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Declassified documents show how UK gave in to terrorists
Douglas Davis (Jer. Post)
LONDON (Janaury 2) - LONDON - Documents declassified in London yesterday reveal the British government's shock at being asked by an Arab leader - Jordan's King Hussein - to request that Israel bomb Syria during the bloody 1970 Black September uprising in Jordan. The documents also reveal how the British government, led by then-prime minister Edward Heath, fell out with Washington over its capitulation in the release of Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled, who landed in British custody after her abortive attempt to seize an El Al airliner. And they describe how the British government, Hussein's closest Western ally, declined to come to his aid during Black September, suggesting that it believed the Hashemite throne might be toppled in the Palestinian-initiated civil war and that it should keep its options open in the event of a Palestinian triumph. Heath is quoted as doubting whether there were "any advantages to be derived from prolonging, possibly only for a short time, the increasingly precarious regime of King Hussein." The documents, which include cabinet papers and details of diplomatic exchanges, were released after the expiration of the "30-year rule" blocking release of sensitive official papers. Cabinet minutes from September 1970 reported that "a series of messages has been received from King Hussein, reflecting the extreme anxiety with which he now regarded the situation. "The clearest of these had not only appealed for the moral and diplomatic support of the United Kingdom and the United States, coupled with a threat of international action, but had also asked for an air strike by Israel against the Syrian troops." Britain refused to pass on the request to Israel, and the documents reveal that the then-cabinet secretary, Sir Burke Trend, was authorized to pass the message on to the US - then hosting a visit by then-prime minister Golda Meir - but not to Israel. The crisis in Jordan had been precipitated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which masterminded the hijacking of five passenger airliners on September 6, 1970. Four of the planes were flown to the deserted Jordanian airstrip of Dawson's Field with their passengers. The fifth, involving an El Al airliner which had just taken off from Amsterdam, was thwarted and the plane landed safely in London after the two hijackers were overpowered. One of the hijackers, Nicaraguan Patrick Arguello, was killed; the other, Leila Khaled, who had previously hijacked a plane in 1969, was taken into custody by British police. The hijackings and subsequent destruction of the planes for the benefit of the television cameras at Dawson's Field ignited a Palestinian uprising in Jordan that led to civil war and almost toppled the Hashemite throne. By September 27, however, forces loyal to the king had prevailed and Hussein drove thousands of Palestinian fighters, led by Yasser Arafat, out of Jordan and into Lebanon. Hussein's most urgent appeal to Britain and the US, including the request to London to ask Israel for assistance, was sent on September 19. The affair has always been officially denied by all sides, but Israeli historians have suggested that Washington did convey the request and that a Syrian tank column, which had already crossed into Jordan, was ordered to turn back after Israel threatened to attack it. Moreover, the Palestinians have also alleged that Israel secretly supplied Jordan with arms after agreeing with Hussein's assessment that a Syrian invasion of Jordan could spark a full-scale regional conflict. The papers reveal that in discussions with then-British ambassador to Jordan John Phillips, Hussein described Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as a "nutcase" and Arafat as a "criminal." Meanwhile, against the turbulent backdrop in Jordan, a subplot was unfolding in London, where Khaled was proving to be an acute embarrassment to the British government, which feared reprisals by Palestinian terrorists. According to the declassified documents, Heath told his cabinet less than three days after Khaled's capture that he had agreed to offer her release, via the Red Cross, along with terrorists who were being held in Germany and Switzerland and whose freedom was being demanded, in exchange for the passengers - now hostages - on the hijacked planes. Among the documents just released is a copy of a letter written by Khaled to her mother from her police cell in west London, in which she reported that she was being treated "as if I were an official state guest." The letter also described her routine and promised that she would "return soon," adding that, "The only thing that grieves and hurts me today is that I am not now carrying arms and am not sharing with my people in the battle." Khaled, who had undergone plastic surgery to change her appearance after her 1969 hijacking and thus avoid detection by security services, went on to become a member of the Palestinian parliament and now lives in Amman. The British decision to negotiate with the terrorists over Khaled angered Washington. Tensions between London and Washington are reflected in a bitterly acrimonious telephone conversation between top Foreign Office official Sir Denis Greenhill and senior White House aide Joseph Sisco. In the course of the exchange, revealed by the documents, Sisco told Greenhill: "I think your government would want to weigh very, very carefully the kind of outcry that would occur in this country against your taking this kind of action." Greenhill replied: "Well, they do Joe, but there is also an outcry in this country," expressing concern that "Israel won't lift a bloody finger and... our people get killed. You could imagine how bad that would look, and if it all comes out that we could have got our people out but for the obduracy of you and other people so to speak... I mean people say, why the bloody hell didn't you try?" Two weeks later, on September 30, Khaled and the six other Palestinian terrorists who were being held in Germany and Switzerland were exchanged for the 56 remaining hostages. In a BBC television documentary on the affair, broadcast late yesterday, Khaled admitted that the PFLP had been greatly encouraged by Britain's swift capitulation to its demands. "It was a good step for us that we saw governments could be negotiated with," she said. "We could impose our demands. "The success in the tactics of the hijacking and imposing our demands and succeeding in having our demands implemented gave us the courage and the confidence to go ahead with our struggle." Meanwhile, Heath, who is still a member of parliament, told the BBC that his decision to negotiate with the terrorists was driven by pragmatism: "We were always realistic," he said. "We were very practical about it all." Peter Tripp, then head of the Near East Department at the Foreign Office, noted that while Britain had been Hussein's "staunchest supporter... our interests in the Arab world were extensive. We had to have regard to our own wider interests in dealing with King Hussein," he told the BBC. And, while conceding that the king's position appeared "pretty shaky," Tripp stressed that it "didn't mean we had to throw him overboard at the first sign of trouble." But he added: "You could not just nail your colors to that particular mast and say, 'Well, we'll go down with the ship.' There's a certain amount of self-interest in all this."
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