A look into the archive: The Falklands Crisis - 5th May 1982

Here at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation we are in the process of adding to our already extensive archive of documents relating to the Falklands Crisis. We have just published one such document: a memo sent to President Reagan by one of his National Security advisers, dated 5th May 1982 and concerning the US-led attempt to secure a ceasefire between Britain and Argentina. This blogpost is an attempt to set the memo in context.

The 5th May 1982 was a crucial day in the diplomatic battle for the Falkland Islands. Three days previously the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano had been sunk by a British nuclear-powered submarine, while on the 4th of May an Exocet fired by an Argentine jet had hit HMS Sheffield, crippling the ship. With both sides suffering significant casualties, calls for the cessation of hostilities were louder than ever before. Writing in her autobiography, MT commented that 'the shocking loss of life' as a result of the sinking of the Belgrano 'provided a reason - or in some cases perhaps an excuse - for breaks in the ranks among the less committed of our allies' (The Downing Street Years, pp. 215-16). The German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt described himself as "very dismayed" by events in the South Atlantic, while the Irish Government issued a statement declaring its intention to pursue a ceasefire resolution at the UN. It was within this context that US Secretary of State Al Haig was desperately seeking to broker a peace deal between Britain and Argentina.

Events came to a head on the 5th of May. In a telegram sent at just after 2am UK time, President Reagan commended to MT a six point list of proposals which collectively called for an immediate ceasefire and the joint withdrawal of British and Argentine forces, as well as acknowledging 'the existence of differing and conflicting views regarding the status of the Falkland Islands'. With UK agreement, the six point list would be forwarded to the Peruvians, who would in turn communicate them to the Argentine junta. In his démarche to MT Reagan acknowledges that the US proposals fall short of 'the ideas [previously] sent to Al [Haig] by your Foreign Secretary [Francis Pym]', but argues that these ideas would not have provided a 'basis for a peaceful settlement'. Pym's "ideas" crucially included a reference to the restoration of British Administration of the Falkland Islands and a statement to the effect that the wishes of the Islanders needed to be respected (i.e. a right to self-determination). Such language being unacceptable to both the Peruvians and the Argentines, Reagan argued that the the significantly weaker US peace proposal was 'now our best hope' for a peace settlement.

MT and Al Haig in Washington, 28th June 1982 - Wikimedia Commons

At about the same time as Reagan sent his telegram, the UK Ambassador to Washington, Nicholas Henderson, was meeting with Al Haig to discuss the proposals. Haig sought to impress upon Henderson the same points as Reagan had upon MT, namely, that the US peace proposals at this point represented the only chance for a peace settlement, and that any attempt by the British to insist on any of Pym's "ideas" would lead to their immediate rejection by the Argentines. Henderson's telegram to London, reporting on his meeting with Haig, concludes with 'a final word about the mood here':

Haig is fearful of the consequences of a prolongation of the fighting, particularly if it can be represented, however unfairly, that HMG has not pursued every possible chance of a settlement. He foresees that we may increasingly come to the USA for support and that if opinion turns to believing that we have missed the opportunity of peace, it is going to be difficult for the USA to stay in the supportive position they have now adopted.

A dilemma now faced the British Government. By rejecting the US proposals the British would risk presenting themselves as the aggressors in the fight, and this would be especially damaging following the sinking of the Belgrano and the weakening of support for the British position that it had brought about. But accepting the settlement would give rise to the possibility that the Argentine government might actually agree to go along with the US plan, thereby bringing an end to the conflict on terms that were objectionable to the British government - and to MT in particular.

The War Cabinet met at 9am on the morning of the 5th to discuss the US proposals. Pym argued that it 'would be highly damaging to reject Mr Haig's proposal, given the level of fighting which had now developed in the South Atlantic and the shifting attitudes of Britain's European partners', while MT emphasised her concerns about 'the position in relation to South Georgia', the 'ambiguous provision about the local administration of the Falklands', and the 'lack of any reference to the wishes of the inhabitants or to self-determination'. A full meeting of the Cabinet followed at 11:45am, where Haig's proposals were discussed in further detail. Once again Pym argued that they should be accepted, and Cabinet agreed, pending comparatively minor amendments. In particular, since the Argentines would not accept a commitment to self-determination within the terms of the peace settlement, a weaker amendment was proposed: the suggestion that 'the interim administration [of the Falklands] must at least consult with the locally elected representatives' (see here). The minute of the Cabinet meeting concludes with MT's summing up, and portrays her as reluctantly agreeing to the peace proposals. Whether or not Argentina accepted the proposals, she said, 'the United Kingdom would be seen to have pursued in the most responsible way every chance of ending the fighting and securing an agreement'.

