Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography (120 page)

The War Cabinet met for the first time on Wednesday 7 April 1982, once in the morning and once at seven in the evening. It was working with the timetable that the first submarine could be on station near the Falklands by 11 April and the first surface ships by 24 April. There was pressure for it to decide on a Maritime Exclusion Zone (MEZ) round the Falkland Islands within which Britain would have authorized itself to attack all Argentine shipping. This was resisted by Francis Pym lest it prejudice the imminent visit of the US Secretary of State, Al Haig, who had announced his intention of coming to London to see, as an ally, what could be done to secure peace. By Mrs Thatcher’s private account, there was a ‘long argument’ and ‘eventually through patient persistence the rest of us managed to overcome Francis’ objections. It was a pattern to be repeated many times.’
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Haig had asked to come that day, but Mrs Thatcher had put him off for twenty-four hours because of a debate in the House of Commons that afternoon, the first setpiece since the drama of the previous Saturday.

The debate was notable for a skilful attack on Mrs Thatcher by her predecessor, Jim Callaghan, who wished to make clear how well he had handled the previous Falklands crisis, contrasting this with her performance. Bitingly, he said: ‘we are sending an aircraft carrier that has already been sold to meet cash limits, from a port that is to be closed, and with 500 sailors holding redundancy notices in their pockets,’
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and he held the Prime Minister personally responsible. When preparing her memoirs, Mrs Thatcher remembered the uncomfortableness of this, describing Callaghan as ‘a very nasty, spiteful person’.
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The debate was Francis Pym’s first outing as Foreign Secretary and Mrs Thatcher did not speak in it, to let him make his mark and to allow Nott, who also spoke, the chance to recover ground. In his speech, Nott announced the 200-nautical-mile MEZ, to be imposed from midnight on 11 April, this being the first time that the first submarine would be ready. ‘It was worth noting’, wrote Mrs Thatcher the following year, ‘that at
no time
during the Falklands operation did we say we would take action
until
we were in a position to do it … I was determined that we should never put ourselves in a position where “bluff could be called”. And we never did.’
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For the first time, the House noticed possible differences between Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. It was Eric Ogden, a Labour backbencher with close family links to the Falklands,
who said, ‘I smell a sell-out.’ Tony Benn, who positioned himself as the most extreme and prominent opponent of the war, declared: ‘The Prime Minister must have an astonishing view of her power if she thinks that she can bring 1,800 hostages out of the Falkland Islands with the British Fleet, operating 8,000 miles from home, when Carter had the humiliation of seeing the inauguration of his successor before the Ayatollah Khomeini would release the hostages.’ For his part, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Denis Healey, started to qualify Labour support for the use of force, warning of the dangers of an opposed landing. It was becoming easier to see how the Opposition would undermine the government as soon as things started to go wrong. In Prime Minister’s Questions the following day, David Owen called for an official inquiry into the causes of the Falklands disaster. Mrs Thatcher immediately conceded that such an inquiry should take place.

The biggest immediate problem, however, was America. As by far Britain’s most important ally, the United States was essential in securing international backing for the British response. The Americans were also vital logistically, partly because, under the 1956 Bahamas Agreement, they used the British colony of Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic as a military base, and Ascension was the only stopping point from which the Task Force could operate effectively. The Americans had the power to deny or supply Britain with the satellite information, intelligence, technology and military hardware which were needed. Active American support was all but a necessity, and active American opposition would certainly be fatal.

