Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [144]
More than ever, the outcome now lay in the hands of our soldiers on the Falklands, not with the politicians. Like everyone else in Britain, I was glued to the radio for news — strictly keeping to my self-imposed rule not to telephone while the conflict was underway. On my way back from Chequers to No. 10, that Sunday (13 June), I went via Northwood to learn what I could. What was to turn out to be the final assault was bitterly fought, particularly at Mount Tumbledown where the Argentinians were well prepared. But Tumbledown, Mount William and Wireless Ridge fell to our forces, who were soon on the outskirts of Stanley.
I visited the islands seven months later and saw the terrain for myself, walking the ground at first light in driving wind and rain, wending my way around those grim outcrops of rock which made natural fortifications for the Argentine defenders. Our boys had had to cover the ground and take the positions in thick darkness. It could only have been done by the most professional and disciplined of forces.
When the War Cabinet met on Monday morning all that we knew was that the battle was still in progress. The speed with which the end came took all of us by surprise. The Argentinians were weary, demoralized and very badly led — as ample evidence at the time and later showed. They had had enough. They threw down their arms and could be seen retreating through their own minefields into Stanley.
That evening, having learnt the news, I went to the House of Commons to announce the victory. I could not get into my own room; it was locked and the Chief Whip’s assistant had to search for the key. I then wrote out on a scrap of paper which I found somewhere on my desk the short statement which, there being no other procedural means, I would have to make on a Point of Order to the House. At 10 p.m. I rose and told them that it had been reported that there were white flags flying over Port Stanley. The war was over. We all felt the same and the cheers showed it. Right had prevailed. And when I went to sleep very late that night I realized how great the burden was which had been lifted from my shoulders.
For the nation as a whole, though the daily memories, fears and even the relief would fade, pride in our country’s achievement would not. In a speech I made in Cheltenham a little later, on Saturday 3 July, I tried to express what the Falklands spirit meant:
We have ceased to be a nation in retreat. We have instead a newfound confidence — born in the economic battles at home and tested and found true 8000 miles away … And so today we can rejoice at our success in the Falklands and take pride in the achievement of the men and women of our task force. But we do so, not as at some flickering of a flame which must soon be dead. No — we rejoice that Britain has rekindled that spirit which has fired her for generations past and which today has begun to burn as brightly as before. Britain found herself again in the South Atlantic and will not look back from the victory she has won.
CHAPTER IX
Generals, Commissars and Mandarins
Meeting the military and political challenge of communism from the autumn of 1979 to the spring of 1983
PEACE AND ARMAMENTS
On Wednesday 23 June 1982 I travelled to New York to attend a special session of the General Assembly on disarmament, which the United Nations had called while the Falklands campaign was still in progress. The speech I made expressed my view of the role of defence and negotiations on disarmament with singular clarity. I had become increasingly unhappy about the language used on such occasions. Everyone talked about peace as if that in itself were the sole aim. But peace is not enough without freedom and justice and sometimes — as we were demonstrating in the Falklands — it was necessary to sacrifice peace if freedom and justice were to prevail. I was also convinced that much cant was spoken about the arms race, as if by slowing down the process of improving our defences we would