The Prime Minister reacted badly. She was not going to consider further diplomacy. She interrupted the President before he had begun to explain what his plan might be. ‘This is democracy and our island’, she declared, ‘and the very worst thing for democracy would be if we failed now.’
‘Yes …’ began Reagan, only to be interrupted again before he had opened the sentence.
‘Ron, I’m not handing over’, blazed Margaret Thatcher. ‘I’m not handing over the island now. I can’t lose the lives and blood of our soldiers to hand the islands over to a contact [group]. It’s not possible.’
‘Margaret, but I thought that part of this proposal …’
‘You are surely not asking me, Ron, after we’ve lost some of our finest young men, you are surely not saying, that after the Argentine withdrawal, that our forces, and our administration, become immediately idle? I had to go to immense distances and mobilise half my country. I just had to go.’
‘Margaret, I …’
‘I wonder if anyone over there realises, I’d like to ask them. Just supposing Alaska was invaded? Now you’ve put all your people up there to retake it and someone suggested that a contact could come in … you wouldn’t do it!’
‘No, no, although, Margaret, I have to say I don’t quite think Alaska is a similar situation.’
‘More or less so’, she snapped back.
‘Yes, well … Well, Margaret, I know that I’ve intruded and I know how …’13
As the call ended it was clear that the President of the United States had been driven into stumbling silence by the irresistible force of Margaret Thatcher. ‘He came off sounding even more of a wimp than Jimmy Carter’,14 was the comment of NSC aide, Jim Rentschler, who had been listening to the call. Reagan’s presentation had been so inadequate that it was far from clear to the listeners on the hot-line in No. 10 what the American proposal had actually been. When the Cabinet Secretary, Robert Armstrong, later sought clarification from Admiral Pointdexter, the Deputy National Security adviser said, chuckling: ‘Well, we won’t try that again! You see, we had a disagreeable message to convey to you Brits and, because it was disagreeable, we thought it had better be delivered by the President to the Prime Minister personally. Unfortunately, the President wasn’t able to get a word in edgeways!’15
In the immediate aftermath of the hot-line call, Margaret Thatcher was in a furious temper. She called the British Ambassador in Washington, Sir Nicholas Henderson, to berate him for not giving her proper warning about what Reagan was going to say. She was indignant about the President. She kept repeating that she was ‘dismayed by his attitude’ and ‘most upset’.
‘We have lost a lot of blood and it’s the best blood’, Margaret Thatcher expostulated. ‘Do they not realise that it is an issue of principle? We cannot surrender principles for expediency.’ She ended by denouncing the President’s call as, ‘pure Haigism’.16
In fact, this was a time when US policy towards the UK over the Falklands was neither pure nor clear. It was more like ‘duck soup’, a phrase from a Marx Brothers movie that Alexander Haig had applied to the confused military situation on the Islands. It might just as well have been used to describe the confused state of play in Washington.
The Pentagon, under the Anglophile Caspar Weinberger, was being extraordinarily helpful to Britain’s armed forces. So was the CIA in providing invaluable signals intelligence (SIGINT) from Argentina. However, in the State Department’s offices at Foggy Bottom there was just fog, thickened by feuding and miscommunication of the key foreign-policy players of the administration, Alexander Haig, Jeane Kirkpatrick and the President’s National Security Adviser, Judge William P. Clark. Their difficulties were set to get worse. Thatcher and Reagan were scheduled to meet again after their non-dialogue on the hot-line, at the G7 summit at Versailles. The Prime Minister, preparing for the encounter, told Sir Nicholas Henderson that she would be very reasonable in her conversation with the President, ‘provided I get my way’.17 She did.
Before she met the President of the United States, Margaret Thatcher made a final effort to communicate with the President of Argentina. On 2 June, the day on which she flew to Paris to attend the G7 meeting, she drafted a telegram to General Galtieri:
I am sending you this personal message because I want to be sure that you fully understand the situation and the choice which now faces your country, your government and yourself.
