24
Victory
‘I don’t think anyone else but you could have done it’
The retaking of South Georgia naturally strengthened Mrs Thatcher’s position. She herself had championed this idea, against some military doubts. Now, through courage, skill and a good deal of luck, British forces had prevailed, captured 180 prisoners and shown the world that they meant business. An opinion poll for the Economist showed that public satisfaction with the government’s handling of the situation had increased from 60 per cent to 76 per cent in two weeks. A Harris poll in the United States published on 28 April 1982 showed that 60 per cent of Americans supported Britain, compared to 18 per cent for Argentina. Nicko Henderson sent John Nott a cheery cable: ‘Cap’ Weinberger, whom he had just seen, was ‘delighted’ by South Georgia, and was already thinking about how to help Britain more ‘when the talks broke down’: ‘Weinberger had just breakfasted with two Congressmen who were wearing “I Back Britain” badges.’1* The military impetus now became ever harder to stop. The War Cabinet of 26 April, the day after the victory in South Georgia, agreed a Total Exclusion Zone round the Falklands, including aircraft as well as ships, to be announced at the end of the week. The aim was to legitimize all attacks which British forces might wish to carry out in the area and to impose, by another name, a blockade. The TEZ was intended, among other things, to close the airport at Port Stanley.
But military advance also made the handling of negotiations even more delicate. It was at this time that Mrs Thatcher noted ‘a feeling of discomfort among our own backbenchers that we might be giving up too much in negotiations’.2 On Panorama that night, she pointed out that the timing of negotiations was tight because ‘I have to keep in mind the interests of our boys.’3 This controversy about timing had surfaced in the War Cabinet the previous week. John Nott had argued that the Fleet should wait at Ascension Island and not press on to the Falklands until after Pym had returned from his discussions with Haig in Washington. By taking this view, Nott had lost much of his standing with the Chiefs of Staff, which he never fully recovered. Such behaviour led Mrs Thatcher to say: ‘He’s either pure gold, or pure dross.’4 Nott later admitted, disarmingly, ‘I was completely wrong.’5 But the argument was not just particular to that moment: it was recurrent. How could negotiations ever succeed if they could be blown out of the water by military engagements? Why, on the other hand, should military needs and servicemen’s lives ever be prejudiced by the requirements of diplomacy?
After South Georgia, the Opposition became more inclined to favour negotiations. Picking up on the Prime Minister’s statement in Parliament on 26 April that the Haig mission was in trouble, Michael Foot started to make great play with the possible peacemaking intervention of the new United Nations Secretary-General, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. Foot told her that she should take no further military steps for the time being and that if she did not give a ‘proper response’ to Pérez de Cuéllar, she would ‘inflict a grievous blow to our country’s cause’.6 Mrs Thatcher’s leaning was ever more clearly the other way: ‘I had to say in the House over and over again that no military steps were being held up because of negotiations. And they never were.’7 As we shall see, this was not always strictly true,* but it is certainly the case that, as battle approached, Mrs Thatcher saw negotiation more and more as a delaying tactic contrary to Britain’s interests, and less as a process with genuine content.
