UK PLANNED NUKE ATTACK ON CHINA
Source: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/
June 30, 2006 Author: Simon Evans
BRITAIN discussed a nuclear strike on China in 1961 to defend Hong Kong, secret Government documents have revealed.
Letters circulated to PM Harold Macmillan recommended nuclear force as the only real alternative to abandoning the colony if the Chinese attacked.
British officials discussed the task of ensuring the Chinese understood that, if they did attack, retaliation would involve the US dropping nuclear bombs on them. The plan emerged from the records of the Prime Minister's office between 1957-61, made public yesterday by the National Archives at Kew, London.
The suggested nuclear strategy followed a catalogue of communications on how best to strengthen Hong Kong's defences amid growing uncertainty about the intentions of its communist neighbour.
It was contained in a letter marked "Top Secret" from Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home to Defence Minister Harold Watkinson and to the PM.
Clandestine meetings with US officials took place in Hawaii and it was advised further talks should be held on board a US carrier on its frequent visits to Hong Kong.
Another letter, from Watkinson to Douglas-Home and to Macmillan advised on how Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Defence Staff, should approach talks with Admiral Harry Felt, Commander in Chief of US Pacific Forces.
He said Mountbatten believed Felt would ask him if the RAF and the Fleet Air Arm would co-operate with a possible nuclear strike on China.
He wrote: "If this question is raised, I think he should say there would be no objection to discussion between Admiral Felt and our military representatives in the Far East on the machinery for co-ordination if our nuclear strike forces ever had to operate with the Americans in this area."
Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997.
