The Downing Street Years

by Margaret Thatcher

  Since the outset of the crisis the United States has not acceded to requests that would go beyond the scope of customary patterns of co-operation. That would continue to be its stand while peace efforts were under way. Britain’s use of US facilities on Ascension Island had been restricted accordingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I note that General Galtieri has reaffirmed to you his desire to avoid conflict. But it seems to me — and I must state this frankly to you as a friend and ally — that he fails to draw the obvious conclusion. It was not Britain who broke the peace but Argentina. The mandatory Resolution of the Security Council, to which you and we have subscribed, requires Argentina to withdraw its troops from the Falkland Islands. That is the essential first step which must be taken to avoid conflict. When it has been taken, discussions about the future of the islands can profitably take place. Any suggestion that conflict can be avoided by a device that leaves the aggressor in occupation is surely gravely misplaced. The implications for other potential areas of tension and for small countries everywhere would be of extreme seriousness. The fundamental principles for which the free world stands would be shattered.

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

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

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

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

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

  WEEK FOUR

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

  Decemb
er 31st 1982 will conclude the interim period during which the signatories shall conclude negotiations on modalities for the removal of the islands from the list of non-self-governing territories under Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter and on mutually agreed conditions for their definitive status, including due regard for the rights of the inhabitants and for the principle of territorial integrity applicable to this dispute …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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