#Us navy submarine base scotland tv#

He added: “A little under two years before the collision between an unidentified Soviet submarine and USS James Madison, another Soviet submarine, a nuclear-powered Victor class submarine, was detected in the Clyde-approach areas. He said: “The Soviets routinely sent submarines to waters around Scotland, where they would attempt to detect, track and trail Royal Navy and US Navy ballistic missile-carrying submarines as they deployed from the Royal Navy base at Faslane and the US Navy base at Holy Loch.” James Jinks, who with Peter Hennessy wrote a history of Royal Navy submarines, said the cable was further confirmation of a “highly secret underwater game of cat and mouse”. “The people of Scotland live in the shadow of this appalling nuclear arsenal because Westminster puts it there – against the vast majority of its elected representatives – and without taking the necessary measures to defend it or to protect the people who live here.” “The truth is – as we saw with the Trident malfunction revelations – nothing has changed, it could happen again.

He added: “What happened in 1974 looks like a very, very lucky escape – it could have been completely devastating. We shouldn’t have to wait 40 years for the CIA to release documents to know the truth, which is why we’re calling for a Trident inquiry.”īrendan O’Hara MP, the SNP defence spokesman, said the disclosure was “deeply worrying”. “This is also the week of the Trident missile crisis, a misfire and a government cover-up. With advancing technological developments added to the already dangerous mix there can be no confidence that nuclear weapons are a credible part of British security in the 21st century. Hudson added: “These enormous risks have to be acknowledged particularly when we also now face the increasing likelihood of cyber-attack on nuclear weapons systems. This latest example joins 25 other near misses that could have led to nuclear war.”ĬND is calling for an inquiry into Trident, the successor to the Poseidon programme, after it emerged that a malfunctioning missile with the potential to carry a nuclear warhead was forced to self-destruct in mid-air off the US coast last June. “The history of nuclear weapons is a history of near misses, accidents, potential catastrophes and cover-ups. Kate Hudson, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said the secret cable exposed the “enormous risks” of nuclear weapons.

#Us navy submarine base scotland tv#

The last sentence of the report is thought to refer to Warner Wolf, a famous TV sports broadcaster of the time. “This pre-emption on Anderson’s part forced the surfacing (no pun intended) of a piece of information in a current intelligence 2 months after the event occurred. Unfortunately, Jack Anderson had run the same news in the Washington Post a day or two earlier. It said: “On 3 January, the NID ran an item on the collision just off Holy Loch of US Polaris submarine and a Soviet attack submarine. He reported that the collision left a 9ft scratch on the side of the James Madison and that the two submarines came within inches of sinking one another.Īnother document marked “top secret” released in the same batch expressed alarm that the news of the collision had leaked. The cable corroborates an until-now unconfirmed report on the incident in the Washington Post on 1 January 1975 by the investigative journalist Jack Anderson. The cable was published by the CIA on 17 January as part of a mass release of more than 12m pages of previously classified reports in 930,000 documents. There is no report yet of the extent of damage. “Both submarines surfaced and the Soviet boat subsequently submerged again. The cable to Henry Kissinger about a collision involving two nuclear submarines near Holy Loch in Scotland.