LONDON ¨C British government files from 1983, opened to the public for the first time Wednesday, include an official¡¯s view of the message Queen Elizabeth II would have broadcast to the nation in the event of World War III.
The speech was drafted as part of a war-games exercise code-named Wintex-Cimex, in which officials in NATO countries acted out responses to an attack by Soviet-led forces. In 1983, they ended the simulated conflict by launching a limited nuclear strike on the enemy.
¡°I have never forgotten the sorrow and the pride I felt as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set listening to my father¡¯s inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939¡± when World War II was declared, the scenario had the queen telling her subjects at noon on Friday March 4, 1983. ¡°Not for a single moment did I imagine that this solemn and awful duty would one day fall to me.¡±
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