Ironically, the US chiefs were now discussing all the
scenarios that Churchill had foreseen 18 months before, when formulating his
plan for Unthinkable. President Truman had even appointed a Special Counsel,
Clark Clifford, to report on the growing Soviet menace, concluding that Stalin
believed ‘a prolonged peace’ between the Marxist and capitalist societies was
impossible and the only outcome was war. At a top-level meeting between the US
and Britain, even the new US chief of staff, General Eisenhower, was talking
the Unthinkable talk of establishing Allied ‘bridgeheads’ in Europe. In the
face of any Soviet onslaught he advocated withdrawing forces to bridgeheads in
the Low Countries. As Churchill had earlier recommended, this would deny the
enemy the use of bases from which to launch rocket attacks at Britain, as well
as offering the Allies a short line of communication back to Britain. The UK
would be of huge strategic value for the Allied air forces, though the
Americans noted that longer airstrips would be required in British bases to
enable more B–29 squadrons to be accommodated. The Naval representative also
argued for a reoccupation of Iceland to broaden the reach of naval forces.
So, with a consensus reached, the meeting broke up, but not
before it was agreed that the utmost secrecy should be imposed on the Combined
Joint Chiefs of Staff outline plan, and that no one beyond the level of the
chiefs and their immediate planners should be allowed access. The US chiefs
were most keen to drive on and agree a command organisation for the US and
Britain in the event of Soviet aggression, which they saw as ‘imminent’.
However, it was not long before other senior British commanders became involved
in the plans. On 16 September Field Marshal Montgomery, supposedly on a private
visit to the United States, met with General Eisenhower and President Truman to
discuss the war plan options for the West. Cabling Prime Minister Attlee to
advise him of developments, Montgomery referred to the highly sensitive plan and
stressed it was ‘Personal and Eyes only for PM’. ‘So far as I am aware, no
(repeat) no one here knows anything about matter.’
Montgomery was keen to add,
‘all agree that secrecy is vital.’ To cover their trips to meet US Joint
Planning Staff, the British planners used the excuse of researching for a
‘report on the strategical lessons of the recent war’. There was even concern
within the British camp that the amply proportioned ‘Jumbo’ Wilson might have
presented a large silhouette on board the yacht where he met with US chiefs.
Furthermore, it was questioned whether British planners should wear ‘uniform or
mufti’ when meeting with their American counterparts. Fortunately, the idea of
‘cocktail parties’ for visiting teams was hastily dispensed with.
Yet it seemed that the tight security in the US was now
unravelling. The British were horrified to learn that the secretaries to the US
War Department and Navy Department were also aware of the plan and it was only
a matter of time before operatives in the US State Department heard of the
details. British security operatives may well have been aware of the leaks to
the Soviets from within the State Department and feared the worst. Attlee
certainly did. Confiding to Field Marshal Wilson, he stated ‘the issues now
raised are of the utmost importance and potential value, but any leakage would
have the gravest consequences.’
During October 1946 the Canadian war planners were also
introduced to the operation and a representative met with British and US
planners for further meetings in London. Discussions included the intended
bridgeheads and the capacity of Naval forces to evacuate US and British troops
from mainland Europe, should the Red Army advance to the West. There was also
the pressing problem of renewed Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey, as well as
the issue of ‘standardisation’ of weapons and equipment between the US, Britain
and Canada.
Operation Pincher went through a number of modifications
during the summer of 1946, and the US Joint Planners ensured that it remained
relevant, but it still excluded specific reference to the use of atomic bombs
by the strategic bomber force. As with Unthinkable the planners made little
attempt to project beyond the initial stages of a conflict, since there were
just too many variables. One of the constant worries remained the issue of
demobilisation. For with peace came a great desire for ‘bringing the boys home’
as soon as possible and for reducing the huge cost of a vast army.
Consequently, by June 1946 the US armed forces, which had numbered more than 12
million at the end of the war, were reduced to fewer than 3 million. Secretary
of State James Byrnes was frustrated with the whole process, ‘The people who
yelled loudest for me to adopt a firm attitude towards Russia,’ he moaned,
‘then yelled even louder for the rapid demobilisation of the Army.’ So
formidable was the strength of Soviet armour and infantry that once US troop
reductions were underway, the planners concluded that Allied land forces would
not be strong enough to drive into the Soviet interior for at least three
years. Allied air power offered the only hope of victory, by employing massive
strikes against ‘the industrial heart of Russia’.
It was unrealistic to believe that the Soviet Union could be
threatened with oblivion in 1946. Even by the autumn of that year the US only
possessed nine atomic bombs. There were two Mark III Fat Boys earmarked for
testing off the US mainland, and seven Mark IIIs were held in secure housings
on the mainland. They could only be delivered to the Soviet Union by the Silver
Plate B–29, suitably modified to hold the weapon in place, but there was a lack
of properly trained aircrews, as well as bomb assembly teams. Furthermore,
scientists were returning to civilian life and the production of both uranium
and plutonium was falling. However, production would be dramatically increased
in the next few years, so that by the time of the first Soviet atomic test in
1949, the US would have a stockpile of some 400 atomic bombs. Despite the comfort
of atomic superiority, senior commanders in the West were in no doubt about the
consequences of an imminent world war. ‘My part in the next war,’ wrote Sir
Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, ‘will be to be destroyed by it.’
While Britain and the US faced up to the Soviet Union,
Poland, as a cause, had slipped off the list of priorities. During Christmas
Eve 1946 the ‘Polish Sixteen’, who had been the hope of a future liberated
Poland, were languishing in various Soviet prisons. One of the most prominent
leaders, General Okulicki, passed his last hours in Moscow’s Butyrka Prison.
His disappearance, together with other leading members of the Polish
underground, in April 1945, had done much to increase the climate of fear
surrounding Soviet intentions. He was either murdered by the NKVD or died as a
result of his hunger strike; it has been estimated that between 1944 and 1947
some 50,000 Poles, including many members of the AK, were deported to the
Soviet gulags. In the spring of 1946 the US Joint Chiefs declared that the
Soviet Union was giving the highest priority to ‘building up their war
potential and that of their satellites so as to be able to defeat the Western
democracies’. To combat Soviet plans for ‘eventual world domination’, the West
would also have to provide military and economic aid to frontline states, such
as Greece, Turkey and Iran.
So the post-war Western governments continued their
stand-off with the Soviet Union, a situation that became known as the Cold War.
The 1947 elections in Poland were duly rigged and a communist government was
returned. But the Polish government-in-exile in London continued its existence,
despite the worldwide recognition of the communist puppet government in Poland.
In fact, showing all the old stoicism, the London Poles continued their
existence until 1991, when the old presidential seals were finally handed over
to the first post-communist government in Warsaw. Throughout the late 1940s the
Cold War festered with intermittent crises erupting, such as the Berlin
Blockade, when the Soviets attempted to cut off Western access to Berlin. The
West arranged an airlift of supplies to lift the ‘siege’ and, in 1949, the
Soviets backed down. It was, however, a momentous year for other reasons – the
Soviet Union developed its own atomic capability and the balance of power
shifted again.
Operation Unthinkable might have been just another quiet
footnote in the story of the Cold War, but in 1954 there was a bizarre incident
involving Churchill and Montgomery that threatened to expose the whole plan. In
a low-key speech at his Woodford constituency, Churchill suddenly announced
that in 1945 he had ordered Field Marshal Montgomery to preserve captured
German weapons and to be ready to reissue those arms to ‘German soldiers whom
we should have to work with if the Soviet advance continued’. An intrigued
press tackled Montgomery for his comments and there ensued a wrangle over
whether or not Churchill had ever formally issued the order. The Soviet press
immediately seized on his comments, attacking ‘Churchill’s crusade’, and there
were critical articles in the British and the US press. The Chicago Tribune
attacked Churchill and his wartime policy with headlines that screamed ‘Folly
on Olympian Scale’. The whole episode blew up out of nowhere but more rational
observers wondered why, at the height of the Cold War, the prime minister would
casually disclose such controversial plans to attack the Soviet Union.
Major-General Sir Edward Spears was wheeled out in defence of Churchill. ‘The
whole thing is absurd,’ he countered. ‘The Times is behaving as if Sir Winston
had called in Hitler for help against Russia. Hitler was out of business.’ But
the prime minister still had to calm the storm by admitting that he could find
no telegram in his records and that he must have issued a verbal order to
Montgomery. Privately he confessed, ‘I made a goose of myself at Woodford.
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