Besides, in her opinion, the recapture of South Georgia gave Britain more negotiating power. On 26 April she cabled Al Haig to suggest a ‘simpler approach’.8 Why not get Argentina to agree to the first two points of Resolution 502 – the cessation of hostilities and immediate withdrawal – and then settle down to discuss the third point – a diplomatic solution? The United States could give a military guarantee, and then, Mrs Thatcher promised, she would halt the advance of the Task Force. There was no chance of this happening. The recapture of South Georgia had, of course, enraged the Argentines. In particular, it had brought down upon the United States the Latin American anger that Haig and others had always feared. Indeed, in many Latin American countries, irritation with the United States now trumped resentment towards Britain. Argentina suspected collusion between Britain and America over South Georgia and cancelled the planned meeting between Costa Méndez and Haig. When Haig addressed the Organization of American States in Washington on 27 April, he was icily received.* This meant that he did not fly to Buenos Aires as planned, which was probably lucky from the British point of view. He finally presented his proposals to Argentina via the US Ambassador on the morning of 27 April, demanding a definitive answer by midnight, Buenos Aires time. This was not forthcoming. Nor was there an answer the following day. The British government now became extremely nervous. Even Francis Pym, who wanted a settlement, warned Haig, via a cable to Henderson, that if the Argentines accepted, ‘the political situation here will be extremely difficult to handle and we will need time …’9 When the full Cabinet met on the morning of 29 April, Haig was still permitting Argentine delay. The mood of the Cabinet was very unhappy. Pym told colleagues: ‘It is disturbing that his [Haig’s] resolution to come off the fence on our side seems to be ambivalent.’10 Without an American ‘tilt’ or an Argentine answer, would Britain be forced to state its unfavourable view of the document itself? Havers warned that paragraph 7 of the Haig document contained ‘deadly words’ which removed the Falklands’ status as British self-governing territories. Lord Hailsham relayed some gossip: ‘Lady Avon [the widow of Anthony Eden, Prime Minister during the Suez crisis] said that [Henry] Kissinger said to her that British were not aware of danger of Socialist Govt in Arg.’ Hailsham argued that ‘US have to understand that they are in danger of undermining US–UK relationship … this has demonstrated that they are playing along just as they did at Suez.’ Nott urged the Cabinet not to reject the proposals but to continue, as he had suggested before, to leave the ball in Argentina’s court – it would reject them. The Cabinet agreed that the Prime Minister, without formally or publicly rejecting the proposals, should tell the President that they were unacceptable, and that Argentina’s failure to reply by the deadline meant that it had, in effect, rejected them.
Mrs Thatcher wrote to Reagan accordingly. She also reminded the President of his administration’s promise of public support for Britain and went on: ‘I cannot conceal from you how deeply let down I and my colleagues would feel if under these circumstances the US were not now to give us its full support … the US and Britain should be seen to be unequivocally on the same side, staunchly upholding those values on which the Western way of life depends.’11
In the US administration there was by now broad agreement that the Haig process had to end. There was also overwhelming support for Britain in the Senate, which, on the same day, passed by 79 votes to 1 (the one being Jesse Helms) a resolution calling for the implementation of Resolution 502 ‘to achieve full withdrawal of Argentine forces from the Falkland Islands’. President Reagan knew how opinion stood, and was worried about growing hostility to the United States in Britain, particularly as he was due to pay an official visit there in June. It was time to keep his promise to Britain. Before replying to Mrs Thatcher’s letter, he at last received the Argentine rejection, predicted by Nott, of the Haig terms. He wrote to Mrs Thatcher to tell her this, and said:
I am sure you agree that it is essential now to make clear to the world that every effort was made to achieve a fair and peaceful solution, and that the Argentine Government was offered a choice between a solution and further hostilities. We will therefore make public a general account of the efforts we have made. While we will describe the US proposal in broad terms, we will not release it because of the difficulty that might cause you. I recognise that while you see fundamental difficulties in the proposal, you have not rejected it. We will leave no doubt that Her Majesty’s Government worked with us in good faith and was left with no choice but to proceed with military action based on the right of self-defence
.12
Mrs Thatcher quotes this passage in her memoirs, and in her manuscript account she wrote: ‘The President, Al Haig and we believe Mr Weinberger were magnificent … From then on he, Haig and Weinberger couldn’t do enough for us.’13 Neither of her accounts quoted the rest of Reagan’s letter: ‘it is as important as ever that we preserve the ground for a negotiated solution. While it may be possible forcibly to remove Argentine forces, the future will be fraught with instability, animosity, and insecurity if a mutually acceptable framework for peace is not found. Therefore, we should continue to work for a just peace. For our part, we will make clear that we stand ready to assist the parties toward this end …’14 It was a clear signal that negotiation was not necessarily finished and that American support for Britain did not mean the automatic endorsement of British use of force. This was not a welcome message for Mrs Thatcher, and so she tried to exclude it from her mind at the time and, later, from her memory.
