15

th
May 2014



For those who wish to be informed, heres the outline of:

1) How the UK came to be interpreted as being (theoretically) 72 hours from war with the
USA in South Africa in 1961, in what was deemed likely to have become a wider conflict
involving USSR vs. USA.
2) How this was averted and how it remained secret.
3) How I learned about this and how it became revealed to some Americans in the late
1990s.
4) A little bit about what happened after January 2001.

Heres the story:

Jane B, a lady Id known since 1985, when she became engaged to be married to my father,
told about these events after taking me to watch a film called Cry Freedom in the late 1980s.

I was just 20 years old at the time.

The story she told begins in the early 1960s when the lady concerned met Moshoeshoe II
Chief of Lesotho, and they fell in love. Moshoeshoe told her that they could never become
married because although the prohibition of mixed race marriages act in South Africa didnt
apply to Lesotho, Verwoerd would consider a mixed-race marriage on Moshoeshoes part an
act of war, invade and put the white girl to the firing squad. Jane took the advice of her
confidant, the actor Laurence Olivier, and they presently flew to Lesotho with an eye to
marrying in a fashion reminiscent of John Hustons film The African Queen, except that here
the marriage was due to take place at the beginning of the adventure (indeed, as the cause of
the war), rather than as the culmination.

The plan thereupon was to announce the completion of the marriage, launch an invasion into
South Africa from Lesotho using the event as a means to inspire the Blacks in South Africa to
arms and thence, using the influence of her family connections, to persuade the British to
become involved and lend the Royal Air Force towards the desired goal.

Announcing this to her adopted mother just three days before the wedding in a phone call
made from the palace in Lesotho, Jane B was ordered to come home immediately and upon
refusing, her mother persuaded Janes uncle Lord Victor Rothschild, to take a plane to
Lesotho where a meeting was presently held in the palace. Rothschild told them that
although the plan was viable in itself, the couple had overlooked certain forces prevalent in
the wider implications (Moshoeshoe himself was Catholic and thus quite separate in his
political identity from the orientation of the ANC).

Namely, he told them that the USSR supplied the communist affiliated ANC with their
weapons and that the USA supplied the South Africans with theirs. With Khrushchev
beginning to push Kennedy towards the brink at that time and obviously so, a regional conflict
erupting out of nowhere that pitted those two forces against each other would have been
extremely likely to escalate, he said Thus he told them in no uncertain terms that if the
wedding went ahead and the British got involved, the British would very likely find themselves
on the side of the USSR involved in a wider war against SA and USA i.e. WWIII and
nuclear.

The lady flew back to the UK that night and three months later the Cuban crisis broke out.

Thereupon the whole thing was forgotten about until she related this to me - ending the
evening with a description of her new marriage as one of having to learn how to cook
something more than cabbage (though she did also say that she managed to fit in an affair
with Peter OToole before the end of the decade).

After this, my father was caught out, Jane Bs new boyfriend decided I was extraneous to his
future plans and I communicated with Jane only by phone for a short time before we fell out of
contact until 2005.

Instead, with a burgeoning interest in contemporary philosophy, I met an American
philosopher the day he met Bernard Williams the first time and we became great friends for
the rest of the decade. The decade was marked by the brilliance of the education Williams
provided, along with the distinct interaction of his interlocutor Richard Rorty and also the
American feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who spoke to my philosopher friend
regularly on the telephone.

With Nussbaum first providing entertainment through her antics during the notorious Colorado
bench gay rights trial (1992) and the accusations of perjury laid upon thereafter; and later
brandishing these previous perjury credentials along with her relationship to Bill Clintons
lawyer, Cass Sunstein, to claim a place in Clintons impeachment team - and with me being
there when Nussbaum discussed certain choice aspects of the linguistic strategy for the
defence whilst on the phone to my friend, the overstep was became marked, the dice became
set, and a once strong friendship began to become strained.

Alas, with me neutral (but hardly enamoured with Bush) and my American friend supporting
that figure in the forthcoming Bush/Gore election, when that election became explosive, our
friendship reached a stage fairly described as terminal in January 2001.

For the next few years I pursued life as normal, without suspicion and with a clear
conscience.

It is true, I had related (albeit only in passing) some details concerning my former
stepmothers relationship with Moshoeshoe to my American friend. Because she was a
music student and not in any official role and because no one with any kind of official
responsibility knew about their intentions before Victor Rothschild was informed of it (And
Victor promptly prevented it), I thought that the information conveyed was such that it was
clear that the arrangement of the marriage was in no way connected with any pro-Communist
or anti-Western agenda.

It seems that what happened afterwards however, was that a version which neglected to
mention that it was purely a personal matter between private individuals became confused
with another version, which seems to have implied some kind of establishment input on the
behalf of the British or other figures which quite simply was not and could not have been
there.

Exactly what was said and who it was said by, I cannot tell you except to say that it has been
brought with great severity to my attention that the repercussions of this misunderstanding
were wide ranging and strongly felt.

Of course, whatever they actually were, there never was any truth in any of these wilder
suggestions. For both the British and the wider Rothschild family there very simply was no
case to answer. Instead the casualties were Jane B and Laurence Olivier (verifiably blanked
by the entire British establishment for his centenary).

As for myself, the consequences since 2010, when I was revealed as potentially responsible
for what happened during the later stages of this are perhaps best reserved as another story
for another day.


Mark Julyan