The Downing Street Years, 1979-1990

BACKGROUND

Nothing remains more vividly in my mind, looking back on my years in No. 10, than the eleven weeks in the spring of 1982 when Britain fought and won the Falklands War. Much was at stake: what we were fighting for eight thousand miles away in the South Atlantic was not only the territory and the people of the Falklands, important though they were. We were defending our honour as a nation, and principles of fundamental importance to the whole world — above all, that aggressors should never succeed and that international law should prevail over the use of force. The war was very sudden. No one predicted the Argentine invasion more than a few hours in advance, though many predicted it in retrospect. When I became Prime Minister I never thought that I would have to order British troops into combat and I do not think I have ever lived so tensely or intensely as during the whole of that time.

The significance of the Falklands War was enormous, both for Britain’s self-confidence and for our standing in the world. Since the Suez fiasco in 1956, British foreign policy had been one long retreat. The tacit assumption made by British and foreign governments alike was that our world role was doomed steadily to diminish. We had come to be seen by both friends and enemies as a nation which lacked the will and the capability to defend its interests in peace, let alone in war. Victory in the Falklands changed that. Everywhere I went after the war, Britain’s name meant something more than it had. The war also had real importance in relations between East and West: years later I was told by a Russian general that the Soviets had been firmly convinced that we would not fight for the Falklands, and that if we did fight we would lose. We proved them wrong on both counts, and they did not forget the fact.

Beginning in the summer of 1982, only weeks after the war, I wrote down my detailed recollection of events as I had lived through them at the centre of government. I finished the story at Chequers over Easter 1983. It was still etched in my mind, and I had all the records to hand. The task took some time to complete; it is a long and complicated story. Parts of it will have to remain secret for a considerable time to come, but it is upon my personal memoir that I have based this account.

The first recorded landing on the Falklands was made in 1690 by British sailors, who named the channel between the two principal islands ‘Falkland’s Sound’ in honour of the Treasurer of the Navy, Viscount Falkland. Britain, France and Spain each established settlements on the islands at various times during the eighteenth century. In 1770 a quarrel with Spain caused the British Government of the day to mobilize the fleet and a naval task force was prepared, though never sent: on this occasion, a diplomatic solution was found.

The islands had obvious strategic importance, possessing several good harbours within 500 miles of Cape Horn. In the event that the Panama Canal is ever closed their significance would be considerable. But it must be admitted that the Falklands were always an improbable cause for a twentieth-century war.

The Argentine invasion of the Falklands took place 149 years after the beginning of formal British rule there, and it seems that the imminence of the 150th anniversary was an important factor in the plotting of the Argentine Junta. Since 1833 there has been a continuous and peaceful British presence on the islands. Britain’s legal claim in the present day rests on that fact, and on the desire of the settled population — which is entirely of British stock — to remain British. The principle of ‘self-determination’ has become a fundamental component of international law, and is enshrined in the UN Charter. British sovereignty has strong legal foundations, and the Argentinians know it.

Some 800 miles to the south-east of the Falklands lies South Georgia, and 460 miles further out, the South Sandwich Islands. Here the Argentine claim is even more dubious. These islands are dependencies of the United Kingdom, though they are administered from the Falklands. Their climate is severe and they have no settled population. No state claimed them before British annexation in 1908 and there has been continuous British administration since that time.

My first involvement with the Falklands issue came very early in the life of the 1979 Parliament. It was clear that there were only two ways in which the prosperity of the Falkland Islanders could be achieved. The more obvious and attractive approach was by promoting the development of economic links with neighbouring Argentina. Yet this ran up against the Argentine claim that the Falklands and the dependencies were part of their sovereign territory. Ted Heath’s Government had signed an important Communications Agreement in 1971 establishing air and sea links between the islands and the mainland, but further progress in that direction had been blocked by the Argentinians unless sovereignty was also discussed. Consequently it was argued that some kind of accommodation with Argentina would have to be reached on the question of sovereignty. Arguments of this kind led Nick Ridley (the responsible minister) and his officials at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to advance the so-called ‘lease-back’ arrangement, under which sovereignty would pass to Argentina but the way of life of the islanders would be preserved by the continuation of British administration. I disliked this proposal, but Nick and I both agreed that it should be explored, subject always to the requirement that the islanders themselves should have the final word. We could not agree to anything without their consent: their wishes must be paramount.

There was, however, another option — far more costly and, on the face of it, at least as risky. We could implement the recommendations of the long-term economic survey produced in 1976 by the former Labour minister, Lord Shackleton, and one recommendation in particular — the enlargement of the airport and lengthening of the runway. Notwithstanding the cost, such a commitment would have been seen as evidence of the British Government’s determination to have no serious talks about sovereignty and it would have increased our capacity to defend the islands, since a longer runway would have allowed for rapid reinforcement by air. This in turn might have provoked a swift Argentine military response. Unsurprisingly, no government — Labour or Conservative — was prepared to act while there seemed any possibility of an acceptable solution and, accordingly, lease-back had become the favoured option.

However, as I rather expected, none of these diplomatic arguments in favour of lease-back had much appeal to the islanders themselves. They would have nothing to do with such proposals. They distrusted the Argentine dictatorship and were sceptical of its promises. But more than that, they wanted to remain British. They made this abundantly clear to Nick Ridley when he twice visited them to learn their views. The House of Commons too was noisily determined that the islanders’ wishes should be respected. Lease-back was killed. I was not prepared to force the islanders into an arrangement which was intolerable to them — and which I in their position would not have tolerated either.

However, what all this meant for the future of the Falklands in the longer term was less clear. The Government found itself with very little room for manoeuvre. We were keen, if we could, to keep talking to the Argentinians, but diplomacy was becoming increasingly difficult. The Argentinians had already shown that they were not above taking direct action. In 1976 they had established and had maintained since a military presence on Southern Thule in the South Sandwich Islands, which the Labour Government did nothing to remove and which ministers did not even reveal to the House of Commons until 1978.

Then, in December 1981, there was a change of government in Buenos Aires. A new three-man military Junta replaced the previous military government, with General Leopoldo Galtieri as President. Galtieri relied on the support of the Argentine Navy, whose Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Anaya, held particularly hardline views on the Argentine claim to the ‘Malvinas’.

Cynically, the new Junta continued negotiations for a few months. There were talks in New York at the end of February 1982 which seemed to go well. But then the Argentinian line hardened abruptly. With hindsight this was a turning point. But in judging our response to the new Junta it is important to remember how much aggressive rhetoric there had already been in the past, none of it coming to anything. Moreover, based on past experience our view was that Argentina was likely to follow a policy of progessively escalating the dispute, starting with diplomatic and economic pressures. Contrary to what was said at the time, we had no intelligence until almost the last moment that Argentina was about to launch a full-scale invasion. Nor did the Americans: in fact Al Haig later told me that they had known even less than we had.

A factor in all this was the American Administration’s policy of strengthening ties with Argentina as part of its strategy of resisting Cuban-based communist influence in Central and South America. It later became clear that the Argentinians had gained a wildly exaggerated idea of their importance to the United States. They convinced themselves on the eve of the invasion that they need not take seriously American warnings against military action, and became more intransigent when diplomatic pressure was applied on them afterwards to withdraw.

Could they have been deterred? It must be remembered that in order to take action to deter Argentina militarily, given the vast distance between Britain and the Falklands, we would have had to have some three weeks’ notice. Further, to send down a force of insufficient size would have been to subject it to intolerable risk. Certainly, the presence of HMS Endurance — the lightly armed patrol vessel which was due to be withdrawn under the 1981 Defence Review proposals — was a military irrelevance. It would neither deter nor repel any planned invasion. (Indeed, when the invasion occurred I was very glad that the ship was at sea and not in Port Stanley: if she had been, she would have been captured or blown out of the water.) Most important perhaps is that nothing would have more reliably precipitated a full-scale invasion, if something less had been planned, than if we had started military preparations on the scale required to send an effective deterrent. Of course with the benefit of hindsight, we would always like to have acted differently. So would the Argentinians. The truth is that the invasion could not have been foreseen or prevented. This was the main conclusion of the Committee of Inquiry, chaired by Lord Franks, which we set up to examine the way we had handled the dispute in the run-up to the invasion. The committee had unprecedented access 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 at Leith harbour 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. The incident was disturbing, but not especially so. 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, again at Leith. The Argentine flag had been raised and shots fired. Again 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 subsequently withdrew our instructions to Endurance and ordered the ship to proceed instead to the British base at Grytviken, the main settlement on the island.