The decisive battle in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) is about to begin. With your military experience you must be in no doubt as to the outcome. In a few days, the British flag will once again be flying over Port Stanley. In a few days also, your eyes and mine will be reading the casualty lists. On my side, grief will be tempered by the knowledge that these men died for freedom, justice, and the rule of law. And on your side? Only you can answer that.18
This eloquent draft message, for some unknown reason, was never sent. If it had been delivered, the moral clarity of the Prime Minister would have been unlikely to elicit a comparable reply from the confused and chaotic leadership in Buenos Aires. Nor was it yet clear whether the leadership of the United States had seen the issues of the Falklands in the same stark right versus wrong terms that were being so bluntly stated to Galtieri.
There were no note-takers or officials present at the one-on-one meeting that took place between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the US Ambassador’s residence on the rue du Faubourg St Honoré on Thursday 3 June. But the important result was that Reagan came to recognise that there would be no movement from Britain about a cease-fire, let alone a settlement, on the Falklands until after the recapture of Port Stanley. So the President reaffirmed his support for the Prime Minister, thus causing intense irritation to Alexander Haig who reportedly flew into a rage, threatening to resign.
It was not the only problem the US Secretary of State was having in Paris. At the United Nations, a resolution had been tabled in early June by Panama and Spain calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Falklands. It came to the vote on Friday 4 June. Britain vetoed it. So did the United States. But seconds after the vote, US Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick announced she had voted the wrong way. In Paris, Alexander Haig had changed his mind and decided to abstain on the resolution. But this instruction reached Mrs Kirkpatrick too late, as she explained to incredulous reporters at the UN. ‘You don’t understand it? I don’t understand it either’, she declared on the record.19
This American ineptitude looked even worse when members of the press asked President Reagan about the volte-face at the UN, just as he was sitting down to lunch, next to Margaret Thatcher, at the Palace of Versailles. As he had not been briefed on the flip-flop of Jeane Kirkpatrick in New York, the President offered the lame response, ‘You’ve caught me a long way from there’. Margaret Thatcher, astonished by the President’s ignorance, was more skilful at not explaining the inexplicable as the reporters tried to question her. ‘I do not give interviews over lunch’, she grandly retorted, making it sound like she was upholding the rules of social etiquette.20
In any case she had more pressing military issues on her mind. Having seen off the American, G7 and UN pressures for a cease-fire with considerable determination she was now awaiting the final push of British forces towards the recapture of Port Stanley and the Falkland Islands.
VICTORY
It took some fierce fighting on the Islands before the mission could be accomplished. During the last week of the conflict, Margaret Thatcher had to rely mainly on the radio for news as she continued her resolve not to telephone the HQ at Northwood while the battle was under way.
Some of the news was tragic. The landing ship Sir Galahad, carrying troops and munitions, was attacked by Argentine Skyhawks killing fifty-one servicemen (mostly from the Welsh Guards) and injuring forty-six others, many with terrible burns. The Prime Minister heard about the Sir Galahad disaster as she was welcoming President Reagan to Britain. His visit, which included a horse ride with the Queen at Windsor and an addr
ess to both Houses of Parliament, passed off smoothly and ceremoniously. But the differences over Falklands diplomacy had left rifts in the ‘special relationship’, which took later efforts by both the President and Prime Minister to heal.*
After Reagan’s departure, Margaret Thatcher presided over the last meeting of the war cabinet before the final push on Port Stanley began on Friday 11 June. The military decisions about the assault’s timing and method were left entirely to the land forces commander, Major-General Jeremy Moore. The next day the Prime Minister, dressed in black, watched a rain-soaked Trooping of the Colour on Horse Guards’ Parade. ‘There was so much to mourn’, was how she put it as the latest casualties were weighing heavily on her mind.21
After the Trooping, she gave a lunch party for some thirty children of her personal 10 Downing Street staff. Apart from their parents, only a handful of adults were present, including John Nott and Rex Hunt, the deposed Governor of the Falklands. Nott asked his hostess who had prepared the lunch. ‘Oh, I did’, replied the Prime Minister. ‘I stayed up late last night to put a meal together.’22 Even in the middle of a war, Margaret Thatcher found the energy to be kind and hospitable to the families of her inner circle of staffers.
