‘We have ceased to be a nation in retreat’: Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands War and the negation of Munich and Suez
[Britain is] attempting to appease simultaneously the Falkland Islanderson the one hand and the Argentines on the other, irrespective of the inconsistencies where this leads us.
UNNAMED BRITISH DIPLOMAT, Buenos Aires, 1970s 1
I think that Maggie Thatcher sees herself as a Churchill
LIEUT. DAVID TINKER (RN), HMS Glamorgan, to Julian Salmon, 6 May 1982 2
There is no such thing as a little war for a great Nation.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 3
The Falklands War began on Friday 2 April 1982, when Argentine forces invaded and occupied the British crown dependencies of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. This unleashed what was, in the words of Britain’s then-ambassador to the UN, a ‘wholly unexpected and tempestuous crisis’.4 The British retook the islands in a war that, by the time of the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, resulted in the deaths of 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel and 3 Falkland Islanders.5 This belies the fact that the war is sometimes characterized as an anachronistic colonial conflict that was entirely idiosyncratic, both in terms of the protagonists and the issues at stake. Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine writer, famously said: ‘The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.’6 In actual fact, the Falklands War of 1982 was to prove of immense significance in the postwar history of appeasement as analogies with Munich and Suez abounded.7 On hearing of the invasion, the Conservative MP Alan Clark lamented: ‘It’s all over. We’re a Third World country, no good for anything.’ Clark, a historian of some repute, wondered if ‘it . . . felt like this in the Thirties . . . when the dictators, Hitler and Musso[lini], decided to help themselves to something – Durazzo, Memel, Prague – and all we could do was wring our hands and talk about ‘bad faith?’8 Such sentiments proved to be unduly pessimistic. Francis Pym, who became foreign and commonwealth secretary at the outset of the conflict, reassured his department: ‘Self-determination of peoples has been a cornerstone of the international order at least since the foundation of the League of Nations. This is an important point of principle that must be upheld.’9 One author spoke for the majority of the British population when he opined: ‘It is a principle at stake – the same principle as was at stake when Hitler invaded the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia. Our craven attitude then proved once and for all that appeasement is not only immoral, it does not pay.’10 The mood of the political class reflected this. Defence Secretary John Nott later recalled: ‘When a gun is pointed to your head, diplomacy has a tendency to veer towards appeasement. Yet appeasing the fascist junta in Argentina, once they had invaded British territory, was not on our agenda. There were only two choices: war or surrender. As circumstances later showed, there was never an honourable negotiated settlement in between.’11 Labour’s Lord Molloy stated that ‘the ruling junta of Argentina are of the same ilk as those who trampled over Europe in the late Thirties and . . . therefore there can be no question of appeasement whatever.’12 In the event, this proved to be the attitude of the majority of the British people.
The Falklands War proved to be one of the most intense arenas of debates about British collective memory, where appeasement had supposedly been expunged from the British psyche by two means: first, by a refusal to negotiate on the sovereignty of the islands after the Argentine invasion; and, second, by the expulsion of those invaders by means of Operation Corporate. Margaret Thatcher, a fervent admirer of Churchill,13 had grown up with the ‘Guilty Men’ thesis and was a declared opponent of appeasement, who knew ‘that by the Munich Agreement Britain had complicity in the great wrong that had been done to Czechoslovakia.’14 Thatcher had famously been labelled the ‘Iron Lady’ for her uncompromising stance against the Soviet Union and her views on foreign policy were, to say the least, forthright.15 Shortly after the Falklands were invaded Enoch Powell told the House of Commons:
The Prime Minister, shortly after she came into office, received a soubriquet as the ‘Iron Lady’. It arose in the context of remarks which she made about defence against the Soviet Union and its allies; but there was no reason to suppose that the right hon. Lady did not welcome and, indeed, take pride in that description. In the next week or two this House, the nation and the right hon. Lady herself will learn of what metal she is made.16
As the British task force, assembled with impressive haste after the invasion, sailed south, American Secretary of State Alexander Haig urged her to reach a compromise with Argentina. Jim Rentschler, an aide to Haig, recalled Thatcher’s staunch refusal to allow Argentina to gain anything from its invasion.
I am pledged before the House of Commons, the Defense Minister is pledged, [and] the Foreign Secretary is pledged to restore British administration. I did not dispatch a fleet to install some nebulous arrangement which would have no authority whatsoever. Interim authority! [T]o do what? I beg you, I beg you to remember that in 1938 Neville Chamberlain sat at this same table discussing an arrangement which sounds very much like the one you are asking me to accept; and were I to do so, I would be censured in the House of Commons – and properly so! We in Britain simply refuse to reward aggression – that is the lesson we have learned from 1938.17
In his memoirs, Haig recalled that the prime minister had invoked Nelson and Wellington and ‘rapped sharply on the table top and recalled that this was the table at which Neville Chamberlain sat in 1938 and spoke of the Czechs as a faraway people about whom we know so little’.18 This version of history accorded with the heroic and Churchillian model, and the prime minister was clear what its lessons were. There were, however, many in her party who lacked her resolution. Indeed, some believed that the Falklands would do for Thatcher as Suez had done for Eden.19 Ian Gilmour, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) spokesman in the Commons until September 1981, opined: ‘We are making a big mistake. It will make Suez look like common sense’; Julian Critchley was ‘[w]orried that expectations are too high. He feels that the military difficulties may be unsurmountable’; and Eden’s biographer, Robert Rhodes James, was meanwhile reported to be ‘hopelessly defeatist, depressed and disloyal’.20 For Thatcher such opinions represented nothing so much as the tradition of Chamberlainite appeasement. She wanted no part of it.
The 1982 conflict was the result of a protracted historical confrontation regarding the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. Argentina had disputed British sovereignty over the Falklands since 183321 (a claim reiterated in the constitution of 1994).22 The Argentine government saw the 1982 invasion as the re-occupation of sovereign territory and it remains unmoved in this attitude.23 The British government, by contrast, viewed the 1982 invasion as an act of unprovoked aggression against a dependent territory and set its face against appeasement. The latter stance is maintained to this day – for two reasons. First, appeasement had contributed to the Argentine decision to invade in April 1982; second, a significant amount of blood was spilled to regain the islands. British Prime Minister David Cameron told the Falkland Islanders in December 2011: ‘We will always maintain our commitment to you on any question of sovereignty. Your right to self-determination is the cornerstone of our policy. We will never negotiate on the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands unless you, the Falkland Islanders, so wish. No democracy could ever do otherwise.’24 Thus, nearly 30 years after the successful liberation of the Falklands, a British prime minister was still framing his rhetoric with a decidedly Churchillian edge. In 2013 this stance was given diplomatic weight when the Falkland Islanders voted overwhelmingly to remain British.25
Ironically, given the manner in which the Falklands War came to encapsulate the postwar British rejection of appeasement, the attitude of the British Foreign Office towards the Falkland Islands before 1982 had long resembled a policy that would have appealed to the worst instincts of Chamberlain and R. A. Butler. Oddly, this attitude originated from a time when British Imperialism was at its very height. In 1910, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey enquired as to why an Argentine map labelled the Falklands as belonging to Argentina. Sidney Spicer, of the FO’s American Department, responded: ‘[I]t is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Argentine government’s attitude is not altogether unjustified and that our action has been somewhat high-handed.’26 In 1911 Ronald Campbell, another FO official, concluded: ‘We cannot easily make a good claim, and we have wisely done everything to avoid discussing the subject with Argentina.’27 In 1936, the head of the American Department of the FO went so far as to concede that scrutiny of the British case over the Falklands could make His Majesty’s government look like ‘international bandits’! Such appeasing tendencies were only strengthened as the threat of Hitler focused the British official mind ever more intensely upon Europe. One unreleased FO file from 1940 is intriguingly titled ‘Proposed offer by Her Majesty’s Government to reunite Falkland Islands with Argentina and acceptance of lease’.28 Although we can only speculate about this document’s contents, the proposals contained therein may well represent the type of thinking that saw Britain, in its hour of greatest extremity, offering any potential ally a piece of British territory. This was the ultimate in pragmatic appeasement and was most notoriously employed when Churchill appeared prepared to countenance handing over Northern Ireland to Dublin in return for Éire’s entry into the war against Germany.29 When revealed, as with all such initiatives, it appeared unworkable and shameful in equal measure.
