UPDATE this Timeline, you LAZY GIT!!!
Agreed!
It'd go great against the backdrop of our current 'election'
For the Sake of a Shower: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
- Thread starter Lord Roem
- Start date
Agreed!
It'd go great against the backdrop of our current 'election'
And it has returned!
Oh, that crazy Hideaki Anno and his depression...I wonder if another studio will start making weird mecha series now, perhaps Clamp
Gou Nagai would. He's not stranger to big mechas. After all, he created Mazinger Z. And Kekko Kamen. Now that's the man I'd like to see as Prime Minister of Japan and not Hideaki Anno...
On the other hand, I think the best choice might be a collaboration between Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell) and Rumiko Takahashi (Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku) who did work together before the POD.
If someone can make a mecha related drama that has interesting characters is those two.
Bloody hell! Your grandad is Alun Michael? Delighted to meet you!
Agreed!
It'd go great against the backdrop of our current 'election'
I shall update tomorrow! It'll be worth the wait!
Agreed!
It'd go great against the backdrop of our current 'election'
Seconded! But what is this "election" that you talk about?
I shall update tomorrow! It'll be worth the wait!
Yay!
And it'll be interesting to see who your next Doctor will be
Where is this update? I'm waiting...........
And, yeah, he is. I guess I'll hear that reaction a lot more after I move. I normally call him Taid. Mad watching him being mobbed in the Commons on TV especially scary.
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In a thread that time forgot
With a plotline that made little coherent sense
From a forumer who was, at best, "a bit of a twit"
Come the updates so long promised...
FOR THE SAKE OF A SHOWER: PART TWO
"The Lion and the Bear"
Updates arriving from tomorrow!*
*Seriously, PM me to death if you've not seen at least 2000 words for four in the afternoon GMT!
With a plotline that made little coherent sense
From a forumer who was, at best, "a bit of a twit"
Come the updates so long promised...
FOR THE SAKE OF A SHOWER: PART TWO
"The Lion and the Bear"
Updates arriving from tomorrow!*
*Seriously, PM me to death if you've not seen at least 2000 words for four in the afternoon GMT!
"BlueCanuck and Justinian of Lancaster Proudly Present...
...A Brighter Brighton: A Thatcher Survives the IRA Timeline
...A Brighter Brighton: A Thatcher Survives the IRA Timeline
Justinian of Lancaster and I have been working on this collaborative timeline for sometime now, we hope that you enjoy it, especially since that idiot Baron Prais seems to have fallen into the internet’s ether. We hope that you enjoy it!
-From Alternatehistory.net 12th November 2009
"GENERAL SECRETARY TO ANNOUNCE FUTHER REFORMS
General Secretary Gorbachev will today proclaim the establishment of further improvements to the people’s economy in a speech to the Supreme Soviet this afternoon. The Politburo have already fully endorsed the proposals, which are to open up the field of commerce to all comrades in a manner fully in-keeping with the benefits of Marxism-Leninism and the development of a strong, socialist economy. Minister of Economics, Comrade Yakovlev, has already stated that the proposals are “sound” and will “ensure that the USSR remains a bulwark against the discredited tenants of capitalist neo-liberalism”. In addition to the further increases in the restructuring programs, it is also understood that Comrade Gorbachev will also announce his intention to increase the power of internal voices within the Communist Party as a means of bringing the wisdom of the people to even greater hights of influence within the democratic structure of the Soviet system.”
-From the uncirculated morning edition of Pravda, December 13th 1987
“In the end, it was the suddenness of the whole affair that came as the biggest surprise. Everyone in the diplomatic quarter knew that there was something going on in the week before the coup, but it wasn’t until I was woken by gunfire coming from across the Moskva that I realised quite how severely things had deteriorated within the command structure of the Soviet military command.
By the time I had run downstairs and flung open the windows, the tanks were already sealing off most of the Presnensky District. I could already see barricades being erected at the far end of the avenue leading towards Red Square and the city centre. My staff were already trying to liaise with the other diplomatic missions to find out as much as we could. Fortunately, it seemed that the fighting hadn’t spread to the rest of the district at the time. We did hear that a few bullets had been fired at the Spanish Embassy on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, but it soon transpired that they had been the responsibility of a few over-eager privates from one of the tank regiments.
