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UK National Archives Divulge Secrets 651

Posted by simoniker from the whisperings-and-susurrus dept.
Sunil Sood writes "Yes, its that time of year again - no, not the New Year but when the UK National Archives release a whole lot of previously "classified" information (many govt papers in the UK, with only a few exceptions, are classified secret for a 'standard' 30 years) As normal, you have the usual combination of the amusing: The design of a coin to mark the UK joining the EEC was changed, after Prince Philip said he did not like the 'little p', and the more serious: it was believed the USA had plans for US airborne troops to seize the oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1973."
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UK National Archives Divulge Secrets More

UK National Archives Divulge Secrets

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  • More BBC/Nazi propaganda... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You should listen to all the Nixon tapes - that guy had lots of crazy ideas. None where ever carried out though.
    • Its amazing to listen to these tapes. Some of this crap is priceless. Priceless and sad and demented, but also hilarious. Typical banter involves Nixon talking about the skills black people have in "singing and dancing" but no ability in the "more disciplined" arts. Then there are his rants against Harvard grads.

      The fact that this guy willfully taped all of this stuff is even more amazing than the content.

  • Read through a couple of the articles (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ducomputergeek ( 595742 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:25PM (#7856287)
    And it makes refrence that British Intel thought it would be likely that the US would invade, not that they were planning a direct attack. Its kind of a misleading headline.
    • The warplan devised in the 20's for the defeat of Japan...

      Even though the so called secret plans are only supposition on the UK MOD's part, the USA certainly has plans for invading just about every country on earth. This is not due to sinister intent, just responsable planning. The world is a strange and dangereous place where allies of today can quickly turn into deadly ennemies (Japan of the 30's, Iran in the 70's, Panema in the 80's, etc). The price of being unprepared is just too high in this day &
      • We had plans for everybody with a substantial navy. War Plan Red covered the British Empire with special reference to Canada. War Plan Black contemplated a conflict with the Germans. After WW2 started we began making plans to fight Germany and Japan, thus the Rainbow plans were born.

      • Re:Anyone remember Plan Orange? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jefeweiss ( 628594 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @11:52PM (#7857147)

        The funny thing about using Iran and Panama in the context you used them is that the US was more or less involved in creating the governments that created the problem. Come to think of it we also went pretty far in antagonizing Japan into going to war with us. So really maybe you should say the world is a fairly predictable place where countries go around invading each other and overthrowing each other's governments, which causes conflict.

        • Re:Anyone remember Plan Orange? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Imperator ( 17614 ) <(ten.reknehsremo) (ta) (2todhsals)> on Friday January 02, 2004 @08:25AM (#7859141)
          Come to think of it we also went pretty far in antagonizing Japan into going to war with us.

          The US gave Japan an ultimatum: withdraw your troops from China or we'll stop selling you oil. Realpolitik considerations about American business in China aside, pressuring Japan to end their war of conquest and exploit in China was the right thing to do. Japan could have forsworn militarism and ensured their oil supply from America; instead, they chose to expand the war by attacking the US. This was a decision that led to the eventually ruin of Japan. It was a decision made by Japan, not America. It's easy to say "America should have known they'd make that decision" but it apparently wasn't so obvious at the time.

          I'm not generally an apologist for US foreign policy. But in the specific instance you mention, I feel obliged to set the record straight. Whatever the root causes of WWII, America was not trying to goad Japan into war. Japan chose to attack America as part of an expansionist campaign to secure the resources of the East Asia and the Pacific; the terrible consequences of that decision must be laid first and foremost on Japan.

      • Enemies of the United States are usually a matter (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 02, 2004 @12:34AM (#7857468)
        >Panema in the 80's

        Panama was NEVER an enemy of the US... they sold drugs when they were "friends". They just stopped sending the profits to CIA black ops, and then they became enemies.

        Enemies of the United States are usually a matter of political convenience: from what country did the Sept 11 hijackers -- and their funding -- come from?

        Was it Iraq? Or was it Saudi Arabia?

        Which country has contributed money to the GW Bush election campaign via "multinational" oil companies?

        You never hear this in the US "fair and balanced" supposedly "liberal media".

