Letters of Last Resort in the event of Nuclear War

One of the first tasks for a newly elected British Prime Minister is to write four letters to the commanding officers of the four British Vanguard-class submarines. These letters give orders of what to do in the event of the Prime Ministers death if an enemy nuclear strike has destroyed the British government.

The letters are stored in a safe, within a safe, within the submarines and are destroyed unopened after the Prime Minister leaves office.

What would you write in your Letter of Last Resort?

Dear Captain.

You are reading this because the British government has been destroyed and unfortunately I, the PM, is dead. :(

Hopefully you and the other submarines are still active. It is very important that you find safety in the hands of other Commonwealth nations, ideally Canada or Australia. :up:

If this is not possible then you are to give yourselves up to a long standing NATO ally, ideally the USA or France.

If no ally is remaining then retaliation will be pointless, but do what you want.

Good lick chaps.
PM

Something like that but with more specific details.

Dear Captain,
You are reading this because I am deader than a door mouse in a whorehouse.
My only instructions to you are ; take care of ur missus, and my kids.
Cheers,
Tarquin.

Dear Captain,

If you are reading this letter, then the gravity of the situation is already self-apparant. Her Majesty's Government of Great Britain has been destroyed; along with the necessary chain of command which would be necessary to instruct you further.

If you are the Captain of the "Port" crew - you are instructed to take your vessel to the point 54.0000°N and 20.0000°W.
If you are the Captain of the "Starboard" crew - you are instructed to take your vessel to the point 65.0000°N and 6.0000°W.

Once you had reached your designated point, you are instructed to wait until 1830 hours GMT on the next Friday, when you will then listen to Friday Night Comedy and then The Archers on BBC Radio 4 on Long Wave.
Without The Archers there is no civilisation. Without Friday night comedy, there is no joy either.

(You will then read this letter in the prescence of all the crew at 1730 GMT).

If in the event there is no Friday Night Comedy or The Archers on BBC Radio 4, then you must evacuate this vessel to the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, when this vessel must present itself to the Royal Canadian Navy and await instructions from them.

If there is no-one at the port of Halifax who will receive you, then you must evacuate this vessel to the port of Sydney, New South Wales, when this vessel must present itself to the Royal Australian Navy and await instructions from them.

If there is no-one at the port of Sydney who will receive you, then you must evacuate this vessel to the port of San Diego, California, when this vessel must present itself to the United States Navy and await instructions from them.

If it can be properly acertained in the period between opening this letter and 1830 hours GMT on the next Friday that a state of nuclear war certainly exists, this vessel is free to engage with all enemies and equally retaliate with nuclear weapons.

If it can be properly acertained in the period between opening this letter and 1830 hours GMT on the next Friday that a state of nuclear war certainly does not exist, this vessel is free to engage with all enemies but must not retaliate with nuclear weapons.

Above all, this vessel is to maintain standards of professionalism and order. Government doesn't stop merely because the country has been destroyed. Annihilation is bad enough. We do not need anarchy to make it even worse.

We thank you for your continuing endurance.

Regards,
AT Rollason, Prime Minister

Si vis pacem, para bellum

The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves!

Who's to say that the captain will follow orders?

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Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

Who's to say that the captain will follow orders?

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Or for that matter, who's to say these letters even exist in the form stated?

It could be a thing of myth, since anything surrounding highly classified documents remains out of the public eye. Having served in the military (and worked with Britains military during that time) I highly doubt that any submarine commander would ever have such authority without an in place chain of command remaining above him. For that matter, having worked with nuclear authentication codes in the past, it's very rare that any single individual can make such a strike. It usually takes launch authentication, arming authentication, and abort authentication.

But that's the great thing about highly classified stuff. I could state something that is true but highly classified, and half the world would say it was made up. So things can be hidden in plane sight. :)


I can think of several things hidden in plane sight in the past. The U2 and SR-71 were two of them. When specifics were eventually leaked, nobody believed it. And when they shattered records years later, we finally saw that (as usual) the military never revealed the capabilities of the aircraft regardless. There is a reason the final SR-71 flights hit the record books, but the ones off the record would be the interesting flights to know about.

