12 Operation Central America. Our Caribbean friends (among whom Jamaica is now rather more valuable than Cuba) say that the new President of Mexico is a dynamic and able man, who is dangerously liable to turn Mexico into a prosperous and breakthrough country. This could raise the danger of coups d’etat against the governments of our Caribbean allies and the less successful semi-socialist governments in South America. The Jamaicans and Cubans are therefore eager to arrange a coup d’etat in Mexico in these next few dying weeks of the lame-duck Carter presidency. I am opposed to Operation Central America on much the same grounds as I oppose a full Operation India: (a) we might not succeed; and (b) Mexico is altogether too near America, and an attempted communist coup d’etat there might unite Americans around Presidents Carter and Thompson, possibly even leading to decisive American action, while our whole object is to find operations which will produce disunity, and where America cannot take decisive action because the outgoing and incoming Administrations will not agree. Once again, however, as with Operation India, there might be a case for a modified version of Operation Central America. An assassination of the Mexican president could be advantageous, done by somebody who cannot be traced to us, while we express the most effusive condolences to the still capitalist but much weaker Mexican vice-president, whose vanity will be assuaged by then acceding to office. A KGB team should report on the possibilities.
13 Operation Southern Africa. The Jamaicans are keen that the friendly countries in black Africa should extend external and internal guerrilla war against the ‘white homeland states’ of the former Union of South Africa and their associated ‘Uncle Tom’ states. There are three reasons why we should support this action, provided it can be organized in time. First, the economic success of the ‘Uncle Tom’ states, and the surprising continuing prosperity of the white homelands, mean that a process of right-wing coups d’etat is liable to spread all up black Africa — and also, which naturally worries Jamaica, into the black Caribbean. Second, the white homelands do still follow a baaskap policy in some respects; many Americans, especially black Americans, will not regard them as respectable allies beside whom American troops should fight. Third, the confused military set-up in South Africa should create advantages for us. We have the capability there to keep on putting the Americans in very embarrassing situations indeed. With the troubles in the Middle East because of our operation there the Americans will also be anxious about the supply lines for oil round the Cape. In addition, I suggest (for your ears only) that the Red Army ‘volunteer officers’ we send to Southern Africa should be those whom we could not wholly trust to put down workers in Warsaw, and whom we would most like to have out of Moscow. Instead of repeating Stalin’s Red Army purges of the 1930s (which we have not the power to do), let us send the less reliable officers to lead bands of black natives wandering over the undefended veldt! The black natives will stop these gentlemen from being too liberal. It does not matter much that there will be no time for a coherent military plan, because Operation Southern Africa will not have a coherent military objective. The political objectives will be: (a) to put the Americans in an embarrassing position by compelling lame-duck President Carter to commit American forces to unpopular pro-white South Africa action, from which President Thompson will have to retreat embarrassingly; and (b) to make it clear to the international business world that continued investment in the white homelands and in the ‘Uncle Tom’ states will not remain peaceful and profitable for long. At the end of Operation Southern Africa it would possibly be desirable that at least one of the three white homelands should pass over to black rule, so as to mark Thompson’s humiliation.
14 Operation Yugoslavia. If we are to make a move in Europe, it would be better to ‘capture Yugoslavia’ than to ‘recapture Poland’ (which is not lost anyway). The arguments in favour of Operation Yugoslavia are: (a) the weak federal government in Yugoslavia is unpopular with most of the Yugoslav people, and the various state governments are all unpopular with the people of the other states; (b) if Soviet troops intervened on the side of one state against another, we would have some support from the people (while in Poland we would have practically none); (c) our communist friends in the Soviet-run Serbian Committee for the Defence of Yugoslavia want Red Army troops in Yugoslavia (after the murder of the mayor of Wroclaw, they feel quite naked and unprotected without any Russians there); (d) in Slovenia and Croatia our troops would be arresting politicians rather than storming worker-held factories; and (e) a swift overnight move of this sort would serve notice to Polish and other workers that the Red Army is in a high state of readiness and can move very quickly.
My objection to Operation Yugoslavia at this stage is that it would be more likely than the other four operations to have wide repercussions. Indeed, an operation in Yugoslavia has been considered by the Soviet High Command in the same strategic contingency plan as a move into West Germany. If we thought that all the communist countries of Eastern Europe were liable to erupt in coups d’etat, which would be followed by coups d’etat in the Soviet Union itself, then I would certainly be in favour of invasion of either Yugoslavia or West Germany or both. But we have not reached that situation yet. We have merely reached a situation where it is desirable to humiliate and discredit President Thompson. Let us start on this humiliation in the Middle East and Southern Africa.
15 During the operations of the next few weeks we shall need to keep China-Japan neutral. We must also keep Western Europe neutral, possibly by intimidation.
It was to be a far from peaceful Christmas.