For the rest of the morning we found ourselves trapped in the grounds of the mission. Every once in a while, a military jeep tore along the road with a sergeant with a loudhailer ordering all people to remain inside on penalty of arrest. I knew about Diplomatic Immunity but I didn’t really want to risk it. Our radios and TV’s weren’t locked out of course, but with so much media traffic it was almost impossible to get a signal. I managed to get a call from Secretary Kirkpatrick at just after nine, but she said nothing more than to say that the situation was being monitored by the State Department and that we were to stay inside. Not that I needed to be told twice.
At around eleven, Tim Geithner, a young economist who had been sequestered from Beijing the previous month, went up onto the roof terrace to see what was going on. He soon came down having almost received a bullet to the shoulder. It seemed that the troops in the city were taking the curfew very seriously indeed. He did however manage to tell us that he could see smoke rising from the Kremlin and that he could make out fighting on the other side of the river. It was clear that these were just “a few localised disputes” after we received a telephone call saying that fighting had also broken out in Saint. Petersburg...”
-From: “Sixteen Days in December: An Ambassador’s Account of the Attempted Coup Against Gorbachev” William J. Casey: HarperCollins 1994
“In the interests of the power vacuum left by the chronic mismanagement of the discredited bourgeois leadership of Mikhail Sergeyevich, the State Security Committee hereby announce that Comrade Kaganovich, the former right-hand man of the great Stalin, is to be granted full membership of the Politburo for the duration of the crisis currently gripping the Soviet Union.”
-Except from a speech by Marshal Dmitri Yazov, Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of State Security broadcast on all channels, December 13th 1987
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE EXTRAORDINARY STATE COMMISSION FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF CRIMES AGAINST THE POPULATION
Held within the Grand Convention Hall of the Tauride Palace of Saint. Petersburg on this day 16th April 1993.
The above being the 8th Day of the Second Plenipotentiary Session
Held within the Grand Convention Hall of the Tauride Palace of Saint. Petersburg on this day 16th April 1993.
The above being the 8th Day of the Second Plenipotentiary Session
Commission Members Present:
His Excellency Pyotr Serkov: Associate Justice of the Presidium of the Supreme Court
Dr. Dmitri Medvedev: Special Judicial Advisor (St. Petersburg School of Law)
Garry Kasparov: Civilian Representative for the Duma (Social Democratic Party)
Accused Present
Vasily Starodubtsev: Former Deputy Interior Minister
Transcript follows (Pg. 3 of 4);
VS: Following on from the surrender of our forces in Leningrad, it became clear that rioting had also spread to Kirov, Smolensk and Tula for which we had limited support from the military garrisons there.
PS: In such an event Vasily Alexandrovich, when and where did the order come to use live ammunition to stop the rioters?
VS: I have no idea of the circumstances of that alleged order!
DM: Forgive me for being abrupt, but you were one of the ten members of the committee representing the highest power in the land at that point, you must have had some idea from where the authority came?
VS: My position was one tasked with the continued distribution of supplies to our loyalist forces, I had nothing to do with such things as direct military orders from the Defence Ministry!
GK: But surely as head of supply, you would have been made, or at least been aware of, the order to move the RT-23’s out of cold storage towards the end of the weekend?
VS: I was indeed, but purely as a precautionary measure against capture!
DM: Having autonomous nuclear trains speeding across the countryside hardly seems to be a “precautionary measure” Mr. Starodubtsev. One could be forgiven for thinking that it was a last-ditch attempt to give your administration some vestige of blackmailing power against the west.
VS: I...I...I cannot be held responsible for orders that I was ordered to give by senior military officers.
PS: Indeed not Vasily, but even so, the intention was that you would give the order to use them against your own population if they refused to stand down from resisting the the orders of the State Security Commission?
VS: I have no such recollection of such a policy being given.
GK: So you deny that yours in one of the twelve signatures on “Ukaz Regarding the Military Defence of the Revolution”?
VS: I...there was a great deal of paperwork during the first few hours of the new administration, I cannot remember every little piece of paper!
DM: Of course not, it would be unfair of us to use something so minor against you anyway.
VS: Are you taking me for a fool? You are a snivelling little...
PS: The Chair shall order the defendant to be quiet! Another outburst like that shall result in expulsion!
