Denial of alleged coup attempt and ex-PM’s arms deal bid revealed in declassified documents | UK News
Details of an alleged government coup plot and the prime minister’s desperate bid for an arms deal have been revealed in a series of newly declassified documents.
The secret files were first released by the National Archives in Kew.
Among them was a letter surrounding a reported plot to overthrow Harold Wilson’s Labor government in 1968.
The story had enough weight to be reimagined for the Netflix royal drama The Crown, but a letter from one of the accusers years later described it as “nonsense” and “groundless”. reality”.
Those were the words of guru Cecil King in a 1981 note to Whitehall official Sir Robert Armstrong, when he refuted claims that he conspired with Lord Mountbatten – uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh – and Lord Cudlipp.
Mr King, chairman of the International Publishing Corporation (IPC), which counts the Daily Mirror among its titles, accused Mr Wilson of bringing the coup allegations to the press years after he was legally ousted by Ted Heath’s Conservatives in 1970.
The coup is said to have been reported in The Times, prompting then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher to settle the claims in parliament.
Decades later, it became part of the third season of The Crown.
A sorrowful Mr. King suspected that the accusation played some role in his disqualification from the IPC.
“Unlike most newspaper stories, this one has practically no background,” he said in his letter.
Royal favorite composer ‘seeks help with illegal drug supply’
Also revealed is how a respected British composer beloved by the Royal Family has secretly sought state help to supply him with illegal controlled drugs.
Sir William Walton, whose famous ingredient Crown Imperial was used in the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 and this year’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, is said to be “very dependent” on Ritalin, which is commonly used. to treat ADHD.
Records show that his wife, Susana Walton, asked a police inspector in 1982 to help send a year’s supply to his home on the island of Ischia, near Naples, in Italy.
It is illegal to send large quantities of the substance abroad, but his wife asked anyway because – records show – she “would rather live with her head in the clouds”.
The UK knows about the secret health status of the French president
Another revelation released by the National Archives is that the UK government knew how ill French president Francois Mitterrand was a decade before his terminal prognosis was made public.
Diplomat Sir Reginald Hibber filled Whitehall colleagues in December 1981 with “talk about the health of the President which to me seems to carry some conviction”.
Sir Reginald thinks Mr Mitterrand may have cancer, less than a year after he took office.
That proved true, as Mr Mitterrand died in 1996 of prostate cancer – which he successfully concealed from the French public during his presidency – which ended in 1995. – and until his death.
Blair begs Kuwait for arms deal
According to other declassified files, Tony Blair begged Kuwait to buy British artillery as a payback for supporting the Middle Eastern nation during the Gulf War.
He repeatedly lobbied Crown Prince Sheikh Sa’ad from 1998 to 1999, even calling him during a short stop on his flight home from South Africa to highlight the issue.
Internal briefing reports indicate the government believes it was “due to the awarding of an important defense equipment contract in recognition of their defense of Kuwait” following the invasion of Saddam’s Iraqi forces by Saddam’s Iraqi forces. Hussein in 1990.
These efforts did not bear fruit immediately, as Kuwait announced its intention to purchase American artillery instead.