The Falklands victory saved Thatcher’s skin – and Britain’s reputation
On the evening of Friday 2 April 1982, I had been invited to the Ministry of Defence for a game of bridge in the resident clerk’s flat. A few rubbers did take place, but with much less concentration than normal. That day, the Argentinians had invaded the Falkland Islands.
In the MoD, the Foreign Office and No.10, everyone was desperate to find out what was happening. I do not remember hearing anything confidential, partly because so little information was available. But I do remember that the atmosphere was gloomy. Although my friends were not temperamentally defeatists, they argued cogently that it would be well-nigh impossible to recapture the Islands, which were 8,000 miles away, with no hope of local land-based air cover. In equal measure, I found their realism convincing, and depressing. If we had lost the Falklands, there would be grievous consequences for the nation’s prestige and its people’s morale. But what could be done?
The next day the Commons met, recalled on a Saturday for only the third time since the War. I arrived in the press gallery, despairing and hung over, and came to an immediate conclusion. Something had to be done. The mood was tense, fierce and determined. The atmosphere crackled with electricity. The House was demanding action and leadership and would tolerate nothing less. Amidst all the belligerence, there was hardly a dissenting voice. One brave Tory MP, the late Ray Whitney, tried to suggest that there could be a role for negotiation. He argued that a failed attempt to reconquer the Islands would be a second national humiliation. There were growls of anger all around him. A Tory colleague, John Biggs-Davidson, raised a point of order: if there was going to be defeatist talk like that, surely the House should move into secret session?
Sir Ray, as he later became, had been acting as a spokesman for elements in the Foreign Office. No doubt their views were sincerely held. They were also strategically inept. That was neither the time nor the place for Chatham-House caution.
Mrs Thatcher’s speech reads well. Yet I remember thinking at the time that the Old Girl was not on top form, for an obvious reason. She felt deeply that the country had indeed been humiliated, on her watch. There was also a misjudgment. In 1976, some Argentinians had landed on a few uninhabited guano-covered rocks in the far south of the Falklands, known appropriately as Thule. An “ultima” could have been tacked on. The then Labour government had been slow to take action. But even on the Tory benches no one seemed to think that there was a parallel. Thule was a false note: an inappropriate descent into partisanship.
On the day, Michael Foot gave the better speech unhesitatingly aligning himself with the liberation of the Falklands. It helped that he hated the Argentinian regime and could be eloquent in the denunciation of fascism. But was there another factor? Because of the stance he took, he could not have been accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Yet he too had probably been counselled by pessimists. If so, he could well have calculated that it would be impossible to evict the Argentinians, and that Margaret Thatcher would be blamed for losing the islands. So anti-fascism and electoral advantage might complement each other. If that were true, it should not be a matter for reproach. After all, he did nothing to undermine the war effort.
There was one inescapable message from the debate. The Prime Minister was on probation. If she could not prove herself in combat, she would be turned out of office. It was a perfect opportunity for Enoch Powell to deploy his baleful, menacing rhetorical mastery, and he did not miss. He reminded everyone that she had been given the sobriquet “Iron Lady” which she obviously enjoyed. Now was the time to live up to it. Over the next few weeks, “this House, the nation and the Rt. Hon. Lady herself will learn of what metal she is made.” Behind those words, one could hear the clang of a political death knell.
But Mrs Thatcher had already set her course, for battle and iron. A couple of days earlier, there had been a crucial meeting in her Commons office. Those present knew that the Argentinians were on their way and that the invasion could not be prevented. A cloud of pessimism overshadowed the room. Then everything was transformed, with the arrival of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Henry Leach.
Before striding down Whitehall, he had changed into Admiral’s uniform, thus attracting astonished glances from the passers-by. A few days later, they might not have been so surprised. In the Commons, the Admiral had to insist his way to the Prime Minister’s office. (His task would certainly have been harder after the Brighton bomb, but no doubt he would have prevailed.)
His initial reception lacked warmth. Margaret Thatcher, who looked distrait, said: “How can I help you, Admiral?” The body language was almost “what are you doing here?” His trenchant reply was redolent of a firmly-commanded quarter-deck. “It’s more a question of how I can help you, Prime Minister.” She began to engage. “What are my options?” “What would you like them to be?” “Can I recapture the Falklands?” “Prime Minister, if you order me to recapture the Falklands, I will recapture the Falklands.”
Sir Henry went on to say that If we failed to act, we would find ourselves living in a very different country whose word would count for little. That was unnecessary. He had made his point. When difficult decisions were needed, she could sometimes hesitate at the beginning. But then, as after the Leach meeting, indecision was banished, to the extent of her forgetting that it had ever existed. By the time of the debate, HMS Iron Lady was ready to put to sea, and steam south towards war and victory.
There was a key passage in the PM’s speech, when she set out her objectives – or rather, her war aims. “The Falkland Islands and their dependencies remain British territory. No aggression and no invasion can alter that simple fact. It is the government’s objective to see that the islands are freed from occupation and returned to British administration at the earliest possible moment.”
Senior figures in the Reagan Administration could have saved themselves a lot of time – and Margaret Thatcher some anxious moments – if, on hearing those words, they had merely said to themselves: “That’s that, then.” As it was, the President himself was surprisingly hesitant. His Secretary of State, Al Haig, wanted a compromise. His UN Ambassador, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, went even further and gave the impression that to protect American interests in the Hemisphere, she would not have minded a British defeat. Thank goodness for Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense. Staunchly Anglophile and a devotee of Nelson, he also pointed out that the UK was the US’s most important NATO ally. To abandon it would risk a geopolitical disaster.
Cap Weinberger also gave practical help. Robin Renwick, then Head of Chancery at the Washington Embassy, went to see him about purchasing some US materiel. Secretary Weinberger pointed to an in-tray on his desk. “See that? It’s there for all your requests. They come straight to me.” We wanted some sidewinder missiles, which were in short supply. Some American Airforce Generals were unhappy, not due to Hemispherist sympathies but because it would have meant disarming American front-line planes. They were overruled and their boss proclaimed the Weinberger doctrine: “Send the Brits everything they ask for and don’t send them the bill until they’ve won their war.” Later, he was given an honorary KBE. It should have been a GCB, the highest order of Chivalry below the Thistle and the Garter.
After the debate was over, It was time to take soundings in Washington. I phoned an old chum, Elliott Abrams, who was then in the State Department as Assistant Secretary for Human Rights. “Are you Limeys really going to fight for a bunch of rocks?” Oh God, I thought, Suez Mark 2. “Yes, Elliot, we are, and if we don’t fight and win, Margaret Thatcher will fall and we might have Michael Foot as Prime Minister.” “Well if you’re serious, don’t worry. When it comes to the crunch, we’ll back you.” I phoned No.10 and passed on those cheering tidings to Ian Gow, the sans pareil of PPSs, telling him that even if Elliott was not that senior, he was a man of sound political judgment. So it proved.
The reluctance of the President to rush to Mrs Thatcher’s side raises two questions. First, was their relationship as warm as the legends would have us believe? The answer is “yes”, on the whole. Second, what would have happened if the British PM had not been so close to the President? There, the answer is much less clear. It is fortunate that we did not have to find out.
Her triumph was transformative: her prestige, immensely enhanced. After the War was over, Enoch Powell returned to the theme of the Iron lady. Metallurgists had declared that the metal was “ferrous matter of the highest quality… and may be used to advantage for all national purposes.” He spoke for many. But if the task force had not been able to complete its work, Francis Pym would probably have become PM. Francis, with a wartime MC, was a decent and honourable man, and he might well have beaten Michael Foot at the next election. Yet he was not the leader to push ahead with a Thatcherite agenda.
So the recovery of the Falklands was immensely important, both at home and abroad. Even before the invasion, the Tories had been recovering in the polls, and it is hard to see how Michael Foot could ever have won. But without the Falklands factor, the Lady would not have won a majority of 140. The defeat of Galtieri made it much easier to defeat Scargill.
Equally, only a few years earlier, Britain had been the sick man of Europe. Now, suddenly, we were a serious country once again.
That raises another question. Could Ukraine create a Falklands factor for Boris Johnson?
The answer is no, for three reasons. First, the conflicts are wholly different. British forces will not be fighting in Ukraine. Second, even if offered prestige, our present PM would have no idea how to use it. Third, he has only one thing in common with Margaret Thatcher. Blond hair.
To return to seriousness, the freeing of the Falklands came at a cost. Kipling reminded us that blood is the price of Admiralty, and Mrs Thatcher would have read that passage in her favourite poet. She never gloried in slaughter and was moved to tears by British deaths. But she would have agreed with Sandy Woodward, the commander of the task force. Even though we know the outcome, his memoir, One Hundred Days, is a gripping read. At the end, he does not duck the question: 255 British dead: was that a price worth paying? He answers unhesitatingly in the affirmative. It was. They died for the very Britishness of us all.