A file at the National Archives shows the resources that the British state could deploy when necessary, as in 1985 at RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. The air base was a focus for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the 1980s, as one of the places where the United States would deploy cruise missiles. Hence Operation Yelstead. That codeword was unclassified; but the meaning of the word was confidential: to remove ‘trespassers’ (CND protesters for ‘peace’) and build a perimeter fence to keep campaigners out.
The authorities for some months anticipated a ‘major’ demonstration at Easter 1985. While naturally they could not be sure of the numbers in advance, one guess by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was of up to 20,000 on the Easter Monday. Hence the operation, to build a 1.5m high Dannert fence initially, and then a permanent, weld mesh fence over 35 days. Planning went on in December 1984 to happen in the new year. Police reported that the Ministry of Defence land was not their responsibility; and in any case they did not have the numbers for such an op, given the nationwide demands on police during the long-running miners’ strike. Molesworth was due to become the second UK base for ground-launched cruise missiles. Hence CND planned to disrupt and if possible prevent construction, by occupying the site. Hence an order to confine knowledge of the operation to the smallest number of people inside the military; and to not take visible steps on site, or elsewhere, which might give an early warning to the anti-nuclear movement.
Telex
An RAF telex of February 1985 hailed the covert preparations for and ‘highly professional execution of this complex and delicate task’, to clear and then fence Molesworth. On March 8 the Defence Secretary (Michael Heseltine) met the Home Secretary (Leon Brittan) and agreed that servicemen should operate within the weld mesh vence, in ‘support’ of the MoD Police, ‘if’, so file AIR 8/4076 records, ‘any particularly ugly incidents were to develop outside the weld mesh but within the boundary of MoD land servicemen would of course come to the assistance of the MoD Police.’ Both ministers were to fall in 1986 over the Westland affair. Cambridgeshire Police planned deploy 1000 men; and with a ‘mobile reserve’ of 500. If the demonstrators were so numerous that they restricted access by road to the base, the RAF would provide Chinook helicopters from RAF Oakington near Cambridge.
Visit
Defence procurement minister John Lee visited Molesworth on Thursday, March 21, 1985, and talked to the MoD Police; to gauge their morale, which he described as ‘quite high in the circumstances’. As for ‘the circumstances’, Lee reported a lack of adequate ‘cold weather clothing has been overcome for the time being by a loan from the RAF and the weather has improved’. The main complaint was that 600 MoD Police officers were living in one hangar at RAF Upwood, 19 miles away; cold, dusty and without privacy, ‘and has inadequate washing facilities’. Lee added a hope to move the police into converted Portakabins within the Molesworth perimeter by June. Lee did report praise for the Naafi: “I had an excellent Cornish pasty and mince tart myself!” The affair was an example – Greenham Common in Berkshire was another, where CND were also long and highly publicly protesting against US-UK nuclear armaments – of how the MoD Police were used more and more for patrolling and operations, beyond their historic gate-guarding.
