Free The Midnight Swimmer by Edward Wilson Page B

invulnerable to Soviet retaliatory or pre-emptive strikes. We are on the wrong end of ‘the vulnerability gap’.
    The worst contingency would be that the US military will persuade the incoming president to launch a ‘preventative’ attack against the Soviet Union. The awful reality is that such an attack would be perfectly logical in terms of narrow US national self-interest. The attack would eliminate once and for all a future Soviet threat and the United States itself would remain untouched. Unfortunately, our own country would be destroyed. The Soviet armoury of medium-range nuclear missiles is more capable than ever of the complete devastation of Britain and Western Europe even as a second strike. In the eyes of our main NATO partner, we would be a sacrificial pawn. There is, sadly for us, no faulting the cold logic of such a plan.
    Our best assessments suggest that the ‘vulnerability gap’ will close within the next three to four years. By the mid-sixties, the Soviet Union will have achieved ‘mutually assured destruction’ parity with its American opponent. Until that happens, the survival of our island will be in the balance. Meanwhile, vis-à-vis the Americans, it is in our own national interest to exaggerate Soviet nuclear capability and to play down Soviet weakness.
    I hope that you will have the time to meet me privately to discuss the situation in more depth.
     
    Yours sincerely,
    Henry Bone
    Catesby handed the letter back to Bone. ‘Has the PM agreed to meet you?’
    ‘We already have. We had whiskies at Downing Street yesterday evening.’
    ‘Was he angry at what you had done?’
    ‘Not particularly, he was in a melancholy mood and quoted Homer at me.’
    ‘In the original?’
    ‘Of course – you didn’t do Greek?’
    Catesby shook his head. ‘You’ll have to translate.’
    ‘I remember rendering the line in my own schooldays: Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than war. ’
    ‘Was he talking about himself?’
    ‘Maybe a little. The PM is not a pacifist.’
    ‘That’s why he accepted the Thor missiles.’
    ‘You hated that, didn’t you, William?’
    ‘Macmillan’s worse than Eden and Churchill – at least they weren’t American poodles.’
    ‘The PM is a pragmatist – or likes to think he is.’
    Catesby studied the dregs in his teacup – of finest china. He looked at his bowler hat, lightly blotched by raindrops. What had he become? Once again, he counted off the ideals he had grown up with: trade unionism, the solidarity of the working class, socialism – and the abolition of war. He remembered the 1930s when wages were cut and a baby next door died because the family didn’t have the 2/6d to call out the doctor. The doctor would have come anyway, but they had too much pride – misplaced pride. The same sort of useless pride that made governments keep Britain’s pointless nuclear bombs – and even invite the Yanks to bring theirs, like the Thors, on to British soil.
    ‘You’ve gone all thoughtful, William.’
    Catesby looked up. ‘I’m going to resign.’
    Bone slowly shook his head. ‘No, you’re not.’
    ‘You think you can stop me?’
    ‘Yes.’ Bone’s eyes glinted like a knife blade behind his glasses.
    Catesby smiled bleakly and quoted what had become their shared mantra:
    ‘Under the spreading chestnut tree,
    I sold you and you sold me.’
    ‘That’s right, William, and nothing has changed. If you ever try to leave the service you will be stitched like no one has ever been stitched before – but, of course, as you descend that dark hole into chokey you can drag me after you. Would you like another cup of tea?’

 
     
    C atesby’s return to Berlin was marked by tedious and bad-tempered interviews at BfV HQ concerning the Jutta incident. The BfV, which was supposed to be West Germany’s principal Security Service, had a terrible record of infiltration from the East. In 1954, the very Head – Präsident – of the BfV had fled