WEEK ONE

Yet as March drew to a close with the incident still unresolved we became increasingly concerned. On Sunday evening, 28 March, I rang Peter Carrington from Chequers 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 discussed what further steps we should take. We 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 the following day 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; his absence was unfortunate. 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 and that any escalation they might make would stop short of full-scale invasion. However, we knew that they were unpredictable and unstable, and that a dictatorship might not behave in ways we would consider rational. 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. In Peter Carrington’s absence Humphrey Atkins and Richard Luce attended from the Foreign Office, with FCO and MoD officials. (The Chief of Defence Staff was also away, 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. There was no ground to question the intelligence. John gave the MoD’s view that the Falklands could not be retaken once they were seized. This was terrible, and totally unacceptable. I could not believe it: these were our people, our islands. I said instantly: ‘if they are invaded, we have got to get them back.’

At this dark moment comedy intervened. The Chief of the Naval Staff, Sir Henry Leach, was in civilian dress, and on his way to the meeting had been detained by the police in the Central Lobby of the House of Commons. He had to be rescued by a whip. When he finally arrived, I asked him 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 to set the work in hand. We reserved for Cabinet the decision as to whether and when the task force should sail.

Before this, I had been outraged and determined. 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, if it was still humanly possible to do so.

Our only hope now lay with the Americans — friends and allies, and people to whom Galtieri, if he was still behaving rationally, should listen. At the meeting 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. He deigned to speak to the President only when it was too late to stop the invasion. I was told of this outcome in the early hours of Friday morning and I knew then that our last hope had now gone.

But how seriously did the Argentinians take American warnings anyway? On the evening of Friday 2 April as the invasion was proceeding, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Mrs Kirkpatrick, was attending a gala dinner given by the Argentinian Ambassador in her honour. As our ambassador later asked her: how would Americans have felt if he had dined at the Iranian Embassy the night that the American hostages were seized in Tehran? Unfortunately the attitudes of Mrs Kirkpatrick and some other members of the US Administration were at this point of considerable importance.

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 Island 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, including the application of economic and other sanctions against Argentina. 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: his grandfather, King George VI, had fought at the Battle of Jutland and then as now there could be no question of a member of the royal family being treated differently from other servicemen.

Cabinet met for the second time that day 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 in the Falklands. We believed, rightly, that the Argentinians would pile in men and material 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 bitter winds and violent storms of the southern winter approached.

More immediate and more manageable was the problem of how to deal with public opinion at home in the intervening period. Support for the despatch 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 too much about that. Ships were constantly being chartered and negotiations — above all Al Haig’s shuttle diplomacy — continued. 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 about getting support in the UN Security Council, the lack of reliance we could place on the European Community or the United States, the risk of the Soviets becoming involved, the disadvantage of being looked at as a colonial power. All these considerations were fair enough. But when you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them. And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the Queen’s subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was Prime Minister.

While military preparations were in train the focus now turned to public debate in the United Nations Security Council. At the beginning of April we had one short-term and several long-term diplomatic objectives. In the short term we needed to win our case against Argentina in the UN Security Council and to secure a resolution denouncing their aggression and demanding withdrawal. On the basis of such a resolution we would find it far easier to win the support of other nations for practical measures to pressurize Argentina. But in the longer term we knew that we had to try to keep our affairs out of the UN as much as possible. With the Cold War still under way, and given the anti-colonialist attitude of many nations at the UN, there was a real danger that the Security Council might attempt to force unsatisfactory terms upon us. If necessary we could veto such a resolution, but to do so would diminish international support for our position. This remained a vital consideration throughout the crisis. The second long-term goal was to ensure maximum support from our allies, principally the US, but also members of the EC, the Commonwealth and other important western nations. This was a task undertaken at head of government level, but an enormous burden fell on the FCO and vast numbers of telegrams crossed my desk during those weeks. No country was ever better served than Britain by our two key diplomats at this time: Sir Anthony Parsons, Britain’s UN Ambassador and Sir Nicholas (Nico) Henderson, our ambassador in Washington; both possessed precisely those qualities of intelligence, toughness, style and eloquence that the situation required.

At the UN Tony Parsons, on the eve of the invasion, was busy outmanoeuvring the Argentinians. The UN Secretary-General had called on both sides to exercise restraint: we responded positively, but the Argentinians remained silent. On Saturday 3 April, Tony Parsons managed a diplomatic triumph in persuading the Security Council to pass what became Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 502, demanding an immediate and unconditional withdrawal by the Argentinians from the Falklands. It had not been easy. The debate was bitter and complex. We knew that the old anti-colonialist bias of the UN would incline some Security Council members against us, were it not for the fact that there had been a flagrant act of aggression by the Argentinians. I was particularly grateful to President Mitterrand who, with the leaders of the Old Commonwealth, was among the staunchest of our friends and who telephoned me personally to pledge support on Saturday. (I was to have many disputes with President Mitterrand in later years, but I never forgot the debt we owed him for his personal support on this occasion and throughout the Falklands crisis.) France used her influence in the UN to swing others in our favour. I myself made a last-minute telephone call to King Hussein of Jordan, who also came down on our side. He is an old friend of Britain. I told him our difficulty; I did not have to go into lengthy explanations to persuade him to cast Jordan’s vote on our side. He began the conversation by asking simply: ‘what can I do for you Prime Minister?’ In the end we were delighted to have the votes we needed for the Resolution and to avoid a veto from the Soviet Union. But we knew that this was a fragile achievement, and we had no illusions as to who would be left to remove the aggressor when all the talking was done: it would be us.

The debate in the House of Commons that Saturday is another very powerful memory.

I opened the debate. It was the most difficult I ever had to face. The House was rightly angry that British territory had been invaded and occupied, and many members were inclined to blame the Government for its alleged failure to foresee and forestall what had happened. My first task was to defend us against the charge of unpreparedness.

Far more difficult was my second task: convincing MPs that we would respond to Argentina’s aggression forcefully and effectively. I gave an explanation of what had happened and made very clear what we intended to do. I said:

My announcement that the task force was ready and about to sail was greeted with growls of approval. But I knew that not everybody was cheering the same thing. Some saw the task force as a purely diplomatic armada that would get the Argentinians back to the negotiating table. They never intended that it should actually fight. I needed their support for as long as possible, for we needed to demonstrate a united national will both to the enemy and to our allies. But I felt in my bones that the Argentinians would never withdraw without a fight and anything less than withdrawal was unacceptable to the country, and certainly to me.

Others shared my view that the task force would have to be used, but doubted the Government’s will and stamina. Enoch Powell expressed this sentiment most dramatically when he looked directly across the Chamber at me and declared sepulchrally:

That morning in Parliament I could keep the support of both groups by sending the task force out and by setting down our objectives: that the islands would be freed from occupation and returned to British administration at the earliest possible moment. I obtained the almost unanimous but grudging support of a Commons that was anxious to support the Government’s policy, while reserving judgement on the Government’s performance.

But I realized that even this degree of backing was likely to be eroded as the campaign wore on. I knew, as most MPs could not, the full extent of the practical military problems. I foresaw that we would encounter setbacks that would cause even some of a hawkish disposition to question whether the game was worth the candle. And how long could a coalition of opinion survive that was composed of warriors, negotiators and even virtual pacifists? For the moment, however, it had survived. We received the agreement of the House of Commons for the strategy of sending the task force. And that was what mattered.

I left the House, satisfied with the day’s results, prepared for more difficult debates in the future, and generally in a mood of solemnity. Indeed, from the moment I heard of the invasion, deep anxiety was ever present.