Hugh Bicheno, a staunch critic of the FCO’s role in the lead up to the invasion of 1982, notes that the ‘fuse for the Falklands War was lit’ in December 1968 when Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart agreed a Memorandum of Understanding with Argentine Foreign Minister Nicanor Costa Méndez. This stated that when it could be shown to be in the ‘best interests’ of the Falkland Islanders ‘the Government of the United Kingdom as part of a final settlement will recognize Argentina’s sovereignty over the islands from a date to be agreed’.30 From this date forward British policy pursued a curious dual track: it would negotiate with Buenos Aires but allow the islanders a right of veto.31 The latter was guaranteed by the UK ‘Falklands lobby’ – which strongly opposed a ‘sell-out’ of the islanders. Lord Carrington, foreign and commonwealth secretary, 1979–82, later recalled that ‘Parliament reckoned that negotiation was intended to lead to surrender’. This was unfortunate if, as Carrington later opined, negotiation was the only option if armed conflict was to be avoided in the long term.32 The credibility gap in British policy over the Falklands grew over time: although, on occasion, London had even found it expedient to seek to square the circle by old-fashioned ‘gunboat diplomacy’.
In 1952 and 1953, the British government had deployed Royal Navy units to the South Atlantic so as to demonstrate to Buenos Aires the seriousness of their intent.33 In November 1977, when fifty Argentine ‘scientists’ landed on Southern Thule, fears of an Argentine invasion of the Falklands were very real. The then–Labour government of James Callaghan duly deployed a naval force in the South Atlantic under the codename Operation Journeyman.34 On the eve of the Argentine invasion of the Falklands in 1982, Callaghan revealed the 1977 deployment to parliament: ‘[O]n a very recent occasion, of which I have full knowledge, Britain assembled ships which had been stationed in the Caribbean, Gibraltar and in the Mediterranean, and stood then about 400 miles off the Falklands in support of HMS “Endurance”, and that when this fact became known, without fuss and publicity, a diplomatic solution followed.’35 Understandably, Callaghan continued to try and make political capital out of this event. When, on 8 July, Thatcher asserted that had Labour been in power, it would not have fired a shot in the South Atlantic, Callaghan retorted: ‘I tell the Rt. Hon. Lady, if we had been in power, we would not have needed to.’36
Callaghan’s biographer, Ken Morgan, says that Maurice Oldfield’s SIS (MI6) made sure that the Argentines were aware of the deployment of submarines before Ted Rowlands, a junior minister at the FCO, began negotiations with Buenos Aires on 13 December 1977.37 Despite Morgan’s claim, Callaghan is more circumspect in his memoirs, stating only: ‘I informed the head of MI6 of our plan before the ships sailed and it is possible, as I hoped, some information reached the Argentinean Armed forces.’38 Richard Deacon asserts that a former CIA man informed him that the Americans had been informed that, in November 1977, ‘the Argentines had been told every detail of the British Fleet movements . . . through two other sources upon which the Argentines relied. It was very cleverly planted by an agent of MI6.’39 Interviewed for a British Channel 4 documentary in 1992, Admiral Juan José Lombardo, commander of Argentina’s submarine force in 1977, stated that Admiral Jorge Anaya, commander of the Argentine fleet, had asked if his conventional SSKs could deal with the British SSNs. Lombardo’s unambiguous ‘No’ scuttled plans for an invasion in November 1977.40 David Owen, foreign and commonwealth secretary in 1977, later asserted that it was ‘amazing’ that the official inquiry into the origins of the war, the Franks Report, never ‘rebuffed or corroborated’ Callaghan’s statement that he had told Oldfield ‘to let his contacts in the Argentine Government know that our submarines were in the vicinity of the Falklands’.41 Owen concludes that a ‘tacit understanding’ was reached within the Franks Committee to set aside what happened in 1977 ‘despite its importance’ for assessing what happened in 1982. This arose because, the two Labour privy councillors (Harold Lever and Merlyn Rees) wanted to protect Callaghan’s reputation, whilst the two Conservative privy councillors (Anthony Barber and Harold Watkinson) had no desire to investigate whether Carrington and Thatcher had allowed the invasion to happen by failing to act as the Labour government had done in 1977.42
In 2001, Peter Hennessy wrote that, while the Franks inquiry had concluded that there was no evidence of any communication ever having been received by the Argentines, he had been informed by a source within SIS that it very likely was.43 In his official history Lawrence Freedman asserts that when he interviewed Callaghan the latter asserted that he had seen no harm in letting the Argentines knew about the general picture in 1977. In order to do this, he made a point of apprising Oldfield of the facts (in the expectation that the latter would tell the Americans who would, in turn, tell the Argentines). This, in Callaghan’s words, was done by ‘giving him a hint without actually telling him’. For his part, David Owen, told Freedman that he did not think that Oldfield had taken Callaghan’s hint as Owen himself had expressly asked for secrecy in Cabinet.44 Owen had also refused a Ministry of Defence (MoD) request to tell the US Navy about the deployment, ‘for the very reason that I knew they had close links with the Argentine Navy and I did not want Argentina to know’.45 Furthermore, Owen does not believe that Oldfield (who, as director of SIS, was nominally subordinate to the foreign secretary) would have disclosed the naval deployment without ‘at least talking to me first’. In any case, ‘[n]o evidence has ever been found that he had been either instructed by [Callaghan] or acted on such instructions’.46 Owen recently stated that, when Callaghan made these assertions in 1983, he was mistaken, possibly due to a memory lapse. Indeed, Owen stresses that there had never been any intention of letting Buenos Aires know (covertly or otherwise) about the deployment (which he stresses was ‘preventative’ not ‘secretive’).47 Owen feared that any overt show of force would have been regarded as escalating matters.48 ‘Our naval policy was [therefore] an insurance policy, it did not of itself deter.’49
Hugh Bicheno, ‘the deep cover officer at the 2-man SIS Buenos Aires station at the time’,50 writes in his history of the war that ‘Prime Minister James Callaghan’s government sent an attack submarine to the South Atlantic (under orders not to respond if attacked but to “surface or withdraw at high speed submerged”),51 but since the Argentines did not know about it until after the 1982 invasion, the gesture served no deterrent purpose whatever.’ And of Callaghan’s later claim about the deterrent value of the 1977 deployment, Bicheno observes: ‘In [March] 1982 Callaghan alleged he had used SIS channels to let the Argentines know about it in 1977. He lied.’52 In 2013, Bicheno told this author: ‘Not only can I confirm that [Callaghan’s] was an outright lie because I was there [in Buenos Aires in 1977], but even [David] Owen admitted, years later, that there was no trace of any such action on file.’ Furthermore: ‘Nobody has contradicted this, and I saw a clip of Owen on TV laughing uneasily about it and saying that he had not been able to confirm the truth of Callaghan’s allegation from the files in the FCO.’53 Regardless, Freedman notes that, after the Argentine government engaged positively with Rowlands, the Royal Navy force was withdrawn on 20 December 1977, ‘with no publicity about its mission’.
