectedly swore, very coarsely.

The First Secretary announced that aerial photography had exposed those fishing bases as installations of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, only a short flight from Florida. This was at once official. The entire world paused as Kennedy demanded their instant removal. Indignant, in professional righteousness, he listed long-range missiles trained on the USA, fortified by plutonium stockpile, 40,000 Russians, Castro’s victorious Red Army. On screens, Khrushchev, bumptious, pudgy, explosive, denied such bases as lying excuses for imperialist aggression which had stolen not only Texas and California but castrated America’s rightful inhabitants.

In Britain, Mr K kept his precarious popularity, the young relishing his ill-fitting suits and anti-American shoe-thumping at the UN. The likes of Dolly thought him ill-bred but a tub of folksy wisdom. At the Embassy, we remembered his merciless cruelty as Stalin’s satrap, his anti-Semitism and greed for power. By the weekend, however, in London, in most cities, eyes were taut, breath unsteady, children kept indoors, in a new stillness, like that when Stalin died or when, in appalled hush, London multitudes heard that Elizabeth Tudor was dying and waited as if for plague or famine.

Queues formed for unlikely buses, for stationary trains or for no apparent purpose. Zealots wanting to raise cheers for Castro and Che only met faces blank as windows. Newsagents sold out of maps of Cuba, black and red circles showing the Soviet emplacements, the statistics of American skyscrapers within missile capability. As crisis escalated, many were not stoical but listless, bored, helpless.

A parliamentary question elicited a reply that the USA possessed two hundred atomic reactors, Britain thirty-nine, its H-bomb in gift of the Super Mac nod. The USSR’s stocks were unknown, fanciful or limited by incompetence. This reassured few, though for two days most protest was silent, Hands off Cuba appearing overnight on walls, striking at Kennedy’s pledge, ‘We’re going to take out those missiles.’ A bloodless riot convulsed Liverpool, and angry crowds outside the US Embassy, within which Marines stood armed. Several women, patient, with bowed heads, lined in silent protest outside the Soviet Embassy.

London editors were rivals in irony, one remedy for weakness. A leading article weightily congratulated White House for heroically supporting altruism and fair play and praised the Kremlin for magnanimity in sacrificing Marxist dogma for bulk purchase of Middle West grain. A radio psychologist revealed that, under wartime pressure, 5,190 people showed traits of a criminal species, classified, that recoils from praise. He added that father-fears could now be expected from 43 per cent of children. An evangelist quoted Martin Luther to the respectful in a Highbury park, ‘Christ and John the Baptist praised war. Scripture teaches that God has ordained man to make war and to strangle. War is a very small misfortune. In truth, it is very special love.’

On television, Alex ignored Cuba, save for remarking that the Children’s Crusade was now believable. In London and Paris, the Left rallied, printing illustrations not of Castro’s defences but of American military bases ringing the USSR: Okinawa, Japan, Turkey, Spain, West Germany, Britain; arms dumps in Greece, Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, South Vietnam. Daubed on our Embassy, Who is the Real Aggressor? Old kerosene lamps were already almost unobtainable, in fear of power failure and sabotage.

Alex and I were too busy to meet, but he often telephoned, on odd corners of the day, unflurried by visions of mountains crumbling, seas mounting to Andean heights, electronics demented.

‘Most crises are bluff. I’ve a biggish bet with Louise that Mr K will kick for touch. He’s got sharp-shooting Mao not only backing him but behind his back. People always overrate Russia. Cringe, it wallops you. Stand up straight, and it falters. It’s cruel but almost as corrupt as the JFK kitchen lot. Personally, I’ve always found Kennedy’s charm offensives highly offensive. Meanwhile, mein Herr, we’ll meet soon and rearrange the world. Don’t waste time mooning for Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair. We may have to die in harness. More likely, by sly fortune, prosper greatly.’

He had been seen in a Trafalgar Square demonstration, without witness to which faction he supported.

Ticker tapes were choking with events, real or supposed: Scottish picketing an atomic submarine dock, laser vibrators trained on Birmingham, protestors besieging Harwell and Aldermaston. The First Secretary imposed food-hoarding and reported issues of arms to police.

Rumour stalked the streets, as if in Shakespearian drama. Kennedy, almost one of us, youth had said, was sick, diplomatically or from failure of nerve. Macmillan had invited himself to Washington, Macmillan had been rebuffed, Macmillan was reading Trollope. The White House announced that the President, never fitter, had ordered a Line of Steel, naval blockade of Cuba. A congressman addressed millions, ‘We’re either a first-class power or we are not. Clear the bastards out!’ Kennedy followed. ‘A clandestine and reckless threat to world peace.’ Fleet Street urged Macmillan to advise and consent. To what? The pre-emptive Bomb, as Russell had once urged? A conference? Dignified retreat? A Syrian spokesman accused Israel of fomenting global peril to distract attention from an impending attack on Egypt. A ‘device’ was reported defused in Red Square, Moscow; two suspects were arrested in the White House garden. Simultaneously in Paris, West Berlin, Stockholm appeared a cartoon of Khrushchev dangling puppets – Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia – bawling ‘I’m Not Stalin’s Shit.’ From Ecole Normal Supérieure, a former Maoist philosopher asserted that a black triangular object seen over Marseilles confirmed Jung’s belief that such phenomena fill psychic vacuum. With Mr Tortoise, I speculated on Kensington, exhumed centuries ahead, with books and pens incomprehensible as dinosaur and pterodactyl.

Telegrams multiplied; we had insufficient cipherists. South American ministers were huddling over Red Agents’ instructions, a military coup threatened Argentina. Spies were arrested in Mexico, were mysteriously released, had never existed. From Estonia, an underground estimate of Russian naval strength was so inordinate that we reckoned it a KGB trick. The Ambassador reminded us that, until his mid-term elections were past, Kennedy could not risk loss of face.