The Downing Street Years

by Margaret Thatcher

  It became increasingly clear to me that Mr Haig was anxious not only to avoid what he described as ‘a priori judgements about sovereignty’ but that he was aiming at something other than the British administration which I was publicly pledged to restore. The whole of his approach rested on trying to persuade the two sides to accept some kind of neutral ‘interim administration’ after Argentine withdrawal to run the islands while their long-term future was decided. He talked of an American, or perhaps Canadian, presence while negotiations continued. I pointed out that this would mean that the Argentines had gained from the use of force. I told him that British sovereignty must continue and British administration be restored. Only after this had happened could there be the possibility of negotiations, and they would be subject to the overriding condition that the wishes of the islanders were paramount.

  Discussion over dinner covered very much the same area. I probed what Mr Haig seemed to be proposing as regards the administration of the islands after Argentine withdrawal had been achieved. He was rather vague: but it still seemed to me that it would not be the British administration to which we were pledged.

  Mr Haig would now go to Buenos Aires to assess the Argentinian position. He agreed a common line with us. We would both say to the press that we wanted UNSCR 502 to be implemented as quickly as possible and had discussed how the United States could help. He had heard the British view of the situation and knew how strongly we felt, but he should not give the slightest impression that our position had changed in any way or that we were showing any flexibility.

  In fact, Mr Haig may have looked back on our friendly disagreements in London with something like nostalgia when he got to Buenos Aires and began trying to negotiate with the Argentine Junta. It became evident that the Junta itself was deeply divided and both General Galtieri and the Foreign minister Sr. Costa Mendez seemed to alter their position from hour to hour. At one stage Mr Haig thought that he had won concessions, but as he was about to leave for England on Easter Sunday, 11 April — indeed, as he was boarding the aeroplane — Sr. Costa Mendez handed him a paper which appeared to abrogate the concessions which, rightly or wrongly, he believed he had won.

  I held talks at Chequers about the Falklands over the Easter weekend. On Good Friday Tony Parsons came to lunch and we discussed the negotiating strategy. The next day Francis Pym, John Nott, and Terry Lewin came down and we too had a working lunch. I am glad that Chequers played a large part in the Falklands story. Churchill had used it quite a lot during the Second World War and its atmosphere helped to get us all together.

  WEEK THREE

  By Easter Monday the first ships of the task force had begun arriving at Ascension Island, half way to the Falklands. The American team returned to London on the morning of that day, 12 April. The carpets were up at No. 10 for the annual spring clean and it looked a little as if someone was moving house. This was, however, a false impression.

  Al Haig began by giving an oral account of his talks in Buenos Aires. He said that he had detected differences of view between the three Argentinian Armed Services. The navy were looking for a fight. However, the air force did not want a war, and the army were somewhere in between. Enthusiasm for a fight turned out to be in inverse proportion to fighting spirit. He had worked out a set of proposals which he thought the Argentinians might be brought eventually to accept. There were seven main elements:

  First, both Britain and Argentina would agree to withdraw from the islands and a specified surrounding area within a two-week period.

  Second, no further military forces were to be introduced and forces withdrawn were to return to normal duties. The Argentinians had wanted an undertaking from us to keep our task force out of the South Atlantic altogether, but Al Haig said that he had told them that this was impossible and believed that they might be satisfied if the agreement provided for British units to return to normal duties.

  Third, there would be a Commission, in place of the Governor, made up of United States, British and Argentine representatives who would act together (whether by unanimity or majority was not specified) to ensure compliance with the agreement. For that purpose they would each need to have observers. Each member of the Commission could fly his flag at headquarters.

  Fourth, economic and financial sanctions against Argentina would be lifted.

  Fifth, the traditional local administration of the islands would be restored, including the re-establishment of the Executive and Legislative Councils, to which Argentine representatives from the tiny Argentine population in the Falklands would be added. The Argentinians were adamantly opposed to the return of our Governor.

  Sixth, the Commission would promote travel, trade and communications between the islands and Argentina, but the British Government would have a veto on its operations.

  Finally, negotiations on a lasting settlement would be pursued ‘consistently with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations Charter’. The United States had apparently insisted on this because of the references in it to the right of self-determination. It seemed that the Argentinians would only have been prepared to agree to this part of the proposals if they contained a date for the conclusion of negotiations, which was suggested as 31 December 1982.

  At this time, I did not attempt to reply to Al Haig’s proposals point by point: I simply restated my belief in the principle of self-determination. If the Falkland Islanders chose to join Argentina, the British Government would respect their decision. But, equally, the Argentine Government should be prepared to accept an expressed wish of the islanders to remain British. The Americans then left us for ninety minutes, as we had agreed in advance, while we discussed the proposals with the other members of the War Cabinet.

