Jag måste avsluta mina kommentarer här på Skalman ett tag för att hinna med det jag har framför mig. Lägger in i mitt tycke fyra mycket viktiga uttalanden av USAs försvarminister Caspar Weinberger, den brittiske marinministern Sir Keith Speed, den amerikanske marinministern John Lehman och den amerikanske amiralen Bobby Inman, som visar att ubåtskränkningar i svenska vatten på 1980-talet hade sitt ursprung i västländer.
I mars 2000 sa Caspar Weinberger till SVT att västliga ubåtar hade opererat “regularly” and “frequently” på svenska vatten efter svenskamerikanska “Navy-to-Navy consultations”, enligt Weinberger:
“[the West did never] send a submarine directly into Swedish waters without consultations and prior discussions and agreements that that could be done.... It was part of a routine regular scheduled series of defense testing that NATO did and indeed had to do to be responsible and liable… [The “Whiskey on the Rocks”] was a clear violation, and submarines can get in where they are not wanted, and that is exactly why we made this defensive testing and these defensive maneuvers to assure that they would not be able to do that without being detected. That particular submarine [the Whiskey on the Rocks] was quite visible to everybody, and it was exactly the kind of thing that NATO was trying to test the defenses to not permit it to happen. It was very much in Sweden’s interest that that would not happen.... The point was that it was necessary to test frequently the capabilities of all countries, not only in the Baltic – which is very strategic, of course – but in the Mediterranean and Asiatic waters and all the rest.”
Sir Keith Speed sa kort efter att Weinberger gjort sina uttalanden till SVT att Storbritannien hade använt Oberon and Porpoise klass ubåtar i svenska vatten, för att de var billigare, mindre, mycket tystgående och kanske mer acceptabla för en del länder vid Östersjön än atomdrivna ubåtar. Speed sa följande till SVT:
“When I was a Navy Minister nineteen years ago, the sort of things Mr. Weinberger was describing was the sort of things that I would expect the British Government to [make] happen; indeed, in my very own small way, I was enabling it to happen too. In other words, we were not doing this sort of testing of other countries’ defenses or training, call it what you will, without the overall agreement of both parties... [Swedish TV: “But the testing was conducted in Sweden. That you are confirming?” Speed: “Yes”. Swedish TV: “You are confirming that?” Speed: “Yes”]... If something happens like the “Whiskey on the Rocks”, it wouldn’t be a very good idea to have a British submarine to make an exercise ten days after the ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’ in 1981. It would have been politically sensitive. Let’s relax. Perhaps think about it in a few months’ time. It’s common sense ... We would not necessarily say that we would be precisely here, because if we told them that, and if we were trying to probe or test your defenses, it wouldn’t have been very sensible neither from your point of view nor from ours… There might well be penetration [type] exercises. Can submarines actually get in and almost surface in the Stockholm harbour? Not quite, but that sort of things. How far could we get without you being aware of it? ... As a Navy Minister I was aware of these trainings.”
John Lehman, USAs marinminister i USA 1981-87, intervjuades av Arte. En del av vad han sa finns i den dokumentär som sändes i fransk och tysk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1u453WN2bs TV i våras, 2015. Jag intervjuades också av Arte och fick då se den kompletta intervjun med Lehman. Här är utdrag från den
[D]uring the transition [of the Reagan Team Nov. 1980 - Jan. 1981], Bill Casey, who became the Director of the CIA, convinced President Elect Reagan that in addition to the big military buildup, that he had already been committed to and agreed to, there should be a major effort with what some came to call the “Deception Committee”. We would build NATO military capability to be 10 feet tall. The use of deception could make it appear to the Soviets to be 20 feet tall. And really Star Wars came out of that Deception Committee originally. Casey was part of the OSS and very much involved in the operation to deceive the Nazi General Staff… They had General Patton with a fake headquarters, and
they convinced the Nazi General Staff that there was a whole additional army that they didn’t have… Casey was very much involved in this and recognized that you could use deception very effectively and particularly if you have a paranoid enemy [like the Soviets]… Some of [the deception operations have] still not been declassified. [One was] should we say, close to the Soviet Union [using] this deep diving submarine Alvin... “Deception Committee” operations using small submarines “should we say close to the Soviet Union” are still classified, sa Lehman.
Arte frågade: “Talking about the flanks. We have the Swedish submarine crises there. Caspar Weinberger acknowledged that American submarines or at least Western submarines had been in Swedish waters. Was that also part of the deception against the Soviets?”
Lehman svarade: I cannot say at this point whether it was intentional or not, but we did want the Soviets to know that we could do things in places that they didn’t think we could. And we didn’t want them to learn too much obviously… Yet tweak their paranoia by showing a little bit of our ankle, so they would say: ‘Wow, if they are doing that, what else might they be doing’, making them feel vulnerable. I know that Secretary Weinberger would seem to [have] acknowledged something. I wouldn’t disagree with him, but you know I better not comment upon it.
Arte frågade: In this case, a submarine was damaged. Did that send shockwaves to the U.S. Navy?
Lehman svarade: Well, the short answer is No.
Så har vi vad amiral Bobby Inman sa, den text som han godkänt här:
Former U.S. Assistant Attaché to Stockholm in mid-1960s and Chief of Naval Intelligence and Chief of NSA in late 1970s, Admiral Bobby Inman, became Deputy Director of the CIA in January 1981. He left 1 July 1982. He said that during his years, Soviet submarines entered Swedish waters, but there was no deep penetration. Soviet submarine captains were training in the Baltic along the Swedish coast as preparations for operations with Russian nuclear submarines along the U.S. east coast. They sometimes but not often went into Swedish territorial waters, inside the 12 miles territorial border, but they never entered the archipelagoes, he said. The U.S. submarines on the other hand, up to 1 July 1982, never entered the Swedish waters. The Baltic was a British area of responsibility, he said. Of course, West German, Swedish and the Danish submarines operated in the Baltic Sea, but to the U.S.-British division of labor for Special Intelligence Projects and Special Force operations the Baltic Sea was “British territory”. On the matter of the 352 observations of submarines between 1981-91 classified as 1 and 2observations (certain and almost certain) inside Swedish waters and most of them inside the archipelago Inman said he considered the great number of observations to be almost unreal “to spot a submarine is almost as to see an UFO” he said, “on inner waters? I don´t think so.”
When I told Admiral Inman about my father Karl Frithiofson and that my father said it had been Western submarines entering Swedish waters, Inman said that I should talk with British leading naval officers and among them (First Sea Lord) from the Falklands War, (Admiral John Fieldhouse).