It has remained something of a curiosity in the Falklands history as a precautionary deployment that turned out not to have been needed. Because it was precautionary Argentine awareness was never essential. Indeed, it was believed to be for the best that the ships returned home without anyone being any the wiser. Once their presence had become known, supposedly serving some deterrents purpose, then the risk was that they would be stuck there for an extended period.54
When Thatcher succeeded Callaghan as prime minister in May 1979, the talks between London and Buenos Aires were deadlocked. The British affirmed a willingness to continue with negotiations but there were very real constraints on what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office could, or would, offer. As Callaghan had advised his ambassador in Argentina in 1975: ‘no British government, of whatever political complexion, would be able to reach any agreement [with Argentina] . . . over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands’. Callaghan said that this would be the case until the islanders ‘reassess[ed] where their interests lie’.55 Concurring with Callaghan, both Lord Carrington and Ian Gilmour later asserted that the on-going dispute was bad for Argentina, the Falkland Islanders and the United Kingdom.56 Thatcher, on the other hand, was quick to accuse the FCO, always suspect in any case,57 of preparing to sell-out to foreign interests.58 This suspicion was shared by many in the Conservative Party, especially on the Right. At a meeting of backbenchers to discuss the invasion of the Falklands, John Stokes MP spoke for many others when he asserted that there was a ‘smell of appeasement’ about the FCO.59 Gilmour later defensively asserted: ‘The traditional Foreign Office view of the Falklands, caricatured by its enemies as merely wanting to get rid of the Falkland Islands as soon as possible, was [in fact] based on a careful assessment of the situation.’60 Nicholas Ridley, a minister at the FCO, had warned Carrington that negotiation with Argentina was ‘the only valid option’,61 before infuriating the prime minister by proposing a leaseback solution over to the Falklands, following a visit to Buenos Aires in July 1979.62 Although Ridley had warned the Falkland Islanders, in a manner resembling Chamberlain’s treatment of the Czechoslovaks in the summer of 1938, that they could expect no help if they were invaded by Argentina,63 Gilmour later asserted that these proposals were ‘almost certainly the only way of avoiding a war’.64 Ridley had told his Argentine opposite number: ‘We had given up a third of the world’s surface and found it beneficial to do so’, believing the Falklands to be indefensible in any case. Thatcher responded coldly to the latter assertion by stating simply: ‘We could bomb Buenos Aires if nothing else.’65
In September 1979, Carrington presented the prime minister with three policy options: first, a ‘Fortress Falklands’; second, negotiations with Argentina about economic links with no discussion of sovereignty; and, third, negotiations about the substance of sovereignty. The foreign secretary favoured the latter option but, ominously, Thatcher scrawled on the file: ‘I could not possibly agree to the line the Foreign Secretary is proposing’.66 Carrington nevertheless repeatedly stressed that Argentina would, at some point, lose patience. In January 1980 the foreign secretary warned: ‘There are pressures within Argentina, some of them resulting from inter-service rivalry, which carry with them the possibility of the Argentines taking measures against the Falkland Islands which could cause us serious difficulties.’67 Carrington was, however, banging his head against a brick wall as his Cabinet colleagues had little appetite for leaseback. In a compromise that would – and could only – lead nowhere, Ridley was allowed to return to Buenos Aires.68 The leaseback proposal thus limped forward hopelessly and, on 2 December 1980, Ridley put some (rather moderate) proposals before the House of Commons stressing that although the ‘dispute is causing continuing uncertainty, emigration and economic stagnation in the islands . . . [although] we [are still] guided by the wishes of the islanders themselves’.69 Having raised the hackles of the Falklands lobby, Ridley was, predictably, denounced in the Commons; and Carrington fared little better in the Lords (although the debate was characteristically genteel there). The attacks in the Commons,70 and mirrored (albeit rather more politely) in the Lords,71 were sustained by the prime minister’s distaste for engaging in appeasement in negotiations with Argentina. The Liberal MP Russell Johnston spoke for all sides when he told Ridley that there was ‘no support at all in the Falkland Islands or in this House for the shameful schemes for getting rid of these islands which have been festering in the Foreign Office for years’. Ridley should therefore disown ‘those schemes’ and, instead, work to improve the links between the United Kingdom and the Falklands.72
Carrington thought that the Ridley initiative had been ‘right but rash’,73 and therefore required his personal intervention with the prime minister. But when he broached the subject of leaseback with Thatcher, her response was described as ‘thermo-nuclear’.74 The FCO’s insistence that meaningful negotiations on sovereignty should be pursued with Argentina ran against all of Thatcher’s instincts. FCO diplomacy therefore had very little prospect of success as its ‘pragmatism’ was effectively obstructed by Thatcherite ‘resolution’ and populist anti-appeasement. Gilmour later described these attacks as constituting ‘the silliest half hour that I ever heard in Parliament’ as ‘[t]he blimps of all parties rushed in’. Gilmour recalls that when Carrington had tried to prevail upon Thatcher in this matter she had insisted on taking it to full Cabinet – unusually for a foreign policy matter. And, since Thatcher would oppose leaseback in Cabinet, it had no chance of being accepted as policy.75 Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins commented: ‘A compromise settlement was never achieved because the British Foreign Office proved more competent at negotiation with another government than its own.’76 Stagnation now seemed the order of the day and Gilmour duly added a fourth option to Carrington’s list of diplomatic options: ‘do nothing and just hope for the best’.77 In the event this was the option that was chosen by default. Henceforth, the Thatcher government’s policy was thus one of general ‘Micawberism’, as the British ambassador in Buenos Aires commented in early 1982.78
Carrington, who resigned from the FCO (along with Richard Luce and Gilmour’s successor, Humphrey Atkins) over the invasion, wrote on 6 April that ‘the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands has been very deeply felt in this country – perhaps more deeply than any single event in our relations with the outside world for a generation. It has led to strong criticism of Government policy in Parliament and in the press. Most of this criticism has in my view been unfounded.’79 Although he told Thatcher that he had been right to resign,80 he added:
On the question of wrong signals, I will add only this. The right signals, for us and for previous British governments, were to my mind to combine a clear readiness to negotiate with an equally clear determination to defend the islands if [the] need arose . . . I think that the fundamental difference between us and previous British Governments of either party was not in the signals we were sending, but in the fact that we were faced with a Government in Buenos Aires determined on action.81
The ‘signals’ given out by the British in the years before the invasion were certainly confusing. Bicheno opines: ‘In the final analysis the most culpable accomplices were the British, because their policy of appeasement misled not only the Argentines but also the Americans into believing Britain would scuttle.’82 There is a great deal of merit in this statement. Yet it must be understood that there was a great deal of uncertainty in British policy and in Britain’s demonstration of its interests. If we see the FO/ FCO as an agent of appeasement in the years before 1982 we must, conversely, see the Falklands lobby and Parliament as an anti-appeasement counterweight. And, in the latter camp, Thatcher’s presence was decisive.
