SIR,—Mr. A. R. Nicholson's appreciation of the mili- tary situation
arising from a state of affairs in which the Western powers were the first to use tactical nuclear weapons would, I believe, be marked at the Staff College: Too good to be true.' It seems to me to make a number of very naive assumptions about the ability, or lack of it, of the Russian staff to cope with a use by us of tactical nuclear weapons which we have said in advance we shall use. Inciden- tally, does anyone know whether the NATO Com- mander can use nuclear weapons without specific sanction from the politicians? I hope Mr. Nicholson
will not think me unduly cynical for suggesting that if his only evidence that our tactical nuclear weapons are clean is that if they were dirty, we could not use them in Western Europe. it is not evidence of any- thing except that Mr. Nicholson has nice ideas. And, if our tactical nuclear weapons are merely biggish bangs with no radioactive output their effect on checking a Russian advance becomes even less credible. From What I know of these weapons I should prefer to be to windward of them!
What barrier holds the Russians in check?—is a question your correspondent asks me. My short answer is : 'The intelligent realisation by Mr. K and Co. that an armed invasion of Western Europe is most unlikely to produce the dividends as good as those Russia is collecting through her investment in political and economic activities of which ,in attempt t take over the UN is a typical example ' The Soviet can get at us much more effectively by point- ing out that we are associated with A partheid, Algeria and South West Africa than by thinking in terms of mechanised divisions making for the Atlantic coast.—Yours faithfully.
STEPHEN KING-HALL king-Hall News-Letter, /62 Buckingham Palace Road. SW1
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