Given her friendship with Ronald Reagan, her attitude to the United States in general, and her uncomplicated belief that the injustice of the invasion was obvious to all, Mrs Thatcher had assumed that American support would be wholehearted. ‘I think she just felt that this was such an act of naked aggression – unprovoked and unnecessary – that there could not be any question that the Americans would take our view,’ recalled Clive Whitmore.
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As John Coles put it, ‘She found it hard to understand how, given the issues, there could be any talk of “balance” from Washington.’
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In terms of American public opinion, her instinct was immediately proved right: US public support for Britain easily overwhelmed that for Argentina. But in terms of the reaction of the US administration, Mrs Thatcher was quickly disappointed. On the evening of the invasion, Jeane Kirkpatrick,
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the US Ambassador at the United Nations, had kept an appointment for a dinner given in her honour by the Argentine Embassy. The author of the distinction between ‘totalitarian states’ (bad) and ‘authoritarian states’ (sometimes tolerable), Mrs Kirkpatrick was the most ardent and articulate believer in the Reagan administration’s strategy of getting close to Latin America in order to fight off the Communist threat there. She was furious at Anthony Parsons’s quick move to get Security Council Resolution 502 passed, and when she saw that it would be impossible for the United States to veto it or abstain, she pointedly absented herself from the vote, sending her deputy. With Enders, and other Latin American experts at the State Department who were preoccupied with the danger of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and related subversion in El Salvador, she was ahead of the pack on a subject of which most of the administration was ignorant. On the other hand, at the Pentagon, whose worldview was built around the importance of the NATO alliance and the confrontation with the Soviet Union in Europe, the main players were firmly pro-British. John Lehman, the Secretary of the Navy, and his boss, Caspar Weinberger, the Defense Secretary, did everything they could for Britain, from the first: ‘Weinberger believed very, very strongly in the Anglo-American alliance. It was clear that to him this was the bedrock of how to deal with the Soviets and ensure that the West eventually won the Cold War. He had a very strong sense of the importance of alliances generally, but the relationship really was special. It wasn’t just Weinberger who was an anglophile, but John Lehman was an anglophile. He had studied at Cambridge and was the most powerful Secretary of the Navy in decades. He had a direct line to the White House. He was totally, totally committed to helping Britain.’
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Weinberger also acted in the belief that, if there were a fight, Britain would probably win,
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although at first he thought more in terms of a naval blockade than a successful landing. It was often said by British journalists that the Reagan administration, dominated by Californians, took a ‘West Coast’ view of things, keeping Britain at a greater distance than was traditional. Yet Jeane Kirkpatrick, the least sympathetic to the British of the main figures, was ‘East Coast’, and the anglophile Weinberger was a Californian, who was extremely close to the President.

As for the State Department, it was divided between its Latin American and European departments. In terms of personal sympathy, Al Haig, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, was pro-British. To a colleague in the European department, he said: ‘How can we be
neutral? This is our closest ally and territory under their control has just been invaded.’
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The pro-British faction further argued that, should Mrs Thatcher not prevail, her government would fall and US plans to deploy INF missiles on British soil would be in jeopardy. On the other hand, Haig was conscious of the danger to the United States’ position in Latin America, and he liked the idea that he could be an ‘honest broker’ between the two countries. A further complication was Haig’s mercurial and somewhat self-aggrandizing personality. Since his appointment as secretary of State he had been regarded with disfavour by many in the White House, particularly after his clumsy attempt to take charge after the shooting of President Reagan the year before. According to Bud McFarlane, ‘There were suspicions among the senior White House staff of Secretary Haig’s actions being motivated in part by his political ambitions or perceived ambitions that weren’t uniquely relevant to the Falklands.’
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In the middle of all of this, President Reagan hesitated. Questioned by reporters on Monday 5 April, he said: ‘It’s a very difficult situation for the United States, because we’re friends with both of the countries engaged in this dispute, and we stand ready to do anything we can to help them. And what we hope for and would like to help in doing is have a peaceful resolution of this with no forceful action or no bloodshed.’
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At Cabinet the following day, Mrs Thatcher characterized Reagan’s remarks as ‘unhelpful’ and contrasted them with the support of President Mitterrand.
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Nicko Henderson cabled London two days later, speaking of the ‘habitual degree of incoherence which characterises the US administration’.
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On 7 April the President attended a meeting of the National Security Planning Group, chaired by his National Security Advisor, Judge William Clark. All the principals, including Haig, Weinberger and Jeane Kirkpatrick, were present. According to Jim Rentschler, who took minutes during the meeting, Haig declared that the US had a fortnight to work out a diplomatic solution, and felt he could do so. He proposed to go first to London to ‘find out what the British bottom line is’ and then do the same with Argentina: ‘I’ll take along [General] Dick Walters.
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He’ll talk to some of those generals down there in their native Spanish and scare the hell out of them.’
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According to Roger Fontaine, of the NSC staff, Haig declared, ‘There will not be a war in the South Atlantic.’
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‘Then [as Rentschler recalls it] the President came into the discussion. He said, “It seems to me that we have an opportunity to do some good here. The main thing we have to do is to
get these two brawlers out of the bar room.” ’
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Supported by Weinberger, the President authorized Haig to try his mission. The President, dressed in blue blazer and polo shirt and about to take off for his Easter holiday in Barbados, felt he had made his decision, but then Jeane Kirkpatrick cut in: ‘I hope you are determined, Mr President, to really keep our neutrality in this and not be seen to be favouring the British.’
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This provoked an impassioned intervention from Bobby Ray Inman, the Deputy Director of the CIA. America had to stick with ‘the links of language, law, culture, mother country’, insisted Inman in his Southern drawl, not to mention ‘the extremely serious, unparalleled co-operation we have with them [the British] in every military and intelligence chapter that’s of interest to us’. If they let the Argentines get away with their aggression, he went on, they would believe they could get away with developing nuclear weapons themselves.
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At this point, Reagan was visibly eager to go on holiday, and people were getting up to leave: ‘Reagan then looked at Kirkpatrick and said, “Look, I would love to stay friends with Argentina, but I think our first loyalty, our first order of business if worst comes to worst, is to side with the Brits.” ’
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It was with this mandate to seek a deal, and this understanding that, if no deal could be reached, the United States would have to back Britain, that Haig set off for London.

