Who Dares Wins

by Dominic Sandbrook

  Margaret Thatcher talked about them in the House of Commons yesterday … The Prime Minister did not speak of treason. The Sun does not hesitate to use the word …

  What is it but treason to talk on TV, as Peter Snow talked, questioning whether the Government’s version of the sea battles was to be believed?

  We are caught up in a shooting war, not a game of croquet. There are no neutral referees above the sound of the guns. A British citizen is either on his country’s side – or he is its enemy.

  What most infuriated the Sun, though, was the Mirror, a paper with ‘no faith in its country and no respect for her people’. ‘What is it but treason’, it asked, ‘for this timorous, whining publication to plead day after day for appeasing the Argentine dictators because they do not believe the British people have the stomach for a fight, and are instead prepared to trade peace with honour?’36

  The Mirror did not take that lying down. The next day, it hit back with an editorial of its own, written in a white-hot fury by Harold Wilson’s former press secretary, Joe Haines. Entitled ‘The Harlot of Fleet Street’, it called the Sun a ‘coarse and demented newspaper’ and claimed that, in falling ‘from the gutter to the sewer’, the paper was ‘to journalism what Dr Josef Goebbels was to truth’. One Labour MP, Haines noted, had called for it to be prosecuted for criminal libel, but he thought it had ‘the perfect defence: Guilty but insane.’ Instead, the best thing would be for every copy of the Sun to carry an official government announcement: ‘Warning: reading this newspaper may damage your mind.’37

  It was against this background that, two days later, the BBC’s current affairs flagship Panorama broadcast a short film by the journalist Michael Cockerell. The film explored the views of people opposed to the war, focusing on the Conservative MPs David Crouch and Sir Anthony Meyer and the Labour MPs George Foulkes and Tam Dalyell. Foulkes said it had been ‘crazy’ to send the Task Force. Dalyell asked why Britain had sold arms to Argentina for so long. Meyer, who had been severely wounded in a tank battle in Normandy, almost broke down as he talked of the deaths of his friends in the Second World War. Then up popped a journalist, based in Buenos Aires, who explained why the Argentines believed the islands belonged to them. Finally, Cockerell told the audience that among the Chiefs of Staff there had been ‘reservations from the start’ about the wisdom of the campaign.38

  Even before a headline had been printed, many people were outraged by the Panorama film. Mrs Thatcher, who saw it that evening before going across to the House of Commons, was furious, especially about the allegations of dissent among the defence chiefs. Hundreds of viewers rang immediately to complain, some waiting on the line for as long as an hour to register their fury. The next day, all the usual suspects swung into action. At the Commons, a group of Tory backbenchers put down a motion attacking the BBC’s ‘anti-British broadcasting’. The Sun, claiming to have been contacted by ‘dozens of patriots’ lambasting Panorama’s ‘“despicable” Argie bias’, inveighed against the ‘pacifists, appeasers and elitists’ who were ‘sabotaging Britain’s war against the Argentines’. And the inevitable Mary Whitehouse claimed that the ‘arrogant and disloyal’ BBC had deliberately ‘spread alarm and despondency’, a ‘treasonable offence in the last war’.39

  At Prime Minister’s Questions that afternoon, the Tory backbencher Sally Oppenheim invited Mrs Thatcher to condemn the ‘odious, subversive, travesty in which Michael Cockerell and other BBC reporters dishonoured the right to freedom of speech in this country’. ‘I share the deep concern that has been expressed on many sides,’ agreed Mrs Thatcher, adding that she knew ‘how strongly many people feel that the case for our country is not being put with sufficient vigour on certain – I do not say all – BBC programmes’. That ignited the fiercest Commons row of the war. First the Labour MP David Winnick demanded that the Tories stop their ‘constant intimidation’ of the BBC, to which Mrs Thatcher snapped that she expected the ‘case for freedom to be put by those who are responsible for doing so’. Then the ultra-patriotic Sir Bernard Braine weighed in, insisting that the BBC’s fondness for presenting ‘enemy propaganda’ was a ‘sort of treachery’.

