Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [204]
The international reaction to American intervention was in general strongly adverse. It certainly gave a propaganda boost to the Soviet Union. In its early reports, Soviet television news apparently thought that Grenada was a province of southern Spain. But soon their propaganda machine began firing on all cylinders. The Cubans were portrayed as having played an heroic role in resisting the invasion. When I went to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in New Delhi the following month it was still Grenada which was the most controversial topic of discussion. President Mugabe claimed that American action in Grenada would provide a precedent for South Africa in dealing with her neighbours. My own public criticism of American action and refusal to become involved in it also led to temporarily bad relations with some of Britain’ long-standing friends in the Caribbean. It was an unhappy time.
In Britain we had to face strong pressure, not least in the House of Commons, to renegotiate the arrangements for the deployment of Cruise missiles. The argument was that if the Americans had not consulted us about Grenada, why should they do so as regards the use of Cruise missiles. Similarly, the new leader of the SDP, David Owen, wrote in the Daily Mail on 28 October that ‘British public opinion will simply not accept any longer the Prime Minister’ refusal to insist on a dual mechanism to cover the launching procedures for any Cruise missiles that are deployed in Britain before the end of this year.’
So when President Reagan telephoned me on the evening of Wednesday 26 October during an emergency House of Commons debate on the American action I was not in the sunniest of moods. The President began by saying, in that disarming way of his, that if he was in London and dropped in to see me he would be careful to throw his hat through the door first. He said he very much regretted the embarrassment that had been caused and wanted to explain how it had all happened. It was the need to avoid leaks of what was intended which had been at the root of the problem. He had been woken at 3 o’clock in the morning with an urgent plea from the OECS. A group had then convened in Washington to study the matter and there was already fear of a leak. By the time he had received my message setting out my concerns the zero hour had passed and American forces were on their way. The military action had gone well and the aim was now to secure democracy.
There was not much I felt able to say and so I more or less held my peace, but I was glad to have received the telephone call. At that Thursday’ Cabinet there was a long discussion of what had happened. I told my colleagues that our advice against US intervention had, I believed, been sound. But the US, for its part, had taken a different view on an issue which directly touched its national interests. Britain’ friendship with the United States must on no account be jeopardized.
Just as events in the Lebanon had affected American action in Grenada, so what I had seen in the crisis over Grenada affected my attitude to the Lebanon. I was concerned that American lack of consultation and unpredictability might be repeated there with very damaging consequences.
Naturally, I understood that the United States wanted to strike back after the terrorist outrage against its servicemen in Beirut. But whatever military action now took place, I wanted it to be a lawful, measured and effective response. I sent a message to President Reagan on 4 November welcoming assurances which Geoffrey Howe had received from George Shultz that there would be no hasty reaction by the Americans in retaliation and urging that a more broadly based