In the United Kingdom, the political weight of the domestic Falklands Islands lobby meant that the political pressure against appeasing Argentina was intense. This meant that any number of MPs were always ready to publicly denounce any prospect of ‘appeasing’ Argentina over the Falklands (the attacks on Ridley in December 1980 being a case in point). Indeed, even Gilmour, a strong proponent of negotiation, told the Commons: ‘We have many times made it clear that the interests of the Falkland Islanders are paramount, so there can be no question of a sell-out.’83 Suspicious observers nevertheless continued to ask: exactly what were the British willing to negotiate with Buenos Aires? After all, the FCO’s continued willingness to talk (and make concessions), along with certain other British government actions, looked like nothing so much as a prelude to appeasement. Callaghan was right when he later identified the decision to scrap HMS Endurance, made as part of John Nott’s 1981 defence review, and the exclusion of the Falkland Islanders from full British citizenship under the 1981 Nationality Act as both sending the wrong message to Argentina (i.e. that Britain was disinterested in the Falklands).84 For his part, Carrington resented those who opposed negotiations without advocating an effective British deterrence stance in the south Atlantic.85 As late as 24 March 1982, Carrington had pleaded with Nott for a reprieve for HMS Endurance as a ‘visible sign of our commitment’ to the Falklands.86 A month earlier, Nott had informed Carrington: ‘I see no alternative than . . . sticking to our original decision and riding out the controversy’87 and now the foreign secretary was told that the vessel’s ‘utility is marginal’ and ‘we cannot see our way to pay for her retention’.88 At the same time, and despite the concerns about the fate of HMS Endurance, the FCO insisted to certain concerned MPs that the withdrawal of HMS Endurance ‘in no way implies a diminution of our commitment to the Falkland Islands’. Ironically, it was noted that the same point should be made to the Argentine government if the matter was raised.89
In February 1982, Callaghan had protested publicly against the planned withdrawal of HMS Endurance in the Commons.90 Having staved off the threat to the vessel as prime minister, Callaghan noted that Thatcher’s statement to the effect that ‘the defence capability of that ship is extremely limited’,91 ‘showed that she did not grasp that the value of HMS Endurance was as a deterrent, a symbol that Britain would resist an armed attack, and a visible sign of British sovereignty’.92 Similarly, the last under-secretary of state for defence for the Royal Navy, Keith Speed, thought that the decision to scrap HMS Endurance ‘contribute[d] to the key events leading up to the South Atlantic conflict’.93 In 1983, the Franks Report reached a similar conclusion.
In July 1981 the British Embassy in Buenos Aires reported . . . that several Argentine newspapers had carried prominently versions of a report of an article in The Daily Telegraph on the subject. The letter reported that all the newspaper articles highlighted the theme that Britain was ‘abandoning the protection of the Falkland Islands’. An intelligence report in September 1981 quoted an Argentine diplomatic view that the withdrawal of HMS Endurance had been construed by the Argentines as a deliberate political gesture; they did not see it as an inevitable economy in Britain’s defence budget since the implications for the Islands and for Britain’s position in the South Atlantic were fundamental.94
By 1980, the Royal Navy had seriously diminished as a tool of British state policy, and the 1981 Defence Review95 would only exacerbate matters further.96 Speed had protested vehemently against the proposed cuts in the Royal Navy97 – and was sacked for his pains in May 1981.98 Thatcher’s opponents point out that, for all her heroic posturing, her ‘Finest Hour’ in the summer of 1982 had been preceded by a deliberate weakening of Britain’s defences. Gilmour, admittedly a staunch critic of the prime minister and all her works, said that Thatcher, ‘[u]nlike Chamberlain in 1937–39 . . . did not even try and prevent war taking place’.99 The Royal Navy – the frontline against any threat from Argentina – was hit particularly hard by Thatcher’s spending cuts and the first sea lord, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, asked the prime minister to pause ‘before you and your Cabinet colleagues consider a proposition substantially to dismantle that Navy’. Leach warned: ‘We are on the brink of a historic decision. War seldom takes the expected form and a strong maritime capability provides flexibility for the unforeseen. If you erode it to the extent envisaged I believe you will foreclose your future options and prejudice our national security.’100 On 8 June 1981, Leach had an audience with the prime minister.
The point he wished to emphasise most was the serious miscalculation which we would be making if we disregard the deterrent effect of major wartime capability on peacetime and even in the opening phases of hostilities. And, within this capability, it was the surface fleet which provided much of the deterrent effect, simply because it was visible . . . But if the surface fleet was cut in the way proposed, this would, in his view, unbalance our entire defence capability, and once the ships had gone, we should probably not be able to recover this century.101
On 29 March 1982, Speed had asked Nott: ‘[H]ow can we apparently afford [to spend] £8,000 million [on the Trident missile system] to meet a threat in 13 years’ time . . . when we cannot afford £3 million to keep HMS “Endurance” on patrol to meet a threat that is facing us today?’ Nott dismissively replied by simply asserting: ‘I do not intend to get involved in a debate about the Falkland Islands now. These issues are too important to be diverted into a discussion on HMS “Endurance”.’102 The Falkland Islands, it seemed, were exempt from the principles of deterrence normally so beloved of the Thatcher government. In the emergency Commons debate on 3 April, Labour’s Douglas Jay indicted the Thatcher government on two counts. First, appeasement and, second, weakening Britain’s defences.
[T]he Foreign Office is . . . saturated with the spirit of appeasement. I hope that, apart from anything else, the Foreign Office will now examine its conscience, if it has one . . . I trust that this event will put an end to the policy of unilateral disarmament of the Royal Navy, which the Government have been carrying on. Unilateral disarmament always invites aggression . . . The Secretary of State for Defence made an extraordinary statement on television last night. He said that if we took any military preparatory action it would spoil our efforts at diplomacy. Exactly the opposite is true. Diplomacy can succeed only if it is visibly supported by effective action . . . the whole history of this century has shown, if one gives way to this sort of desperate, illegal action, things will not get better, but will get worse.103
The Labour leader of the Opposition, Michael Foot, was outraged by the invasion and revisited his earlier incarnation as ‘Cato’.104
[The Falkland Islanders] have been betrayed . . . [and] the Government . . . [which] must now prove by deeds – they will never be able to do it by words – that they are not responsible for the betrayal and cannot be faced with that charge. That is the charge, I believe, that lies against them. Even though the position and the circumstances of the people who live in the Falkland Islands are uppermost in our minds – it would be outrageous if that were not the case – there is the longer-term interest to ensure that foul and brutal aggression does not succeed in our world. If it does, there will be a danger . . . but to people all over this dangerous planet.105
Foot later criticized those who attacked the war to liberate the Falklands for engaging in ‘simple appeasement’ and he, like Callaghan,106 strongly backed the campaign – although many in the Labour Party did not.107 Denis Healey, Foot’s deputy, saw that the party was divided on the issue and tried – in vain – to moderate ‘Michael’s rhetoric’ which was rooted in the fact that he saw the situation ‘as a repetition of the Nazi challenge which Britain had failed to meet in the thirties’.108 The divisions in the Labour Party provided a boon to the embattled government in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. Thatcher sought to build upon this by avoiding some of the more glaring mistakes in Britain’s postwar history. Wholly aware of the lessons of the Suez debacle (the last occasion, incidentally, that the House of Commons had met on a Saturday), Thatcher resolved to attain two prerequisites that Anthony Eden had neglected. These were first, a mandate for physical force from the United Nations (UN); and, second, the support of the United States.109 Thatcher also resolved, unlike Eden, to prepare for a military solution from the outset. After Lord Carrington had resigned the House of Commons seemed sated and the majority resolved to support the task force. Edward du Cann, a prominent Conservative backbencher, loftily declared:
