Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [108]
It all began with an incident on South Georgia. On 20 December 1981 there had been an unauthorized landing on the island at Leith harbour by what were described as Argentine scrap metal dealers; we had given a firm but measured response. The Argentinians subsequently left and the Argentine Government claimed to know nothing about it. The incident was disturbing, but not especially so. I was more alarmed when, after the Anglo-Argentine talks in New York, the Argentine Government broke the procedures agreed at the meeting by publishing a unilateral communiqué disclosing the details of discussion, while simultaneously the Argentine press began to speculate on possible military action before the symbolically important date of January 1983. On 3 March 1982 I minuted on a telegram from Buenos Aires: ‘we must make contingency plans’ — though, in spite of my unease, I was not expecting anything like a full-scale invasion, which indeed our most recent intelligence assessment of Argentine intentions had discounted.
On 20 March we were informed that the previous day the Argentine scrap metal dealers had made a further unauthorized landing on South Georgia, again at Leith. The Argentine flag had been raised and shots fired. Again in answer to our protests the Argentine Government claimed to have no prior knowledge. We first decided that HMS Endurance should be instructed to remove the Argentinians, whoever they were. But we tried to negotiate with Argentina a way of resolving what still seemed to be an awkward incident rather than a precursor of conflict, so we subsequently withdrew our instructions to Endurance and ordered the ship to proceed instead to the British base at Grytviken, the main settlement on the island.
WEEK ONE
Yet as March drew to a close with the incident still unresolved we became increasingly concerned. On Sunday evening, 28 March, I rang Peter Carrington from Chequers to express my anxiety at the situation. He assured me that he had already made a first approach to Al Haig, the US Secretary of State, asking him to bring pressure to bear. The following morning Peter and I met at RAF Northolt on our way to the European Council at Brussels, and discussed what further steps we should take. We agreed to send a nuclear-powered submarine to reinforce HMS Endurance and to make preparations to send a second submarine. I was not too displeased when the following day news of the decision leaked. The submarine would take two weeks to get to the South Atlantic, but it could begin to influence events straight away. My instinct was that the time had come to show the Argentines that we meant business.
In the late afternoon of Tuesday 30 March I returned from Brussels. By that time Peter Carrington had already left on an official visit to Israel; his absence was unfortunate. The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence had been working to prepare up-to-date assessments and review the diplomatic and military options. The following day — Wednesday 31 March — I made my statement to the House reporting on the Brussels summit, but my mind was focused on what the Argentinians were intending and on what our response should be. The advice we received from intelligence was that the Argentine Government were exploring our reactions, but that they had not contrived the landing on South Georgia and that any escalation they might make would stop short of full-scale invasion. However,