Almost immediately I faced a crisis in the Government. John Nott, who was under great strain, had delivered an uncharacteristically poor performance in his winding-up speech. He had been very harshly treated in the debate. He was held responsible by many of our backbenchers for what had happened because of the Defence Review which he had pioneered. This was unfair. The budget for conventional naval forces (that is excluding the Trident programme) was £500 million higher — and also higher as a share of the defence budget — than when we took office. Though the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible was to be sold, this would not take place until the end of 1983, by which time she would have been replaced by HMS Illustrious. Similarly HMS Hermes was due to be replaced by HMS Ark Royal, ensuring that the present aircraft carrier strength of the navy was continuously maintained. But there was no doubt that the Party’s blood was up: nor was it just John Nott they were after.

Peter Carrington defended the Government’s position that morning in the House of Lords and had a reasonably good reception. But Peter and John then attended a packed and angry meeting of Tory back-benchers shortly after the Commons debate. Here, Peter was at a distinct disadvantage: as a peer he had struck up none of those friendships and understandings with back-benchers on which all of us have to rely when the pressure builds. As Ian Gow reported to me afterwards, it was a very difficult meeting, and feelings had boiled over.

WEEK TWO

The press over the weekend was very hostile. Peter Carrington was talking about resigning. I saw him on Saturday evening, Sunday morning and again in the evening. Both Willie Whitelaw and I did all that we could to persuade him to stay. I felt that the country needed a Foreign Secretary of his experience and international standing to see us through the crisis. But there seems always to be a visceral desire that a disaster should be paid for by a scapegoat. There is no doubt that Peter’s resignation ultimately made it easier to unite the Party and concentrate on recovering the Falklands: he understood this. Having seen Monday’s press, in particular the Times leader, he decided that he must go. Two other senior Foreign Office ministers also resigned: Humphrey Atkins and Richard Luce. In a handwritten letter he wrote to me on Tuesday 6 April, Peter said:

It was a characteristically generous and encouraging letter — and these things matter when the skies are growing darker.

I also received a wonderful letter — one of a number over the years — from Laurens van der Post, who pointed out that there was one principle, more important even than sovereignty, at stake in the dispute:

Of course, he was entirely right.

John Nott also wished to resign. But I told him straight that when the fleet had put to sea he had a bounden duty to stay and see the whole thing through. He therefore withdrew his letter on the understanding that it was made public that his offer to resign had been rejected. Whatever issues might have to be faced later as a result of the full enquiry (which I announced on 8 April), now was the time to concentrate on one thing only — victory. Meanwhile, I had to find a new Foreign Secretary. The obvious choice was Francis Pym, who had had the requisite experience of Foreign Affairs in Opposition and Defence in Government. And so I appointed him, asking John Biffen to take over his former position as Leader of the House of Commons. Francis is in many ways the quintessential old style Tory: a country gentleman and a soldier, a good tactician, but no strategist. He is a proud pragmatist and an enemy of ideology; the sort of man of whom people used to say that he would be ‘just right in a crisis’. I was to have reason to question that judgement. Francis’s appointment undoubtedly united the Party. But it heralded serious difficulties for the conduct of the campaign itself.

It was also on Monday that I was able to talk face to face at No. 10 with Rex Hunt and the two marine commanders who had just arrived from Uruguay. I asked him whether he had been aware that an invasion was in the offing and he replied, ‘No: I thought it was just another alarm of the kind we had had previously.’ He told me that when he had received our message on the previous Wednesday he had contacted one of the Argentine representatives of their airline on the island who had assured him that as far as he knew nothing was afoot. However, it seemed from what I was told by one of the marines that other Argentinians had been reporting back on every detail and movement from their airline office on the Falklands. Apparently the local Argentine commander of the invasion force knew almost every one of the names of the marines reinforcements who had been there only a few days. The operation had, it seemed, been very well planned with the first wave of Argentine troops coming from the landward side. They did not, however, come out and fight but waited for overwhelming armour and other forces to arrive. Our two marine commanders were very anxious to get back to the islands. They were subsequently flown to Ascension Island — the mid-Atlantic staging post for the task force, vital to our operation — and subsequently took the surrender at Government House when Port Stanley fell.

The Governor was superb throughout, dealing effectively with the media, which was not always an easy task. He repeated again and again that I had said in the House that our objective was the restoration of British sovereignty and the return of British administration and he was sure that I meant what I said. Of course, I did. But there were many times in the coming negotiations when I wondered whether I would indeed secure Rex Hunt’s return to the Falklands.

On Tuesday 6 April there was a long Cabinet discussion of the crisis. From the beginning, we were sure that the attitude of the United States would be a key element in the outcome. The Americans could do enormous damage to the Argentine economy if they wanted. I sent a message to President Reagan urging the US to take effective economic measures. But at the moment the Americans were not prepared to do this. Nico Henderson had his first discussions with Al Haig in which the main themes of their response over the next few weeks were already clear. They had stopped arms sales. But they would not ‘tilt’ too heavily against Argentina. To do so would deprive them of influence in Buenos Aires. They did not want Galtieri to fall and so wanted a solution that would save his face. There were clear signs that they were contemplating a mediation between the two sides. All of this was fundamentally misguided and Nico was very robust in his reply. But in practice the Haig negotiations, which flowed from all this, almost certainly worked in our favour by precluding for a time even less helpful diplomatic intervention from other directions, including the UN. In a crisis of this kind one finds any number of people lining up to act as mediators, some motivated by nothing more than a desire to cut a figure on the world stage.

That consideration lay in the future, however. At this stage the Americans were anxious to achieve a settlement that would prevent them having to choose between Britain, their natural ally, and their interests in Latin America. I should add, though, that from the first Caspar Weinberger, US Defence Secretary, was in touch with our ambassador emphasizing that America could not put a NATO ally and long-standing friend on the same level as Argentina and that he would do what he could to help. America never had a wiser patriot, nor Britain a truer friend.

It was at this Cabinet that I announced we were setting up OD(SA), which became known to the outside world as ‘the War Cabinet’. Formally, this was a sub-committee of OD, though several of its members did not serve on that committee. Its exact membership and procedure were influenced by a meeting I had with Harold Macmillan, who came to see me at the House of Commons after Questions on Tuesday 6 April to offer his support and advice as the country’s and the Conservative Party’s senior ex-Prime Minister. His main recommendation was to keep the Treasury — that is, Geoffrey Howe — off the main committee in charge of the campaign, the diplomacy and the aftermath. This was a wise course, but understandably Geoffrey was upset. Even so I never regretted following Harold Macmillan’s advice. We were never tempted to compromise the security of our forces for financial reasons. Everything we did was governed by military necessity. So the War Cabinet consisted of myself, Francis Pym, John Nott, Willie Whitelaw as my deputy and trusted adviser, and Cecil Parkinson, who not only shared my political instincts but was brilliantly effective in dealing with public relations. Sir Terence (now Lord) Lewin, Chief of Defence Staff, always attended. So did Michael Havers, the Attorney-General, as the Government’s legal adviser. Of course, we were constantly advised and supported by FCO and MoD officials and by the military. It met every day, and sometimes twice a day.

By the time of our first meeting the task force had already been despatched with a speed and efficiency which astounded the world. Millions watched on television as the two carriers sailed from Portsmouth on Monday 5 April, and on that day and the following two they were joined by a force of eleven destroyers and frigates, three submarines, the amphibious assault ship HMS Fearless (crucial to the landings), and numerous naval auxiliaries. Merchantmen of all kinds were ‘taken up from trade’. Three thousand troops were initially assigned to the operation — 3 Commando Brigade of the Royal Marines, the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment and a unit of the Air Defence Regiment. Several times in the course of the campaign we had to revise upwards our estimate of the number of troops required and send reinforcements. This first group left the UK, sailing on the cruise ship Canberra, on Friday 9 April. It was not always understood that to sail a large task force with troops halfway round the world, with the intention of making opposed landings, required an enormous logistical operation — both in the UK and at sea. In the end we sent over 100 ships, carrying more than 25,000 men.

The Commander-in-Chief, Fleet, was Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse; he took overall command of the task force from his base at Northwood in West London, choosing Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward as the operational commander of the surface ships in the force. (Our submarines were controlled directly from Northwood by satellite.) I have written elsewhere about Sandy Woodward: at that time I had not yet met him, but I knew of his reputation as one of the cleverest men in the navy. Admiral Fieldhouse’s land deputy was Major-General Jeremy Moore of the Royal Marines. General Moore began the campaign in Northwood, departing for the South Atlantic in May. His deputy, who sailed with HMS Fearless in the first wave of ships, was Brigadier Julian Thompson, of 3 Commando Brigade. Brigadier Thompson was to have charge of our forces on the Falklands for a vital period after the landing until General Moore’s arrival.

OD(SA) met twice on Wednesday 7 April. Throughout the war we were confronted with the problem of managing the intricate relationship between diplomatic and military requirements. I was determined that the needs of our servicemen should have priority over politics and it was on this day that we had to resolve our first problem of this kind. Our nuclear powered submarines were due in the area of the Falklands within the next few days. We would therefore shortly be in a position to set up a 200-mile Maritime Exclusion Zone (MEZ) for ships around the Falklands.[36] Should we announce it now? Or should we postpone the announcement until after Al Haig’s imminent visit the next day? In any case, for legal reasons we had to give several days’ notice before the MEZ could come into effect.

In fact Al Haig’s visit had to be postponed because of that day’s Commons debate. At the War Cabinet which met at 7 o’clock that evening there was a classic disagreement between the MoD and the FCO on the timing of the announcement. We decided to go ahead straight away, informing Al Haig of the decision shortly in advance.

John Nott made the announcement when he wound up the debate in a speech which restored his standing and self-confidence. Not a voice was raised against the MEZ and Jim Callaghan was heard to say ‘absolutely right’. It took effect in the early hours of Easter Monday morning 12 April, by which time our submarines were in place to enforce it. It is worth noting that never during the Falklands operation did we say we would take action until we were in a position to do it. I was determined that we should never allow our bluff to be called.

One other point in that day’s Commons debate is worth noting. Keith Speed, the former Navy minister, argued that we could enforce a blockade against the Argentinians on the Falklands. In fact, due to the terrible weather conditions and the problems of keeping the task force supplied and maintained so far from home, there was no way that this could have been done.

All this time we were bringing as much pressure to bear on the Argentinians as we could through diplomatic methods. I had sent messages on 6 April to the heads of state and heads of government of European Community countries, the US, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I asked them to support us against Argentina by banning arms sales, banning all or some imports, ending export credit cover for new commitments and giving no encouragement or incentive to their banks to lend to Argentina. It had been suggested at first that I should ask for a total import ban, but though that is what we wanted I thought it bad tactics to press for too much at once. The responses were now coming through. I have already mentioned those of the United States and of France, and our success in the UN Security Council. Helmut Schmidt assured me personally of West Germany’s strong support. Not all the countries of the European Community were as positive. There were close ties between Italy and Argentina. Though opposing the use of force, the Spanish continued to support the Argentine case and — no great surprise — the Irish caused us some concern. Later it became clear that they were not to be relied upon. However, initially the EC gave us all that we asked for, imposing an embargo on Argentine imports from the middle of April for one month. When the embargo came up for renewal in mid-May there were considerable difficulties, but eventually a compromise was reached by which Italy and Ireland were able to resume links with Argentina while the other eight continued the embargo indefinitely.

The response of the Commonwealth, with the partial exception of India, had been very supportive. In particular, Malcolm Fraser in Australia banned all imports from Argentina, except those under existing contracts. Bob Muldoon and New Zealand were, if anything, even stronger in their support, later offering to lend us a frigate to replace our own guardship in the Caribbean so that we could deploy it where it was more urgently needed.

We were disappointed by Japan’s somewhat equivocal attitude. Predictably, the Soviet Union increasingly leaned towards Argentina and stepped up verbal attacks on our position. If we had returned to the UN to seek a sanctions resolution we had no doubt that they would have vetoed it.

Similarly, we were subject to a stream of vitriol from a number of Latin American countries — as was the US — though, because of its own long-standing disputes with Argentina, Chile was on our side. A number of others were quietly sympathetic, whatever their public stance: Argentina had made itself none too popular by its arrogance towards the rest of Latin America. In this way action on the diplomatic front supported the objectives of our task force as it sailed further into the South Atlantic. And, of course, effective diplomacy would have been impossible without the despatch of the task force. As Frederick the Great once remarked, ‘diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.’

On Thursday 8 April Al Haig arrived in London for the first stage of his long and tiring diplomatic shuttle. I had had a concise and, as it turned out, extremely accurate account from Nico Henderson of the propositions Mr Haig was likely to advance. We made it quite clear to him — and he accepted that this was the line we would take — that he was not being received in London as a mediator but as a friend and ally, here to discuss ways in which the United States could most effectively support us in our efforts to secure Argentine withdrawal from the Falklands. Having had some initial discussions with Francis Pym, he arrived at No. 10 for talks followed by a working dinner. His team included Ed Streator from the US Embassy in London, General Vernon Walters, Mr Haig’s special assistant — a powerful personality and someone I particularly liked and respected — and Thomas Enders who dealt with South American Affairs in the State Department. I was joined by Francis, John, Terry Lewin, Sir Antony Acland (head of the Foreign Office) and Clive Whitmore (my principal private secretary). The discussions were lively and direct, to use the diplomatic jargon: there was too much at stake for me to allow them to be anything else.

It was apparent from the beginning that, whatever might be said publicly, Al Haig and his colleagues had come to mediate. He sought to reassure me about the position of the United States. He said that the US was not impartial but had to be cautious about its ‘profile’. The Argentine Foreign minister had indicated that they might accept Soviet assistance, which made the Americans extremely uncomfortable. In his judgement the next seventy-two hours would be the best time for negotiation as far as the Argentinians were concerned. He told us that he had decided to visit Britain first because he did not wish to go to Buenos Aires without a full understanding of our approach.

That was my cue. I told Mr Haig that the issue was far wider than a dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina. The use of force to seize disputed territory set a dangerous precedent. In that sense, the Falklands mattered to many countries — to Germany, for example, because of West Berlin, to France because of its colonial possessions, to Guyana, a large part of whose territory was claimed by Venezuela. (Later the FCO prepared me a brief for the Versailles G7 summit listing current territorial disputes: it was a lengthy document.) We in Britain had experience of the danger of appeasing dictators. As regards the Soviet Union, I suspected that the Russians feared American involvement as much as the Americans feared the reverse. The West might be stretched, but so were the Soviets. I would be surprised if they intervened actively. I asked what pressure the Americans could bring to bear upon Galtieri? The reputation of the western world was at stake. We wished to solve the matter by diplomatic means but we would not negotiate under duress — withdrawal was a prior condition.

It became increasingly clear to me that Mr Haig was anxious not only to avoid what he described as ‘a priori judgements about sovereignty’ but that he was aiming at something other than the British administration which I was publicly pledged to restore. The whole of his approach rested on trying to persuade the two sides to accept some kind of neutral ‘interim administration’ after Argentine withdrawal to run the islands while their long-term future was decided. He talked of an American, or perhaps Canadian, presence while negotiations continued. I pointed out that this would mean that the Argentines had gained from the use of force. I told him that British sovereignty must continue and British administration be restored. Only after this had happened could there be the possibility of negotiations, and they would be subject to the overriding condition that the wishes of the islanders were paramount.

Discussion over dinner covered very much the same area. I probed what Mr Haig seemed to be proposing as regards the administration of the islands after Argentine withdrawal had been achieved. He was rather vague: but it still seemed to me that it would not be the British administration to which we were pledged.

Mr Haig would now go to Buenos Aires to assess the Argentinian position. He agreed a common line with us. We would both say to the press that we wanted UNSCR 502 to be implemented as quickly as possible and had discussed how the United States could help. He had heard the British view of the situation and knew how strongly we felt, but he should not give the slightest impression that our position had changed in any way or that we were showing any flexibility.

In fact, Mr Haig may have looked back on our friendly disagreements in London with something like nostalgia when he got to Buenos Aires and began trying to negotiate with the Argentine Junta. It became evident that the Junta itself was deeply divided and both General Galtieri and the Foreign minister Sr. Costa Mendez seemed to alter their position from hour to hour. At one stage Mr Haig thought that he had won concessions, but as he was about to leave for England on Easter Sunday, 11 April — indeed, as he was boarding the aeroplane — Sr. Costa Mendez handed him a paper which appeared to abrogate the concessions which, rightly or wrongly, he believed he had won.

