Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography

by Margaret Thatcher

  While I was at Cancún I also had a separate meeting with Julius Nyerere, who was, as ever, charmingly persuasive, but equally misguided and unrealistic about what was wrong with his own country and, by extension, with so much of black Africa. He told me how unfair the IMF conditions for extending credit to him were: they had told him to bring Tanzania’s public finances into order, cut protection and devalue his currency to the much lower level the market reckoned it worth. Perhaps at this time the IMF’s demands were somewhat too rigorous: but he did not see that changes in this direction were necessary at all and in his own country’s long-term interests. He also complained of the effects of droughts and the collapse of his country’s agriculture – none of which he seemed to connect with the pursuit of misguided socialist policies, including collectivizing the farms.

  The process of drafting the communiqué itself was more than usually fraught. An original Canadian draft was in effect rejected; and Pierre Trudeau left it largely to the rest of us, making clear that he thought our efforts rather less good than his own.

  The summit was a success – though not really for any of the reasons publicly given. What mattered to me was that the independence of the IMF and the World Bank were maintained. Equally valuable, this was the last of such gatherings. The intractable problems of Third World poverty, hunger and debt would not be solved by misdirected international intervention, but rather by liberating enterprise, promoting trade – and defeating socialism in all its forms.

  Before I left Mexico, I had one more item of business to transact. This was to sign an agreement for the building of a huge new steel plant by the British firm of Davy Loewy. Like other socialist countries, the Mexicans wrongly thought that large prestige manufacturing projects offered the best path to economic progress. However, if that was what they wanted, then I would at least try to see that British firms benefited. The ceremony required my going to Mexico City. I stayed at the residence of the British Ambassador, Crispin Tickell. While I was there at dinner the chandeliers started swinging and the floor moved. At first I thought that I must have been affected by the altitude, but I was reassured by our ambassador: ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s just an earthquake.’

  Other earthquakes were sending out tremors that year. Before I left for my international visits, I had been all too aware of the significance for the Cold War of the stationing of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. If it went ahead as planned the Soviet Union would suffer a real defeat; if it was abandoned in response to the Soviet-sponsored ‘peace offensive’, there was a real danger of a decoupling of Europe and America. I saw it as Britain’s task to put the American case in Europe since we shared their analysis but tended to put it in less ideological language. And this we did in the next few years.

  But there was a second front in the Cold War – that between the West and the Soviet-Third World axis. My visits to India, Pakistan, the Gulf, Mexico and Australia for the Commonwealth Conference brought home to me how badly the Soviets had been damaged by their invasion of Afghanistan. It had alienated the Islamic countries en bloc, and within that bloc strengthened conservative pro-western regimes against radical states like Iraq and Libya. Traditional Soviet friends like India, on the other hand, were embarrassed. Not only did this enable the West to forge its own alliance with Islamic countries against Soviet expansionism; it also divided the Third World and so weakened the pressure it could bring against the West on international economic issues. In these circumstances, countries which had long advocated their own local form of socialism, to be paid for by western aid, suddenly had to consider a more realistic approach of attracting western investment by pursuing free market policies – a small earthquake as yet, but one that would transform the world economy over the next decade.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Falklands War: Follow the Fleet

  The attempts by diplomacy and the sending of the task force to regain the Falkland Islands – to the end of April 1982

  NOTHING REMAINS MORE VIVIDLY in my mind, looking back on my years in No. 10, than the eleven weeks in the spring of 1982 when Britain fought and won the Falklands War. Much was at stake: what we were fighting for eight thousand miles away in the South Atlantic was not only the territory and the people of the Falklands, important though they were. We were defending our honour as a nation, and principles of fundamental importance to the whole world – above all that aggressors should never succeed and that international law should prevail over the use of force. When I became Prime Minister I never thought that I would have to order British troops into combat and I do not think I have ever lived so tensely or intensely as during the whole of that time.

  The first recorded landing on the Falklands was made in 1690 by British sailors, who named the channel between the two principal islands ‘Falkland’s Sound’ in honour of the Treasurer of the Navy, Viscount Falkland. Britain, France and Spain each established settlements on the islands at various times during the eighteenth century. In 1770 a quarrel with Spain caused the British Government of the day to mobilize the fleet and a naval task force was prepared, though never sent: a diplomatic solution was found.

  The islands had obvious strategic importance, possessing several good harbours within 500 miles of Cape Horn. In the event that the Panama Canal is ever closed their significance would be considerable. But the Falklands were an improbable cause for a twentieth-century war.

  The Argentine invasion of the Falklands took place 149 years after the beginning of formal British rule there, and it seems that the imminence of the 150th anniversary was an important factor in the plotting of the Argentine Junta. Since 1833 there has been a continuous and peaceful British presence on the islands. Britain’s legal claim in the present day rests on that fact, and on the desire of the settled population – entirely of British stock – to remain British. The principle of ‘self-determination’ has become a fundamental component of international law, and is enshrined in the UN Charter. British sovereignty has strong legal foundations, and the Argentinians know it.

  Some 800 miles to the south-east of the Falklands lies South Georgia, and 460 miles further out, the South Sandwich Islands. Here the Argentine claim is even more dubious. These islands are dependencies of the United Kingdom, administered from the Falklands. Their climate is severe and they have no settled population. No state claimed them before British annexation in 1908 and there has been continuous British administration since that time.

  My first involvement with the Falklands issue came very early in the life of the 1979 Parliament. It was clear that there were only two ways in which the prosperity of the Falkland Islanders could be achieved. The more obvious and attractive approach was by promoting the development of economic links with neighbouring Argentina. Yet this ran up against the Argentine claim that the Falklands and the dependencies were part of their sovereign territory. Ted Heath’s Government had signed an important Communications Agreement in 1971 establishing air and sea links between the islands and the mainland, but further progress had been blocked by the Argentinians unless sovereignty was also discussed. Consequently it was argued that some kind of accommodation with Argentina would have to be reached on the question of sovereignty. Arguments of this kind led Nick Ridley (the responsible minister) and his officials at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to advance the so-called ‘lease-back’ arrangement, under which sovereignty would pass to Argentina but the way of life of the islanders would be preserved by the continuation of British administration. I disliked this proposal, but Nick and I both agreed that it should be explored, subject always to the requirement that the islanders themselves should have the final word. Their wishes must be paramount.

  There was, however, another option – far more costly. We could implement the recommendations of the long-term economic survey produced in 1976 by the former Labour minister, Lord Shackleton, and one recommendation in particular – the enlargement of the airport and lengthening of the runway. Such a commitment would have been seen as evid
ence of the British Government’s determination to have no serious talks about sovereignty and it would have increased our capacity to defend the islands, since a longer runway would have allowed for rapid reinforcement by air. This in turn might have provoked a swift Argentine military response. Unsurprisingly, no government – Labour or Conservative – was prepared to act while there seemed any possibility of an acceptable solution and lease-back had become the favoured option.

  However, as I rather expected, the islanders would have nothing to do with such proposals. They distrusted the Argentine dictatorship and more than that, they wanted to remain British. The House of Commons too was noisily determined that the islanders’ wishes should be respected.

  However, what all this meant for the future of the Falklands in the longer term was less clear. We were keen, if we could, to keep talking to the Argentinians, but diplomacy was becoming increasingly difficult. In 1976 the Argentinians had established and had maintained since a military presence on Southern Thule in the South Sandwich Islands, which the Labour Government did nothing to remove and which ministers did not even reveal to the House of Commons until 1978.

  Then, in December 1981, there was a change of government in Buenos Aires. A new three-man military Junta replaced the previous military government, with General Leopoldo Galtieri as President. Galtieri relied on the support of the Argentine Navy, whose Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Anaya, held particularly hardline views on the Argentine claim to the ‘Malvinas’.

  There were talks in New York at the end of February 1982 which seemed to go well. But then the Argentinian line hardened abruptly. With hindsight this was a turning point. But it is important to remember how much aggressive rhetoric there had been in the past, none of it coming to anything. Moreover, based on past experience our view was that Argentina was likely to follow a policy of progressively escalating the dispute, starting with diplomatic and economic pressures. Contrary to what was said at the time, we had no intelligence until almost the last moment that Argentina was about to launch a full-scale invasion. Nor did the Americans: Al Haig later told me that they had known even less than we had.

  A factor in all this was the American Administration’s policy of strengthening ties with Argentina as part of its strategy of resisting Cuban-based communist influence in Central and South America, and the Argentinians had gained a wildly exaggerated idea of their importance to the United States. They convinced themselves on the eve of the invasion that they need not take seriously American warnings against military action, and became more intransigent when diplomatic pressure was applied on them afterwards to withdraw.

  Could they have been deterred? In order to take action to deter Argentina militarily, given the vast distance between Britain and the Falklands, we would have had to have some three weeks’ notice. Further, to send down a force of insufficient size would have been to subject it to intolerable risk. Certainly, the presence of HMS Endurance – the lightly armed patrol vessel which was due to be withdrawn – was a military irrelevance. It would neither deter nor repel any planned invasion. (Indeed, when the invasion occurred I was very glad that the ship was at sea and not in Port Stanley: if she had been, she would have been captured or blown out of the water.) Most important perhaps is that nothing would have more reliably precipitated a full-scale invasion, if something less had been planned, than if we had started military preparations on the scale required to send an effective deterrent. Of course with the benefit of hindsight, we would always like to have acted differently. So would the Argentinians. This was the main conclusion of the Committee of Inquiry, chaired by Lord Franks, which we set up to examine the way we had handled the dispute in the run-up to the invasion. The committee had unprecedented access to government papers, including those of the intelligence services. Its report ends with the words: ‘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 on 2 April 1982.’

  It all began with an incident on South Georgia. On 20 December 1981 there had been an unauthorized landing on the island by what were described as Argentine scrap metal dealers; we had given a firm but measured response. The Argentinians subsequently left and the Argentine Government claimed to know nothing about it. I was more alarmed when, after the Anglo-Argentine talks in New York, the Argentine Government broke the procedures agreed at the meeting by publishing a unilateral communiqué disclosing the details of discussion, while simultaneously the Argentine press began to speculate on possible military action before the symbolically important date of January 1983. On 3 March 1982 I minuted on a telegram from Buenos Aires: ‘we must make contingency plans’ – though, in spite of my unease, I was not expecting anything like a full-scale invasion, which indeed our most recent intelligence assessment of Argentine intentions had discounted.

  On 20 March we were informed that the previous day the Argentine scrap metal dealers had made a further unauthorized landing on South Georgia. The Argentine flag had been raised and shots fired. In answer to our protests the Argentine Government claimed to have no prior knowledge. We first decided that HMS Endurance should be instructed to remove the Argentinians, whoever they were. But we tried to negotiate with Argentina a way of resolving what still seemed to be an awkward incident rather than a precursor of conflict, so we withdrew our instructions to Endurance and ordered the ship to proceed instead to the British base at Grytviken, the main settlement on the island.

  As March drew to a close with the incident still unresolved we became increasingly concerned. On Sunday evening, 28 March, I rang Peter Carrington to express my anxiety at the situation. He assured me that he had already made a first approach to Al Haig, the US Secretary of State, asking him to bring pressure to bear. The following morning Peter and I met at RAF Northolt on our way to the European Council at Brussels and agreed to send a nuclear-powered submarine to reinforce HMS Endurance and to make preparations to send a second submarine. I was not too displeased when news of the decision leaked. The submarine would take two weeks to get to the South Atlantic, but it could begin to influence events straight away. My instinct was that the time had come to show the Argentines that we meant business.

  In the late afternoon of Tuesday 30 March I returned from Brussels. By that time Peter Carrington had already left on an official visit to Israel. The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence had been working to prepare up-to-date assessments and review the diplomatic and military options. The following day – Wednesday 31 March – I made my statement to the House reporting on the Brussels summit, but my mind was focused on what the Argentinians were intending and on what our response should be. The advice we received from intelligence was that the Argentine Government were exploring our reactions, but that they had not contrived the landing on South Georgia. By now I was deeply uneasy. Yet still I do not think that any of us expected an immediate invasion of the Falklands themselves.

  I shall not forget that Wednesday evening. I was working in my room at the House of Commons when I was told that John Nott wanted an immediate meeting to discuss the Falklands. I called people together. Humphrey Atkins and Richard Luce attended from the Foreign Office, with FCO and MoD officials. (The Chief of Defence Staff was in New Zealand.) John was alarmed. He had just received intelligence that the Argentinian Fleet, already at sea, looked as if they were going to invade the islands on Friday 2 April. John gave the MoD’s view that the Falklands could not be retaken once they were seized. This was terrible, and totally unacceptable: these were our people, our islands. I said instantly: ‘If they are invaded, we have got to get them back.’

  I asked the Chief of the Naval Staff, Sir Henry Leach, what we could do. He was quiet, calm and confident: ‘I can put together a task force of destroyers, frigates, landing craft, support vessels. It will be led by the aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible. It can be ready to leave in forty-eight hours.’ He believed such a force
could retake the islands. All he needed was my authority to begin to assemble it. I gave it him, and he left immediately. We reserved for Cabinet the decision as to whether and when the task force should sail.

  Now my outrage and determination were matched by a sense of relief and confidence. Henry Leach had shown me that if it came to a fight the courage and professionalism of Britain’s armed forces would win through. It was my job as Prime Minister to see that they got the political support they needed. But first we had to do everything possible to prevent the appalling tragedy.

  Our only hope lay with the Americans – people to whom Galtieri, if he was still behaving rationally, should listen. We drafted and sent an urgent message to President Reagan asking him to press Galtieri to draw back from the brink. This the President immediately agreed to do.

  At 9.30 on Thursday morning, 1 April, I held a Cabinet, earlier than usual so that a meeting of the Overseas and Defence Committee of the Cabinet (OD) could follow it before lunch. The latest assessment was that an Argentine assault could be expected about midday our time on Friday. We thought that President Reagan might yet succeed. However, Galtieri refused altogether at first to take the President’s call. I was told of this outcome in the early hours of Friday morning and I knew then that our last hope had now gone.

  At 9.45 on Friday morning Cabinet met again. I reported that an Argentine invasion was now imminent. We would meet later in the day to consider once more the question of sending a task force – though to my mind the issue by this stage was not so much whether we should act, but how.