Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography (133 page)

In the attitude of the US administration, there was a mixture of irritation and admiration. When Mrs Thatcher went to Washington on 23 June 1982, fresh from her victory, Reagan was urged by his staff to press for some sort of compromise with Argentina over the long-term future of the islands. Mrs Thatcher, however, had got wind of this plan before arriving
in Washington and was ready to thwart it. ‘He wants me to be magnanimous in victory,’ she told one of her officials, ‘and I’m not going to be.’
²³⁸
The draft of Reagan’s remarks to be delivered after his meeting with her said: ‘I expressed my view that a just war requires a just peace and that we should bend our efforts toward a settlement in the South Atlantic that will bring lasting reconciliation and stability.’
²³⁹
But it was not to be. ‘
Thatcher blasted this position to smithereens on 2 networks this am
,’ a frantic staffer scribbled on this draft just hours before the meeting.
*
Sure enough, when Reagan and Thatcher sat down together the Prime Minister had no intention of allowing the discussion to verge towards talk of compromise. ‘The President had just started to say something about the Falklands when Mrs T interrupted him to say that she wanted to give him an account of the present position,’ Nicko Henderson recorded in his diary. ‘She described the state of the Argentinian prisoners: malnutrition, trench-foot, diarrhoea. We were spared nothing.’ Mrs Thatcher also appealed for Reagan’s help in clearing the thousands of mines left behind by Argentina. Reagan noted that, in the past, mules had been let loose in minefields, but had usually proved too ‘canny’ to detonate the mines. ‘Mrs Thatcher laughingly suggested that she would use the Falkland sheep for that purpose.’
²⁴⁰
As Mrs Thatcher raised issue after issue, Reagan had little chance to insert the serious words of warning pressed on him by his staff. ‘As a result, when, at the subsequent press conference, Mrs T was asked whether the President had urged her to adopt a more flexible attitude on sovereignty for the Falkland Islands, she was able to answer, No, with complete honesty.’
²⁴¹

All over the world, Margaret Thatcher now became a figure of legend, the embodiment of strong leadership, more famous, perhaps, than any other political leader of the time.

On the day of victory, Alan Clark bumped into Ian Gow in the Commons, ‘looking like the cat that has swallowed all the cream’: ‘ “the Prime Minister has complete freedom of action now,” I said, “no other Leader has enjoyed such freedom since Churchill, and even with him it did not last very long.” I suppose he may have thought that I was referring to freedom of choice in making appointments, but I was not, really, I meant freedom in imposing domestic, foreign and defence policies.’
²⁴²
Clark was right. No transformation in modern British history had been swifter, or more complete. She now had command of the whole field.

It fitted Mrs Thatcher’s deep gratitude to the armed services and also her sense of reverence and romance that there should be a service of thanksgiving
for victory, and other forms of public celebration. In this she faced two difficulties. The first was that some, particularly the Church authorities, were opposed on political/religious grounds to giving thanks for victory in a war which they believed should never have been fought. The second was that Mrs Thatcher feared she might be accused of triumphalism or hubris.

On the latter point, she was extremely sensitive and – despite her pride in her own achievements – genuinely reluctant to push herself forward. She was quite happy to lord it over political rivals, but hated the idea of upstaging the military or the monarchy. When, for example, it was debated who should read the lesson at the proposed service, Mrs Thatcher wrote to John Coles: ‘It would be much more appropriate for CDS or CinC Fleet to read the lesson. If I did, it would be misinterpreted and leave a
bad taste
. No
politician
in my view!’
²⁴³
It was also suggested that, when the Queen left St Paul’s cathedral at the end of the service, Mrs Thatcher should say a formal farewell to her at the west door. Mrs Thatcher queried this: ‘Am I the right person to do it? I shouldn’t like to intrude any political element into this service.’
²⁴⁴
*

The discussion of the service itself was fraught. As Mrs Thatcher recorded: ‘This [the service] had its difficulties because of its ecumenical nature. No parade was allowed to the cathedral, no colours to the Altar
and
it was as much as we could do to persuade the Church authorities to allow anyone who had taken part in the Falklands campaign to take part in the service …’
²⁴⁵

All this was true. Cardinal Basil Hume, for the Roman Catholics, objected to the service being for the ‘liberation’ of the Falklands and did not want combatants to read any lessons. Dr Kenneth Greet, for the Free Churches Federal Council, was entirely opposed to the war and therefore to any form of celebration. The left-wing Dean of St Paul’s, Dr Alan Webster, objected to the idea of a ‘thanksgiving’ service at all and wanted one of ‘reconciliation’, suggesting that the Lord’s Prayer be said in Spanish. All this dismayed the Ministry of Defence, who naturally wanted the armed forces prominently represented. At one stage some clerics suggested they would not take part in the service if members of the armed forces read the lessons. Furious, Mrs Thatcher ‘threatened to make this known in parliament and therefore publicly’.
²⁴⁶
The conservative Bishop of London, Dr Graham Leonard, told her privately that ‘even when the form of Service had been agreed, there was no guarantee that the Dean of St Paul’s would
follow it. On past form, he might well insert changes and additions at the last moment.’
²⁴⁷
Dr Leonard advised her to seek the help of the Archbishop of Canterbury (‘or even the Queen’) to prevent this.