GK: We are straying from the point of the matter Vasily. Who gave the order to use live ammunition against unarmed civilian protesters?
VS: How should I know? Varennikov probably, he was the one in charge of public order.
-Except from The Extraordinary State Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against the Population, with thanks to the National Security Archives of the Federal Republic of Russia and the Eurasian States
Foreign Secretary
Statement Regarding Security Status in the Soviet Union
Statement Regarding Security Status in the Soviet Union
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mrs. Shirley Williams) (SDP [Coalition]): Hon. Members, in my written statement to the House, I expressed the Foreign Office’s concern at the deteriorating situation in the Soviet Union, particularly with regards to the shooting and internment of civilians as well as the status of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. In the past hour, our Ambassador in Moscow has reported further rioting in the capital city, and we also understand that supporters of the ousted General-Secretary, Mr. Gorbachev, have established a rival administration in Kiev of which we are attempting to make contact with. I can assure the entire House that we are doing everything in our ability to assure the safety of all British citizens within the USSR. Following my statement here, I shall be attending a crisis meeting of European Foreign Ministers in Bonn in order to decide upon a general course of action for the EEC as a whole [interruption]. I yield to the member for South Down.
The Speaker: Mr. Enoch Powell
Mr. Enoch Powell (South Down) (Ulster Unionist): I thank the hon. member for giving way. Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the United States is already in a matter of some debate over the possible use of nuclear weaponry should the crisis deepen. Can the Foreign Secretary please give me her assurances that we shall not kow-tow to the Americans should they wish to unleash armageddon on the world?
Mrs. Shirley Williams: I thank the Hon. gentleman for his concern. I can assure the House that nuclear war is not a solution that I intend to place upon the table tonight and is indeed one that I shall actively seek to oppose [some laughter from hon. members]
Dr. David Owen (Plymouth Davenport) (SDP [Owen]): Mr. Speaker! It is clear that the current situation in Moscow is of growing concern to the entire world, may I implore the Foreign Secretary to sent an envoy of sufficient expertise in international affairs to the Kremlin in order to negotiate with the coup leaders?
Mrs. Shirley Williams: I understand the scion leader’s concern [mild laughter] I assure all members present that any appointments made to such shall be in the interest of loyalty and the ability to get along with others and I would appreciate the advice of the hon. member if he were to know of any person fitting such a description, although I realise that he may not be the best judge for such a personna. [strong laughter from hon. members]
-Excerpts: Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) House of Commons. 8th series: Volume 11. 14th December 1987
“Saturday December 14th;
Very tiring day, very noisy as well. Lots of paperwork to get though, not a clue what any of it meant. Asked for coffee from a colonel at around eleven and managed to spill it on sheet detailing troop movements near Gomel. People very angry over that. Hate this room, too hot inside, still don’t know what is going on. Felt light headed and will go to bed soon.
Shooting and screams outside in Red Square, hope that the government does something about it, wonder if anyone has told them?"
-Final entry from the diary of Lazar Kaganovich
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'tis as the prophecy foretold!!!
Excellent stuff m'lord. You have an excellent grasp of the personalities involved and it shows in your writing. I'd tip my hat to you if I owned one.
Particularly enjoyed Kaganovich. He's among the last people I'd imagine pitying.
Excellent stuff m'lord. You have an excellent grasp of the personalities involved and it shows in your writing. I'd tip my hat to you if I owned one.
Particularly enjoyed Kaganovich. He's among the last people I'd imagine pitying.
Very good timeline. Although Im an Englishman, I grew up in the States, so I admit that some of it goes over my head. Mostly the who is who in the Parliament. Although with this level of extraordinary detail I might get lost if you talked about the US House. I implore you, keep it coming!
Good update. One small nitpick though- shouldn't Shirley Williams be talking about the European Community, rather than the EU at this stage? Liking my alt.username too.
Hehe! D'oh! I perhaps should have realised that, apologies, I shall change it.
Hope that you're enjoying the return, do you chaps have anything else to say? How is the coup going?
Excellent as always Roem. Liking very much the references to alternate TLs on an ATL AH.com.
Good stuff...
Could we have a brief recap of the state of British politics at this point (1988-9)? That'd help... for instance, I forget why Shirley Williams is part of the government, but still in the "SDP [Coalition]" .
