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(Daily Mail) – During the Cold War, civil servants used the book to rehearse what would happen if there was a devastating nuclear exchange.
Drawn up more than 40 years ago – and updated as recently as the early Nineties – it sets out in immense detail how Britain would have been administered in the event of a devastating nuclear exchange.
The book has been obtained by Whitehall historian Peter Hennessy, who said it showed how civil servants ‘peered into the abyss’ as they contemplated what would need to be done if deterrence failed and nuclear war became a reality.
Plans to round up ‘subversives’ were also examined and to see if the BBC had enough notice to get staff to its wartime bunker.
The exercises took place every two years and ended with R hour – the release of all nuclear weapons.
- As the Soviet threat becomes more likely, people start staying away from work.
- Demand builds up at builder’s yards for the materials to build household refuges, as well as long queues at food shops.
- Soviet forces attack West Germany, Italy and Greece. They then assault Danish islands.
- People in Britain start moving out of cities.
- Anti-war demonstrations start outside Downing Street but they fade away as the Soviet advance continues.
- Major art treasures and historical objects are removed from London to Edinburgh, and all but the acutely ill are discharged from hospital.
- There may already have been ‘tactical’ nuclear strikes, but then ‘R Hour’ arrives, and most of the the UK is destroyed.
- Twelve regions set up in aftermath run by Cabinet ministers with draconian powers
COUNTDOWN TO ‘R’ HOUR
What was once the most secret of all British government documents has been released in full.
During the Cold War, civil servants used to rehearse the end of the world – what would happen if deterrence failed and nuclear war became inevitable.
Soviet ‘Moon landing’
The file has mock daily briefings from the Joint Intelligence Committee on international events – the Home Front is covered by bulletins from civil defence officials in the Home Office. Every day the “cabinet” of civil servants would meet and decide which parts of the War Book to implement.
By 17 October, the day of the Soviet Moon landing, tension had risen. Czechoslovakian and Hungarian troops were said to be massing on the border with Austria. Soviet fighters had been harassing civil aircraft in the Berlin corridors, causing an American airliner to crash.
Meanwhile, in the UK, people were getting nervous. The mock news bulletins report that “letters are beginning to appear in newspapers asking when advice is going to be given to householders about protecting their homes”.
And in the Cabinet Office, the mock cabinet implemented a number of War Book measures, including alerting civil servants who would have to man the regional bunkers. If the bombs dropped, these would have been the regional centres of government.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
