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TROUBLE WITH HENRY 295
sion with the French with the object of frustrating American
policy objectives in the Middle East', and accused the British of
undermining Egyptian support for a ceasefire resolution put
before the United Nations by the Americans. One of Schlesinger's
staff at the Department of Defense, almost certainly Harry
Bergold, added privately that 'stories about sinister Anglo/French
collusion' had been 'fed' to Schlesinger by other mischievous
European allies, suggesting that the Dutch were the prime
suspects. 68
Edward Heath was adamant that Britain should also avoid
spy flight incidents during the Middle East crisis, and ministers
hurriedly reviewed all airborne sigint activities. Routine monitoring
flights along the Inner German Border and in the Baltic
were considered unproblematic. More worrying was a
programme code-named 'Operation Duster' that involved sigint
Comets flying out of RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus and along the
Egyptian and Syrian coasts, together with Canberras from Luqa
on Malta which flew along the Libyan coast. About a dozen
missions a month were flown. Even more problematic was
'Operation Hem', a sigint marathon that passed through the
region. Flights originated at RAF Wyton and made their way
to Luqa before taking the opportunity to loiter along the Libyan
coast. They refuelled again at Akrotiri and then headed east
once more, listening along the Egyptian coastline, finally arriving
at Tehran. They would then operate for a week out of Tehran
and Mehrabad in Iran, flying along the borders with Russia and
Iraq before heading back to Britain, revisiting Egypt and Libya
on the way.69 Julian Amery, the Foreign Office Minister, emphasised
that these flights must continue because of the 'very valuable'
intelligence they collected, but over the eastern
Mediterranean greatly increased safety distances were maintained'
'keeping the aircraft very close to Cyprus' .70
The end of the Heath administration on 4 March 1974 signalled
a gradual improvement in relations with the Americans. When
Kissinger visited London later that month to talk with Harold