Could we have a brief recap of the state of British politics at this point (1988-9)? That'd help... for instance, I forget why Shirley Williams is part of the government, but still in the "SDP [Coalition]" .
“Undefeated Warrior Leviathan (1994-1995)
DIR: Mamoru Oshii, Rumiko Takahashi
Undo Sanuki, a junior high school student, is witness to the assassination of a leading government minister at the height of a major crisis between his own United Federation of Free Colonies and the rival Tranzkar Empire. Barely escaping with his life, Undo is soon plunged head-first into a world of interstellar conflict, ancient conspiracies and of course, piloting the titular Leviathan, the secret weapon in the war against the brutal regime bent on the destruction of his nation. However, the toll of fighting at such a young age takes its toll on the young soldier, who soon falls on a downward spiral of depression and anguish, along with his two comrades, the stoic Mari Hoyotagama and the proud and haughty Taro Tarakushi.
Whilst originally being firmly set within the “Real Robot” genre, the series takes numerous inspirations from the counterpart “Super Robot” style of mecha anime and as the story processors, we see influences ranging from Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Space Runaway Ideon and Mobile Suit Omega Gundam to the psychological tour-de-force of Galaxy Express 999. The latter played a major role in the nature of “conjoining” within the series, the merging of the human mind with the robotic body of the Leviathan. This is a concept which gains a prominant role towards the second half of the 24-episode long series.
Leviathan came about as a co-operative project between Oshii and Takahashi at the end of the eighties. The two had previously colaberated in creating an animated version of Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura saga in 1981 and, having forged a good working relationship, were able to develop Leviathan into one of the most influential franchises in Japanese media history, spanning a series, numerous spin off manga, soundtracks, games and two films. The first, Voices from a Distant Star, acts as a retelling of the original TV show whereas the second, Immanentise the Eschaton, takes the already bleak ending of the anime to greater heights as Sanuki unleashes the full power of the battle robot against the two factions and the shadowy conspiracy controlling the galactic-wide conflict. The film shocked the sensibilities of audiences with its graphic depictions of sex and violence, but is rightly placed as being one of the most influential animated films of the 1990’s, becoming the first anime film to be nominated for an Oscar in 1998.
Whilst fundamentally an deconstruction of the genre, the two also used Leviathan to appraise the role of technology with organic life. Sanuki slowly begins to question his own humanity as he is dragged into the military systems of the titular mecha, a concept that Oshii would go onto develop in his 1999 masterpiece, A God from the Machine.”
-From: “The Anime Encyclopaedia” Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy: Macmillan 2008
“In the end, the formal split in the SDP came during the coup attempt in Russia when Shirley was in Bonn dealing with the EEC’s response to the crisis. While myself and Roy were very content with the coalition deal, which had given us our aim of referenda on electoral reform and reforms to taxation, David and his supporters found themselves far more suited to a loose arrangement with the Tories, especially after the defections that occurred soon after Lamont began denouncing the Treaty of Bruges, the signing of which would become such a major issue in the towards the end of the Parliament.
Although the coalition had been on a fairly formal basis ever since the election, because David still retained a great deal of support from the right-wing of the alliance, he was able to demand a special conference in early December to vote on whether or not to remain a part of the arrangement with the Labour Party. It’s worth pointing out that, while he had claimed to have defected to the Conservatives soon after Michael Heseltine took office, in reality, he was instead a member of a scion of the SDP and was treated as such in Hansard. His faction were instead in a form of an electoral pact with the Tories, though that wouldn’t really become formalised until the end of the year. In the end, our activists voted around 67% in favour of the maintaing the status quo and remaining part of the Labour-Alliance government.
Well, of course, that wasn’t enough for David and he promptly stormed out of Methodist Central Hall and announced that he and his supporters, who numbered around 17 MP’s after all but three of the ex-Conservatives joined him, would caucus as an independent force within the House of Commons. This did little to affect the power of the government, which still held a ten seat majority, but it was clear that the PM would have to have another election sooner rather than later. It is rather amusing though regarding the lack of coverage that David received on what he assumed would be his great PR triumph, everyone else was far more bothered about the small matter of the Civil War developing in Russia!”