I held talks at Chequers about the Falklands over the Easter weekend. On Good Friday Tony Parsons came to lunch and we discussed the negotiating strategy. The next day Francis Pym, John Nott, and Terry Lewin came down and we too had a working lunch. I am glad that Chequers played a large part in the Falklands story. Churchill had used it quite a lot during the Second World War and its atmosphere helped to get us all together.

WEEK THREE

By Easter Monday the first ships of the task force had begun arriving at Ascension Island, half way to the Falklands. The American team returned to London on the morning of that day, 12 April. The carpets were up at No. 10 for the annual spring clean and it looked a little as if someone was moving house. This was, however, a false impression.

Al Haig began by giving an oral account of his talks in Buenos Aires. He said that he had detected differences of view between the three Argentinian Armed Services. The navy were looking for a fight. However, the air force did not want a war, and the army were somewhere in between. Enthusiasm for a fight turned out to be in inverse proportion to fighting spirit. He had worked out a set of proposals which he thought the Argentinians might be brought eventually to accept. There were seven main elements:

• First, both Britain and Argentina would agree to withdraw from the islands and a specified surrounding area within a two-week period.

• Second, no further military forces were to be introduced and forces withdrawn were to return to normal duties. The Argentinians had wanted an undertaking from us to keep our task force out of the South Atlantic altogether, but Al Haig said that he had told them that this was impossible and believed that they might be satisfied if the agreement provided for British units to return to normal duties.

• Third, there would be a Commission, in place of the Governor, made up of United States, British and Argentine representatives who would act together (whether by unanimity or majority was not specified) to ensure compliance with the agreement. For that purpose they would each need to have observers. Each member of the Commission could fly his flag at headquarters.

• Fourth, economic and financial sanctions against Argentina would be lifted.

• Fifth, the traditional local administration of the islands would be restored, including the re-establishment of the Executive and Legislative Councils, to which Argentine representatives from the tiny Argentine population in the Falklands would be added. The Argentinians were adamantly opposed to the return of our Governor.

• Sixth, the Commission would promote travel, trade and communications between the islands and Argentina, but the British Government would have a veto on its operations.

• Finally, negotiations on a lasting settlement would be pursued ‘consistently with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations Charter’. The United States had apparently insisted on this because of the references in it to the right of self-determination. It seemed that the Argentinians would only have been prepared to agree to this part of the proposals if they contained a date for the conclusion of negotiations, which was suggested as 31 December 1982.

At this time, I did not attempt to reply to Al Haig’s proposals point by point: I simply restated my belief in the principle of self-determination. If the Falkland Islanders chose to join Argentina, the British Government would respect their decision. But, equally, the Argentine Government should be prepared to accept an expressed wish of the islanders to remain British. The Americans then left us for ninety minutes, as we had agreed in advance, while we discussed the proposals with the other members of the War Cabinet.

Al Haig’s proposals were full of holes but they also had some attractions. If we could really get the Argentine forces off the islands by conceding what seemed a fairly powerless commission, very limited Argentine representation on each council — drawn from local residents and not nominated by the Junta — and an Argentine flag flown alongside others at Headquarters there was something to be said for these ideas. However, on closer inspection there were formidable difficulties. What security would there be for the islanders after the interim period? Clearly, the United States would have to be asked to guarantee the islands against renewed invasion. Then there were the inescapable geographical realities. The Argentinians would remain close to the Falklands; but if we had to withdraw to ‘normal areas’ where would our forces be? We must have the right to be at least as close as the Argentine forces. In spite of the general reference to the UN Charter, there was still nothing to make it clear that the islanders’ wishes must be paramount in the final negotiations. There must also be no possibility of the Argentinians steadily increasing the number of their people on the islands during the interim period so as to become the majority — a serious worry, particularly if our people started to leave, which they might well do in those circumstances.

At this point Francis Pym, John Nott and I rejoined Al Haig. I said that I was very grateful for the tremendous amount of work which he had done but that I had a number of questions. What did the Americans envisage would happen if no final settlement had been reached by 31 December 1982? My aim in asking was to discover whether the United States was prepared to give a guarantee. The answer was not entirely clear — nor did it become clearer with the passage of time. I emphasized again the importance attached by the House of Commons to the principle of self-determination for the islanders. We would have to have some specific reference to Article 1(2) and Article 73 of the UN Charter on this matter, which enshrined the principle of self-determination. We recognized, however, that Argentina would place a different gloss upon the agreement from the British Government. Al Haig accepted this.

On the matter of their flag, I told Al Haig that wherever else it flew, it must not fly over the Governor’s house. He said that for the Argentinians the governorship of the Falklands was a key issue: they wanted to keep the Governor they had appointed after the invasion on the island as a commissioner. I said that if they did that, the British Government would have to appoint Rex Hunt as our commissioner. I also raised the question of South Georgia where Britain had an absolute title, quite distinct from its claim to the Falklands. AI Haig saw no problem about this. (We regretted afterwards that we had ever put South Georgia into the first proposals. But at the time there seemed a possibility of getting the Argentines off without a battle and they had occupied the island shortly after their invasion of the Falklands themselves.)

However, the main issue was always bound to be the military one. I knew that the only reason the Argentinians were prepared to negotiate at all was because they feared our task force. I stressed that although British submarines in the proposed demilitarized zone would leave as the Argentine forces withdrew, the British task force must continue to proceed southwards, though it would not enter the demilitarized zone. This was essential: we could not afford to let the Argentinians invade a second time. One concession I might be prepared to make was that the task force could be stood off at a point no closer to the Falklands than Argentine forces were based. Anything less would be unacceptable to Parliament.

Shortly after this we adjourned for lunch and agreed to meet later in the afternoon after we had looked in detail at the proposals and, with advice from officials and the military, worked out our own detailed amendments. In the meantime the American team had made use of a direct secure line from No. 10 to the White House. As Al Haig’s memoirs reveal, he had also rung the Argentine Foreign minister, on hearing that the New York Times had just published the terms of the document which Sr. Costa Mendez had handed him at the airport in Buenos Aires, which were utterly inconsistent with the terms presented to us. Understandably, Mr Haig now wanted to know whether this document represented the Foreign minister’s suggestions or the final and official word of the Junta.

Our two teams met once more just before 6 p.m. There were a number of points to discuss; again, the single most important was the position of the task force. Al Haig said that President Galtieri would not survive if after the Argentinians had committed themselves to withdrawing from the Falkland Islands in two weeks the British newspapers continued to report that the task force was proceeding south. The Americans were not asking for our fleet to be turned around: but they were asking for it to be halted once an agreement had been reached. I replied that I would not survive in the House of Commons if I stopped the task force before Argentine withdrawal had been completed. Nor would I be prepared to do it. I was ready to let the troop ships proceed more slowly once an agreement had been signed. But the main task force must maintain its progress towards the Falklands Islands. I saw no reason to give Argentina the benefit of the doubt. I was prepared to halt the task force at the same distance from the Falklands as that between Argentina and the islands, but I could go no further than that.

We argued until late into the evening. Argentina, starting from the Communications Agreement of 1971, wanted their citizens to have the same rights to reside on the islands, own property and so on, as the Falklanders. They wanted the commission positively to promote that state of affairs and to decide upon such matters. We fought the proposal down on the grounds that the interim administration must not change the nature of life on the islands. We finally agreed that we would pursue further negotiations on a somewhat woolly text. There were, however, some conditions which had to be made absolutely clear — the withdrawal zones, the fact that the one Argentine representative per council must be local, and that Argentinians on the islands must have the same qualifying period for voting rights as the Falklanders.

This was not, however, quite the end of Easter Monday. Just before 10 o’clock that night Al Haig telephoned me to say that Sr. Costa Mendez had rung him to say that he saw no reason for the Secretary of State to go to Buenos Aires again unless any agreement about the Falkland Islands provided for the Governor to be appointed by the Argentine Government and for the Argentine flag to continue to be flown there. And if that was not possible, the Argentinians must have assurances that at the end of negotiations with Britain there would be a recognition of Argentine sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Al Haig was shattered. I had mixed feelings about this news, but I was certainly not going to buckle under that sort of pressure. I told Mr Haig on the telephone:

Al Haig agreed; he was obviously very depressed.