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Originally Posted by airshifter

having worked with nuclear authentication codes in the past, it's very rare that any single individual can make such a strike. It usually takes launch authentication, arming authentication, and abort authentication.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz03p4ULD3c ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by airshifter

Or for that matter, who's to say these letters even exist in the form stated?

It could be a thing of myth, since anything surrounding highly classified documents remains out of the public eye. Having served in the military (and worked with Britains military during that time) I highly doubt that any submarine commander would ever have such authority without an in place chain of command remaining above him. For that matter, having worked with nuclear authentication codes in the past, it's very rare that any single individual can make such a strike. It usually takes launch authentication, arming authentication, and abort authentication.

But that's the great thing about highly classified stuff. I could state something that is true but highly classified, and half the world would say it was made up. So things can be hidden in plane sight. :)


I can think of several things hidden in plane sight in the past. The U2 and SR-71 were two of them. When specifics were eventually leaked, nobody believed it. And when they shattered records years later, we finally saw that (as usual) the military never revealed the capabilities of the aircraft regardless. There is a reason the final SR-71 flights hit the record books, but the ones off the record would be the interesting flights to know about.

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Well we are led to believe that the decision to fire is ultimately down to the Prime Minister, if he is dead then it is his appointed alternate decision maker, if he is dead falls to the submarine commander to follow the orders of the Last Resort Letter — which might, in fact, ask him to use his own judgement.

The process of opening the safes and employing the authentication codes does include the XO, WEO and other officers to make sure that the letter can not be swapped etc.

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Originally Posted by airshifter

But that's the great thing about highly classified stuff. I could state something that is true but highly classified, and half the world would say it was made up. So things can be hidden in plane* sight. :)

I can think of several things hidden in plane* sight in the past. The U2 and SR-71 were two of them.

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I can think of two very obvious things hidden in plain sight.
Up until recently, the Post Office Tower** and the SIS Building (MI6) in Vauxhall, didn't officially exist either. I'll have to dig it out but Christopher Andrew's book about MI5 makes a reference to the Post Office Tower (which officially wasn't there).

*hee hee hee - this is a pun.
**Who could forget when the Post Office Tower spent 7 weeks at number one of the UK Top 40 Singles Chart (due to a clerical error)?

Dear Cappy.

I'm dead.

The warheads you are carrying are all fakes, as we havn't been able to afford real ones since Scotland quit the UK and went out on it's own. The best thing to do is scuttle the old tub you are cruising around in as the maintenance on it has been sadly lacking for quite some time - you will have noticed your sub dives a lot better than it surfaces, one word leak!

Speaking of leaks you will have noticed that able seaman Smith, the reactor monkey has sprouted a second head and glows in the dark.

Don't pretend you didn't know.

All the best Slippery Bob P.M.

The only instruction you need is to have a shot of your favorite beverage put your head firmly between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye

When at some point our office was on the edge of closure (which never happened, fortunately), the chief management officer told the HR guy that he'd be the one to lock the doors behind him when everybody had left. That quite undermined the HR guy's morale.

Are the existence of these letters not a paradox to the theory of Nuclear deterrent? If the purpose of a nuclear deterrent is to mean that the weapons are never needed to be used then we should need the letters to order their use?

It does fascinate me what former PMs would have written. Surely Thatcher would have written 'attack the commies and while you're at it fire a couple at Buenos Aires and north England'

I still think that the best option would be to place the vessel under command of a friendly nation.

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Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

Are the existence of these letters not a paradox to the theory of Nuclear deterrent? If the purpose of a nuclear deterrent is to mean that the weapons are never needed to be used then we should need the letters to order their use?

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The problem is that at the point that the UK has been destroyed utterly, then its a past question.
It has "will have going to have happened" happened. It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future.

The action of the letters exists at a point in time after and beyond the point of mutually assured destruction. The theory of nuclear deterrent wouldn't be a paradox at that point but a resolved question which will have failed.