You’re intimating that it was a deliberate set-up. I don’t have her memoirs to hand (I’ve loaned them out), but I recall that they say that we were caught by surprise - we thought it was the usual sabre-rattling. It was only after the Argentines had invaded that she asked about retaking the islands, so by no means was it a set-up.
Misinterpreting intelligence is nothing new.
Are you really suggesting that the U.K. would be better off now if its main industries were still coal mining, shipbuilding and textiles? I agree that economic changes have been wrenching for many people who worked in or would have taken manufacturing jobs in advanced Western countries, but I don’t understand exactly what Thatcher was supposed to have done to change that, and in any case I’d argue that any such action would have been the equvalent of King Canute ordering the tide to halt. With all due respect, I can’t help feeling that to some extent you’re looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.
While we’re on the subject, can we please stop bewailing the alleged eradication of British industry? According to the CIA World Factbook, manufacturing accounts for 23.7% of U.K. gross domestic product; the equivalent figures for some other countries you have mentioned are France, 21.4%; Germany, 29.6%; Japan, 25.8%.
Oil revenue didn’t do anything to keep sterling from losing half its value between the end of 1980, when it traded at $2.3890, and the end of 1984, when it was at $1.1580. (Figures from Bloomberg, no Web link available.) And as this history of the Bank of England’s official lending rate shows, borrowing costs rose on many occasions while Thatcher was in office.
In exactly the same way that you correctly cautioned that personal experience is not necessarily a great guide to judging the Thatcher years, I’d say that personal experience of working in one behind-the-times company is not necessarily a good basis for making judgments about a national economy.
Again, let’s not get carried away with reminiscing about the alleged good old days. The dockers did everything they could to obstruct the introduction of more efficient ways of handling cargo, including striking at the drop of a hat on flimsy pretexts, and pilferage was an accepted privilege of the job, from what I understand from some reading.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, but to imply that the Bank of England would have to raise interest rates because the British government borrowed in the euromarkets is nonsense.
I’d argue that it’s much more to do with 1) Labour being fortunate enough to inherit an economy in good shape and having the common sense to stick to Tory spending plans; 2) monetary-policy decisions taken by the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan that flooded the world with cheap money; and 3) a massive housing bubble.
You imagine that she would state such a thing in her memoirs ???
Given that I have made what may seem like a serious accusation, I had better back it up, which I most certainly can, but this will be quite a long post.
Look, for at least 15 years we had trained their officer cadets, we trained their pilots, we sold them an aircraft carrier, a couple of subs, and at least two type 42 destroyers, which were as modern as anything posessed by the Royal Navy.
On top of which we also had social contacts at literally the highest levels, since Prince Charles regularly buys his polo ponies from there, and several UK polo clubs that employ Argentinians as full time professionals, even Princess Diana was socially very familiar with the top end of Argentinian heirarchy.
The social elite of Argentina are Anglophiles, thier idea of status is to emulate the idea of the UK image of aristocracy, which means polo ponies, mansions and tea on the lawn.
http://www.angloarg.dircon.co.uk/
The result is that we have plenty of people in Argentina at levels high enough to know what their military are doing, and it should come as no surprise to you to know that we have recruited such folk to keep us aware of such things.
Here is one cite that gives some idea of what was going on.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JIW/is_3_55/ai_92745794
Here is another
http://www.btinternet.com/~warship/Postwar/Submarines/early.htm
I happened to be serving upon HMS Pheobe when we went down to the Falklands back in 1977/78 it was Christmas/ New year time.
The reason we were sent was simple, we had recieved intelligence reports that Argentina was gearing up to invade the Falklands.
You cannot get around 20 to 30 thousand men plus all their equipment prepared without someone noticing, and such a thing takes many weeks and more usually months to prepare, and this took around 6 months to do so, the idea was to invade the Falklands so that the winter would arrive shortly after and prevent any attempted retaking for at least a year, we were well aware of what was going on.
The result of that mission was that the Argentine backed down, there was no war in 1977/78.
Our mission was deployed by the then Labour Adminstration, in the form of David Owen, the secretary of state for defence.
Years later, David Owen was being interviewed about a party he had helped to form, the SDP, but the subject of the Falkand Islands also cropped up.
During that interview David Owen mentions this mission, but what totally surprised me was that he also added that in fact preventative missions had been sent to the Falklands on three seperate occasions, and the result on each one was no invasion and no war.
So what we have is intelligence reports on three occasions, that led us to take deterrrant action.
The fourth occasion, in 1982, are you suggesting that maybe we didn’t know about the Argentine military build up ?
Sorry I do not see this at all, and do you imagine for one teeny tiny moment that Ms Thatcher as the leader of the UK, do you imagine she would not have been informed by our security services ?
Even if you are credulous enough to believe that, you should also note that in 1982 the Falkland invasion was preceded by an occupation of the South Sandwich islands, there was significant increase of Argentine presence there starting sometime around early February, the Falklands invasion took place some weeks later, I distinclty remeber it was in total about 7 weeks between the South Sandwich Island and the Falklands attack, that is plenty of time to send a couple of hunter killer subs into the area.
So why, given the intelligence, the warnings, precedents from previous UK adminsitrations and the precursor events on the South Sandwich Islands, did Thatcher do nothing ?
During this time the Conservative administration was set to be wiped of the face of the UK elecetoral map, their poll rating was at most 20% and down to 17% depending upon which polling body you choose to accept.
