Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [128]
At home the apparent imminence of full-scale military conflict began to shake the determination of those whose commitment to retaking the Falklands had always been weaker than it appeared. Some MPs seemed to want negotiations to continue indefinitely. I had to put the realities to the nation. At Prime Minister’s Questions I said:
I must point out that time is getting extremely short as the task force approaches the islands. Three weeks have elapsed since the Resolution SCR 502. One cannot have a wide range of choice and a wide range of military options with the task force in the wild and stormy weathers of that area.
I made the same point in a live interview that evening on Panorama:
I have to keep in mind the interests of our boys who are on those warships and our marines. I have to watch the safety of their lives, to see that they can succeed in doing whatever it is we decide they have to do at the best possible time and with minimum risk to them.
I also took the opportunity to say directly just what we were fighting for:
I’m standing up for the right of self-determination. I’m standing up for our territory. I’m standing up for our people. I’m standing up for international law. I’m standing up for all those territories — those small territories and peoples the world over — who, if someone doesn’t stand up and say to an invader ‘enough, stop’ … would be at risk.
Unfortunately, the cracks now appearing in the Labour Party were likely to be widened by what was happening at the United Nations. The Secretary-General of the UN started to become more involved as the Haig mediation manifestly stalled. A low-key appeal from Sr. Perez de Cuellar to both sides — which appeared to imply that we, like Argentina, had failed to comply with UNSCR 502 — was seized upon by Denis Healey and Michael Foot. I had a serious clash with Mr Foot during Prime Minister’s Questions on Tuesday 27 April on the question of our returning to the United Nations. In fact, the Secretary-General very quickly took the point, but the damage was done. We ourselves had been exploring whether an offer from President López-Portillo of Mexico to provide a venue for negotiations might be productive. But Al Haig did not wish us to pursue this and I doubt whether the Mexicans would in fact have proposed the simpler and more satisfactory formula which we wanted.
Al Haig had had his own share of diplomatic problems. His speech to a meeting of the Organization of American States justifying the United States line on the Falklands and Argentina had been greeted with stony silence. The Argentine Foreign minister, furious at the retaking of South Georgia, had publicly refused to see him, though they had been in contact privately.
Al Haig could not under these circumstances go back to Buenos Aires, which from our point of view was probably all to the good. He had again modified the proposals discussed with Francis Pym in Washington and now transmitted these to the Argentine Government. Mr Haig told the Junta that no amendments were permissible and imposed a strict time limit for their reply, though he was subsequently unwilling to stick to this. For its part, the Junta was now determined to play for time. Al Haig telephoned Francis Pym in the afternoon of Wednesday 28 April to say that there was still no word from Buenos Aires. Both Francis and Nico Henderson continued to press him to say publicly that the Argentinians were to blame for the failure of his mediation and that the United States was openly supporting us.
At Cabinet on Thursday 29 April we discussed the continuing uncertainty. The deadline given to the Argentinians for their answer had passed, but now Mr Haig was talking of the possibility of the Argentinians