Having decided not to go on to Buenos Aires, somewhat to our surprise the following morning the Americans sought another meeting with us. So our two teams met first thing. By this stage it was becoming obvious that the proposals the Americans had presented to us the previous day had no measure of Argentine approval. In fact, the status of all these proposals was doubtful. The more closely I questioned Al Haig on this point, the more uncertain it became. Since the proposals had not been agreed with the Argentinians, even if we accepted them, they might therefore not form the basis of a settlement.

This fact was made painfully clear at the meeting that morning when Mr Haig handed us a document embodying five points which he described as essential to the Argentine position. As he himself said, the practical effect of the Argentine tactics was to buy time. I always thought that this was their main purpose in negotiating.

I was becoming impatient with all this. I said that it was essentially an issue of dictatorship versus democracy. Galtieri wanted to be able to claim victory by force of arms. The question now was whether he could be diverted from his course by economic sanctions or, as I had suspected all along, only by military force. Mr Haig replied that he had made it abundantly clear to Argentina that if conflict developed the United States would side with Britain. But did we wish to bring the negotiations to an end today? He could say publicly that he was suspending his own efforts, making it clear that this was due to Argentine intransigence. But if he did so other less helpful people might try to intervene. I was keenly aware of that and I also felt that public opinion here required us not to give up on negotiations yet.

Later that day events took another bizarre turn. Al Haig told Francis Pym of the contents of a further discussion he had had on the telephone with Sr. Costa Mendez. Apparently, the Argentinians had now dropped their five demands and moved a considerable way from their previous position. Mr Haig thought there was a chance of a settlement on the lines we had been discussing, if we would agree to language about decolonization, subject to the wishes of the islanders, with perhaps one or two small changes in addition to make the proposals more palatable still. It was to turn out that this talk of decolonization held its own particular dangers, though we agreed to look at a draft. He also urged us not to be too rigid on the question of sovereignty. He had decided to return to Washington and would decide his next step there.

It was clear from all this that Mr Haig was very anxious to keep the negotiations going. But had there been a genuine change of heart on the part of the Argentinians, or was it just wishful thinking on his part?

Wednesday 14 April was the day scheduled for a further Commons debate on the Falklands. It was an opportunity for me to spell out our objectives in the negotiations and to demonstrate to the outside world the united support of the House of Commons. I told the House:

There were serious concerns underlying my reference to the possibility of the islanders changing their views on the future government of the Falklands: we worried that morale might collapse and that large numbers might leave. We were able to find out a certain amount about daily life under the occupation from messages which reached London, but the picture was far from complete.

While the debate was still in progress, Al Haig was on the telephone. The Argentinians were complaining that the United States was not being even-handed between Argentina and Britain and in particular that it was supplying military aid to Britain. He wanted to make a statement which would allow him to return to Buenos Aires to continue the negotiations, ending with these three sentences:

While the debate continued, I discussed it with Francis Pym and, half an hour later, rang Al Haig back in Washington.

I was very unhappy about what he wanted to say and I told him so. Of course, a good deal was being done to help us. This was occurring within those ‘customary patterns of co-operation’ which applied between allies like the United States and Britain. But to link this with the use of Ascension Island was wrong and misleading. Moreover, to make such a statement would have a very adverse reaction on UK opinion.

I went on to point out that Ascension Island was our island, indeed the Queen’s island. The Americans used it as a base — but, as the Secretary of State well knew, this was under an agreement which made it clear that sovereignty remained with us. I am glad to say that Mr Haig agreed to remove all mention of Ascension Island from his statement.

The following day Al Haig flew from Washington to Buenos Aires for further talks. Back in London, however, it was the military realities which were most on my mind. The War Cabinet met that morning not in No. 10 but in the Ministry of Defence. We had important decisions to make. More troops were needed and had to be sent to join the task force. We had to look at the new draft we had agreed the previous day to consider. (Nothing came of it in the end.) We also had to prepare a message to the United States stressing the need for them to help enforce the agreement during that period and to ensure that when it ended the Argentinians did not attempt another invasion. I am afraid that we never got very far: the Americans were not keen to accept the role of guarantor.

However, our main business at the MoD was a thorough briefing on the military realities. It was important that we all knew precisely what forces were ranged against us, their capability, the effects of the Antarctic winter and, of course, the options available. Anyone who had harboured the idea that the task force could blockade the Falklands and mount raids in the case of the negotiations being unsuccessful was soon disabused. Quite apart from the likely losses of aircraft — the two aircraft carriers had only 20 Harriers between them — the difficulties of maintaining men and equipment in those stormy seas were huge. It was clear that we had a period of some two to three weeks in May during which we might land without terrible casualties. And then there were decisions to be made about how much more equipment, aircraft and troops to send, how to deal with the resulting prisoners of war, what to do about South Georgia and when. There was to be no respite at all. And these decisions must be made quickly. I looked from the Chiefs of Staff to my colleagues. It was a lot for them to take in. With the exception of John Nott, who of course was already briefed on the difficulties, they seemed somewhat taken aback. By this stage the press had learnt that we were at the MoD and I asked that everyone look confident as we left.

Our main task on Friday 16 April was to consider and approve the rules of engagement which would apply for transit from Ascension Island, for the 200-mile zone around South Georgia and for the purposes of South Georgia’s repossession. The rules of engagement are the means by which the politicians authorize the framework within which the military can be left to make the operational decisions. They have to satisfy the objectives for which a particular military operation is undertaken. They must also give the man on the spot reasonable freedom to react as is required and to make his decisions knowing that they will be supported by the politicians. So the rules have to be clear and to cover all possible eventualities. It was after very careful questioning of the Chiefs of Staff and the Attorney-General and after long discussion that they were approved. Many other rules of engagement would follow as each new phase of the operation had to be considered. This was the first time any of us had had to make such decisions.

I had received the day before a message from President Reagan who had been rung by Galtieri, who apparently said that he was anxious to avoid a conflict. There was no difficulty in replying to that. I told the President:

On Friday 16 April our two vital aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible reached Ascension Island.

After a week of labyrinthine negotiations, I spent the weekend at Chequers. I found time to have a private lunch with friends and an artist who was going to paint a view of the house and its surroundings. However, I had to return to No. 10 briefly on Saturday evening to receive a telephone call from President Reagan — there is a direct line from Chequers to the White House, but there were technical problems that day. I was glad to have the chance to go over the issues with the President. I was gladder still that he agreed that it would not be reasonable to ask us to move further towards the Argentine position. Al Haig had found the Argentinians even more impossible than on his first visit. The White House had instructed him to tell the Junta that if they persisted in their intransigence this would lead to a breakdown of talks and the US Administration would make clear who was to blame.

After church on Sunday morning John Nott came to lunch and we discussed the military and diplomatic situation.

Far away in the Atlantic HMS Hermes, Invincible, Glamorgan, Broadsword, Yarmouth, Alacrity and the Royal Fleet Auxiliaries Olmeda and Resource left Ascension Island for the south.

That day I also telephoned Tony Parsons at home in New York to discuss what, if anything, we should do at the United Nations. We were in the happy position of having almost perfect backing for our position, in the form of UNSCR 502. But the problem was that as the Haig initiative was manifestly stalling and as military conflict loomed there was a risk that somebody else would take an initiative and that we would be placed in a difficult and defensive position in the Security Council. We could attempt to forestall that by tabling a resolution ourselves. But then it would be amended in ways which were simply not acceptable to us. Tony Parsons and I agreed that the best we could do for the moment was to hold our ground and seek to resist the pressure, which would undoubtedly mount.