  At that, some Tory MPs were so quick to jab their fingers at Tony Benn and Tam Dalyell that they practically fell out of their seats. Amid tumultuous booing, Dalyell leapt to his feet with a point of order. ‘Some of us who have been in the 7th Armoured Division, who have been gunner operators on tanks and many of whose contemporaries in training were shot up with the King’s Royal Irish Hussars in Korea’, he said angrily, ‘take it ill to be accused of treachery and dishonour.’ More howling and roaring followed, and with MPs leaping up, pointing fingers and waving their fists all over the House, the Speaker brought the session to a hasty close. On the way out, a group of Tory MPs cornered Sir Anthony Meyer, their faces suffused with rage. Later, Meyer recalled getting a telegram. ‘I remember you at Eton,’ it said. ‘You are a disgrace to our school, your regiment and my country.’40

  The furore over the Panorama film was one of the lowest points in the BBC’s history. In the Conservative papers, cartoonists competed to find the most damning images. The Sun had a BBC newsreader reading ‘ze latest unbiased news’ with a sombrero and Zapata moustache, while the Express showed a baffled footballer being interviewed by a BBC reporter. ‘Are you sure you want to interview me about the World Cup?’ the footballer says. ‘I’m on England’s side.’ But there was no competing with the same paper’s Michael Cummings, the unrivalled master of reactionary invective. One cartoon imagined the BBC’s ‘Traitorama’ panel during the First World War, consisting of the Kaiser, Admiral Tirpitz and Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff, with the journalist Peter Taylor in the chair. ‘If Britain admits German sovereignty over the “British” Isles,’ says Ludendorff, ‘we’ll stop the war!’41

  Whatever you think of the sentiments, this typically ferocious Cummings cartoon for the Daily Express (30 May 1982) is very skilfully done. ‘Mr Bennos Aires’ is a ruthlessly clever touch.

  The Panorama story had a bizarre coda. On 14 May the show’s presenter, Robert Kee, wrote to The Times and said that he actually agreed with much of the criticism. A former bomber pilot and prisoner of war, now a reporter and historian, Kee was a man of famously prickly integrity. But he thought the film had been edited so that it seemed to endorse the ‘minority view it was claiming to look at objectively’. His letter went down well with Mrs Thatcher, who thought it ‘very courageous’, but rather less well with his BBC bosses. Given the state of public opinion, they could not afford to sack him publicly. But when the Panorama staff said they would not work with him again, he agreed to resign.

  The irony is that, despite all the sound and fury, the fracas had little impact on the BBC’s public image. Indeed, polls found that seven out of ten thought the corporation had covered the Falklands perfectly responsibly. Even among Conservative voters, more than half thought the BBC had been unfairly criticized. And even Prince Charles, whose brother Andrew was serving with the Task Force as a helicopter pilot, went out of his way to show his support. The British media, Charles told an audience at the Open University on the day Kee’s letter was published, were ‘independent personalities’, not ‘servants of the state machine’. They ‘might get it wrong from time to time’, but ‘my goodness, you certainly can’t please everybody’. He would soon find that out for himself.42

  While Mrs Thatcher’s backbenchers raged against the enemy within, the Task Force sailed implacably towards the Falkland Islands. With every day, all-out war loomed ever larger. And for the Prime Minister herself, the mantle of a war leader was becoming increasingly comfortable. Still only 13 when the Second World War had broken out, she had always worshipped Sir Winston Churchill. Now she had been given the chance to play the great man herself, and she threw herself into the part with gusto.

  On 14 May, while Prince Charles was talking at the Open University, Mrs Thatcher addressed the Scottish Conservatives. ‘As so often in our island’s story’
, she said, the British people had been called ‘to stand for freedom and the rule of law … The task has fallen to us but our service is to all who cherish liberty.’ For too long, Britain had been ‘drifting on the ebbing tide of history, slipping inexorably backwards under pressures we somehow felt powerless to resist’. But now the nation had turned a corner. ‘Perhaps we have surprised even ourselves. And I know we have surprised all those who didn’t think we had it in us. But in these things Britain still leads the world. The love of liberty in the rule of law and in the character of our people.’

  After the chairman had thanked her, she returned to the podium. There was one more thing, she said:

  What really thrilled me, having spent so much of my lifetime in Parliament, and talking about things like inflation, Social Security benefits, housing problems, environmental problems and so on, is that when it really came to the test, what’s thrilled people wasn’t those things, what thrilled people was once again being able to serve a great cause, the cause of liberty.

