Airstrip One

Public Records

New Year sees Public Records opened after (usually) thirty years. So the files are released for 1971.

Some highlights this year:

A whole slew of documents on Britain's entry into the (then) Common Market. There is a fascinating document released last year on the way in which negotiations were rushed through, a rush from which we still still suffer today.

There's some interesting details on Northern Ireland, particularly internment. There's some first hand reporting of the royal visit from Afghanistan, with a particularly interesting analysis of Anglo-Afghan relations. The line "British policy towards Afghanistan in the last century was governed by a fear of a Russian attack on India" should lead us to the obvious conclusion on how relevant who governs Kabul is to us today.

There's a couple of pieces on Africa, with reports on the negotiations with Rhodesia and a rather flattering portrait if Idi Amin.

There is also a record of Heath's impressions of Nixon and a record of a telephone conversation between the two men. It is often thought that (especially among Tories) being pro-European means being anti-American. This ignores the fact that we were fighting the Cold War. It was perfectly possible, indeed it was logical, to be for both when the task was unity against the evil empire. It was only after the weakening of Soviet power in the 1980s that people had to take sides.