Every day now is crucial, for every day that the fait accompli is accepted, the harder it will be to remove it: ask the peoples of Afghanistan, Hungary or Poland about that. The world must face the fact that if one tolerates a single act of aggression, one connives at them all . . . Let us hear no more about logistics – how difficult it is to travel long distances. I do not remember the Duke of Wellington whining about Torres Vedras.110
Thatcher now pursued a triad strategy encompassing military, political and diplomatic elements. In the last category, Britain was least diminished in terms of national power,111 and the perception that British diplomacy had managed to evade the precipitate decline suffered in the military and, more especially, the economic spheres was a widely held view. As one diplomat remarked at the UN in April 1982: ‘Britain is a Morris Minor country, but with Rolls Royce diplomacy.’112 On the evening of 3 April, Britain’s UN ambassador, Sir Anthony Parsons, duly put a draft resolution to the Security Council. This demanded immediate Argentine withdrawal from the Islands and was adopted the following day as United Nations Security Council Resolution 502 (by ten votes to one against with four abstentions).113 In addition, the United Kingdom received further political and diplomatic support from the Commonwealth, NATO and the European Economic Community (EEC).114 This provided the essential political base for any military action. Suez had taught that one must negotiate and prepare for war simultaneously (and not consecutively). On 7 April, Carrington’s successor, Francis Pym, stated:
There will be time before the task force reaches the area to do everything possible to solve the problem without further fighting. We would much prefer a peaceful settlement. We will do all we can to get one, and we shall welcome and support all serious efforts to that end. The House and the country should be in no doubt about that. But if our efforts fail, the Argentine regime will know what to expect: Britain does not appease dictators.115
Although he had prudently attached himself firmly to the anti-appeasement camp, Pym was cast very much in the British diplomatic tradition that prized compromise above all.116 David Owen reminded the Commons that faith in negotiation was, in fact, entirely in keeping with the Churchillian tradition. Owen thus hoped that Pym knew ‘that he will carry the support of all hon. Members in giving a priority to peace? He has a well-established precedent. It was Sir Winston Churchill – no appeaser – who said: “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war”.’117 Pym agreed that, naturally, ‘we want to achieve a peaceful solution’. But it was important to note that ‘Sir Winston was also a great warrior, and on occasions it does happen – and it has happened – that in order to preserve principles of freedom and democracy, if it is not possible to achieve the result by peaceful means, other methods must be used. The House must face that.’ That said, ‘so long as there is any way in which I can . . . secure a peaceful solution, that is what my endeavour will be’.118
The mood in Britain in April and May 1982 was determinedly belligerent, and would-be appeasers had to tread carefully. Maurice Macmillan, Harold Macmillan’s son, echoed his father’s opposition to Munich when he warned the Commons: ‘All democracies which negotiate with intransigent tyrants . . . at some stage have to ask the question: when does compromise become concession? At what stage does concession become appeasement? When does legitimate compromise over conflicting interests become the shameful surrender of vital principles?’119 In this vein, the newly installed foreign and commonwealth secretary, Francis Pym, was viewed by many as having been cast in the appeasing tradition within British diplomacy. In his despatch of 9 April, Haig noted that, while Nott stood squarely behind the prime minister, the same could not be said for Pym. The latter, it was noted, did ‘not share her position’ and ‘went surprisingly far in showing this in her presence’.120 (Ironically, Haig was later to make common cause with Pym on the matter of negotiations.) Thatcher herself later recalled that ‘Francis’s appointment undoubtedly united the [Conservative] Party. But it heralded serious difficulties for the conduct of the campaign itself’.121 This was due not least to the fact that Pym, a highly decorated veteran of the Second World War, was prepared to go that extra mile for peace. For Thatcher, that distance was eventually to cross the line marked ‘appeasement’.
Although the securing of UNR 502 had been important, the Thatcher government knew that, in political, diplomatic and military terms, it was the attitude of the United States that counted.122 Sir Frank Cooper, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, later recalled that ‘it was a clear case of aggression and fitted with all the American talk about democracy, so we would have been amazingly annoyed had the United States not supported [us]’. And, in order to get US support, the British government had no compunction at all about employing the analogy of Munich.123 Despite this, the Reagan administration hesitated to side with Britain as significant elements within it were concerned by the prospect of Argentina turning to the Soviet Union for support.124 The United States therefore initially sought to mediate an end to the conflict, although the majority of US politicians nevertheless harboured a strong desire to back Britain.125 The White House was certainly under no illusions as to Thatcher’s resolution. On 9 April 1982, Haig had warned Reagan:
[Thatcher] is clearly prepared to use force, owing to the politics of a unified nation and an angry parliament, as well as her own convictions about the principles at stake. Though she admits her preference for a diplomatic solution, she is rigid in her insistence on a return to the status quo ante, and indeed seemingly determined that any solution [will] involve some retribution.
In conclusion, Haig reported that ‘we got no give in the basic British position, and only the glimmering of some possibilities . . . It is clear that they had not thought much about diplomatic possibilities. They will now, but whether they become more imaginative or instead recoil will depend on the political situation and what I hear in Argentina.’126 That the Junta in Buenos Aires would be any more reasonable was the kind of wishful thinking that peace-seeking diplomats are prone to. The United States would soon have to pick a side – although this was not a straightforward task for a president who saw both protagonists as good allies against Soviet Communism. Fully aware of the importance of US support, Thatcher told Reagan that it was ‘essential that America, our closest friend and ally, should share with us a common perception of the fundamental issues of democracy and freedom that are at stake’.127 Fortunately, for the Thatcher government and the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands, the United States eventually gave staunch backing to the British. In his memoirs, Reagan states that he had no intention of letting the British down if push came to shove.128 This hardly conveys an accurate picture, however. Richard Aldous has recently provided a more nuanced view, from which it is clear that Reagan hesitated long and hard before committing the United States to the British side.129 Thatcher, a close friend of Reagan, had expected US support from the outset and took Washington’s fence-sitting personally130 (not least because it exacerbated British practical difficulties considerably).And, although the British government continued to use belligerent language, the weakness of the British military and naval position nevertheless caused her to be considerably less militant privately. Indeed, under pressure from Haig and the Americans, and less than two weeks after the Argentinian invasion, Thatcher viewed a ‘diplomatic solution’ as ‘a considerable prize’ while Pym asserted that ‘[i]t would be a remarkable achievement if this could be brought about, at a time when Britain’s military position was still weak’.131 This, naturally, encouraged Haig in his belief that he could persuade the British to come to terms.132 In this, he was mistaken. For most British diplomats, Haig was respected but not rated. Robin Renwick, Britain’s head of chancery in Washington, later said of Haig that his ‘intentions were honourable but [he] had none of Kissinger’s intellectual power, [and] had difficulty understanding that he was trying to bridge an unbridgeable gap’. When his staff reminded the British ambassador in Washington, Sir Nicholas Henderson, that Haig would quote Churchill to him (‘In Victory: Magnanimity’), the unflappable Henderson replied that Churchill had been talking about magnanimity in the context of victory having been achieved.133