In her autobiography MT describes herself as having been 'deeply unhappy about the US/Peruvian proposals' (The Downing Street Years, p.217). She notes that she 'drafted a personal letter to President Reagan that revealed perhaps too much of my frustration, though I toned it down before it was sent' (Ibid.). We have both the original and the "toned down" versions of her letter to Reagan in our archive. The original version is a particularly remarkable document for it reads almost as an argument against the very peace proposals that her Government had just accepted. In the view of Chris Collins, our general Editor, the fact that MT wrote this letter suggests that 'if only for a brief time, she had effectively lost control of the diplomacy to Pym' (see here). MT begins the letter by noting that Pym is writing to Haig in reply to the US proposals, but states that she is writing directly to Reagan because 'I think you are the only person who will understand the significance of what I am trying to say'. This formulation suggests a level of frustration with both Haig and Pym, and perhaps indicates a feeling that they are operating according to an agenda that is different from her own. She then goes on to argue that the US proposals are not faithful to the 'basic principles we must protect', 'first the right to self-determination and second that aggression must not pay'. The failure of the US proposals to uphold these principles implies for MT their abandonment: 'our principles are no longer what we believe, nor those we were elected to save, but what the dictator will accept'. Moreover, by accepting a peace settlement on the proposed terms the 'military junta will be able to proclaim that through invasion, they have succeeded in ousting the British Administration, with all that that means, have subjugated the right to self-determination, and have gained a negotiating framework which...is likely to lead to substantially increased Argentine powers...And what then is to stop another invasion to achieve the rest?' For MT, a ceasefire on these terms would constitute a British defeat in all but name.
 
The "toned down" version of the letter, eventually sent to Reagan at 8:30pm GMT that evening, is strongly-worded but significantly less inflammatory. In particular, although MT emphasises her concern to uphold 'the basic principles we must protect', she does not directly accuse the US Administration of abandoning them, and instead expresses the worry that 'the present rulers of the Argentine will not respect those principles'. The focus of criticism is therefore subtly shifted from the US Administration to the Argentine government.

Our newly published document now fills in the next piece of the puzzle. It is a memo from Bill Clark (a US National Security Adviser) to Reagan, reporting on the British response to the peace proposals. Although the document lacks a timestamp, it appears that it was passed to Reagan shortly after MT dispatched her "toned down" letter to Washington. It begins:

Attached is Prime Minister Thatcher's reply to your compromise proposal to achieve a ceasefire and negotiations for the resolution of the Falklands dispute. In a word, Maggie accepts the proposal.

Following a meeting between Haig and Henderson to discuss minor amendments, Haig sent the proposals on to the Peruvians. In his memo to Reagan Clark comments on the chances of Argentine agreement:

The Argentine response is uncertain. They see Thatcher's position eroding somewhat at home. They also see some opportunity for grandstanding among their third world brothers at the UN. Still they have fewer illusions about the ultimate military outcome.

In a telegram sent to London at 10:50pm GMT, Henderson anticipated that the Argentines would indeed go in for 'grandstanding' at the UN rather than accept the proffer of peace. Henderson was proved correct by the next day's news: 'As anticipated the proposals [have] been turned down by Galtieri...The Argentines [are] now moving to the UN and that [is] the end of that' (Pym telegram to Henderson, 6th May 1982, 1545 GMT).

So ended one of the most important diplomatic battles of the Falklands War. Yet there is a definite sense that the British government, and MT in particular, had managed something of a lucky escape. She writes in her memoirs that despite having to agree to the US proposals she 'took comfort from the fact that I never believed that the Argentine Junta would be prepared to withdraw on these or any other terms' (The Downing Street Years, p.217). Nevertheless, it must have been a significant relief for her to learn that Galtieri had rejected them. As her unsent letter to Reagan shows, she would have considered any other outcome to constitute a defeat, both for Britain and for her personally.

Matt Hasler, Deputy Editor

Behind the scenes at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation (Part 2 of 2)

This is the second of a two part blog post which seeks to clarify what we do, how we do it, and what our goals are. In the first part I talked about the history of the Foundation and the creation of the website, and then went on to explain the construction of our archive. As we saw, the two main sources of documents for the archive are MT's personal and political papers, stored at Churchill College Archives Centre in Cambridge, and her official prime ministerial files (the 'PREM19s'), stored at The National Archives in Kew, but we also pull together documents from myriad other sources in order to make the archive as comprehensive as possible. In this second part of the series I will seek to explain and justify our editorial processes.

As should be clear by now, we believe that in building our website we are developing a useful and detailed historical resource. But, as any historian knows, one must always question the trustworthiness of one's sources. So can you trust us to provide accurate and comprehensive information? The Margaret Thatcher Foundation was, after all, founded by MT herself: are we not therefore providing an edited version of history in order to portray her and her premiership in the best possible light?
 
