I "saw" the Oct 69 panic from a desk at Strike Command, having handed over 50 a few months earlier. If you think there was chaos at Waddo, you should have seen the shambles at Strike!
There was no one BUT NO ONE at Strike above the level of Gp Capt Strike Ops who had any first hand experience of the strike role (Bomber had recently amalgamated with Fighter Command). I formed the distinct impression that the C-in-C decided to generate the force without reference to Whitehall. This he could do by calling an Exercise MICK, which was purely a generation exercise with no possibility of a "fly-off". Under the intricate rules governing nukes, "live" weapons could be loaded but they could not be taxied, let alone flown, without authority from the "top". MICKY FINN was always generated with dummy weapons because there was a full-scale dispersal and the force would be held at RS 15 at the dispersal airfields for some days before the scramble and fly-off.
Anyway, the Oct 69 generation was done under cover of MICK but the "brass" did not understand that the aircraft could not be flown with live weapons on to the dispersal airfields. Poor Gp Capt Ops was tearing out what little hair he had left trying to explain to their Airships the basic facts of nuclear life. At one stage they tried to order the live weaons to be downloded and sent by road to the dispersal airfields where they would meet up with their aircraft again and be uploaded. Someone had to point out the very few vehicles available cleared for moving weapons by road! Someone then had to point out the logistic constraints on the duration for which the force could be held at RS15 at which some systems were kept running. Also the accommodation and feeding problems.
I believe the flap was inspired less by events in Vietnam and more by extreme tensions along the Sino-Soviet border which were acute at the time. Once the **** started to fly no one would wait to find out where it was coming from! Not the RAF's most professional moment!