On 5 April, Reagan had caused consternation in London by asserting that the United States was friends with both sides134 (a stance termed ‘unhelpful’ by Thatcher in Cabinet).135 Part of the reason for this even-handedness lay in those figures in his administration that feared alienating Latin American opinion by siding against Argentina. Chief amongst these was Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the hard-line ambassador to the UN.136 Parsons described one pro-Argentine outburst by Kirkpatrick as ‘truly grotesque’,137 while Henderson had taken a ‘public swipe’ at her for attending an Argentine banquet in Washington on the night of the invasion.138 The British naturally fretted about the influence of Kirkpatrick ‘and the “hemisphere lobby”’ in Washington,139 although Henderson’s exhausting charm offensive in Congress and on US television yielded immense benefits for the British.140 In any case, Kirkpatrick’s role was, fortunately, of very much less importance than was that of Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who provided essential matérial and intelligence support from the outset (while Reagan dithered).141 Henderson later opined: ‘It is impossible to exaggerate the contribution Weinberger made to our cause.’142 This support even extended to the US the secretary of defense offering to lend the British an aircraft carrier.143 Indeed, as soon as the task force sailed (and a full month before the administration formally declared its support for the United Kingdom) Weinberger had ‘made it clear that we would supply them with everything they needed’.144 This account, Henderson notes, ‘flatly contradicts’ Reagan’s assertion that the United States provided no military assistance to the British during April 1982 (with the exception of the use of a military communications satellite).145 Indeed, during the first meeting with Haig on 8 April, Thatcher ‘expressed appreciation for U.S. cooperation in intelligence matters and in the use of [the U.S. military base at] Ascension Island’.146 Given the inspiration for this assistance, when Thatcher thanked Reagan for the ‘magnificent support’ rendered by the US in the South Atlantic,147 she might well have singled Weinberger out (although she later termed him ‘magnificent’).148
At this juncture there were still influential individuals working to avoid war. Foremost among these persons was the British foreign secretary, Francis Pym.149 Nott later recalled that Thatcher and Pym
approached the negotiations from opposite directions, and there was a frequent clash of wills . . . [a] fundamental conflict. Francis wanted to avoid an ugly and dangerous battle at all costs . . . He had seen war himself. Moreover, on his several visits to Washington he must have been increasingly influenced by Haig and other US military opinion to the effect that the whole exercise was beyond our capability.150
Pym thus agreed with Haig that they needed a way to avoid fighting and, between them, they drew up a number of draft proposals to end the crisis. Perhaps the most serious of these, in terms of its having any prospect of success, was submitted by the foreign secretary to the War Cabinet on 24 April 1982.151 Pym asserted that these offered ‘the best chance for a peaceful solution, [and] is clearly preferable to the military alternative and should be accepted’.152 They were not welcomed by Thatcher. In her memoirs she termed the proposals ‘conditional surrender’,153 and privately told Home Secretary William Whitelaw that they were unacceptable.154 Thatcher believed that Pym had been influenced by Haig’s play ‘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 . . . We were at loggerheads.’155 Thatcher understood only too well how diplomatic language, always justified by the maxim that any proposals under consideration were in the interests of ‘peace’, could have eroded the essentials of the British position in order to attain an agreement. Of the competing, and evolving ‘peace’ plans (of which, by April 24, there had been four), Thatcher noted: ‘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.’156 Such a sharp eye for detail arose out of her well-known aversion to ‘consensus’ (although she always insisted that she had no problem with ‘agreement’).157
Thatcher knew that Haig and Pym had updated the previous proposals (of 22 April) so as to make them acceptable to Buenos Aires. It was these modifications that ‘went to the heart of why we were prepared to fight a war for the Falklands’.158 Chief among her objections were: first, how far and how fast the British task force would have to withdraw; second, that sanctions against Argentina were to be abandoned as soon as the agreement was signed; third, proposals for a ‘Special Interim Authority’ would have allowed Argentina to manipulate matters in their favour with regard to which state would ultimately hold sovereignty over the islands; and, fourth, Pym effectively accepted the Argentine position that held that the situation could not revert to that which had existed before 2 April 1982. Thatcher later mused: ‘Did Francis realise how much he had signed away?’159 Thatcher’s analysis was, largely correct, as Haig privately confessed: ‘Our proposals, in fact, are a camouflaged transfer of sovereignty’.160 Robin Renwick recently reflected:
It was a huge act of folly on the part of the Argentine military to reject these various proposals, none of which offered a prospect of a return to the status quo, and under which they would have been able to gain a role in administering the islands. They did so because, having whipped up a political frenzy in Buenos Aires, they could not face having to withdraw from the islands with no certainty of a transfer of sovereignty.161
While Argentina blustered, Pym was out-manoeuvred by Thatcher and left isolated. Nott then proposed that the government give no reply to Haig’s proposal but rather ask Haig to propose it to Buenos Aires first.162 The Argentine Junta, with even less ability to compromise than the British government, would be unlikely to accept it, and if it did the whole question could be put before parliament. In the event, the Argentines proved agreeably intransigent. But, as Thatcher later conceded: ‘I will never, ever, ever take a chance like that again. Those proposals were completely unacceptable to us and if the Argentineans had said yes we would have been in one hell of a mess.’163 A relieved Thatcher sent a message Haig stating:
This whole business started with an Argentine aggression. Since then our purpose together has been to ensure the early withdrawal by the Argentines in accordance with the Security Council Resolution. We think therefore that the next step should be for you to put your latest ideas to them. I hope that you will seek the Argentine government’s view of them tomorrow and establish urgently whether they can accept them. Knowledge of their attitude will be important to the British Cabinet’s consideration of your ideas.
Thatcher later recalled that ‘a great crisis [had] passed’. Indeed, ‘I could not have stayed as Prime Minister had the War Cabinet accepted Francis Pym’s proposals. I would have resigned.’164 Her suspicion of Pym’s negotiations with the ‘unreliable’ Haig are explained by Brian Fall, Pym’s private secretary, thus: ‘She didn’t want a Munich-like piece of paper to be produced.’165 As Pym tried, in vain, to resurrect negotiations,166 Thatcher concentrated on winning over Reagan. ‘One stage in the effort to settle this crisis has now ended. It seems to me essential that, as we enter the next stage, the US and Britain should be seen to unequivocally on the same side, staunchly upholding these values on which the Western way of life depends.’ Reagan replied that Argentina’s intransigence ‘had made it necessary to adopt a new posture towards Buenos Aires’.167 Reagan now opined: ‘I don’t think Margaret Thatcher should be asked to concede anymore.’ This stance was confirmed on 30 April by the National Security Council, where Haig warned: ‘Unless Argentina softens on sovereignty, the British will go ahead and do some damage.’168 Thatcher described that day as representing ‘the end of the beginning of our . . . campaign to regain the Falklands’.169 The Churchillian echo in this recollection is deliberate for,170 although there were to be other peace initiatives,171 the path to Thatcher’s ‘finest hour’ was now clear.
Thatcher, like Reagan an unashamed Cold Warrior,172 now played on the emotive nature of the ‘Special Relationship’: ‘I cannot conceal from you how deeply let down [we] would feel if under these circumstances the U.S. were not now to give us its full support.’173 After all, ‘the friendship between the United States and Britain matters very much to the future of the free world’.174 At home she was under strong pressure at home to resist appeasement. As Haig and Pym continued their efforts, Thatcher’s press secretary warned her in May that some of the tabloid press ‘feel there is smell of Munich in the air’.175 When Pym was attacked for his flexibility in the Commons, this only spurred the prime minister on.176 Reagan noted: ‘The P.M. is adamant . . . She feels the loss of life so far can only be justified if they win. We’ll see – she may be right.’177
On 26 May 1982, the prime minister laid bare the inexorable historical logic underlying the decision to resist Argentine aggression.