      • NATO' (Score:5, Interesting)

        by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @04:27AM (#7858535) Homepage Journal
        As a Finn I found the recently unclassified NATO plans for countering an all-out Warsaw Pact assault here in the north oddly hilarious.

        Nuke the Russian tank divisions with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles while they're still in the process of occupying Finland. Provide military assistance to Sweden and make a stand in Norway and in the northernmost Sweden (for Kiruna and the other mines).

        This is why I am amazed why our last two governments have been talking the public to accept that we must NATO for our safety's sake.

        • Re:NATO' (Score:3, Funny)

          by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
          This is why I am amazed why our last two governments have been talking the public to accept that we must NATO for our safety's sake.

          What's amazing? Seems the best hope you have of not being nuked by NATO.

    • And it makes refrence that British Intel thought it would be likely that the US would invade, not that they were planning a direct attack. Its kind of a misleading headline.

      Oh my, when an US Secretary of Defence tell a British diplomat that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force.", it shows serious consideration at the highest US political levels of military agression.

      One reason for not attacking, was the response from USSR. This was in the cold war, and USSR would

  • FoI act factoid... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mightybricklayer ( 672249 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:25PM (#7856288)
    ours is 50 years, though. there was a /. post a few months back, regarding the unclassification of the documents from roswell on the date of the "alien landing". if i remember correctly, it reported the weather, and had nothing about little green men in a saucer...

  • They're called "plans"... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:26PM (#7856295)
    I'm sure the did have a plan to capture the oil fields in 1973. I'm also sure they have a current plan, utilizing current military thinking and hardware, to do the same thing now. I'm also sure that it is filed away with a lot of other plans to do a lot of other things.

    What do you think military think-tanks and war games are for? They think up possible scenarios for just about anything and then research ways to acheive the considered goals. The ideas that work are made into operation plans and filed away for the off-chance that such a situation might arise.

  • Propaganda Correction (Score:2, Insightful)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 )
    The British feared the US would invade. The report doesn't cite specific sources for this scenario. Likely it was the speculation of a few half-informed analysts. I'm sure there are reports circulating through classified networks arbout Libya's plan to join the EU and take it over. Or Syria's plan to grab the Golan Heights.

    • The Pentagon is huge. I mean, really really big. And it's totally full of people who do nothing all day but sit around and plan out how the US would invade every single square foot of land on earth if we needed to. So obviously we had a plan to invade S.A. and Kuwait, just like we still do now (along with Latvia, Upper Volta, Cleveland, and anywhere else you can imagine.

      And, btw, the report lists as a specific source the US Secretary of Defense, who said "it was no longer obvious that the United States cou

    • Re:Propaganda Correction (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anspen ( 673098 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:37PM (#7856374)
      The British feared the US would invade. The report doesn't cite specific sources for this scenario.
      Actually it does:
      "The British assessment was made after a warning from the then US Defence Secretary James Schlesinger to the British Ambassador in Washington Lord Cromer. [..] The ambassador quoted Mr Schlesinger as saying that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force."
    • Read the 5th and 6th paragraphs of the link:

      The British assessment was made after a warning from the then US Defence Secretary James Schlesinger to the British Ambassador in Washington Lord Cromer.

      The ambassador quoted Mr Schlesinger as saying that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force."

      I guess directly naming and quoting the then US Defence Secretary isn't "specific" enough for you.

  • UK Centric! (Score:4, Funny)

    by discstickers ( 547062 ) <chris&discstickers,com> on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:28PM (#7856319) Homepage
    GRRRR. Why is /. so UK centric? Aren't the editors aware that there are people in other countries that read this site?

    • Re:UK Centric! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lshmael ( 603746 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:42PM (#7856407) Homepage
      dude, they cover this in the FAQ [slashdot.org]...

      Slashdot is U.K.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Anglophiles, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.K. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.K. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.

    • Re:UK Centric! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah really. People in the UK are so ignorant of current events if they don't happen inside their country. I bet the average UK'er has no idea what happened behind the Applebees in Hickory, NC last week, for instance.

      Sad really.

  • You live and learn (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Ashe Tyrael ( 697937 )
    As usual, a grab bag of interesting things to be gleaned from declassified documents, although perhaps more interesting for their social context than for their political content, like the stuff with Massey-Ferguson and the ministerial scandal where the first thought was "Is this a security risk" rather than "Lets spin this to make it look good." We notice that resignations occurred. these days, the guilty parties would be given a slapped wrist and told to be more careful next time.