-Former Speaker of the House of Councillors, William Rodgers, in an interview from the recent Channel Four documentary “Back to Your Constituencies: The Rise and Fall of the Social Democratic Party”
“The Committee for the Protection of State Security regretfully announces the death of Comrade General-Secretary Kaganovich after a period of great stress. After democratic internal party debate, the Politburo has appointed Comrade Grishin, the former Party leader in Moscow so unfairly cast aside by the wrecker-supporters of the discredited bourgeois leadership of Mikhail Sergeyevich to the position of Supreme Leader of the Soviet Union who will preside over the return of the USSR to her position as the greatest and most democratic nation in history.
In-keeping with this desire to return full democracy to the people, curfew will be extended to all hours of the day and night in Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad under penally of arrest.”
-Except from a speech by Gennady Yanayev, Minister for Internal Security, broadcast on all channels, December 15th 1987
“Arriving in Bonn on the fifteenth, it was clear that the situation in the Soviet Union was growing increasingly grave. Most nations had evacuated all but the most essential staff from their embassies. This was an understandable reaction given the risk to safety, but not one that did much to help us understand the situation in Moscow. We soon found ourselves having to rely on the stretchy details coming from William Casey, the American Ambassador who, while superb, wasn’t possessed of the skills needed to react as rapidly as he perhaps needed to.
My counterpart in France at this point was Charles Pasqua who had effectively taken over the Foreign Ministry as well as being Prime Minister. Charles and I consistently pushed for official recognition of the administration that had been set up in Kiev around Yegor Ligachev rather than trying to moderate the stance of the hardliners in Moscow. At this point, we had no idea of how weak the support base of the coup leaders was so we both assumed that we were taking a far larger risk that we thought. We were aided in our attempts to make overtures to the Soviet loyalists by the superb skills of Eduard Shevardnadze, Gorbachev’s former foreign minister who few to Germany on the night of the fourteenth of December to call for Western intervention. It was already clear that the Soviet Union in its current form was doomed, and it would be Shevardnadze far more so than Ligachev who would play the leading role in its reformation.”
-From “A Woman’s Place” Shirley Williams: HarperCollins 1998
“I suppose that it is possible that unless the situation is resolved soon the Soviets could use nuclear weapons against their own people. And you know what Chris? F*** ‘em!”
-Overheard comment from a discussion between Shadow Home Secretary Christopher Chope [1] and former Defence Secretary Alan Clark
“By the end of the second day of the coup attempt in Moscow, neither I, the President or the Cabinet had had more than a few hours of sleep. One of my most vivid memories of that week was walking into the Oval Office to witness a heated argument between Secretary Kirkpatrick and the President over whether to support the European’s backing of the Ligachev government. George was in favour of it, claiming that it was the best option available to ensure the stability of the post-coup Russian whereas Jeane was vehemently opposed to any support for a communist government, claiming instead that we should support the fledgling independence movements in the USSR, starting with the Baltic states. The President was furious at that, claiming that destabilising an already unsteady country would be disastrous, particularly as that nation was in possession of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
At this point, it wasn’t helping the White House that we had an election to fight, we knew that the President would see his campaign won or lost on how we dealt with the Soviets. There was still a bit of the Reagan factor in the polls and if we could tap into that, we knew that all the straw polls, all the bad press and all the Democrat verbal barbs would be cast aside on a wave of patriotic feeling if we could win the war of words against us. On the night of the fifteenth of December, just as we heard the news of mutiny by the Red Army troop sent in to crush a pro-independence rally in Tallinn, the President made up his mind.”
-From “Rotunda Dreams: The Autobiography of a Pragmatic Chief of Staff” Tom Ridge: Little, Brown and Company 1997
“The US people present their full support to the reformist administration of Mr. Ligachev and hope that the current difficulties in the Soviet Union are resolved as soon as possible.
The US people stand firm with the freedom-loving people of Estonia and will provide every assistance in their fight for independence from the autocratic regime in Moscow”
-The full text of both of the infamous Fort David Declarations, cited in “The Demise of Brinkmanship: Small State Diplomacy during the Bush Presidency” Dr. Condoleezza Rice: Princeton University Press 1994
[1] I realise that I erroneously stated that the current Shadow Home Secretary was Patrick Jenkin, this is somewhat hard given that the latter was shot at Westminster Abbey.