Later that afternoon, she drove to Northwood to be briefed on the early stages of the battles around Port Stanley. She learned that after meeting some fierce resistance, British forces were achieving all their military objectives. By the following morning, the Argentine conscripts were retreating in large numbers. When the war cabinet met on Monday 14 June, ministers were startled by the speed of the enemy’s collapse. Their defeat was now a certainty. Margaret Thatcher’s preoccupation for the next few hours was when and how to announce it.
Since the Falklands War had effectively begun in the House of Commons, and since many of its most dramatic moments had unfolded there, she took the decision to declare victory in the same arena. In order to make this declaration a total surprise, she instructed that throughout the day all military information from the Islands was to be kept under a strict embargo of secrecy.
Even though the final surrender terms had not been signed in Port Stanley, the Prime Minister arrived at Westminster around 9.30 p.m. on the night of 14 June to prepare to deliver her unscheduled announcement to the House. So unexpected was her arrival that she found her room locked. She had to hang around in the corridors for several farcical minutes until the Chief Whip’s assistant, Murdo Maclean, could find a spare key.
Once admitted to her office, she wrote out her own speaking note which had to begin with the words, ‘On a point of order, Mr Speaker’. Under an archaic rule, this was the only way she could intervene in the proceedings of the House at that hour. No one was expecting a dramatic prime ministerial intervention after a routine 10 p.m. division. Many MPs were heading for their cars and their beds, until the whips passed the word round that there was going to be a statement on the Falklands after the vote. ‘What is it about?’ was a frequent question in the lobbies. Although it was known that the military operations were going well, the general expectation among MPs was that there would be several more days of fighting before the Islands were recaptured.
At 10.12 p.m., Margaret Thatcher rose from her place on the front bench and said:
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I give the House the latest information about the battle of the Falklands? After successful attacks last night, General Moore decided to press forward. The Argentines retreated. Our forces reached the outskirts of Port Stanley. Large numbers of Argentine soldiers threw down their weapons. They are reported to be flying white flags over Port Stanley. Our troops have been ordered not to fire except in self-defence. Talks are now in progress between General Menendez and our Deputy Commander, Brigadier Waters, about the surrender of the Argentine forces on East and West Falkland. I shall report further to the House tomorrow.23
Immediately, there were gasps of astonishment, followed by a roar of cheering, stamping and waving of order papers. At first, the enthusiasm seemed to be coming mainly from the Tory benches. But Michael Foot, as Leader of the Opposition, quickly made the celebrations universal, with a generous tribute to the British forces, ‘and, if I may say so, to the right Hon. Lady’.24
A mere seventy-two days after the tempestuous debate at the nadir of Britain’s Falklands shame, the House of Commons was united in celebrating our Falklands victory. It was a momentous parliamentary occasion. The cheers rolled on and on, fuelled by a combination of surprise, relief and heartfelt rejoicing.
A few moments later, we all tumbled joyfully out of the chamber. I bumped into Alan Clark and slapped him on the back, congratulating him on his many robust speeches and broadcasts throughout the crisis. ‘Don’t suck up to me’, he said. ‘Come on, let’s see if we can blow a kiss to the Lady.’ With that, we both legged it through the aye lobby corridor to the back of the Speaker’s chair, where Margaret Thatcher was just emerging surrounded by a crush of ministerial acolytes. ‘Hear, hear, hear!’ I boomed in her direction from three yards away. Her face lit up with a golden smile.
Alan Clark got even closer. He was far bolder and almost passionate in his compliments. ‘Prime Minister only you could have done this’, he began. ‘Your place in history is assured.’ He tilted his upper body and knees forward in a cross between a bow and a genuflection.
‘If you’d been wearing a cloak you’d have thrown it on the ground in front of her’, I teased him afterwards.25 Clark was right to seize his moment for praising her. He reflected the mood of the House and of the country.
The festive mood continued in the Prime Minister’s room in the Commons. The key politicians in the war cabinet, along with Robert Armstrong, Antony Acland and Admiral Lewin, assembled there. Denis Thatcher poured out generous libations of champagne. Willie Whitelaw proposed a toast. ‘I don’t want to make a speech, but I do want to congratulate you, Margaret’, he began. ‘I don’t think any other politician in the country would have done what you decided to do, to embark on this enterprise and to bring it to a successful conclusion.’26 The Prime Minister was too overcome to reply. Her tears may have been tears of joy, but they were surely mingled with tears of relief. The Falklands War had been won but, as the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo, ‘It was a damned close run thing’.27
REFLECTION
The Falklands War will go down in history as Margaret Thatcher’s finest hour. She well deserved the acclaim she received for her constitutional propriety, her commitment to redeeming Britain’s national honour and her personal courage.
The constitutional arrangements were impeccable. Later in her time as Prime Minister, she was sometimes accused of riding roughshod over her cabinet, failing to respect Parliament and even of running an ‘elective dictatorship’.† None of these criticisms could be applied to her conduct of the conflict. She set up the right form of governance. The small war cabinet sought authority on all major decisions from the full cabinet. The civil and military sides of the administration worked in harmony. The advice of the Chiefs of Staff was always followed. The reporting to Parliament was punctilious.
Margaret Thatcher’s constitutional propriety in leading the Falklands War contrasts sharply with Tony Blair’s much-criticised ‘sofa government’ – his alleged manipulation of small groups of ministers during the Iraq War, twenty-one years later.
From the beginning the Falklands conflict was fought with a remarkable degree of parliamentary and public approval. Margaret Thatcher tapped into those feelings with an instinctive sense that national honour was the real prize at stake. Once the task force had sailed she realised, almost alone among the country’s senior politicians, that there could be no going back without the recapturing of the Islands by military force. She read the minds of the junta in Buenos Aires far more clearly than various American, UN and British diplomats. They earnestly hoped that reasonableness and willingness to compromise would prevail. She understood that these hopes had no chance of being fulfilled.
Even with tha
t understanding, it took immense courage on the part of the British Prime Minister to keep saying ‘No’ forcefully to the well-meaning if muddled peace seekers; particularly Haig, Pym and assorted intermediaries.
If her diplomatic steadfastness was remarkable, it was matched by her unflinching willingness to accept the military risks. If a British aircraft carrier had been lost, the whole operation might have been regarded as a failure, and her resolution would have been condemned as recklessness.
Did her determination show a courage that could only have been displayed by a woman? Her Defence Secretary, John Nott, thinks so.
This was undoubtedly a woman’s war. Margaret Thatcher did not have any traces of men’s hesitancy. She had made up her mind to get the Falkland Islands back, to avenge our national dishonour. I cannot think of any recent male Prime Minister – Macmillan, Heath, Callaghan – who would not have sought a settlement. Margaret only pretended to do this. She went along with the diplomatic games played by Haig and company because to win she had to be seen to be trying diplomacy. But once faced with the crisis, she shut her mind to the risks of conducting such an operation 8,000 miles away. Her refusal to compromise was instinctive and un-masculine.28
The instincts of the Prime Minister were not without a maternal dimension. During the battle she revealed a tearful softness over casualties. Before the hostilities began, she ‘was hugely concerned over the individual deaths of servicemen, that she knew would happen’, recalled Cecil Parkinson. ‘Her abiding preoccupation was that losses must be kept to the minimum.’29 But once that preoccupation had been made clear to the military, she never wavered.
Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality Page 47