Mrs Thatcher was infuriated by these clerical attitudes. When it was reported to her that the Dean wanted the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish ‘her eyes widened in absolute horror,’
²⁴⁸
and at the suggestion that it should be a service of reconciliation rather than thanksgiving she struck the table a tremendous blow and exclaimed scornfully ‘A service of reconciliation!’ ‘All Christians stay away,’ whispered Clive Whitmore to David Goodall, who was trying to co-ordinate matters with the Roman Catholics.
²⁴⁹
She was so angry that at the relevant meeting of OD(SA) she ordered her threat to publicize the attitudes of the clergy to be put into the official minutes. Going through the proposed text, she put her wiggly line against a prayer which asked God for the will to build defences against poverty, hunger and disease ‘instead of against each other’.
²⁵⁰
In the end, the necessary compromises were reached and servicemen read various biblical sentences. But there was such a lack of trust between Downing Street and the clergy that when, on the proof of the service sheet, a printer’s error had reduced the word ‘thanksgiving’ (which now headed a section, rather than appearing as part of the title of the service) to rather small type, the MOD official co-ordinating the arrangements had to obtain a ‘personal assurance’ from the Dean that this would be corrected.
²⁵¹

At the service, which took place at the end of July, Mrs Thatcher arrived ‘looking absolutely like a thundercloud’
²⁵²
and was seated, as she had requested, in a fairly humble place. It was widely reported the next day that she had been enraged by the sermon of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Runcie, which had called for reconciliation. But this was not the case. ‘She gripped my hand,’ he remembered, ‘and said “Well done.” ’
²⁵³
What upset her was the fear that the armed services might be denied proper thanks and the spiritual comfort that these would provide. It was the Queen, in fact, who put her finger on the problem with the service. ‘I don’t think you should ever leave a Christian service feeling sad,’ she said to the Archbishop. ‘The service was not well arranged for that reason.’
²⁵⁴
Mrs Thatcher herself summed it up: ‘The Thanksgiving part was virtually dropped from the Service. But because of the presence of the Queen and
all
the Royal Family – the superb pageantry of the military band – trumpeters, the service was a great comfort to the bereaved and that mattered more than anything else.’
²⁵⁵

The secular celebrations were less awkward. On 12 October, 1,250 representatives of the Task Force marched to Guildhall, with a fly-past of
helicopters and aircraft. Then there was lunch inside. The top brass sat with the Prime Minister and the Lord Mayor at the high table, the officers and other ranks at the lower tables. When Mrs Thatcher rose to speak, ‘Suddenly, before she could say anything, there was a standing ovation from the floor, started by the boys. The other politicians couldn’t believe what was happening. When Mrs Thatcher had quietened everyone down, she said “It is I who should be down there, thanking you.” ’
²⁵⁶
The night before, at No. 10, Mrs Thatcher gave dinner for the Lord Mayor and about 120 of those most involved in the Falklands victory. In her speech after dinner, she quoted the Duke of Wellington: ‘There is no such thing as a little war for a great nation.’ She spoke of ‘the spirit of the Falklands’ and went on, ‘Or is it the spirit of Britain which throughout history has never failed us in difficult days?’
²⁵⁷
‘She spoke like Queen Elizabeth I,’ remembered David Goodall. ‘She
looked
like Queen Elizabeth I!’
²⁵⁸

So many people had been invited to the dinner that there was no room for spouses at table: instead they were invited for post-dinner drinks in the drawing rooms. Because all the main players in the Falklands crisis had been men, Mrs Thatcher was the only woman at dinner. After the toasts which followed her speech, and the reply from Lord Lewin, the Prime Minister rose in her seat again and said, ‘Gentlemen, shall we join the ladies?’
²⁵⁹
It may well have been the happiest moment of her life.

1. ‘I just owe almost everything to my father’: Margaret with her father, Alfred Roberts,
c
. 1927.

2. Beatrice Stephenson as a young woman. ‘After I was fifteen we had nothing more to say to each other’, Margaret remembered sorrowfully.

3. Margaret in the class of 1934 at Huntingtower Road County Elementary School in Grantham, aged nine.

4. The family grocery shop, North Parade, Grantham. ‘If you get it from Roberts’s … you get – THE BEST’.