    How times change.

  • A splash of cold water (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alaska Jack ( 679307 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:35PM (#7856356) Journal
    It should be noted that the intro to this piece -- and indeed, the BBC headline itself -- are a little misleading.

    1. There is only one real fact in the piece: The British ambassador to Washington said that the American secretary of defense told him that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force." Earthshaking, huh?

    The rest of the piece is just more-or-less informed speculation.

    2. Of course, I'm not trying to say American military planners *didn't* draw up contingency plans for seizing oil assets. In fact, quite the opposite: If they didn't, then they weren't doing their jobs. The BBC seems to consider this a remarkable revelation, but allow me to humbly suggest it would be more remarkable if military planners *didn't* include this fairly obvious scenario in their contingency planning.

    - Alaska Jack

    • Re:A splash of cold water (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Homology ( 639438 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @10:09PM (#7856554)
      There is only one real fact in the piece: The British ambassador to Washington said that the American secretary of defense told him that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force." Earthshaking, huh?

      Remember that diplomats don't talk like raving Slashdot trolls. So, in the context context of the Cold War (perhaps you are old enough to remember it), the US was giving serious consideration to military agression that would seriously upset USSR. That is what the US Secretary of defence said, whom, I'm sure, had the Cuba crisis fresh in mind.

    • The BBC -- growing ever more akin to their tabloid cousins -- does this story every New Year's. Anyone old enough to read ought to read the story a second time to eliminate all the scaffolding, sensationalism and speculation added by the Beeb.

      Americans tend to treat the BBC with a lot more reverence than it has deserved lately.

      And, yes, for those who weren't alive yet in 1973, the notion that Western nations might eventually sieze the oilfields if the OPEC nations didn't end the embargo was under public d
  • Is when Allies release previously classified documents, that could be potentially quite embarrasing to other Allies.

    That plan to sieze oil fields for example, could be egg on the face of the US if it was released at the wrong time.

    Who knows what other "interesting" documents were de-classified at the wrong time.
  • or at least hear about current plans about the Iraq situation. I could actually afford to bet at least 100&#128; on it, at least at the time of de-classification, that the US had planned more than they let us in on. And that would be BEFORE any claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction were even made.

    So nice that, hopefully, not everything remains as a secret...

    • Re:I wish I live long enough to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:55PM (#7856483) Homepage Journal
      Unfortunately we'll have to wait until 2031 to learn from the UK archives just who signed the British intelligence report that claimed Iraq was buying uranium from Niger. Sure, Bush blabbed those lies in the 2002 State of the Union address, "knowing" the at least the CIA said it wasn't credible. But apparently someone in the UK forged the Niger letter itself, and claimed it was real, before handing it up to eager hands in the US. With all the British people in the streets demanding peace, I wish they could move up the declassification deadline on the culprits. But I guess it will have to wait for their grandchildren to learn of it, when it has all the relevance as the 1973 oil embargo counterstrike currently under discussion.

  • Related news (Score:5, Informative)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:41PM (#7856396) Homepage Journal
    Here are some related links:
    US ready to seize Gulf oil in 1973 [bbc.co.uk]

    Was America preparing a war for the Gulf oil in 1973? [independent.co.uk]


    Britain Warned of U.S. Plans After War [guardian.co.uk]

    U.S. Mulled Seizing Oil Fields In '73 British Memo Cites Notion of Sending Airborne to Mideast [washingtonpost.com]

    And this news item found originally on Reuters ties up nicely to the above:
    U.S. OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation) Imports Set Record in 2003, Trend Seen Up [agonist.org]

  • Anything like this? (Score:3, Informative)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:51PM (#7856457) Journal
    Operation Northwoods [google.com]

    My personal favorite 'secret' documents. Hmm. I wonder if that could be used today...?

  • Has It Occured To Anyone... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:56PM (#7856488) Homepage
    Has it occured to anyone that our Government (and any other industrialized nation) has "plans" on the books for just about every imaginable scenario? And should?

    It's called "preparedness", kids. Thats what you pay tax dollars for. You pay tax dollars so that your country won't be caught with it's pants down when the shit hits the fan. Any government worth it's shit draws up plans in advance, anticipating what may happen. Thousands of them. Some of these plans are too scary for normal citizens to know about. But they have to be made.

    The Arab oil embargo could have seriously crippled the American economy. That alone is reason enough to go to war. There would be rioting in the streets if the gas pumps stopped flowing, the machines stopped working, and industry ground to a halt. Think about that for a moment before running off thinking an invasion of Saudi Arabia & Kuwait is the byproduct of some oooh-so-evil secret Military comittee tucked away inside a super-secret mountain fortress, controlled by the psychic vampire Illuminati Freemasons.

    Put your little conspiracy thoery hat back under your chair and get a grip. The Government is made up of people like you and me. If you had access to the same information they did, you would have made exactly the same arrangements, and outlined exactly the same contingencies.

    • Re:Has It Occured To Anyone... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @10:23PM (#7856635)
      Except plans shape decisions. Have we ever planned for peaceful coexistance with Muslims? Apparently not or we would not be fighting what is in essence a world war (also by proxy via Israel) to implement said plans.

      I am not disputing preparedness, but I dispute if we have covered all of the contingencies that are in the best interest of US citizens.

    • Re:Has It Occured To Anyone... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by malkavian ( 9512 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @10:50PM (#7856778)
      Whoah.. Some serious, serious issues you have there..

      The Arab oil embargo could have seriously crippled the American economy. That alone is reason enough to go to war.

      Let me get this straight. Someone doesn't want to sell it's own country's resources to the US, and you claim that it's grounds to go to war? That sounds remarkably like bullying to me.
      I'd bet you'd be the first to scream blue murder if you'd ever heard that a middle eastern country had plans say, to detonate something in a big city in the US, because you refused to sell them something such as weapons, or high tech computing devices (necessary to kick start their high tech industy)..
      Ever heard of diplomacy, and actually having to play nicely with others (say please and thank you instead of "Give me or else")?
      Personally, I pay taxes to the government to make sure education, sanitation, medical care etc. are up to a reasonable standard..
      Defence is a good one (that's why we have military, to make sure we're not attacked).
      I'd be a little miffed, if it was revealed that they were playing silly buggers planning pre-emptive strikes for no reason.
      Yes, one decade's ally is another decade's foe. But in 10 years, that expensive invasion plan is worthless, as the situations is entirely different.
      "Being prepared" is having a solid defence, with retaliation scenarios drawn up. Not drawing up plans to go to war, causing international incidents. That would cost a lot more than the taxes you pay..

  • Condor still out in the cold? (Score:4, Funny)

    by paiute ( 550198 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @09:56PM (#7856489)
    Turner: What the hell does Counter Intelligence care about a bunch of goddamned books! A book in Dutch! A book out of Venezuela!
    Atwood: Wait!
    Turner: ...mystery stories in Arabic! What the hell is so important about...(he stops dead.Still.) Oil fields. This whole damn thing was about oil. Wasn't it?
    Atwood: Yes, it is! It still is!

  • UK secrets? (Score:2, Funny)

    by ChrisZuma ( 719884 )
    Did they finally admit to knowledge of 007's actions?

  • Saudis: from enemy to bedbuddy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @10:09PM (#7856558)
    Its amazing how far we have gone with Saudi Arabia. It goes without saying this nation has one of the worst human rights records in the world, in many ways still a medieval society.

    Yet the US continues to treat this tyrannical monarchy as a "partner". Its all about money folks. Most major political figures since the 70s have prospered in one way or another from Saudi money. From Frank Carlucci (fmr Defense official) to Kissinger (former Dr. Strangelove impersonator) to Will Kennard (former FCC Chair) to former UK PM John Major to former President George Bush have been deeply involved in lobbying, consulting, or arms deals with the Saudi government. Most of this is facillitated by the Carlyle Group, a defense firm selling arms and influence to the highest bidder.

    We buy their oil, they buy our weapons (and A LOT of them, no other arms buyng nation is even close) and they also enrich those making these deals happen - see again, the Carlyle Group. The word to people currently in office is clear - if you want to get rich when you retire, and I mean RICH, you make things easy for the Saudis now. They will take care of you later, typically to the tune of many millions of dollars.

    Amazingly this means many people who were once US government officials spend their days brokering weapons deals with a nation that is deeply involved with terrorism abroad and despotism at home.

    • Give it 5 years and we'll be accusing them of hiding WMD and planning to invade them....

  • Re:Do they really expect to win? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sparklingfruit ( 736978 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @10:11PM (#7856567)
    Things become declassified some time after it no longer serves any purpose to keep those things secret. There is no magical automatic expiration date on sensitive information. 50 years is probably quite long enough for most information to become irrelevant, but it would certainly be "ridiculous" to claim that all information should be declassified after fifty years. So long as the government has the authority to keep some things secret, it's well within that authority to keep things secret for fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand years. You may believe that fifty-year-old secrets are "ridiculous", but you can't justify that belief without knowing exactly what the secret is.

    • 50 years is probably quite long enough for most information to become irrelevant

      It's long enough to not have any affect on people careers, or get them jailed in their old age. 30 years is probably not long enough for Kissenger or Rumsfeld, or other Nixon government types. This type of information when relased doesn't harm governemnts or nations, but the individuals that make the decisions. East Timor has long forgiven the USA, but they may not forgive Kissenger. A lot of damaging information, like big c

    • Things become declassified some time after it no longer serves any purpose to keep those things secret. There is no magical automatic expiration date on sensitive information.

      Not exactly true. In the US, there is a time limit on classification. I believe it is current 25 years for documents classified secret. If at the end of this time period a document will be automattically declassified, unless certain steps are taken to prevent this declassification.

      Basically, at the 25 year mark it goes from a defau

  • Paging Harry Turtledove... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdot.stango@org> on Thursday January 01, 2004 @10:21PM (#7856621) Homepage Journal
    From the article:
    In the event, there was no military action. The oil embargo faltered and was ended a few months later. Israel and Egypt went on to sign a peace agreement.

    Wow, imagine the embargo not faltering on its own, and the U.S. rolling in to take some oil fields. That would have made life more interesting back then, especially if we went into Kuwait and the Soviets goaded the Iraqis into trying to throw us out. A variant of the Gulf War being fought in 1973, with the U.S. as aggressor and Iraq as pseudo-defender. Definite alternate-history novel fodder here.

    ~Philly
  • Either a) Oil would be 10 cents a gallon and democracy would be everywhere in the MidEast. b) There'd be chaos everywhere.
  • Anybody find the papers online anywhere? I fumbled around the UK website but couldn't find anything.

  • The US is the new Europe (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nickos ( 91443 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @12:08AM (#7857268)
    From the BBC article:
    "It was thought that US airborne troops would seize the oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait "

    The fact is that as the only superpower, America is the dominant country and is making the same mistakes that us Europeans made when we were in control. Unfortunately, whereas the last 500 years saw defeat on the batlefield as being the ultimate cost, we now see weapons of mass distruction. Look at the Europeans attempts to solve terrorism in Northern Ireland, the Basques or Schleswig-Holstein, and then see how unhelpful voilent "solutions" have been.

    We know (sadly all too well) that you cannot fight terrorism with a gun - killing people only creates a new generation of terrorists - you can fight a country but you cannot fight ideas. I might suggest that the money that the US gives to Israel would be better spent on sending the Arab worlds brightest students to good American universities so thay can learn science over religion and take their ideas back with them.

  • BBC headline worthy of The Onion (Score:4, Interesting)

    by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @12:09AM (#7857274)
    Caught on the same page:
    Sex scandal: Minister turned to call girls because of the "futility" of his job
    It's here [bbc.co.uk].

    Sometimes, life is stranger than art, I suppose.

  • Canadian World Domination (Score:3, Funny)

    by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @04:43AM (#7858583)

    Luckily, standonguard.com has been taken offline since it outlined the Canadian takeover of the United States. Celine Dion was part of the second wave.

  • UK & US role in Chilean coup (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jdfox ( 74524 ) on Friday January 02, 2004 @07:58AM (#7859065)
    Not mentioned in those links is the warm welcome that Britain gave [abc.net.au] to the military overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which led to the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent civilians [counterpunch.org], under 17 years of brutal dictatorship.
    These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties [guardian.co.uk] who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.

    The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."

    So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".

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