[2] I also cocked up the dates in the previous update by randomly jumping ahead one year, just to reiterate, the current events are happening in December 1987.
DIR: Mamoru Oshii, Rumiko Takahashi
Undo Sanuki, a junior high school student, is witness to the assassination of a leading government minister at the height of a major crisis between his own United Federation of Free Colonies and the rival Tranzkar Empire. Barely escaping with his life, Undo is soon plunged head-first into a world of interstellar conflict, ancient conspiracies and of course, piloting the titular Leviathan, the secret weapon in the war against the brutal regime bent on the destruction of his nation. However, the toll of fighting at such a young age takes its toll on the young soldier, who soon falls on a downward spiral of depression and anguish, along with his two comrades, the stoic Mari Hoyotagama and the proud and haughty Taro Tarakushi.
Whilst originally being firmly set within the “Real Robot” genre, the series takes numerous inspirations from the counterpart “Super Robot” style of mecha anime and as the story processors, we see influences ranging from Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Space Runaway Ideon and Mobile Suit Omega Gundam to the psychological tour-de-force of Galaxy Express 999. The latter played a major role in the nature of “conjoining” within the series, the merging of the human mind with the robotic body of the Leviathan. This is a concept which gains a prominant role towards the second half of the 24-episode long series.
Leviathan came about as a co-operative project between Oshii and Takahashi at the end of the eighties. The two had previously colaberated in creating an animated version of Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura saga in 1981 and, having forged a good working relationship, were able to develop Leviathan into one of the most influential franchises in Japanese media history, spanning a series, numerous spin off manga, soundtracks, games and two films. The first, Voices from a Distant Star, acts as a retelling of the original TV show whereas the second, Immanentise the Eschaton, takes the already bleak ending of the anime to greater heights as Sanuki unleashes the full power of the battle robot against the two factions and the shadowy conspiracy controlling the galactic-wide conflict. The film shocked the sensibilities of audiences with its graphic depictions of sex and violence, but is rightly placed as being one of the most influential animated films of the 1990’s, becoming the first anime film to be nominated for an Oscar in 1998.
Whilst fundamentally an deconstruction of the genre, the two also used Leviathan to appraise the role of technology with organic life. Sanuki slowly begins to question his own humanity as he is dragged into the military systems of the titular mecha, a concept that Oshii would go onto develop in his 1999 masterpiece, A God from the Machine.”
-From: “The Anime Encyclopaedia” Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy: Macmillan 2008
“In the end, the formal split in the SDP came during the coup attempt in Russia when Shirley was in Bonn dealing with the EEC’s response to the crisis. While myself and Roy were very content with the coalition deal, which had given us our aim of referenda on electoral reform and reforms to taxation, David and his supporters found themselves far more suited to a loose arrangement with the Tories, especially after the defections that occurred soon after Lamont began denouncing the Treaty of Bruges, the signing of which would become such a major issue in the towards the end of the Parliament.
Although the coalition had been on a fairly formal basis ever since the election, because David still retained a great deal of support from the right-wing of the alliance, he was able to demand a special conference in early December to vote on whether or not to remain a part of the arrangement with the Labour Party. It’s worth pointing out that, while he had claimed to have defected to the Conservatives soon after Michael Heseltine took office, in reality, he was instead a member of a scion of the SDP and was treated as such in Hansard. His faction were instead in a form of an electoral pact with the Tories, though that wouldn’t really become formalised until the end of the year. In the end, our activists voted around 67% in favour of the maintaing the status quo and remaining part of the Labour-Alliance government.
Well, of course, that wasn’t enough for David and he promptly stormed out of Methodist Central Hall and announced that he and his supporters, who numbered around 17 MP’s after all but three of the ex-Conservatives joined him, would caucus as an independent force within the House of Commons. This did little to affect the power of the government, which still held a ten seat majority, but it was clear that the PM would have to have another election sooner rather than later. It is rather amusing though regarding the lack of coverage that David received on what he assumed would be his great PR triumph, everyone else was far more bothered about the small matter of the Civil War developing in Russia!”
