Thatcher’s War: The Iron Lady on the Falklands. Margaret Thatcher
to government papers, including those of the intelligence services. Its report ends with the words: ‘We would not be justified in attaching any criticism or blame to the present Government for the Argentine Junta’s decision to commit its act of unprovoked aggression in the invasion of the Falkland Islands on 2 April 1982.’
It all began with an incident on South Georgia. On 20 December 1981 there had been an unauthorized landing on the island by what were described as Argentine scrap metal dealers; we had given a firm but measured response. The Argentinians subsequently left and the Argentine Government claimed to know nothing about it. I was more alarmed when, after the Anglo-Argentine talks in New York, the Argentine Government broke the procedures agreed at the meeting by publishing a unilateral communiqué disclosing the details of discussion, while simultaneously the Argentine press began to speculate on possible military action before the symbolically important date of January 1983. On 3 March 1982 I minuted on a telegram from Buenos Aires: ‘we must make contingency plans’ – though, in spite of my unease, I was not expecting anything like a full-scale invasion, which indeed our most recent intelligence assessment of Argentine intentions had discounted.
On 20 March we were informed that the previous day the Argentine scrap metal dealers had made a further unauthorized landing on South Georgia. The Argentine flag had been raised and shots fired. In answer to our protests the Argentine Government claimed to have no prior knowledge. We first decided that HMS Endurance should be instructed to remove the Argentinians, whoever they were. But we tried to negotiate with Argentina a way of resolving what still seemed to be an awkward incident rather than a precursor of conflict, so we withdrew our instructions to Endurance and ordered the ship to proceed instead to the British base at Grytviken, the main settlement on the island.
As March drew to a close with the incident still unresolved we became increasingly concerned. On Sunday evening, 28 March, I rang Peter Carrington to express my anxiety at the situation. He assured me that he had already made a first approach to Al Haig, the US Secretary of State, asking him to bring pressure to bear. The following morning Peter and I met at RAF Northolt on our way to the European Council at Brussels and agreed to send a nuclear-powered submarine to reinforce HMS Endurance and to make preparations to send a second submarine. I was not too displeased when news of the decision leaked. The submarine would take two weeks to get to the South Atlantic, but it could begin to influence events straight away. My instinct was that the time had come to show the Argentines that we meant business.
In the late afternoon of Tuesday 30 March I returned from Brussels. By that time Peter Carrington had already left on an official visit to Israel. The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence had been working to prepare up-to-date assessments and review the diplomatic and military options. The following day – Wednesday 31 March – I made my statement to the House reporting on the Brussels summit, but my mind was focused on what the Argentinians were intending and on what our response should be. The advice we received from intelligence was that the Argentine Government were exploring our reactions, but that they had not contrived the landing on South Georgia. By now I was deeply uneasy. Yet still I do not think that any of us expected an immediate invasion of the Falklands themselves.
I shall not forget that Wednesday evening. I was working in my room at the House of Commons when I was told that John Nott wanted an immediate meeting to discuss the Falklands. I called people together. Humphrey Atkins and Richard Luce attended from the Foreign Office, with FCO and MoD officials. (The Chief of Defence Staff was in New Zealand.) John was alarmed. He had just received intelligence that the Argentinian Fleet, already at sea, looked as if they were going to invade the islands on Friday 2 April. John gave the MoD’s view that the Falklands could not be retaken once they were seized. This was terrible, and totally unacceptable: these were our people, our islands. I said instantly: ‘If they are invaded, we have got to get them back.’
I asked the Chief of the Naval Staff, Sir Henry Leach, what we could do. He was quiet, calm and confident: ‘I can put together a task force of destroyers, frigates, landing craft, support vessels. It will be led by the aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible. It can be ready to leave in forty-eight hours.’ He believed such a force could retake the islands. All he needed was my authority to begin to assemble it. I gave it him, and he left immediately. We reserved for Cabinet the decision as to whether and when the task force should sail.
Now my outrage and determination were matched by a sense of relief and confidence. Henry Leach had shown me that if it came to a fight the courage and professionalism of Britain’s armed forces would win through. It was my job as Prime Minister to see that they got the political support they needed. But first we had to do everything possible to prevent the appalling tragedy.
Our only hope lay with the Americans – people to whom Galtieri, if he was still behaving rationally, should listen. We drafted and sent an urgent message to President Reagan asking him to press Galtieri to draw back from the brink. This the President immediately agreed to do.
At 9.30 on Thursday morning, 1 April, I held a Cabinet, earlier than usual so that a meeting of the Overseas and Defence Committee of the Cabinet (OD) could follow it before lunch. The latest assessment was that an Argentine assault could be expected about midday our time on Friday. We thought that President Reagan might yet succeed. However, Galtieri refused altogether at first to take the President’s call. I was told of this outcome in the early hours of Friday morning and I knew then that our last hope had now gone.
At 9.45 on Friday morning Cabinet met again. I reported that an Argentine invasion was now imminent. We would meet later in the day to consider once more the question of sending a task force – though to my mind the issue by this stage was not so much whether we should act, but how.
Communications with the Falklands were often interrupted due to atmospheric conditions. On Friday morning the Governor of the Falklands – Rex Hunt – sent a message telling us that the invasion had begun, but it never got through. (Indeed, the first contact I had with him after the invasion was when he reached Montevideo in Uruguay, where the Argentinians flew him and a number of other senior people, on Saturday morning.) It was, in fact, the captain of a British Antarctic Survey vessel who intercepted a local Falkland Islands ham radio broadcast and passed on the news to the Foreign Office. My private secretary brought me final confirmation while I was at an official lunch.
By now discussion was taking place all over Whitehall about every aspect of the campaign and feverish military preparations were under way. The army was preparing its contribution. A naval task force was being formed, partly from ships currently at Gibraltar and partly from those in British ports. The Queen had already made it clear that Prince Andrew, who was serving with HMS Invincible, would be joining the task force: there could be no question of a member of the royal family being treated differently from other servicemen.
Cabinet met for the second time at 7.30 in the evening when the decision was made to send the task force. What concerned us most at this point was the time it would take to arrive. We believed, rightly, that the Argentinians would pile in men and materiel to make it as difficult as possible for us to dislodge them. And all the time the weather in the South Atlantic would be worsening as the violent storms of the southern winter approached.
More immediate and more manageable was the problem of how to deal with public opinion at home. Support for the dispatch of the task force was likely to be strong, but would it fall away as time went on? In fact, we need not have worried. Our policy was one which people understood and endorsed. Public interest and commitment remained strong throughout.
One particular aspect of this problem, though, does rate a mention. We decided to allow defence correspondents on the ships who reported back during the long journey. This produced vivid coverage of events. But there was always a risk of disclosing information which might be useful to the enemy. I also became very unhappy at the attempted ‘even-handedness’ of some of the comment, and the chilling use of the third-person – talk of ‘the British’ and ‘the Argentinians’ on our news programmes.
It was also on Friday 2 April that I received advice from the Foreign Office which summed up the flexibility of principle characteristic of that department. I was presented with the dangers of a backlash against the British expatriates in Argentina, problems