The older generation in our country, and generations before them, have made sacrifices so that we could be a free society and belong to a community of nations [that] seeks to resolve disputes by civilised means. Today it falls to us to bear the same responsibility [and] we shall not shirk it. What has happened since that day, eight weeks ago, is a matter of history – the history of a nation which rose instinctively to the needs of the occasion . . . We worked tirelessly for a peaceful solution . . . [but] there comes a point when it is no longer possible to trust the good faith of those with whom one is negotiating. Playing for time is not working for a peaceful solution . . . It is simply leaving the aggressor with the fruits of his aggression. It would be a betrayal of our fighting men and of the Islanders if we had continued merely to talk, when talk alone was getting nowhere . . . If we, the British, were to shrug our shoulders at what had happened in the South Atlantic and to acquiesce in the illegal seizure of those far-away islands, it would be a clear signal to those with similar designs on the territory of others to follow in the footsteps of aggression. Surely we, of all people, have learned the lesson of history: that to appease an aggressor is to invite aggression elsewhere, and on an ever-increasing scale?178
Four days later, Thatcher stated: ‘It used to be said by a great American politician, Dean Acheson, that Britain had lost an Empire but had not yet found a role. I believe Britain has now found a role. It is in upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live.’179 On 1 June, much to the satisfaction of the British, Reagan unequivocally identified Argentina as the aggressor.180 Weinberger’s assistance was now given a more public profile, although the United States was insistent that the degree of their commitment to Britain be downplayed so not to cause trouble for them in Latin America. Naturally, this secrecy disappointed Thatcher who wished to publicize US assistance so as to bolster Britain’s international position.181 Haig had not given up on his hopes of a negotiated settlement, however. A similarly minded Pym encouraged British ambassadors to put pressure on Thatcher to compromise on the Falklands, and persuaded the State Department to adopt a formula that would ‘internationalize’ the islands (which the vacillating Reagan espoused publicly on 3 June).182 But Thatcher had long since rejected such fudges. Towards the war’s end Thatcher brushed aside a suggestion from Foot that she might relent from demanding unconditional Argentine surrender (in order to enhance the prospects for future negotiations).
Since our landings and the losses which we have incurred it would be unthinkable to negotiate about the future of the Islands as if everything were still as it had been before. That would be a betrayal of those whom we have called upon to make such great sacrifices, even to give up their lives, because of the important principles at stake. We cannot allow the Argentines to demonstrate that they have been able to achieve progress in their attempts to impose their sovereignty over the Islands as a result of their aggression.183
In truth, Thatcher was never going to accept Foot’s plea, given that she had already refused to indulge Reagan on this score.184 With victory at hand she had told the president: ‘Britain had not lost precious lives in battle and sent an enormous Task Force to hand over The Queen’s Islands.’185 Argentina was to be humiliated; and its leaders were to be punished for their unprovoked act of aggression. After the war, the Conservative Right was keen to ensure that the FCO refrained from resorting to its appeasing ways once again. The Conservative MP Bernard Braine observed how ‘the ambivalence in the conduct of [British] foreign policy had disheartened the Falkland Islanders and encouraged the Argentines’. For Braine: ‘The tragedy is that we did not learn the lessons of our own history in time. We should have known that it is always fatal to appease the bully and shameful to let our own people down.’186 For those commentators who were looking for echoes of the past, the Falklands War evoked memories of both Chamberlain and Churchill as British diplomats and politicians had, once again, sought to appease dictators. Thatcher was fortunate that her personal distance from such irresolute approaches allowed others (such as Carrington and his team) to ‘carry the can’ while she added substance to her moniker of ‘Iron Lady’. The final element in the drama was provided by the suitably grisly nature of the opponents: a military dictatorship that had waged a ‘dirty war’ (ostensibly against left-wing terrorism) after seizing power in 1976.187 The victory in the South Atlantic thus allowed admirers of Thatcher to point out that the Falklands War had resulted in the liberation of the people of Argentina, as the defeated Junta was forced to restore democracy in 1983.
Despite the euphoria, the feeling that the Falklands had been an unnecessary war that, moreover, was not in Britain’s best interests continued to permeate sections of the FCO. Anthony Williams, the departing British ambassador in Buenos Aires, vented his frustration that Argentina had become an enemy of Britain when, he opined, there had been every chance of a ‘special relationship’ developing between the two states. Williams reflected that just as Sir Humphrey Trevelyan, ambassador in Cairo at the time of Suez (and exiled in London during the crisis), had sought – and failed – to resist unhelpful historical analogies so, too, had he been unsuccessful in this respect.
In my own displaced embassy, which I now wind up, I have had to contest (ab initio and as though I had written nothing before) the portrayal of President Galtieri as a fascist dictator decreeing the invasion of the Falklands by an arbitrary act, much as Lord Trevelyan had then to contest the portrayal of Nasser’s nationalization of the Canal on the whim of a tin pot Hitler. Let me echo him in urging that . . . there is more [now] to British relations with Argentina and Latin America than the crisis over the Falklands.
For Williams, the Falklands dispute was a tragedy: ‘But for the bursting of this festering sore of the Islands, our relations with Argentina would have been exceptional.’188 The question of whether or not relations with Argentina were ruined was, however, wholly secondary to the question of who, if anyone, was to blame for Argentina’s invasion. In April 1982, a few days after the invasion, press reports began to appear that suggested the British government had known that an Argentine attack was imminent.189 These reports, which were believed to have emanated from a British intelligence source in Argentina,190 soon faded away for lack of substance. But once the war was over Franks was, of course, fully engaged with just such questions. Gilmour thought that it was nonsensical for the Franks Report to ask, as it did, whether or not the British government could have foreseen the invasion of 2 April 1982.191 Instead, it should have asked: ‘Did the government through its actions and its inaction run an unnecessarily large risk of war being started?’ For Gilmour, ‘the answer to that question . . . is undoubtedly yes’.192 In the event, the question as to whether the British government could have known of the Argentine invasion beforehand was much reduced in the public mind by the drama and tragedy of war.