-Former Speaker of the House of Councillors, William Rodgers, in an interview from the recent Channel Four documentary “Back to Your Constituencies: The Rise and Fall of the Social Democratic Party”
“The Committee for the Protection of State Security regretfully announces the death of Comrade General-Secretary Kaganovich after a period of great stress. After democratic internal party debate, the Politburo has appointed Comrade Grishin, the former Party leader in Moscow so unfairly cast aside by the wrecker-supporters of the discredited bourgeois leadership of Mikhail Sergeyevich to the position of Supreme Leader of the Soviet Union who will preside over the return of the USSR to her position as the greatest and most democratic nation in history.
In-keeping with this desire to return full democracy to the people, curfew will be extended to all hours of the day and night in Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad under penally of arrest.”
-Except from a speech by Gennady Yanayev, Minister for Internal Security, broadcast on all channels, December 15th 1987
“Arriving in Bonn on the fifteenth, it was clear that the situation in the Soviet Union was growing increasingly grave. Most nations had evacuated all but the most essential staff from their embassies. This was an understandable reaction given the risk to safety, but not one that did much to help us understand the situation in Moscow. We soon found ourselves having to rely on the stretchy details coming from William Casey, the American Ambassador who, while superb, wasn’t possessed of the skills needed to react as rapidly as he perhaps needed to.
My counterpart in France at this point was Charles Pasqua who had effectively taken over the Foreign Ministry as well as being Prime Minister. Charles and I consistently pushed for official recognition of the administration that had been set up in Kiev around Yegor Ligachev rather than trying to moderate the stance of the hardliners in Moscow. At this point, we had no idea of how weak the support base of the coup leaders was so we both assumed that we were taking a far larger risk that we thought. We were aided in our attempts to make overtures to the Soviet loyalists by the superb skills of Eduard Shevardnadze, Gorbachev’s former foreign minister who few to Germany on the night of the fourteenth of December to call for Western intervention. It was already clear that the Soviet Union in its current form was doomed, and it would be Shevardnadze far more so than Ligachev who would play the leading role in its reformation.”
-From “A Woman’s Place” Shirley Williams: HarperCollins 1998
“I suppose that it is possible that unless the situation is resolved soon the Soviets could use nuclear weapons against their own people. And you know what Chris? F*** ‘em!”
-Overheard comment from a discussion between Shadow Home Secretary Christopher Chope [1] and former Defence Secretary Alan Clark
“By the end of the second day of the coup attempt in Moscow, neither I, the President or the Cabinet had had more than a few hours of sleep. One of my most vivid memories of that week was walking into the Oval Office to witness a heated argument between Secretary Kirkpatrick and the President over whether to support the European’s backing of the Ligachev government. George was in favour of it, claiming that it was the best option available to ensure the stability of the post-coup Russian whereas Jeane was vehemently opposed to any support for a communist government, claiming instead that we should support the fledgling independence movements in the USSR, starting with the Baltic states. The President was furious at that, claiming that destabilising an already unsteady country would be disastrous, particularly as that nation was in possession of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
At this point, it wasn’t helping the White House that we had an election to fight, we knew that the President would see his campaign won or lost on how we dealt with the Soviets. There was still a bit of the Reagan factor in the polls and if we could tap into that, we knew that all the straw polls, all the bad press and all the Democrat verbal barbs would be cast aside on a wave of patriotic feeling if we could win the war of words against us. On the night of the fifteenth of December, just as we heard the news of mutiny by the Red Army troop sent in to crush a pro-independence rally in Tallinn, the President made up his mind.”
-From “Rotunda Dreams: The Autobiography of a Pragmatic Chief of Staff” Tom Ridge: Little, Brown and Company 1997
“The US people present their full support to the reformist administration of Mr. Ligachev and hope that the current difficulties in the Soviet Union are resolved as soon as possible.
The US people stand firm with the freedom-loving people of Estonia and will provide every assistance in their fight for independence from the autocratic regime in Moscow”
-The full text of both of the infamous Fort David Declarations, cited in “The Demise of Brinkmanship: Small State Diplomacy during the Bush Presidency” Dr. Condoleezza Rice: Princeton University Press 1994
[1] I realise that I erroneously stated that the current Shadow Home Secretary was Patrick Jenkin, this is somewhat hard given that the latter was shot at Westminster Abbey.
[2] I also cocked up the dates in the previous update by randomly jumping ahead one year, just to reiterate, the current events are happening in December 1987.
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