WEEK FOUR

It was on Monday that I first read the details of the proposals discussed by Al Haig and the Argentinians in Buenos Aires. In conveying them to us, the Secretary of State said that his own disappointment with this text prevented him from attempting to influence us in any way. Indeed, the proposals were quite unacceptable. The closer one looked the clearer it was that Argentina was still trying to keep what it had taken by force. The Argentinians wanted to give themselves the military advantage and have our forces redeployed far from the islands. They were intent on subverting the traditional local administration by insisting that two representatives of the Argentine Government should serve on each of the Island Councils. They wanted to flood the islands with their own people to change the nature of the population. Finally, they were not prepared to allow the islanders to choose if they wished to return to the British Administration they had enjoyed before the invasion. This latter point was shrouded in obscure language but the intention was very clear. The wording of their proposal was:

The innocuous sounding reference to removing the islands from the list under Chapter XI ruled out a return to the status quo ante the invasion and so effectively denied the islanders the right to choose freely the form of government under which they were to live. A great many words to shroud the simple fact that the use of force would have succeeded, dictatorship would have prevailed and the wishes of the islanders would have been overridden. These proposals were so poor that we told Al Haig that we saw no need for him to come to London from Buenos Aires and promised to let him have detailed comments on the text when he returned to Washington.

On the same day I received a telegram from Buenos Aires which confirmed that there was no apparent let-up in the Junta’s determination to secure sovereignty over the islands. Every five minutes or so Argentine Radio would play the ‘Malvinas song’ which ran, ‘I am your fatherland and may need you to die for me.’ Soon that sentiment would be put to the test: it was on this day that the War Cabinet authorized the operation to repossess South Georgia — although the recovery was somewhat delayed because our ships arrived in a Force 11 gale which lasted for several days.

Al Haig asked that Francis Pym should go to Washington to discuss our views of the Argentine text and I agreed to this. Francis sent ahead our detailed comments and essential amendments to the Buenos Aires text. We agreed that he was to be guided by these counterproposals during his visit. He was also to seek an American guarantee for the security of the islands. Unfortunately during questions on a Commons statement the following day, Francis gave the impression that force would not be used as long as negotiations were continuing. This was an impossible position for us to take up, enabling the Argentinians to string us along indefinitely, and he had to return to the House later to make a short statement retracting the remark.

Also on Wednesday we notified Al Haig via Nico Henderson that a firm decision had been taken to recover South Georgia in the near future. Mr Haig expressed himself surprised and concerned. He asked whether our decision was final: I confirmed that it was. We were informing, not consulting him. Later he told our ambassador that he thought he would have to give the Argentine Junta advance notice of our intended operation. We were appalled. Nico Henderson persuaded him to think better of it.

Francis Pym spent Thursday in Washington discussing our proposals with Al Haig. He did not get very far in pressing the idea of an American guarantee. The Americans seemed unprepared to envisage anything going beyond the interim period. Nor, as I was shortly to learn, was he any more successful in putting across the rest of our ideas. My own thoughts, however, were elsewhere. I was desperately worried about what was happening in South Georgia.

That Thursday evening John Nott and the Chief of the Defence Staff came to Downing Street to give me urgent news. Our Special Forces had landed on the Fortuna glacier in South Georgia to carry out a reconnaissance. The first attempt to get them in had had to be abandoned because of high wind and heavy snow. During a temporary and slight improvement in conditions our men were successfully landed. But the weather then rapidly worsened with a south-west wind gusting over 70 knots. Their exposed position on the glacier became intolerable and they sent a message to HMS Antrim asking for helicopters to take them off. The first helicopter came in and, blinded by the snow, crashed. A second suffered the same fate. The MoD did not know whether lives had been lost. It was a terrible and disturbing start to the campaign.

My heart was heavy as I changed for a charity dinner at the Mansion House at which I was to be the main speaker. How was I to conceal my feelings? I allowed myself to wonder whether the task we had set ourselves was truly impossible. But just as I reached the foot of the stairs at No. 10 on my way out, Clive Whitmore, my principal private secretary, rushed out of his office with more news. A third helicopter had landed on the glacier and picked up all the SAS men and the other two helicopter crews. How that pilot managed it I do not know. Months later I met him — completely modest, quietly professional: his comment was that he had never seen so many people in his helicopter. As I carried on out of No. 10 and left for the dinner I walked on air. All our people had survived.

On Friday 23 April we gave a general warning to Argentina that any approach on the part of their warships, submarines or aircraft which could amount to a threat to British forces in the South Atlantic would be regarded as hostile and dealt with accordingly. Later that day I went to Northwood from where military operations and all the logistics were being directed. It was fascinating to see how the decisions were put into effect. I had lunch at the home of Admiral Fieldhouse and his wife, Midge, before returning to No. 10.

Francis Pym was now on his way back from the United States with new draft proposals.

Saturday 24 April was to be one of the most crucial days in the Falklands story and a critical one for me personally. Early that morning Francis came to my study in No. 10 to tell me the results of his efforts. I can only describe the document which he brought back as conditional surrender. Al Haig was a powerful persuader and anyone on the other side of the table had to stand up to him, not give ground. Mr Haig had clearly played upon the imminence of hostilities and the risk that Britain would lose international support if fighting broke out. I told Francis that the terms were totally unacceptable. They would rob the Falklanders of their freedom and Britain of her honour and respect. Francis disagreed. He thought that we should accept what was in the document. We were at loggerheads.

A meeting of the War Cabinet had been arranged for that evening and I spent the rest of that day comparing in detail all the different proposals which had been made up to that point in the diplomacy. The closer I looked the clearer it was that our position was being abandoned and the Falklanders betrayed. I asked for the Attorney-General to come to No. 10 and go through them with me. But the message went astray and instead he went to the Foreign Office. Less than an hour before the War Cabinet, he at last received the message and came to see me, only to confirm all my worst fears.

It is important to understand that what might appear at first glance to the untutored eye as minor variations in language between diplomatic texts can be of vital significance, as they were in this case. There were four main texts to compare. There were the proposals which Al Haig discussed with us and took to Argentina on 12 April. Our own attitude towards these had been left deliberately vague: though he had discussed them in detail with us, we had not committed ourselves to accept them. Then there were the totally impossible proposals brought back by Mr Haig after his visit to Buenos Aires on 19 April. On 22 April we amended those proposals in ways acceptable to us and it was on this basis that Francis Pym had been instructed to negotiate. Finally, there was the latest draft brought back by Francis from the United States, which now confronted me. The differences between the texts of 22 and 24 April went to the heart of why we were prepared to fight a war for the Falklands.

First, there was the question of how far and fast would our forces withdraw. Under the text Francis Pym had brought back our task force would have had to stand off even further than in the Buenos Aires proposals. Worse still, all of our forces, including the submarines, would have to leave the defined zones within seven days, depriving us of any effective military leverage over the withdrawal process. What if the Argentinians went back on the deal? Also the task force would have to disperse altogether after 15 days. Nor was there any way of ensuring that Argentine troops kept to the provision that they be ‘at less than 7 days’ readiness to invade again’ (whatever that meant).

Second, sanctions against Argentina were to be abandoned the moment the agreement was signed, rather than as in our counterproposals on completion of withdrawal. Thus we lost the only other means we had to ensure that Argentine withdrawal actually took place.

Third, as regards the Special Interim Authority the text reverted to the Buenos Aires proposal for two representatives of the Argentine Government on the Islands’ Councils, as well as at least one representative of the local Argentine population. Moreover, there was a return to the wording relating to Argentine residence and property which would effectively have allowed them to swamp the existing population with Argentinians.

Equally important was the wording relating to the long-term negotiations after Argentine withdrawal. Like the Buenos Aires document, Francis Pym’s ruled out the possibility of a return to the situation enjoyed by the islanders before the invasion. We would have gone against our commitment to the principle that the islanders’ wishes were paramount and would have abandoned all possibility of their staying with us. Did Francis realize how much he had signed away?

Despite my clear views expressed that morning, Francis put in a paper to the War Cabinet recommending acceptance of these terms. Shortly before 6 o’clock that evening ministers and civil servants began assembling outside the Cabinet Room. Francis was there, busy lobbying for their support. I asked Willie Whitelaw to come upstairs to my study. I told him that I could not accept these terms and gave him my reasons. As always on crucial occasions he backed my judgement.

