Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [264]
It was now becoming clear that the preference of the Westland board was likely to be for Sikorsky, while Michael Heseltine’s preference was very different. Other things being equal, we would all have preferred a European solution. Since 1978, European governments had agreed to make every effort to meet their needs with helicopters made in Europe. This did not, of course, mean that we were bound to rule out purchases of non-European helicopters, but it did obviously incline us in the European direction.
I still do not understand why anyone later imagined that the Westland board, Leon Brittan and I were all biased against a European option. In fact, the Government bent over backwards to give that option and Michael Heseltine every opportunity to advance their arguments and interests. Yet in the frenzy which followed there was almost no limit to the deviousness and manipulation we were accused of employing to secure Sikorsky its minority holding.
At the end of November the opposition between the Westland board’s views and Michael Heseltine came out into the open. Sikorsky made an offer for a substantial stake in Westland which the Westland board was inclined to accept. But entirely off his own bat Michael now called together a meeting of the National Armaments Directors (NADs) of France, Italy and Germany as well as the United Kingdom to agree a document under which the respective governments would refrain from buying helicopters other than those designed and built in Europe. This was more than a blatant departure from the Government’s policy of maximizing competition to get the best value for money: it also placed Westland in an almost impossible position. There was now an obvious risk that if Westland concluded its deal with Sikorsky it would not be deemed to meet the NADs criterion and would be excluded from all further orders from the four governments, including the UK. It was my view — and Leon Brittan’s — that the Government must not seek to prevent any particular solution to Westland’s problems: it must be for the company to decide what to do. Yet by a stroke of a pen Michael Heseltine was effectively ruling out the company’s preferred option for its future. If Westland were to be able to make a free decision it would be necessary for the Government to overrule the NADs decision. This, of course, meant overruling Michael.
I realized that we might have to do this. Although these were essentially matters for the company, the closer that we looked at the European option the less substantial did it seem. The three European companies concerned — Aérospatiale (France), MBB (West Germany) and Agusta (Italy) — were, as Michael certainly knew, subject to pressure from their own governments. Aérospatiale and Agusta were state-owned and MBB was substantially financed by the West German Government. All the European companies were short of work and promises of more work for Westland from Europe seemed likely to remain just promises. By contrast, Westland had been collaborating with Sikorsky for several decades and had produced a number of models under licence from them. Indeed, most of not just Westland’s but Agusta’s existing helicopter designs were of American origin. Michael Heseltine argued that if Sikorsky took even a minority stake in Westland they would use their position to put pressure on the Ministry of Defence to order American-designed Blackhawk helicopters. In fact, it was widely rumoured that the armed services would have liked the MoD to do just that rather than wait for the European equivalent which was now still only at the stage of feasibility study. My own personal view of all this was of little importance, but I could well understand, as would anyone else conversant with the facts, why Westland had their preference for the American option and how angry they and Sikorsky were with Michael Heseltine’s manoeuvrings.
Nor, by now, was the ‘American’ option American only. Sikorsky had been joined by Fiat in their bid. Not to be outdone, however, Michael Heseltine suddenly revealed that