Victory greatly relieved the burdens imposed upon the government by the twin charges of neglecting the defence of the Falklands and of misreading the signals of war emanating from Buenos Aires in the spring of 1982. Carrington had carried the can for the ‘appeasers’ in the FCO. Yet, he had repeatedly warned Nott that the latter’s plan to make defence cuts, and especially to axe HMS Endurance, would have serious repercussions. ‘Any reduction [in UK defence presence in Falklands] would be interpreted by both the Islanders and the Argentines as a reduction in our commitment to the Islands and in our willingness to defend them.’193 Despite Carrington’s astute urgings, Nott would still later bemoan the fact that, in the FCO, very many ‘good men had succumbed to the appeasement, and indignity, which goes under the name of “diplomacy”’.194 In the wake of the Falklands War, Nott’s ill-conceived defence cuts were half-forgotten and, mostly, abandoned. In December 1982, the government pledged that ‘the Falklands Campaign [means that] we shall now be devoting substantially more resources to defence than had been previously planned’.195 Such decisions were taken in an atmosphere that stressed the rejection of appeasement and the lesson that aggression ‘must not pay’ and, in the general election of 1983 the so-called ‘Falklands Factor’ yielded a handsome political dividend.196 The Franks Report ensured that the triumph was completed by effectively absolving the Thatcher government of blame for the invasion. This was summed up in the infamous final paragraph of the report:
There is no reasonable basis for any suggestion – which would be purely hypothetical – that the invasion would have been prevented if the Government had acted in the ways indicated in our report. Taking account of these considerations, and of all the evidence we have received, we conclude that 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.197
Callaghan famously mocked this ending, stating: ‘[F]or 338 paragraphs, the Franks Report painted a splendid picture, delineating the light and shade. The glowing colours came out. When Franks got to paragraph 339, he got fed up with the canvas that he was painting and chucked a bucket of whitewash over it.’198 David Owen later observed that the Franks Committee had contained ‘streetwise politicians and civil servants’ who knew that the general public had little interest in apportioning blame. ‘The mood of the country was “The war’s over. We won, didn’t we?”.’ For Owen, this was ‘the best explanation for the total disjunction in the report. Its bland uncritical conclusions do not marry with the main text.’199 In his memoirs, Callaghan summed matters up thus:
Errors of omission and commission made by Ministers in administering routine matters can be shrugged off, but sterner standards apply when Ministers face great issues of public policy that result in war . . . Ministers who are confronted by evidence that is unclear, or officials who are uncertain, must be guided by their own judgement and act with foresight and dispatch. That is the ultimate test of leadership and on that count the Prime Minister and the Conservative Government is guilty.200
Early in 2013, new archival releases showed Thatcher testifying to Franks as to her total shock at the news of the invasion. This prompted Malcolm Allsop, a documentary filmmaker, to recall that, before the invasion, the British government had been trying to broker a compromise between the Falkland Islanders and Argentina as ‘the Falklands were rather a post-colonial embarrassment for Britain’. (Talks with Buenos Aires apparently included ‘a suggestion that Islanders might be paid to quit the Islands and go and live in New Zealand!) Nicholas Ridley had adopted an ‘appeasing stance’ and, when interviewed by Allsop, put up the usual noncommittal line about the Falklands. When Allsop asked Ridley what would happen when Argentina saw that the imminent elections for the ruling Falkland Islands Council would, inevitably, produce an overwhelming majority of ‘hard-line “no compromise” members’, Ridley replied chillingly: ‘There will be a war’, and left. Allsop thus concluded: ‘Mrs Thatcher may well not have known that an Argentine invasion was likely, but to believe that her Foreign Office had no idea is palpable nonsense.’201 In the wake of the Falklands victory, all accusations of any foreknowledge of Argentine intentions, as well as any suggestion of appeasement of Argentina, were, of course, denied. Foreign Secretary Francis Pym himself asserted:
All Governments were aware of the costs and difficulties of defending and sustaining the islands if negotiations were to break down . . . [they] took the view that it was not only in the British interest, but in the long-term interest of the islanders themselves, that the problem should be solved and that the dangerous consequences of the dispute should be removed. It was the only way to avoid confrontation with Argentina, which would be difficult for Great Britain and tragic for the islanders. Suggestions of appeasement are nonsense. The Government and their predecessors were guided by one essential principle: that no settlement of the dispute could be contemplated that was not in accordance with the wishes of the Falkland Islanders and of this House. That has been and remains at the heart of our policy.
Much to Pym’s relief the Franks Report either ignored or missed much that would have embarrassed the FCO.
I am particularly grateful to Lord Franks and his colleagues for disposing in such categorical terms of the myth, to which the press, even some Members of this House and others have so often subscribed, that there was in some way a ‘Foreign Office’ policy on the Falklands, based on some alleged appeasement and on disregard for the islanders, which has over the years been foisted by officials on a succession of passive and pliant Ministers. In paragraph 284 of his report, Lord Franks concludes that “this damaging allegation” is totally without foundation.202
In 1984 Tam Dayell,203 Labour’s most troublesome MP on matters pertaining to the Falklands, asked when would the government ‘make available to the public the Foreign Office file, entitled “Proposed offer by Her Majesty’s Government to reunite Falkland Islands with Argentina and acceptance of lease” from 1940, which has been withdrawn from public scrutiny’. He was told that this document would be declassified after 50 years (i.e. in 1991).204 The document was, however, later embargoed until 2015.205 Quite why such a decision was taken was baffling, given the plethora of evidence available testifying to the (regularly demonstrated) willingness of British governments to barter over the rights of the Falkland Islanders throughout the twentieth century. Perhaps Whitehall prefers to continue to dismiss any such charges as idle speculation.
Whatever the debates on the rights and wrongs of the causes of the Falklands War, Thatcher had struck a blow against the paralyzing shame imbued by the memory of the appeasement of the 1930s.206 The prime minister saw this as an essential part of the process of arresting British decline: ‘We knew what we had to do and we went about it and did it.’207 For Thatcher, the Falklands War, and not Munich, represented the dominant tradition in British history. When later challenged by Gorbachev on the legitimacy of the campaign, she proudly asserted: ‘The Falklands are a British land populated by the British. It was invaded, and we removed the invaders.’208 Britain, as John Nott later reflected, had recovered its ‘pride after the shambles of Suez’.209 Enoch Powell, returning to his question of 3 April 1982, duly pronounced Thatcher worthy of the sobriquet ‘Iron Lady’.
Is the right hon Lady aware that the report has now been received from the public analyst on a certain substance recently subjected to analysis and that I have obtained a copy of the report? It shows that the substance under test consisted of ferrous matter of the highest quality, that it is of exceptional tensile strength, is highly resistant to wear and tear and to stress, and may be used with advantage for all national purposes?210
Such hyperbole was hardly out of place in Britain in June 1982. Indeed, the outpouring of national pride that followed the victory in the Falklands War seemed to have created an atmosphere akin to the celebrations prompted by the relief of Mafeking in 1900.211 The historian Thomas Pakenham observed:
This has been a strange nostalgic experience, this old-fashioned Falkland Islands war which seems to have ended, bringing to the surface, as it did, all sorts of old-fashioned emotions like patriotism and pride. There was in Britain a sense of pulling together, of rediscovering an old cause. Most people seemed to feel, and to feel deeply, that it was a just war – quixotic but necessary, as had been such earlier conflicts as the Boer War, with which there are many striking analogies.212
Sir Nicholas Henderson, an outstanding diplomat not given to emotional outbursts, opined: ‘There had been few international issues since 1945 about which the British felt so unanimously and so strongly. If it was asked why we bothered about a mere two thousand people at the other end of the world, it was worth remembering how bitterly the Americans had felt about their fifty-two hostages held in Iran.’213 The author Frederick Forsyth was moved to write to 10 Downing Street offering to write a book on the campaign, ‘for those died down there, for those who survived, and for this country’.214 Alexander Chancellor, writing in the pro-Conservative Spectator, reflected: ‘Britain . . . looks set to be a more united and a more contented palace. This is the real cause for which so many people have died.’215 On 3 July 1982, Thatcher herself declared:
ILLUSTRATION 6.1 The Iron Lady, Boudicca of the South Atlantic. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Party Conference, Brighton, 12 October 1984. Only hours before this picture was taken the Provisional IRA had killed five in an attempt to assassinate her by bombing the hotel in which she was staying.
We have ceased to be a nation in retreat. We have instead a new-found confidence born in the economic battles at home and tested and found true 8,000 miles away. That confidence comes from the re-discovery of ourselves, and grows with the recovery of our self-respect. And so today, we can rejoice at our success in the Falklands and . . . that Britain has re-kindled that spirit which has fired her for generations past and which today has begun to burn as brightly as before. Britain found herself again in the South Atlantic and will not look back from the victory she has won.216
At the Falklands victory dinner in October 1982, Thatcher quoted the Duke of Wellington: ‘There is no such thing as a little war for a great nation’ and referred to ‘the spirit of Britain which has never failed in difficulty days’.217 Despite such highfalutin rhetoric, the shame of Munich and Suez had not been entirely exorcized; although they had entered into a new relationship with the nation’s collective memory. More precisely, they had been transformed from the root cause of many present evils into shameful past actions. Part of this process was, undoubtedly, generational, but the shared experience of the Falklands War had played its part. Henceforth, although Munich and appeasement would continue to be invoked for political ends, for the great mass of the people such instances would now be allegorical in nature rather than evidencing the moral depravity of the British state.