This is not any excuse to do nothing, and yet nothing is what they did, the war could have been prevented, as it had been on three previous occasions, by the presence of a small flotilla of Royal Navy vessels, and deterrance is generally cheaper than outright warfare.
The so-called ‘Falklands Factor’ was an extremely significant phenomenon in the 1983 election.
There’s a song in Elton John’s (who, of course, is British) musical Billy Elliot called “Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher”.
The chorus goes:
Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher,
May God’s love be with you
We all sing together in one breath.
Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher,
We all celebrate today 'cause
It’s one day closer to your death.
Are we being whooshed?
IIRC, the Argentine government at the time were pretty right-wing. The president at the time, Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, was a right-wing military dictator who was trained at the infamous School of the Americas. Hardly a socialist.
Actually, as far as the reading I’ve done on it goes, the initial invasion was initially intended to be mere sabre-rattling on the part of the Argentines, hence the lack of preparedness of their navy, and the initial expectation that Britian would engage in an easy beatdown. Then Argentina went from a skirmish action (intended specifically to enhance Argentine morale, or at least distract from internal problems) to a full-on occupation.
I think the “psychological effect” of Britian retaking the Falklands on the Cold War is vastly overstated. It certainly did a lot for Thatcher’s standing and may have culimated in a pub cheer in England, but NATO members on the Continent could pretty much care less and the US still regarded itself as the primary superpower facing off against the Bear. And again, it had no impact upon the primary issues that brought the USSR to it’s knees–the economic destitution, liberal uprisings in satellite clients, the ill-advised invasion of Afghanistan, and the death or forced retirement of hardline ideologues in the Poliburo.
Stranger
As someone who was there, I disagree. The whole country got a spring in its step, and on the international scene, Britain got a reputation of meaning business.
Hmm… that could be misunderstood - I wasn’t in the Falklands - I mean that I was living in Britain at the time (and still am).
Bolding mine. You don’t speak for the whole country. No, quite a lot of the country viewed it as a nasty cynical electioneering ploy. (And no, she wasn’t doing anything especially harmful to me at the time, but working in the Square Mile at the time didn’t make me blind to the damage she was doing to lots of people.)
You don’t speak for me, either. I was there too, a Tory boy. My political views changed immediately afterwards.
Quartz
Speaking as someone who was there, who saw the lads when they were evacuated from HMS Ardent, that ‘spring in their step’ was bought at a very high price, and what makes it worse is that it was unnecessary.
On HMS Ardent one bomb hit that hanger and started a fire, the fire fighting crews in protective gear went in to deal with it, the air bottles one of the fire crew was using on his breathing equipment blew up because of the heat, without air from the bottle to breath, you can imagine the temeprature of air that was available to him, still, at least he didn’t last long.
We also had two lads working down in the magazine of one of the Rothesay class frigate, a bomb went in one side and out the other, the magazines are surounded by diesel tanks, because diesel is actually quite good at supressing fire, the diesel flooded in, diesel is also very good at supressing life, you can’t swim in it, you just sink.
There’s quite a few more of those if you want.
Suggest you also read the soldiers story from here,
http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/0-9/4health/stress/cws_ptsd.html
The war isn’t over for some of them,
Hope you enjoy the ‘spring in your step’ for a war that was completely preventable, proof being that I was on one of the missions that prevented it back in 1977/78
No, a lot of families and towns mourned their dead and looked after their wounded, as they always do. I doubt the international community even noticed.
Sorry for the late post, but should some mention be made of Northern Ireland?
Perhaps, as Mrs Thatcher will be reviled by many for involvement in the Hunger Strikes of the early 80s, but then she did help bring about the Anglo-Irish agreement. Its doubtful there’d be many fans in the end in Northern Ireland of our ex-PM.
I speak as someone whose uncle was invalided out of the Army as a result of the Falklands. So I know this all too well. But I’m able to see the larger picture beyond that.
The cost of war is always high, but it is one we have to be prepared to pay to remain free. You are confusing the micro-level - the personal scale - with the macro-level - the national and international scale. Just as Mrs Thatcher’s reforms put many people out of work, causing individual short term misery, the country as a whole prospered.
She made some stunning blunders, but they are far outweighed by her successes.
There as always those who lose out in any situation, but my whole point in this case is that the situation should never have arisen, it was prevetenble and had been prevented on previous occasions.
Given that this is the case, you then have to look at the motives behind not doing anything, and this is where Thatchers’ philosophy becomes threadbare, because her inaction over the Falklands was instrumental in ensuring there was a war, and the successful resolution of that war is the significant reason for her winning the following election, and election she would have certainly lost if he Falklands war had not occurred, or if we had lost.
It would harly be the first time or the last that governemts have acted or not acted on faulty intelligence, would it?
The Committee of Enquiry under Lord Franks decided otherwise.
Now I have the book to hand, allow me to quote the lady herself, from The Downing Street Years, Chapter 7:
I seriously doubt that this means what you think it does, and, it certainly says absoutely nothing whatsoever about the lead up to the war, nor our government’s strange lack of reaction over the intelligence about the Argentine build up in its own borders prior to invasion.
The charge still remains, Thatchers government allowed Argentina to invade the Falklands, whilst knowing about their plans to do so, because they needed some way to gain national confidence since their poll ratings indicated they were going to be wiped out at the next election.
You persist in this statement without presenting any actual evidence. Lord Franks disagrees with you. Until you can provide actual evidence - and remember that cock-up trumps conspiracy - then kindly desist.
Yep, that’s an impartial observer if ever I’ve seen one. :rolleyes: