Log in

View Full Version : 'WWIII Queen's speech' script revealed


Gerald
08-01-13, 05:07 AM
In case of a major conflict....

The Queen was expected to urge Britons to pray and remain united and resolute in the event of the "madness" of nuclear war, papers from 1983 show.The script for a hypothetical broadcast has the monarch describing the threat to the "brave country" as "greater" than any other in history.

It also mentions the Queen's son Prince Andrew, then in the Royal Navy.

The speech, devised by Whitehall officials at one of the most fraught Cold War periods, was never recorded.

The document, released by the government under the 30-year rule, was drawn up as part of a war-gaming exercise in the spring of 1983, which worked through potential scenarios.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23518587

Note: 1 August 2013 Last updated at 06:25 GMT

Oberon
08-01-13, 05:43 AM
Personally, given we only had four minutes I'd have shortened it down a bit...something a bit more like:

"Oh...bugger..."

Jimbuna
08-01-13, 06:01 AM
Personally, given we only had four minutes I'd have shortened it down a bit...something a bit more like:

"Oh...bugger..."

Precisely :)

Gerald
08-01-13, 07:47 AM
Rgr that!

Jimbuna
08-01-13, 09:54 AM
Personally, given we only had four minutes I'd have shortened it down a bit...something a bit more like:

"Oh...bugger..."

I wonder if there is a bunker underneath the palace...a coal bunker even :hmm2:

Oberon
08-01-13, 12:53 PM
I wonder if there is a bunker underneath the palace...a coal bunker even :hmm2:

Wouldn't make much difference, with the amount of sunshine that London would have got even a deep level bunker would be in trouble. It would essentially be a tomb for whoever was in it, it would be inaccessible for many many months after the explosions.

IIRC, in the likelihood of war with the Pact the monarchy would have been evacuated to a cabinet bunker (probably the Corsham bunker) and then flown out to Canada, presumably as soon as bullets started flying across the East/West German border.
Personally, I doubt she would have left London, not willingly anyway.

We had some good plans for preparing for 'The Big One' but all of them depended upon us getting decent warning that a war was about to take place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_to_war

Heck, Jim, you may well remember some of those plans, you'd have been on the very thin end of the wedge post-bomb, guarding food depots and putting down looters. Grim times.

vienna
08-01-13, 01:18 PM
Here's a George Carlin bit he did on Carson's Tonight Show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A5fyliZpS4


http://jenniferlynn612.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/dr-strangelove08quote.jpg


<O>

Jimbuna
08-01-13, 02:27 PM
Heck, Jim, you may well remember some of those plans, you'd have been on the very thin end of the wedge post-bomb, guarding food depots and putting down looters. Grim times.

Something along those lines but pretty exposed to everything regardless.