  Al Haig’s proposals were full of holes but they also had some attractions. If we could really get the Argentine forces off the islands by conceding what seemed a fairly powerless commission, very limited Argentine representation on each council — drawn from local residents and not nominated by the Junta — and an Argentine flag flown alongside others at Headquarters there was something to be said for these ideas. However, on closer inspection there were formidable difficulties. What security would there be for the islanders after the interim period? Clearly, the United States would have to be asked to guarantee the islands against renewed invasion. Then there were the inescapable geographical realities. The Argentinians would remain close to the Falklands; but if we had to withdraw to ‘normal areas’ where would our forces be? We must have the right to be at least as close as the Argentine forces. In spite of the general reference to the UN Charter, there was still nothing to make it clear that the islanders’ wishes must be paramount in the final negotiations. There must also be no possibility of the Argentinians steadily increasing the number of their people on the islands during the interim period so as to become the majority — a serious worry, particularly if our people started to leave, which they might well do in those circumstances.

  At this point Francis Pym, John Nott and I rejoined Al Haig. I said that I was very grateful for the tremendous amount of work which he had done but that I had a number of questions. What did the Americans envisage would happen if no final settlement had been reached by 31 December 1982? My aim in asking was to discover whether the United States was prepared to give a guarantee. The answer was not entirely clear — nor did it become clearer with the passage of time. I emphasized again the importance attached by the House of Commons to the principle of self-determination for the islanders. We would have to have some specific reference to Article 1(2) and Article 73 of the UN Charter on this matter, which enshrined the principle of self-determination. We recognized, however, that Argentina would place a different gloss upon the agreement from the British Government. Al Haig accepted this.

  On the matter of their flag, I told Al Haig that wherever else it flew, it must not fly over the Governor’s house. He said that for the Argentinians the governorship of the Falklands was a key issue: they wanted to keep the Governor
they had appointed after the invasion on the island as a commissioner. I said that if they did that, the British Government would have to appoint Rex Hunt as our commissioner. I also raised the question of South Georgia where Britain had an absolute title, quite distinct from its claim to the Falklands. AI Haig saw no problem about this. (We regretted afterwards that we had ever put South Georgia into the first proposals. But at the time there seemed a possibility of getting the Argentines off without a battle and they had occupied the island shortly after their invasion of the Falklands themselves.)

  However, the main issue was always bound to be the military one. I knew that the only reason the Argentinians were prepared to negotiate at all was because they feared our task force. I stressed that although British submarines in the proposed demilitarized zone would leave as the Argentine forces withdrew, the British task force must continue to proceed southwards, though it would not enter the demilitarized zone. This was essential: we could not afford to let the Argentinians invade a second time. One concession I might be prepared to make was that the task force could be stood off at a point no closer to the Falklands than Argentine forces were based. Anything less would be unacceptable to Parliament.

  Shortly after this we adjourned for lunch and agreed to meet later in the afternoon after we had looked in detail at the proposals and, with advice from officials and the military, worked out our own detailed amendments. In the meantime the American team had made use of a direct secure line from No. 10 to the White House. As Al Haig’s memoirs reveal, he had also rung the Argentine Foreign minister, on hearing that the New York Times had just published the terms of the document which Sr. Costa Mendez had handed him at the airport in Buenos Aires, which were utterly inconsistent with the terms presented to us. Understandably, Mr Haig now wanted to know whether this document represented the Foreign minister’s suggestions or the final and official word of the Junta.

  Our two teams met once more just before 6 p.m. There were a number of points to discuss; again, the single most important was the position of the task force. Al Haig said that President Galtieri would not survive if after the Argentinians had committed themselves to withdrawing from the Falkland Islands in two weeks the British newspapers continued to report that the task force was proceeding south. The Americans were not asking for our fleet to be turned around: but they were asking for it to be halted once an agreement had been reached. I replied that I would not survive in the House of Commons if I stopped the task force before Argentine withdrawal had been completed. Nor would I be prepared to do it. I was ready to let the troop ships proceed more slowly once an agreement had been signed. But the main task force must maintain its progress towards the Falklands Islands. I saw no reason to give Argentina the benefit of the doubt. I was prepared to halt the task force at the same distance from the Falklands as that between Argentina and the islands, but I could go no further than that.

  We argued until late into the evening. Argentina, starting from the Communications Agreement of 1971, wanted their citizens to have the same rights to reside on the islands, own property and so on, as the Falklanders. They wanted the commission positively to promote that state of affairs and to decide upon such matters. We fought the proposal down on the grounds that the interim administration must not change the nature of life on the islands. We finally agreed that we would pursue further negotiations on a somewhat woolly text. There were, however, some conditions which had to be made absolutely clear — the withdrawal zones, the fact that the one Argentine representative per council must be local, and that Argentinians on the islands must have the same qualifying period for voting rights as the Falklanders.

  This was not, however, quite the end of Easter Monday. Just before 10 o’clock that night Al Haig telephoned me to say that Sr. Costa Mendez had rung him to say that he saw no reason for the Secretary of State to go to Buenos Aires again unless any agreement about the Falkland Islands provided for the Governor to be appointed by the Argentine Government and for the Argentine flag to continue to be flown there. And if that was not possible, the Argentinians must have assurances that at the end of negotiations with Britain there would be a recognition of Argentine sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Al Haig was shattered. I had mixed feelings about this news, but I was certainly not going to buckle under that sort of pressure. I told Mr Haig on the telephone:

  If those are the conditions, you cannot return [direct to Buenos Aires]; but it has to be known publicly from your viewpoint that they’ve set those conditions and that was why you said ‘we cannot have those, we cannot therefore return.’ But it must be known from your viewpoint. Publicly.

  Al Haig agreed; he was obviously very depressed.

  Having decided not to go on to Buenos Aires, somewhat to our surprise the following morning the Americans sought another meeting with us. So our two teams met first thing. By this stage it was becoming obvious that the proposals the Americans had presented to us the previous day had no measure of Argentine approval. In fact, the status of all these proposals was doubtful. The more closely I questioned Al Haig on this point, the more uncertain it became. Since the proposals had not been agreed with the Argentinians, even if we accepted them, they might therefore not form the basis of a settlement.

  This fact was made painfully clear at the meeting that morning when Mr Haig handed us a document embodying five points which he described as essential to the Argentine position. As he himself said, the practical effect of the Argentine tactics was to buy time. I always thought that this was their main purpose in negotiating.

  I was becoming impatient with all this. I said that it was essentially an issue of dictatorship versus democracy. Galtieri wanted to be able to claim victory by force of arms. The question now was whether he could be diverted from his course by economic sanctions or, as I had suspected all along, only by military force. Mr Haig replied that he had made it abundantly clear to Argentina that if conflict developed the United States would side with Britain. But did we wish to bring the negotiations to an end today? He could say publicly that he was suspending his own efforts, making it clear that this was due to Argentine intransigence. But if he did so other less helpful people might try to intervene. I was keenly aware of that and I also felt that public opinion here required us not to give up on negotiations yet.

  Later that day events took another bizarre turn. Al Haig told Francis Pym of the contents of a further discussion he had had on the telephone with Sr. Costa Mendez. Apparently, the Argentinians had now dropped their five demands and moved a considerable way from their previous position. Mr Haig thought there was a chance of a settlement on the lines we had been discussing, if we would agree to language about decolonization, subject to the wishes of the islanders, with perhaps one or two small changes in addition to make the proposals more palatable still. It was to turn out that this talk of decolonization held its own particular dangers, though we agreed to look at a draft. He also urged us not to be too rigid on the question of sovereignty. He had decided to return to Washington and would decide his next step there.

  It was clear from all this that Mr Haig was very anxious to keep the negotiations going. But had there been a genuine change of heart on the part of the Argentinians, or was it just wishful thinking on his part?

  Wednesday 14 April was the day scheduled for a further Commons debate on the Falklands. It was an opportunity for me to spell out our objectives in the negotiations and to demonstrate to the outside world the united support of the House of Commons. I told the House:

  In any negotiations over the coming days we shall be guided by the following principles. We shall continue to insist on Argentine withdrawal from the Falkland Islands and dependencies. We shall remain ready to exercise our right to resort to force in self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter until the occupying forces leave the islands. Our naval task force sails on towards its destination. We remain fully confident of its ability to take whatever measures may be necessary. Meanwhile, its very existence an
d its progress towards the Falkland Islands reinforce the efforts we are making for a diplomatic solution.

  That solution must safeguard the principle that the wishes of the islanders shall remain paramount. There is no reason to believe that they would prefer any alternative to the resumption of the administration which they enjoyed before Argentina committed aggression. It may be that their recent experiences will have caused their views on the future to change, but until they have had the chance freely to express their views, the British Government will not assume that the islanders’ wishes are different from what they were before.

  There were serious concerns underlying my reference to the possibility of the islanders changing their views on the future government of the Falklands: we worried that morale might collapse and that large numbers might leave. We were able to find out a certain amount about daily life under the occupation from messages which reached London, but the picture was far from complete.

  While the debate was still in progress, Al Haig was on the telephone. The Argentinians were complaining that the United States was not being even-handed between Argentina and Britain and in particular that it was supplying military aid to Britain. He wanted to make a statement which would allow him to return to Buenos Aires to continue the negotiations, ending with these three sentences: