Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [120]
Shortly after this we adjourned for lunch and agreed to meet later in the afternoon after we had looked in detail at the proposals and, with advice from officials and the military, worked out our own detailed amendments. In the meantime the American team had made use of a direct secure line from No. 10 to the White House. As Al Haig’s memoirs reveal, he had also rung the Argentine Foreign minister, on hearing that the New York Times had just published the terms of the document which Sr. Costa Mendez had handed him at the airport in Buenos Aires, which were utterly inconsistent with the terms presented to us. Understandably, Mr Haig now wanted to know whether this document represented the Foreign minister’s suggestions or the final and official word of the Junta.
Our two teams met once more just before 6 p.m. There were a number of points to discuss; again, the single most important was the position of the task force. Al Haig said that President Galtieri would not survive if after the Argentinians had committed themselves to withdrawing from the Falkland Islands in two weeks the British newspapers continued to report that the task force was proceeding south. The Americans were not asking for our fleet to be turned around: but they were asking for it to be halted once an agreement had been reached. I replied that I would not survive in the House of Commons if I stopped the task force before Argentine withdrawal had been completed. Nor would I be prepared to do it. I was ready to let the troop ships proceed more slowly once an agreement had been signed. But the main task force must maintain its progress towards the Falklands Islands. I saw no reason to give Argentina the benefit of the doubt. I was prepared to halt the task force at the same distance from the Falklands as that between Argentina and the islands, but I could go no further than that.
We argued until late into the evening. Argentina, starting from the Communications Agreement of 1971, wanted their citizens to have the same rights to reside on the islands, own property and so on, as the Falklanders. They wanted the commission positively to promote that state of affairs and to decide upon such matters. We fought the proposal down on the grounds that the interim administration must not change the nature of life on the islands. We finally agreed that we would pursue further negotiations on a somewhat woolly text. There were, however, some conditions which had to be made absolutely clear — the withdrawal zones, the fact that the one Argentine representative per council must be local, and that Argentinians on the islands must have the same qualifying period for voting rights as the Falklanders.
This was not, however, quite the end of Easter Monday. Just before 10 o’clock that night Al Haig telephoned me to say that Sr. Costa Mendez had rung him to say that he saw no reason for the Secretary of State to go to Buenos Aires again unless any agreement about the Falkland Islands provided for the Governor to be appointed by the Argentine Government and for the Argentine flag to continue to be flown there. And if that was not possible, the Argentinians must have assurances that at the end of negotiations with Britain there would be a recognition of Argentine sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Al Haig was shattered. I had mixed feelings about this news, but I was certainly not going to buckle under that sort of pressure. I told Mr Haig on the telephone:
If those are the conditions, you cannot return [direct