Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [201]
The military and political situation in the Lebanon was deteriorating. In the Chouf mountains south of Beirut, the forces of the Druze minority, historically friendly to Britain, were locked in a conflict with the Lebanese Army which neither side seemed able to win: it looked like a military stalemate. The Druze were under pressure from their Syrian backers to secure wider objectives than they themselves probably wanted. Certainly, they had no quarrel of their own with the British and sought to avoid firing on our position. On one occasion during a small lunch party at Downing Street I was told that a Druze shell had fallen close to our troops. Michael Heseltine was at the lunch, so I asked him to telephone the Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, to have the shelling stopped — and it was. Our force was small, exposed and isolated, and I was becoming increasingly concerned about what might happen.
For their part, the Lebanese Government and the Christian President Amin Gemayel were unable to free themselves from their identification with the old Phalange movement and so could not draw on wider Lebanese support. As a result they had to lean increasingly on the Americans. Three-quarters of the Lebanon was now occupied by the Syrians or the Israelis and the prospects for peace and stability for the remainder seemed bleak.
Then on Sunday 23 October a suicide bomber drove a lorry laden with explosives into the basement of the US Marine headquarters in Beirut. The building was totally destroyed. A second bomb shortly afterwards did the same to the headquarters of the French Paratroopers. Altogether 242 American and 58 French troops were killed — in total more than Britain had lost in the Falklands War. Responsibility was claimed by two militant Shia Muslim groups. My immediate reaction was one of shock at the carnage and disgust at the fanatics who had caused it. But I was also conscious of the impact it would have on the position and morale of the MNF. On the one hand, it would be wrong to give the terrorists the satisfaction of seeing the international force driven out. On the other, what had happened highlighted the enormous dangers of our continued presence and the question arose about whether we were justified in continuing to risk the lives of our troops for what was increasingly no clear purpose.
At this point my attention was abruptly diverted by events on the other side of the world. The humiliation inflicted on the United States by the Beirut bombing undoubtedly influenced its reaction to the events which were taking place on the island of Grenada in the eastern Caribbean.
On Wednesday 19 October 1983 a pro-Soviet military coup had overthrown the Government of Grenada. The new regime were certainly a vicious and unstable bunch. With the exception of General Austin, who led the coup, they were all in their twenties and a number of them had a record of violence and torture. Maurice Bishop, the overthrown Prime Minister, and five of his close supporters were shot dead. There was outrage at what had happened among most of the other Caribbean countries. Jamaica and Barbados wanted military intervention in which they would have liked the Americans and us to take part. My immediate reaction was that it would be most unwise of the Americans, let alone us, to accede to this suggestion. I was afraid that it would put foreign communities in Grenada at severe risk. There were some 200 British civilians there and many more Americans. The main organization of Caribbean States, CARICOM, was not prepared to agree to military intervention in Grenada. However, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, the OECS, decided unanimously to put together a force and