MOST of Scotland would have been ''nuked'' off the map by the then Soviet Union had the cold war suddenly gone hot, intelligence experts predicted in a macabre assessment of likely targets, writes James McKillop.
Intelligence officers compiled a grim league table of probable targets, along with the size of weapon expected to be used, to show that the UK would have been hit with a destructive force nearly 20,000 times greater than that unleashed on Hiroshima.
The sobering November 1967 document lists 104 targets, including all Britain's major cities, air-bases, and ports, earmarked to face weapons with a maximum total thermonuclear yield of more than 389 megatons - equivalent to 389 million tons of TNT explosive.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War had a yield of just 20 kilotons.
As those involved in peace movements at the time stated, Scotland would have been a prime target.
The US and British Polaris bases in the Gareloch and the Holy Loch were each expected to be hit by an initial missile attack. An air burst of two bombs each with a yield of 500 kilotons would take out the bases, but in case they did not, these would be followed up with aircraft delivering two megaton nuclear devices intended to go off on the surface.
Roysth would be undergoing much the same treatment, and Thurso would have had one 500 kilotons airburst delivered by missiles, and two others from aircraft.
Glasgow and Edinburgh would also have been prime targets, with each expecting four missile attacks. Other targets in Scotland would have been Leuchars and the radar base at Buchan. Pitreavie, Lossiemouth, Macrihanish, and Kinloss would also have been principal targets.
An introductory note to the document from Major General Gibbon, Secretary to the Defence Chiefs of Staff, states that even then the figures could be based on an under-estimate.
Major General Gibbon says: ''Note has also been taken of comment by the Deputy Chief of Staff (Intelligence) that Russian strategic missiles are now assessed to have an operational yield of half to one megaton - although a maximum yield of about three megatons is possible.''
The pages reveal an attack would have been by missiles and bombs dropped from aircraft, calculated to explode both on impact and in the air.
These were 22 central and regional government centres, including London and the military commands of the Royal Navy and RAF; 32 bomber bases throughout the country; 12 nuclear submarine and naval bases; 20 major cities; and 18 air defence sites.
Practically every other conurbation in the country, from Edinburgh to Southampton, is earmarked to be wiped out with three-megaton weapons.
Meanwhile, in another illustration of the mood in the UK at the time, Prime Minister Harold Wilson was warned by MI5 that Communist agitators were planning to infiltrate the annual CND Aldermaston, march following the Grosvenor Square riots in 1968.
Documents show the deep fears triggered within the establishment by violent anti-Vietnam War protests that March in Grosvenor Square.
In the event, the fears were unfounded.
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