Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [277]
The American attack was, as we had foreseen, carried out principally by sixteen F1-11s based in the UK, though a number of other aircraft were also used. The attack lasted forty minutes. Libyan missiles and guns were fired but their air defence radars were successfully jammed. The raid was undoubtedly a success, though sadly there were civilian casualties and one aircraft was lost. Television reports, however, concentrated all but exclusively not on the strategic importance of the targets but on weeping mothers and children.
The initial impact on public opinion in Britain, as elsewhere, was even worse than I had feared. Public sympathy for Libyan civilians was mixed with fear of terrorist retaliation by Libya. Conservative Central Office received large numbers of telephoned protests, as did the No. 10 switchboard. Worries were expressed about the fate of British nationals there and the potential for hostage taking. Opposition critics, Conservative back-benchers and Tory newspapers alike were bitterly critical of the fact that I had given permission for the use of the bases. I was depicted as cringing towards the US but callous towards their victims. I reported fully on what had happened to the Cabinet, some of whose members I subsequently learnt thought that they ought to have known about the raid beforehand. Later that afternoon I made my statement to a largely sceptical or hostile House of Commons. President Reagan telephoned me afterwards to fill me in on what had been happening and to wish me well in fighting off the criticism he knew I faced. He said that when in his speech on television the previous night he had referred to the co-operation of European allies, he had had only one country in mind — the United Kingdom.
I was to speak in the emergency debate on the Libyan raid in the House on Wednesday afternoon. It was intellectually and technically the most difficult speech to prepare because it depended heavily on describing the intelligence on Libya’s terrorist activities and we had to marshal the arguments for self-defence in such circumstances. Every word of the speech had to be checked by the relevant intelligence services to see that it was accurate and that it did not place sources at risk. The debate was rank with anti-American prejudice. Neil Kinnock misquoted President Reagan’s televised broadcast; but he did so once too often. I had heard him do this earlier in the day and I had the full text of what the President had actually said given to Cranley Onslow, the Chairman of the ‘22 Committee Executive. Mr Kinnock said:
The purpose of the bombing raid on Tripoli and Benghazi on Monday night was said by President Reagan to be to ‘bring down the curtain on Gaddafi’s reign of terror’. I do not believe that anyone can seriously believe that that objective has been or will be achieved by bombing.
Cranley Onslow interrupted to point out that the President had said precisely the opposite:
I have no illusion [my italics] that tonight’s action will bring down the curtain on Gaddafi’s regime, but this mission, violent as it was, can bring closer a safer and more secure world for decent men and women.
As the Victorians used to say: ‘collapse of stout party’.
My speech steadied the Party and the debate was a success. But there was still a large measure of incomprehension even among our supporters. I went that Friday to Cranley Onslow’s constituency. I felt that people were looking at me strangely, as if I had done something terrible, which given the sensational and biased media coverage you could understand. When I explained to party workers at a reception that our action had been taken to protect the victims of future terrorism, they understood: but the accusation of heartlessness stuck — and it hurt. Yet the Libyan raid was also