  The British people, she said, did not fight ‘because they want more wages … or anything like that.’ They fought for a cause greater than themselves, because ‘we are a free country’. Some commentators were horrified, not least by that word ‘thrilled’. Her audience loved every syllable.43

  Yet despite her resounding words, Mrs Thatcher had still not closed the door on a deal. On Sunday 16th, the War Cabinet agreed a final offer to Buenos Aires. As Sir Nicholas Henderson recalled, the Prime Minister presented herself as the sworn enemy of compromise, constantly attacking the others ‘for being wet, ready to sell out, unsupportive of British interests, etc.’ Yet she actually approved far more concessions than her Scottish listeners might have expected. Under the British plan, both sides would withdraw their forces and allow the United Nations to administer the Falklands, in consultation with the locals, while the two sides discussed sovereignty. Some of her more ferocious backbenchers would undoubtedly have seen this as a sell-out, and Sir Anthony Parsons took her aside to check that she understood how much she was giving away. Even the United Nations Secretary General, the Peruvian Javier Pérez du Cuéllar, thought Britain’s proposal offered Argentina ‘a fair chance of gaining sovereignty in the Falklands’. The deadline for acceptance was 5 p.m. on 19 May. Needless to say, Mrs Thatcher did not expect the Argentines to say yes.44

  In the meantime, Northwood’s planners had been finalizing the details of the British assault. Given the strong Argentine defences around Stanley, the Chiefs of Staff had selected a site some sixty miles away: the sheltered bay of San Carlos Water, on the far side of East Falkland, which offered some semblance of protection against long-range Argentine air and naval attack. The plan called for 3 Commando Brigade to land on or just after 20 May and establish a bridgehead. Ten days later, they would be joined by reinforcements in the shape of 5 Infantry Brigade; then, moving across rough terrain, they would head for Stanley. It was not a perfect plan by any means, but it was the best available. On 12 May, Admiral Fieldhouse issued his operational order to the Task Force, and two days later the Chiefs of Staff briefed the War Cabinet.

  The moment of decision came on the morning of 18 May. One by one, Mrs Thatcher invited her military chiefs to give their thoughts. The Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Michael Beetham, was worried about the lack of air superiority, but was ‘confident that the landing forces would achieve success’. Sir Henry Leach, bullish as ever, said they should go for it. ‘If Britain hung back now,’ he said, ‘the erosion of her national standing, both in general and as regards negotiations in the present crisis, would be profound and long-term.’ Finally came the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Edwin Bramall. He too was worried about the lack of air superiority, but there was ‘now no option but to mount a landing’. If it went well, he added, ‘Britain’s status in the world, the respect shown to her and the strength and credibility of her deterrent strategy would be that much more enhanced for years to come’. After all that, there was really no doubt what the War Cabinet would do. The troops, they agreed, should land and repossess the islands as quickly as possible. The date was set for the night of 20–21 May.45

  On the night of the 18th, Mrs Thatcher worked until two o’clock and slept for barely four hours before rising to read the latest reports. In the South Atlantic, the Task Force was making its final preparations. From New York, Sir Anthony Parsons reported that the Argentines had rejected Britain’s final offer. The day went by in a series of oddly random engagements: an appearance on the Jimmy Young Show, a drink with Lord Carrington, lunch with Robert Mugabe. At 5 p.m. the British deadline expired. The next morning, the 20th, Mrs Thatcher told her full Cabinet that the troops were preparing to land. ‘All agreed,’ she said at the end, according to the Cabinet Secretary’s notes. ‘This is the most difficult time we have ever faced. Our job to stick together, and keep up morale. Total confidence in Task Force and every good wish.’46

  That afternoon, Mrs Thatcher reported to the Commons. Although she said nothing about the plan to land that night, she was in sombre mood, and there was no mistaking the tension in the air. ‘Difficult days lie ahead,’ she said, ‘but Britain will face them in the conviction that our cause is just and in the knowledge that we have been doing everything reasonable to secure a negotiated settlement.’ Britain, she added, ‘has a responsibility towards the islanders to restore their democratic way of life. She has a duty to the whole world to show that aggression will not succeed and to uphold the cause of freedom.’