The meeting began and Francis Pym introduced his paper, recommending that we concur in the plan. But five hours of preparation on my part had not been wasted. I went through the text clause by clause. What did each point actually mean? How come that we had now accepted what had previously been rejected? Why had we not insisted as a minimum on self-determination? Why had we accepted almost unlimited Argentine immigration and acquisition of property on an equal basis with the existing Falkland Islanders? The rest of the committee were with me.

It was John Nott who found the procedural way forward. He proposed that we should make no comment on the draft but ask Mr Haig to put it to the Argentinians first. If they accepted it we should undoubtedly be in difficulties: but we could then put the matter to Parliament in the light of their acceptance. If the Argentinians rejected it — and we thought that they would, because it is almost impossible for any military Junta to withdraw — we could then urge the Americans to come down firmly on our side, as Al Haig had indicated they would as long as we did not break off the negotiations. This is what was decided. I sent a message to Mr Haig:

And so a great crisis passed. I could not have stayed as Prime Minister had the War Cabinet accepted Francis Pym’s proposals. I would have resigned.

That difficult and decisive argument was followed the next day by the recapture of South Georgia. At Grytviken an Argentine submarine was spotted on the surface and was successfully attacked by our helicopters and immobilized. A certain Captain Astiz had been in charge of the Argentine garrison there. His capture was to present us with problems. He was wanted for murder by both France and Sweden. He was flown to Ascension and then brought to Britain, but refused to answer questions and, due to the provisions of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War eventually, reluctantly, we had to return him to Argentina.

Later that afternoon I learnt of our success in South Georgia. An audience was arranged with the Queen that evening at Windsor. I was glad to be able personally to give her the news that one of her islands had been recovered. I returned to Downing Street to await confirmation of the earlier signal and the release of the news. I wanted John Nott to have the opportunity of making the announcement and so I had him come to No. 10. Together, he, the MoD press officer, and I drafted the press release and then went out to announce the good news.

A remark of mine was misinterpreted, sometimes wilfully. After John Nott had made his statement journalists tried to ask questions. ‘What happens next Mr Nott? Are we going to declare war on Argentina Mrs Thatcher?’ It seemed as if they preferred to press us on these issues rather than to report news that would raise the nation’s spirits and give the Falklanders new heart. I was irritated and intervened to stop them: Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the marines… Rejoice’. I meant that they should rejoice in the bloodless recapture of South Georgia, not in the war itself. To me war is not a matter for rejoicing. But some pretended otherwise.

A worry for us at this point was that the press and probably some of the public began to assume that it would only be a matter of days before we retook the Falklands and that this would be as quick as the recapture of South Georgia. We knew that this was far from true. Indeed, it was only on that day that the last ships of the amphibious group necessary for the landing left Britain. Led by the assault ship HMS Intrepid, there were the ferries Norland and Europic carrying the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, and — loaded with vital stores — the container ship Atlantic Conveyor.

WEEK FIVE

On Monday 26 April, the War Cabinet agreed the announcement of a Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) of a 200-nautical-mile radius and the rules of engagement which were to apply to it. The military pressure on Argentina was steadily mounting. The TEZ went beyond the earlier MEZ by excluding aircraft as well as sea-going craft: the task force would shortly be close enough to the Falklands to be able to enforce it and to be at risk from air attack itself. One priority was to close down the airfield at Port Stanley.

At home the apparent imminence of full-scale military conflict began to shake the determination of those whose commitment to retaking the Falklands had always been weaker than it appeared. Some MPs seemed to want negotiations to continue indefinitely. I had to put the realities to the nation. At Prime Minister’s Questions I said:

I made the same point in a live interview that evening on Panorama:

I also took the opportunity to say directly just what we were fighting for:

Unfortunately, the cracks now appearing in the Labour Party were likely to be widened by what was happening at the United Nations. The Secretary-General of the UN started to become more involved as the Haig mediation manifestly stalled. A low-key appeal from Sr. Perez de Cuellar to both sides — which appeared to imply that we, like Argentina, had failed to comply with UNSCR 502 — was seized upon by Denis Healey and Michael Foot. I had a serious clash with Mr Foot during Prime Minister’s Questions on Tuesday 27 April on the question of our returning to the United Nations. In fact, the Secretary-General very quickly took the point, but the damage was done. We ourselves had been exploring whether an offer from President López-Portillo of Mexico to provide a venue for negotiations might be productive. But Al Haig did not wish us to pursue this and I doubt whether the Mexicans would in fact have proposed the simpler and more satisfactory formula which we wanted.

Al Haig had had his own share of diplomatic problems. His speech to a meeting of the Organization of American States justifying the United States line on the Falklands and Argentina had been greeted with stony silence. The Argentine Foreign minister, furious at the retaking of South Georgia, had publicly refused to see him, though they had been in contact privately.

Al Haig could not under these circumstances go back to Buenos Aires, which from our point of view was probably all to the good. He had again modified the proposals discussed with Francis Pym in Washington and now transmitted these to the Argentine Government. Mr Haig told the Junta that no amendments were permissible and imposed a strict time limit for their reply, though he was subsequently unwilling to stick to this. For its part, the Junta was now determined to play for time. Al Haig telephoned Francis Pym in the afternoon of Wednesday 28 April to say that there was still no word from Buenos Aires. Both Francis and Nico Henderson continued to press him to say publicly that the Argentinians were to blame for the failure of his mediation and that the United States was openly supporting us.

At Cabinet on Thursday 29 April we discussed the continuing uncertainty. The deadline given to the Argentinians for their answer had passed, but now Mr Haig was talking of the possibility of the Argentinians amending his proposals. Where would all this end?

After Cabinet I sent a message to President Reagan saying that in our view the Argentinians must now be regarded as having rejected the American proposals. In fact, later that day the Argentinians did formally reject the American text. President Reagan now replied to my message in these terms:

This was very satisfactory. We wanted a clear statement that the Argentinians were to blame for the failure of negotiations. But we did not want to muddy the waters by revealing every detail of proposals which were in truth fundamentally unacceptable to us, nor did we want to imply that we had accepted the Haig proposals.

There was, though, one drawback. This was that once the Haig mediation had formally ended the pressure would sharply increase for us to go back to the UN where we would be faced by any number of difficulties. Indeed Tony Parsons advised us that once we were back in the Security Council there would be no way of avoiding an unacceptable call on us to halt military preparations and accept the good offices of the Secretary-General. This would mean that we would have to use our veto, which we wanted to avoid. In fact, although this assessment was correct it was not until the following month that all this came to a head. We were fortunate that it did not occur earlier.

Friday 30 April effectively marked the end of the beginning of our diplomatic and military campaign to regain the Falklands. The United States now came down clearly on our side. President Reagan told television correspondents that the Argentinians had resorted to armed aggression and that such aggression must not be allowed to succeed. Most important, the President also directed that the United States would respond positively to requests for military materiel. Unfortunately, they were not prepared to agree to place an embargo on imports from Argentina. However, the President’s announcements constituted a substantial moral boost to our position.

It was on this day that the TEZ came into force. And although diplomatic and military affairs remained inextricably intertwined, it is fair to say that from now on it was the military rather than the diplomatic which increasingly commanded our attention. At that morning’s War Cabinet it was the Argentine aircraft carrier, the 25 de Mayo, which concerned us. She could cover 500 miles a day and her aircraft a further 500. Her escorts carried Exocet missiles, supplied by France in the 1970s. We were well aware that the Exocet threat should be taken seriously. It increased the danger which the Argentine carrier group posed to our ships and their supply lines. We therefore authorized an attack on the carrier, wherever she was, provided it was south of latitude 35 degrees and east of longitude 48, and outside the 12-mile limit of Argentine territorial waters. Such an attack would be based upon the right of self-defence and be within Article 51 of the UN Charter; in accordance with the notification which had been given on 23 April no further warning was required.[37]

That evening I had to speak at a large rally in Stephen Hastings’s constituency at Milton Hall in Bedfordshire. Stephen and his predecessor Alan Lennox-Boyd spoke magnificently. I was given a wonderful reception. No one present had any doubt of the justice of our cause, nor that we would eventually win through. I felt proud and exhilarated: but I felt too an almost crushing burden of responsibility. I knew that the task force would enter the waters around the Falkland Islands the following day.