It is certainly true that we do have to make editorial decisions when administering the website. As already explained, a key source of documents for our website is the PREM19s. In their 'raw' form, the digitised versions of these folders are often many hundreds of pages long, and contain hundreds of documents. Throughout the course of MT's time as PM, thousands of these folders were produced. In order to make sense of all this, some sort of order has to be imposed. Our archive is intended not only to make documents freely available online, but also to make them searchable by tagging them in a useful way and adding them to our database. Yet if the database is to function properly it simply cannot include every document contained within the PREM19s. If it did it would become unwieldy, and every search would return hundreds of irrelevant and/or uninteresting results. It is therefore crucial that we make selections from these PREM19 folders, by determining which documents are of the greatest historical interest and adding only those to the database. And the same is of course true for documents taken from other sources. It is neither sensible nor feasible to add all of them to the database. (However, it should be noted that although only a selection of documents are being added to the searchable database, all of the 'raw' files are also going on our website in complete and unedited form - see below.) 

Furthermore, there can be no hard and fast rules for deciding which documents should be added to the database. Generally speaking, records of MT's meetings will always go online, as will minutes and letters sent to MT by key Cabinet figures (see, for example, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's and Foreign Secretary's minutes). MT's correspondence with national and international figures always goes online as well. Beyond that, case-by-case judgements are required. For example, it is usually the case that short administrative notes are of little historical interest, but in certain cases they can be revealing. This note concerns arrangements for a 1982 constituency visit, and asks MT whether she would be willing to drive a radio controlled forklift into a warehouse as part of a function. MT's scribbled annotation shows her concern that this might look 'gimmicky' given the 'current situation', the 'current situation' being the Falklands crisis. Then, in parenthesis, she adds, 'unless it is all resolved by then'. These words, written casually in a trivial private document, only make sense if she thought that there might be a diplomatic solution to the Falklands Crisis, and the note therefore provides an interesting window into her thinking at this point in time. This example demonstrates the extent to which case-by-case editorial judgements are essential for determining the interest of historical documents.

So given that editorial judgements have to be made, how do can know that you can trust our editorial judgements? 

The first thing to emphasise is that we sincerely desire that the document archive should serve as a useful historical resource for the purposes of serious and intellectually honest research. We do not want to present a narrow or distorted version of the historical record, and we certainly do not hold back or censor documents that deal with contentious or controversial topics. Some of the documents in our archive do feature redactions, but these were made by the Cabinet Office on grounds of national security. There are also documents present in the hard-copy archives that we would like to put online but cannot because we do not have the right to reproduce them. But with these exceptions, everything that is of historical interest is added to the database. Indeed, the more complicated and contentious a topic is, the more likely you are to find documents relating to that topic on our website. We are therefore focusing with particular intensity on the Falklands Crisis, and have dealt comprehensively with issues like the IRA hunger strikes at the Maze Prison. Once documents on the Miners' Strike, Hillsborough, and other potentially contentious topics are released to us, they will be given similar care and attention.

Secondly, as mentioned above, we are also making available "raw", unedited folders of documents wherever possible. This is particularly true of the PREM19s, and on this page you can find links to PDF versions of complete PREM19 folders. The obvious disadvantage to viewing the folders in this way is that they cannot be searched through in the same way as those documents uploaded to the database, but nevertheless they are (or will be) available for manual cross-checking. (NB: Uploading the complete PREM 19 files to the website is an on-going  and time consuming process. Indeed, the majority of the PREM19s are still to be released to us. But we will get there, and eventually every one of MT's prime ministerial folders will be available for download in complete and unedited form.) If even that doesn't satisfy you, then you should also bear in mind that the vast majority of the documents in our database are available to view in hard-copy form at either the Churchill Archive Centre in Cambridge, or The National Archives in Kew. It is always possible to cross-check our digital archive against the relevant paper versions.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it appears that academics of all political stripes consider our website to constitute a useful historical resource. Consider, for instance, the following description of the site by Eric J. Evans. It is taken from the bibliography to his Thatcher and Thatcherism (Routledge, 3rd Edition, 2013), a book which argues for a generally negative assessment of MT and her legacy:

Students of the Thatcher era have a distinct advantage over those working on other near-contemporary figures. The Margaret Thatcher Foundation has digitised and put online a massive amount of material, including all of Thatcher's major speeches and other primary-source material...The Foundation does not pretend to be a national archive or to represent all views equally and the brief biographical introduction is hardly a dispassionate assessment of its subject. However, the site is immensely valuable and new additions to it are regularly made. It claims, quite correctly, 'to offer thousands of documents touching on the career of Margaret Thatcher...to inform and advance understanding of the period'.

There is bound to be disagreement over the correct interpretation of the documents on our website, but it is important to us that the website itself should be trusted and valued. For that reason there is a sense in which we most value praise that comes from those who are not sympathetic to MT or her legacy. It shows that we are doing our job right.

Hopefully this two-part post has given you an idea of what we do and how we work, but if you have any further questions please feel free to contact us via Twitter or Facebook.

Matt Hasler, Deputy Editor