Before Haig reached London, Mrs Thatcher wrote, ‘we made it clear [in public] that he was coming as a friend and
not
as a mediator,’
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but this was not how Haig saw matters, and indeed it was not long before Foreign Office documents started to refer, unselfconsciously, to the Secretary of State’s ‘mediation’. The US Embassy in London had reported that ‘Tory moderates and the Foreign Office are concerned that Prime Minister Thatcher has been listening largely to the Ministry of Defense, especially senior naval officers, and may not adequately be considering non-military options.’
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Haig saw it as his job to ensure that such options were firmly on the table. He had already told Henderson, before leaving Washington, that there should be a ‘mixed administration’ to run the Falkland Islands. He suggested that an international commission to get Argentina out of the Falklands should be set up by the Organization of American States (OAS). Henderson objected immediately. The idea, he said, was ‘totally deplorable’.
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Haig protested that Galtieri could not survive if Argentina were to leave the Falklands with nothing. Henderson replied that ‘It was not our purpose to help Galtieri survive.’
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He emphasized the huge strength of British feeling on the subject, comparing it to American feeling about the fifty-two US hostages in Iran during the Carter presidency.

Arriving in London on Thursday 8 April, Haig was met at the airport
by Edward Streator, the Chargé d’Affaires at the US Embassy in London.
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Haig told Streator that, while ultimately the US would back Britain over the Falklands, now was the time for a display of even-handedness in the interests of fruitful negotiations. Streator warned that the Prime Minister was in no mood for compromise. ‘If you think you can sway her you’re dead wrong,’ he told Haig.
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Undeterred, Haig and an entourage that included General Walters and Enders, met Mrs Thatcher at 10 Downing Street later that afternoon.

Mrs Thatcher fielded Pym, Nott, Lewin and officials. Although Haig was friendly and polite, and Mrs Thatcher tried to be the same, the encounters were blunt. Jim Rentschler, who accompanied Haig, set the scene: ‘And here’s Maggie, appearing in a flower-decorated salon adjoining the small dining room … La Thatcher is really quite fetching in a dark velvet two-piece ensemble with gros-grain piping and a soft hairdo that heightens her blond English coloring. “Listen, I want to show you guys something very appropriate considering the subject on our minds!” – and she pointedly leads us to a pair of recently hung oil portraits, one of Nelson and the other of Wellington!’
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In conversation before dinner, Mrs Thatcher told Haig that she had been ‘rather disturbed’ by Reagan’s public proclamation of friendship with both countries. ‘Mr Haig said that the Prime Minister would well know where the President
really
stood’ but he ‘had to be cautious’ about ‘profile’.
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Haig tried to show Mrs Thatcher some of the problems which might lie ahead, including military difficulties and the possibility that US public opinion, at that moment very pro-British, might swing the other way. He wanted a means of getting the Argentines off the islands without total loss of face: it was ‘important to avoid a priori judgments about sovereignty’. Couldn’t there be some sort of interim administration, perhaps involving the Canadians? But Mrs Thatcher would not accept that Argentina could gain anything by force that it could not have got by proper negotiation. Conflict was inevitable, said Haig, if Britain insisted on this. ‘The implication of this’, said Mrs Thatcher, ‘was that the Russians could move into Berlin.’
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She was determined not to lose sight of what she saw as the large principles at stake. Rentschler recorded the scene at dinner later: