Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography

by Charles Moore

  There was also a confusion of communication and command. Thompson, though respected, was, as a brigadier, relatively junior. His senior, General Jeremy Moore, had been with Fieldhouse at Northwood, contributing the ‘joint’ element in an operation which was heavily balanced in favour of the navy. Late in the day, Moore moved down to the Falklands to take over from Thompson; for much of the time he was on the QEII, proper, secure communications proved impossible to maintain. Moore was therefore not in a position to take full control of the land battle until 1 June, and by the time he had done so, the top brass back home, worried by this delay, did not have great confidence in him. Nor did Northwood feel wholly happy about Sandy Woodward, who was regarded as holding such a heavily naval view of his job that he did not take the land war seriously. There was no overall in-theatre commander. Poor Thompson had a great deal to bear. ‘He was left alone there, and he really felt rather bitter,’ Mrs Thatcher remembered.182 This was not a classic row between politicians demanding a propaganda victory and generals sticking to military priorities. Cecil Parkinson recalled that ‘There was a feeling that Julian Thompson “had better get a bloody move on”, but it wasn’t the politicians who said this, it was the Chiefs.’183 Thompson, receiving the difficult orders from Northwood, confirmed this, never feeling that Mrs Thatcher was trying to give the Chiefs military direction.184 It was more to do with the difference between being on the spot and being in London. Mrs Thatcher did not get involved in the growing asperities between the generals and admirals, but she was desperate to push on, and she put her faith in Lewin and Fieldhouse. David Goodall, by this time taking the minutes of the War Cabinet, watched her: ‘I greatly admired the way she contained herself. There were delays, and Lewin explained them to us each morning. She was obviously itching to get on, but she never forced him to do so … I never saw any evidence of political reasons for her military actions.’185 When later pressed, on American television, about why the British were not yet attacking Port Stanley, Mrs Thatcher replied: ‘You can’t fight a battle around a Cabinet table.’186 Perhaps her ignorance of war gave her the necessary humility. The War Cabinet minutes of 27 May 1982 record Mrs Thatcher expressing the general proposition that ‘it was most important to make the earliest possible progress with the operations on land.’187 It was the top brass, translating her inclination into specific action, who decided upon Goose Green.

  Colonel ‘H’ Jones, commanding 2 Para, discovered on approach that the task was more formidable than expected, but decided to attack all the same. The battle of Goose Green, which went through the night of 27 May, was fierce, requiring the capture of a narrow isthmus under heavy fire. Jones had requested from Thompson, but been refused, four of the eight light-armoured tanks available, which would have speeded the battle up. As dawn, which would give advantage to the Argentines, approached, Jones decided to try to break through by leading the assault in person. He was killed. After fighting for much longer than the British had expected, the Argentines surrendered. They had lost forty-five dead, to the British loss, including Jones, of sixteen. The British took 961 prisoners, and released 112 Falklanders who had been locked up in the local community hall for nearly a month. In later analyses, the battle of Goose Green could never escape the question of whether it had been necessary. Denis Thatcher, for example, believed that ‘ “H” Jones should never have been killed.’188 Mrs Thatcher was deeply troubled by the death of Jones, more so, thought Robert Armstrong, than by any other disaster of the war except the loss of Sheffield.189 She comforted herself by thinking, though Freedman’s account suggests that this is not strictly correct, that ‘His life was lost but his bravery was the turning point in the battle.’190 In fact, Goose Green was not a battle on which the defeat of Argentina directly depended. On the other hand, it produced a victory with which no one could quarrel, and an example of astonishing heroism in ‘H’ Jones, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. In his message of congratulation to Major Chris Keeble, Jones’s replacement as the commanding officer, Fieldhouse said: ‘you have kindled a flame in land operations which will lead to the raising of the Union Jack in Port Stanley.’191 This was correct. There was now no real doubt that Britain would win the war.

  One last diplomatic minuet remained – the G7 economic summit in Versailles. It coincided with the United Nations Security Council debate over a resolution for a ceasefire. At President Reagan’s request, Mrs Thatcher met him alone at the American Embassy in Paris before the summit began. Al Haig regarded Reagan’s desire to meet without officials as ‘a terrible mistake’, but Judge Clark retorted – Whitelawesque – that ‘It’s the President’s call, and maybe it is a mistake, but if it is, he’s got every right to make it!’192 Certainly the fact that only the two leaders were present made it easier for Mrs Thatcher, who always understood the detail of any situation much better than Reagan. But it may also have relieved Reagan of a burden. Before leaving Washington, he had refused to send a message to Mrs Thatcher, drafted by the State Department, calling for a ceasefire short of complete surrender and abridging the rights of the islanders to decide their own future.193* He may have preferred not to have officials witnessing his reluctance to tackle Mrs Thatcher head-on.

  The President was, however, armed with talking points. In his diary, Rentschler, who helped draft them, prefaced his copy of the points with the words: ‘The trick now is to make the Iron Maiden realize that we will not be signing in for a permanent state of war in the South Atlantic.’194 The points congratulated Mrs Thatcher warmly on her own ‘courage and determination’ and on Britain’s military success. But they also said that the presence of American and other elements in the Falklands could help secure a negotiated settlement instead of permanent war: ‘The inescapable fact is that the US has risked a great deal in the Hemisphere and is likely to risk a great deal more.’ Therefore long-term ‘military occupation’ should be avoided. In their discussions, Mrs Thatcher did not concede this point, but she was no longer under great pressure to do so. The President had offered Britain public support before arriving in Paris, and suggested that the next step depended on Buenos Aires. Henderson believed that Reagan’s imminent official visit to the UK had a role here: ‘Always at the back of the mind was that he shouldn’t say anything which would jeopardize or impair the visit.’195 In their tête-à-tête, Mrs Thatcher asked the President for his support at the UN Security Council: there is no suggestion that he did not give it. The truth was that, whatever his government’s feelings, Reagan no longer had any stomach for challenging Mrs Thatcher over the Falklands. He sympathized with Britain’s position and he wanted to avoid the sharp end of her tongue. Mulling Versailles over with Henderson early the following week, Haig ‘said that we were rapidly losing international support’. Henderson came back at him: ‘I asked him whether the President had made this clear to Mrs Thatcher in their private talk in Paris last Friday. He regretted that he did not think that he had done so. I said it was hopeless my telling Mrs Thatcher that the US government felt strongly the need for Britain to show magnanimity towards the Argentinians … if the President himself said nothing about it in prolonged private conversation with the Prime Minister.’196*

  Reagan’s acceptance of Britain’s position encouraged the same at Versailles. President Mitterrand, the host of the G7 summit, had, apart from the Old Commonwealth prime ministers, been the most consistently supportive foreign leader. He issued a declaration at the end of the summit: ‘But we wished to make a point of affirming our full solidarity with Great Britain whose national interests and national pride have been violated, such solidarity being natural. Great Britain’s rights must be preserved, it being understood that we shall do all we can to ensure that, while these rights are recognized, peace proves stronger than war.’197 In other words, there was no longer any attempt to persuade Britain to make a deal and stop short of Port Stanley. Mitterrand had been, to use one of Mrs Thatcher’s favourite words, very staunch. Early in the conflict, according to Hubert Vedrine,
his chief of staff at the time, Mitterrand had personally insisted on providing Britain with the means to counter the threat from the Exocet missiles which France had sold to Argentina.198 Britain was able to jam the missiles. Later, when Argentina was scouring the world for more Exocets, he had ensured that spurious ‘technical problems’ would delay the supply of new missiles to Peru, which was suspected of wanting to sell them on to Argentina.* Mitterrand’s tone and manner had also pleased her: ‘He treated her as a great leader of a great country.’199 Mrs Thatcher considered that ‘He was most understanding and splendid throughout.’200†

  The atmosphere at the UN was less friendly than at the summit. As Anthony Parsons had warned, there was no chance of Britain winning the vote against the ceasefire resolution, so it would be forced to use the veto available to all permanent members of the Security Council. The question was whether the United States would veto too. The vote came on 4 June, the first day of the Versailles summit. Resisting pressure from Jeane Kirkpatrick and Enders for abstention, Haig had left instructions for the United States to support Britain in a veto. At the last minute, however, he changed his mind, and ordered abstention. This change came too late for Mrs Kirkpatrick, who had just, on behalf of her country, joined Parsons in vetoing the resolution. But then, as Parsons recorded, she ‘astonishingly stated that she had been asked by her government to say that if it were possible to change a vote once cast the US would like to change its vote from a veto to an abstention’.201 She read out a poem by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges about the horrors of war. Kirkpatrick believed that the delay in Haig’s instructions had been deliberate, part of a clumsy ploy to show support for both Britain and Argentina and humiliate her in the process. In the excitement, Parsons was able to slip out almost unnoticed from the Council, avoiding the media. Britain was furious at American behaviour and yet benefited from its sheer oddness; as Pym cabled to Mrs Thatcher and her team at Versailles the following day: ‘Her [Mrs Kirkpatrick’s] performance therefore excited much more media attention than our veto.’202

  At Versailles the next day, there was a luncheon for the leaders in the Palace and the television cameras came in before it. A reporter asked Reagan about the UN vote. Mrs Thatcher was watching: ‘Poor Ron – he knew nothing about it to my amazement – he just said “I’m afraid you’ve got me there …” ’ The interviewer then asked Mrs Thatcher for her reaction: ‘I wasn’t going to have a row on the media so merely said I didn’t give interviews over lunch! But alas it all went out over the world’s TV sets and created a bad impression.’203* At a press conference after the summit, Mrs Thatcher made light of the American switch of vote: ‘If that’s the only thing I have to worry about,’ she said tactfully, ‘then I shall be a very lucky woman.’204 Mrs Thatcher left the summit early, before the opera and fireworks: ‘it would not have been right to stay for such revelry. All my thoughts were of what was happening in the South Atlantic. By this time General Moore was in charge from his headquarters in San Carlos and his problem was to get enough equipment and ammunition forwards before the final assault on Port Stanley.’205

  The Reagan visit to Britain began on Monday 7 June. There was no whisper of disagreement over the Falklands. The following day, the President addressed MPs and peers in the Royal Gallery of the Houses of Parliament. It was a major setpiece speech making much more explicit, in the context of the Soviet repression of Poland where martial law had been declared the previous December, his belief that the West could and should win the Cold War. Freedom, he declared, was bound to triumph. In a passage which he wrote into the speech himself, against the advice of the State Department, Reagan made the Falklands part of his wider theme:

  On distant islands in the South Atlantic young men are fighting for Britain. And yes, voices have been raised protesting their sacrifice for lumps of rock and earth so far away. But those young men aren’t fighting for mere real estate. They fight for a cause – for the belief that armed aggression must not be allowed to succeed, that the people must participate in the decisions of government – the decisions of government under the rule of law. If there had been firmer support for that principle some 45 years ago, perhaps our generation wouldn’t have suffered the bloodletting of World War II.206

  This was the only part of his speech which attracted applause. As British troops prepared for the final assault, Mrs Thatcher could not have asked for clearer public support.

  On the day of Reagan’s speech, Mrs Thatcher was receiving grim news. The necessary reinforcement provided by 5 Infantry Brigade had to land, and there was some dispute about how, when and where. General Moore wanted to move as quickly as possible. Admiral Fieldhouse, who had previously been so keen, for political reasons, to press on, now felt confident enough to move more slowly: ‘PM has held out resolutely for victory not ceasefire.’207 He did not think delay in taking Stanley would any longer be politically disastrous, and he did fear that the one thing which would undermine the operation now in the eyes of public opinion would be ‘catastrophe at sea with large loss of life’.208 He therefore asked Moore to drop the plan to land the troops at Bluff Cove and Fitzroy. In the end, however, a revised version of the plan was agreed. On 8 June the Welsh Guards arrived at Fitzroy in two ships, Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram. Due to various confusions and disagreements about command, the ships did not unload quickly. When Argentine planes attacked later in the day, they hit both ships. In all, forty-nine men were killed, including thirty-nine Welsh Guards. ‘There are “if onlys” throughout life,’ Mrs Thatcher wrote, ‘and if only the men had been taken off and dispersed first – the casualties would never have been suffered to that extent. General Moore was grief-stricken. I was up at Northwood a day later – we all felt – how many more.’209 The government took the hard-headed decision to hold up the details of casualties from the public, though informing the next of kin, in order to make Argentina believe that the losses had been greater than they really were and that the assault on Port Stanley would now be seriously hampered. There was a fierce row about the matter between John Nott and Admiral Fieldhouse – ‘the argument became an issue of confidence between the two men’210 – but Mrs Thatcher reluctantly sided with the admiral and supported the concealment, despite the anxieties of the No. 10 press operation. She felt that ‘Surprise was vital’ for the attack on Mount Longden, Two Sisters and Wireless Ridge, the hills round Stanley.211

  As British troops conducted their remarkable ‘yomp’ on foot across East Falkland in order to recapture Port Stanley, there was once again very little left for Mrs Thatcher to do. Characteristically, she busied herself with the details of the Sovereign’s Birthday Parade (Trooping the Colour), which included personally preparing the food she served after the ceremony for her private guests.* There was a debate beforehand about whether Last Post and Reveille should be sounded for those lost in the Falklands, but the Queen thought this ‘might encourage “hysteria” ’. She proposed a moment of silence at the beginning of the proceedings and to this Mrs Thatcher agreed.212 Early in the morning of Saturday 12 June, the day of Trooping the Colour, Mrs Thatcher was brought a note by the duty clerk at No. 10. ‘I almost seized it from him expecting news that the attack had begun,’213 but in fact it was the bad news that HMS Glamorgan had been hit by a land-based Exocet. Thirteen men were killed. Memory of this last serious setback of the war prompted Mrs Thatcher to sum up all these experiences: ‘It is impossible to describe the depth of feeling at these times. It is quite unlike anything else I have ever experienced. In fights for liberty – we lose our bravest and best. How unjust and heartbreaking. Now we know the sacrifices that previous generations made for us … That day the Colour was trooped for the Queen’s birthday. It poured with rain and somehow that seemed fitting although unpleasant for the Guards. I wore black – there was so much to mourn.’ Shortly before one o’clock, coming indoors, ‘we heard that all the objectives had been achieved.’214

  It took two more days for the reconquest to be complete. The last ski
rmish of the battle for Port Stanley began at 1545Z on 14 June, and just before 5 p.m., Sapper Hill, the last obstacle before Stanley, was secured. Luckily the collapse of Argentine resistance meant that there would be no need to attack the capital itself. Because final surrender negotiations were by then in progress, Thompson ordered 2 Para, who were in front, to halt at the racecourse. The journalist Max Hastings† walked on alone and into the Upland Goose pub, the first of the Task Force to enter Stanley. Large numbers of Argentines threw down their weapons. Surrender, however, was not immediate. President Galtieri, speaking to the Argentine officer commanding in the Falklands, General Menéndez, on the telephone, told him to ‘use all the means at your disposal and continue fighting with all the intensity with which you are capable’. Menéndez replied that he had ‘no means at his disposal, no troops, no high ground, no ammunition’.215 Galtieri gave him permission to begin negotiations and these were conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rose,* the commanding officer of 22 SAS, who was, in Mrs Thatcher’s view, ‘a much better negotiator than General Moore’,216 to whom he was answering. In saying this, she was probably expressing her dissatisfaction at Moore’s decision, after he personally reached Menéndez, to cut himself off from any communication with Northwood and do the deal himself. Moore was worried that, if Argentina could not salvage any honour at all, it would continue pointless fighting which would incur civilian casualties, so, at Menéndez’s request, he took out the word ‘unconditional’ from the surrender document. Nevertheless, the surrender was complete. At 0200Z on 15 June, Moore signalled to London: ‘Major General Menendez surrendered to me all the Argentine armed forces in East and West Falkland together with their impedimenta … The Falkland Islands are once more under the government desired by their inhabitants. God Save the Queen.’217 Britain now had to deal with more than 11,000 captured Argentine troops. In the course of the war, 255 British servicemen had died, 649 Argentines† and three Falkland Islanders.