  This was the sort of stuff the Commons liked. For his part, Michael Foot thought she should keep negotiating, but did not oppose the use of force and hoped any action would be as ‘swift and successful as possible’. For the SDP, David Owen wished her ‘every success. We have given her unstinting support and will continue to do so in the pursuit of honourable objectives.’ The speaker who caught the attention of the next day’s papers, though, was their old boss, Jim Callaghan, who paid a generous tribute to Mrs Thatcher for her handling of the crisis. ‘With regard to military action,’ he said – and then paused, looked at the floor and said quietly: ‘I think all that we can do at this stage is to wish our men Godspeed.’47

  There was one very bad omen for Mrs Thatcher. Somehow, in those hectic, anxious days, a press release found its way into her red box from a ‘consultant astrologer’ called Peter J. Clark. He had studied the signs and thought invading the Falklands was not a good idea at all. The Prime Minister’s chart, he wrote, indicated that she could not expect military victory and was facing ‘aggressive hostility and disarray with her colleagues’. As for her commanders, Admiral Woodward’s chart was ‘inauspicious for an invasion’ while Admiral Fieldhouse’s chart was very ‘discouraging from now until at least after August’. But General Galtieri’s chart was pretty good, at least until September.

  Any other Prime Minister would have thrown it aside unread. Mrs Thatcher read it, underlined the key words and corrected the grammar.48

  For the troops waiting in the South Atlantic, all that mattered now was to get on with it. Ever since the loss of the Sheffield, the mood had become increasingly tense, the conversations quieter, the tone more thoughtful. They knew they were very close, yet still Vincent Bramley could not ‘quite believe the war was going to happen’. On 17 May his platoon commander called his NCOs together. ‘Gents,’ he said, ‘it’s the green light.’ When Bramley told his men, they were wide-eyed with excitement. ‘This is going to be one hell of a fucking exercise,’ he said drily. Morale seemed high, but the ‘laughing and joking’, he thought, was ‘partly to cover the fear. Not that anyone thought that death was going to hit him. That was for the guy you were talking to.’49

  On 18 May the fleet sailed into the Total Exclusion Zone. The next day, the paratroopers made their final preparations before their transfer from the Canberra to the assault ship Intrepid. Then they sat in their cabin, waiting. Nobody said anything. The call came, and they joined the long line, shuffling down the grey steel corridor, th
e lights dimmed red. The door opened, and one by one they jumped into the little landing craft, bobbing in the freezing waters. Then, shivering, half soaked and carrying at least sixty pounds of gear each, they climbed on board Intrepid, already crowded with men and kit. Once again they waited. Silently, through thick white fog, the fleet sailed on towards San Carlos. At last, at midnight on 20–21 May, local time, they were in position. In Bramley’s cramped cabin, the intercom crackled into life. This was it.

  When Bramley’s section arrived in the Intrepid’s galley, it was already crowded with men, packed together like football fans at a turnstile. The tension, he remembered, was almost unbearable:

  I looked around me at the hundreds of cammed faces, all with big wide eyes. Each face told its own story. Each soldier has his own thoughts of the coming battle as the lads quietly sat about waiting. Always waiting – the story of all soldiers. Myself, I couldn’t help but think that it was still a joke and that we wouldn’t be going ashore. My stomach was in knots and the nausea was hard to control. The nervousness running through me was the worst of all. Waiting, waiting for that fucking green light …

  The green light came, and they squeezed into the Intrepid’s landing craft. After so long below decks, the first thing that hit them was the shock of the sea air. They moved towards land, the motor throbbing, bursts of tracer fire lighting up the darkness overhead. ‘Sweat ran down through my hair,’ Bramley wrote. ‘My mouth was dry with nerves. I was longing to land now, even if we had to fight.’

  The engine slowed, the ramp lowered and the paratroopers stumbled out on to a stony beach, hobbling under the weight of their kit. The Argentines were nowhere to be seen, though they soon heard planes overhead. Their officers screamed at them to keep moving, a ‘bloody hard uphill slog’. About three-quarters of an hour later, streaming with sweat, they reached their position, a little valley known as Windy Gap. It looked even grimmer, Bramley thought, than ‘Dartmoor and the Brecon Beacons put together’. They set their guns and started digging trenches. Then, with impeccable timing, it started raining. ‘It was like having a bucket tipped over us,’ he wrote. ‘We sat there, on a bloody hill thirteen thousand kilometres from home, in our wet-proofs in the rain, wind and sleet, with an air attack in progress and our trench filling with water. What a lovely war. But we were still laughing.’50