The Steering Group by M. J. Laurence

Author:M. J. Laurence [Laurence, M. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781839752117
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
Published: 2020-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

The Steering Group

Chapter 8

A Dangerous Distraction?

Returning to the UK for me was always a little depressing and this time was no exception, and in addition this was a major step down from the active role I so much enjoyed and thrived on. It was the next four years that were probably the most complex and demanding for me, both personally and professionally. Returning to the navy again gave me an entirely new direction as expected and a safety net to fall into whilst I decompressed and focused on the base job, which I actually enjoyed at that time to be honest.

I left GCHQ and all the issues behind, to disappear off grid for about a year or so into the world of NBCD, and let GCHQ develop the strategies and timings for all the communications to and from Moscow which were now mostly all lies; the innocent letters from one friend to another had all but been used up. The planning for a defection was simply out of my hands and would need to be woven into the fabric of normal operations, the correspondence and other military planning and intelligence. I had submitted a lot of intel and background information that needed to be taken to pieces by the teams at GCHQ with regards to the Russian arms and information deals taking place. The complexities of the Russian operation with regards to piggy-backing legitimate arms deals that allowed for the syphoning of arms to go relatively undetected to so many different locations was going to prove almost impenetrable as everything sat behind legitimate transactions, politicians and delicate relations on all sides.

I think what was of most interest was the technology that I had passed back to London from Sarov and how close it had come to falling into Iranian hands. The possibilities of getting further intel and the fact I may have opened the way for a possible defection opportunity from a major player in the nuclear arms programme in Sarov had made me very popular within the inner circles of the organisation. This allowed Cdr Brown to bask in all the glory.

I guess you could say the Steering Group was probably pleased to stand my team and me down for a while whilst they rebuilt the OPLAN (operational plan). The next few years of SIS involvement within the military followed the developments of Desert Shield & Desert Storm and of course the Bosnian crisis, with Moscow fuelling the workload exponentially. Bosnia was a NATO operation, and the successful planning of multinational military operations required a common doctrine which was aimed primarily at those engaged in operational-level planning, specifically commanders and staff employed in joint force command headquarters and component command headquarters. As Operation Segment had been purely a British operation, Ben Martin, United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) from the Steering Group, was now well and truly in the driving seat and at the centre of the politics and the planning for Operation RIAR. We would be working with the Americans now, under the wings of NATO.

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