On 30 April, the day after Reagan’s letter, the NSC met to consider just how far the US would tilt in Britain’s favour and how this would be presented publicly. The discussion was a cautious one. Argentina’s intransigence notwithstanding, Haig insisted that ‘we do not want to close the door on diplomacy.’15 The dilemma, as he saw it, was to respond to growing pressure to support Britain, without alienating Argentina altogether. He feared the rise of a left-wing, Peronist regime and was concerned about reprisals against Americans living in Argentina. ‘Therefore, the Secretary said, we need to be careful in how we raise our tilt.’16 Mrs Thatcher ‘wants more than we can give’, he warned, before adding with misplaced optimism, ‘but she does understand the need for a negotiated solution.’17*
Reagan said little during the NSC meeting, but approved the cautious tilt proposed. Later that day Haig presented this publicly, announcing matériel support for Britain and economic measures against Argentina, such as the suspension of all military exports. Haig did not mention that officials had also been instructed to issue ‘a private warning to Argentina that the measures announced do not encompass the full range of economic sanctions which the US has at its disposal and which could be applied depending on circumstances’.18 US sanctions were considerably less harsh than those imposed on Argentina by the EEC. ‘We should recognize that while these actions are necessary elements of our position of support for the UK none of them will have significant material effect on Argentina,’ noted an NSC briefing paper.19 Reagan also went public in support of the tilt, but in doing so used a phrase which hinted at a certain disdain for the whole business: ‘we must remember that the aggression was on the part of Argentina’, the President told reporters, ‘in this dispute over the sovereignty of that little ice-cold bunch of land down there.’20 He was so concerned not to lose his Latin American friendships that on 2 May he sent a message to many OAS leaders which appeared sympathetic to the Argentine claim to sovereignty over the Falklands and ‘its frustration of long years of fruitless negotiations’. He said that ‘no American believes that colonisation by any European power is to be accepted in this hemisphere’.21 This made Mrs Thatcher so angry that when she had the American Ambassador to lunch at Chequers the following weekend, she tore out the relevant section of the telegram she had received on the subject and thrust it into his hand.22
Mrs Thatcher was immensely relieved by the Argentine rejection and the consequent American shift. Cecil Parkinson remembered: ‘I had a chat with Margaret after the Haig proposals were rejected by Argentina. She said, “I will never, ever, ever take a chance like that again. Those proposals were completely unacceptable to us and if the Argentinians had said yes we would have been in one hell of a mess.” It was a gamble and it worked.’23 As it turned out, Mrs Thatcher would take some other, equally big chances in the weeks ahead.
Mrs Thatcher had been planning to spend the weekend which began on 30 April 1982 at Milton Hall, the enormous Fitzwilliam family house on the edge of Peterborough which belonged to Lady Hastings, wife of one of her strongest supporters, Stephen, MP for Mid Bedfordshire. The Falklands crisis prevented her from staying the whole weekend, but she was always punctilious about keeping appointments, and so she still addressed the planned rally in Hastings’s constituency, and then stayed the night at Milton. With the Argentine rejection and the American tilt known, Mrs Thatcher felt liberated. Her speech to the huge crowd of supporters (‘The largest marquee I have ever seen’)24 was imperial in tone. She invoked her beloved Kipling, recalling an essay she wrote at school to mark his death in 1936. She spoke of ‘might, right and majesty’. She praised the British monarchy, and declared, ‘We still have the right, and we’re not half bad when it comes to the might either.’ The Falklands proved that ‘the unexpected always happens’ and this included the reappearance of ‘a fantastic pride of country’. She traced a great tradition back through Churchill, Disraeli and Peel – ‘the way the thread of history runs’ – and came up with an answer to Dean Acheson’s endlessly repeated quotation that Britain had lost an empire and not 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.’25 These were large, almost hubristic claims to make,* but they fitted the mood of her audience and her own inner feelings: ‘I was given a rousing reception – but more than that. It was a very emotional time – Britain was being tested and the odds of weather and distance were difficult to overcome. And yet no one had any doubt we could and would win through. The responsibilities on one’s shoulders were enormous.’26 Mrs Thatcher knew, as she spoke, that the next military venture was under way. When she wrote of the ‘odds of … distance’, she was thinking in particular of the problems of flying from Ascension Island to the Falklands. The RAF had decided to overcome these by the dangerous procedure of mid-air refuelling. On the night of the 30 April, it sent two Vulcan bombers, one of which had to turn back, supported by five mid-air refuellings, to bomb the runway at Port Stanley, the first British attack on the Falkland Islands themselves. The Royal Navy despatched nine Sea Harriers to attack other targets. Argentina also launched a major attack on British ships that day. Mrs Thatcher dined and slept at Milton, her romantic spirit revelling in ‘that most beautiful ancestral home’.27* At the large formal breakfast the next morning, she was summoned from the table to the telephone. ‘Everything all right, Prime Minister?’ asked Lady Hastings somewhat tactlessly when she returned.28 ‘The Vulcans had bombed Stanley,’ Mrs Thatcher recalled. ‘… I could not tell my hosts.’29 After breakfast, she drove to Chequers, and in the early afternoon was informed that the Vulcans had returned safely to Ascension. The Sea Harriers, too, came back from their mission intact. In a broadcast which became an emblem both of accurate war reporting and of good news, the BBC’s Brian Hanrahan reported: ‘I counted them all out and I counted them all back.’ As it turned out, the first was the most successful of all the raids that the RAF carried out on the airfield at Port Stanley. Later raids failed to inflict serious damage.† But the knowledge that British aircraft could reach the Falklands and return from them successfully was of immense propaganda and military importance.
During the night of 1 to 2 May, intercepts picked up Argentine naval plans. An intelligence summary was sent to the Task Force: ‘it is believed that a major Argentine attack is planned for 2 May. BELGRANO is deploying to a position 54.00S 060.00W to attack targets of opportunity S of the Falkland Islands.’30 The Task Force Commander, Rear Admiral John ‘Sandy’ Woodward, on board the carrier Hermes, was alarmed. He knew that an Argentine group led by Argentina’s only aircraft carrier, the 25 de Mayo, was seeking to attack the British fleet, perhaps in a dawn strike, and he feared that the Belgrano, a cruiser, accompanied by destroyers carrying Exocet missiles, supplied by France, was leading a pincer movement to help effect this: ‘In exercises the previous year Woodward had shown that it was possible to get a destroyer close enough to a fully prepared American carrier to fire four Exocets. He did not want his own carrier to suffer the same fat
e.’31 It was a given of the conflict, accepted by all the main British players, that the loss of their two carriers before the assault – perhaps the loss of only one of them – would deprive the Task Force of the necessary air-cover, and so be fatal to the British cause.32 Nothing, therefore, was more important than to prevent such an attack. Following a War Cabinet decision made on 30 April, the Rules of Engagement had already been changed to allow the Task Force to attack the Argentine carrier even if it was outside the TEZ: the carrier could move 500 miles a day and her aircraft 500 more. Her escorts were carrying Exocets. The danger to the Task Force was considered such that the British were planning to attack the 25 de Mayo as early as possible, under cover of Article 51 of the UN Charter, the article justifying self-defence. To date, however, the carrier had evaded detection. The Belgrano, on the other hand, was being successfully shadowed by the submarine Conqueror. The problem for Woodward was that the changes made to the ROE for the carrier did not apply to the Belgrano. While the cruiser stayed just outside the TEZ, she would remain safe from attack. Frustrated that he could do no more to thwart the impending Argentine pincer movement, Woodward purposely ignored the ROE and, early in the morning of Sunday 2 May, he ordered Conqueror to sink the Belgrano. Woodward had no authority to do this, and so, as he knew would happen, the order was rescinded at the Joint Headquarters at Northwood. But the effect of his action was to bring the issue immediately before the Chiefs of Staff. As Woodward wished, the Chiefs quickly agreed to ask the War Cabinet to extend the altered ROE to all Argentine ships, submarines and auxiliaries outside the TEZ.
Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography Page 95