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It's the early morning of the 21st of May 1982. Huddled and landing craft, British Marines and paratroopers are about to hit the beach. It's the first step to retake the Fort Glenn Islands, a scrap of British territory on the far side of the world that have been all but forgotten, before being seized by Argentina seven weeks before. The first British units land without a shot being fired, hopes rise that they're going to achieve complete surprise over the Argentinians, but the relief doesn't last long. At 9.25, just after dawn, nine Argentinian Air Force Dagger jets screem over the rough bowl of hills surrounding San Carlos Routi, which is crammed with British ships. For the rest of the day, showing great skill and bravery, the Argentine pilots launch wave after wave of attacks. It seems impossible that their bombs won't hit the cruise line or turn troop ship Canberra, which, and more than 40,000 tons, towers over the rest of the ships like a great white whale. But miraculously, it survives. Others are not so lucky. As the Antarctic night ascends, the harbour is choked with smoke from burning British ships. Six warships have been hit, and one, the frigate HMS Ardened, sent to the bottom. But all the troops are ashore. The rapier missile air defence batteries are being set up, and the British Expeditionary Force is ready to start the most daunting challenge the military has faced since the second world war. Exciting stuff. Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the Battleground podcast with me, Saul David. And me, Patrick Bishop. Every week we're going to be discussing the wars of the 20th century, goodness knows there have been enough of them, and occasionally roaming further afield if we feel the urge. But given that the 2nd of April 2022 marked the 40th anniversary of the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, we thought we'd kick off with a multi part series on that war, showing events in real time, and trying to mark up all the big themes of the event. Good stuff, but before we get to that, we just want to say a few things about us and the scope of the podcast. I wrote my first military history at the age of 25 and now have 16 under my belt. I've also done a PhD, and for 12 years was Professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham. I've spent a lot of my life as a foreign correspondent for newspapers, a lot of them in war zones. And I think that sparked my interest in military history. So I started writing military history books back in 2003, and I've written 19 to date. It's quite handy, I think, Patrick. I'm the theorist. You've got a bit of practical experience. We're pretty much covering all the bases there. But what about the podcast? It won't just be about war. It will have, of course, a lot of bombs and bullets, but we're also interested in other aspects, social, political and cultural. Yeah, so alongside the personalities and the battles and the controversies, the technology, and there will be plenty of that we promise you, expect to hear some thought provoking stuff as well that puts conflict into its wider context. And in each episode, we'll also be chatting to someone who either has first hand knowledge of the subject or is an expert at it, and we've got a truly stellar lineup waiting. Can't wait. All right, let's talk a little bit about the Falklands War. We've had a preamble, of course, at the beginning of this episode, very dramatic stuff when the troops finally reached the islands. But really, we need to work out why they got there, how they got there, and the road to war. And we're going to come onto that later on in the episode. But in very general terms, it was an extraordinary conflict, having long claimed a right to last Malvinas, as the Argentinians called the islands. Their military rulers must have assumed that the British line was sleeping its eye off the ball with regard to its most distant possession. There were all kinds of problems besetting Margaret Thatcher's government in fighting economic crisis. In a military sense, one of our only two aircraft carriers was about to be sold off. Only a handful of Marines were guarding the Falklands, and the only naval ship in the area. Endurance was about to be recalled. So that's what's happening on the British side. Patrick, what's happening in Argentina at this stage? The Argentinian side was pretty confused as well. I was not going well at home for them. They've been fighting this long, pretty hideous internal conflict with the military government, turning on its own people essentially, and going after anyone who they consider to be a communist or even a leftist. And this dirty war, as it was called, claimed the lies by this state of tens of thousands of people. They were looking for a distraction, and the long standing issue of the islands seemed to provide them with an opportunity to get people's minds out of something else. Whatever differences the Argentinians might have had, they all were united in believing genuinely that the islands belonged to them. So it must have seemed like a terrific opportunity to this in battle, Hunter. Here is this issue that's going to unite everyone. And Britain is really not in a position to oppose us. We go for the dramatic option and launch an invasion. How on earth are they going to come all the way 8,000 miles across the oceans and try and get it back? It seemed like a win win for them. Now, Patrick, you and I have written about war. I've gone all the way back to the 17th century. You've written mostly about the 20th century, but it helps a little in this particular conflict, I think, that we can both remember it. I was a 16 year old schoolboy just about to do my O levels. But rather unusually gripped by the events in a way that I don't think all my mates at school were. As they were unfolding 8,000 miles away in the South Atlantic, I was watching the TV news as casualties in ships and people began to mount. And feeling an odd sense of detachment as if it wasn't real, but you, of course, Patrick for you, it was far too real. What were you up to then? Well, in those days I was a youngish reporter working for the Observer newspaper. And like everyone else, I was taken by a surprise by events. My beat was Northern Ireland in those days. I knew a little bit about the military, but all of a sudden this crisis blows up. And if you were a journalist, a young ambitious journalist, it's a huge opportunity. So I grabbed it and managed to persuade the paper to nominate me as their correspondent with the task force. I think at that point, no one really thought that it would end up in a real shooting war. I think if they had, they might not have sent me and sent someone more senior. One of the striking things for me and everyone in the country for that matter was how suddenly it blew up. It seemed to come out of nowhere. We were literally looking on maps on altitudes, where actually is the, where are the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic? When you do identify them on the map, it's quite shocking how close they are to Argentina. We're talking just about maybe three or four hundred miles, but but 8,000 from here. The response was cobbled together. It seemed to me in a very short space of time. It was very ad hoc and very British, really. I mean, could we get enough force together to do something about this? That's right. One of the senior officers involved in it told me once that it was a lash up. The whole thing was a lash up, a naval expression, which means you just grab whatever is at hand and try and forge it into some sort of workable instrument. And that's exactly what happened. There were just reaching where they could for what resources were available. It was a very British lash up at that. And in the end, it did work. But it certainly didn't look very likely that it was going to succeed at the beginning, largely because of this national mood, which was very intense. I think anyone listening now would be surprised at just how deep the malaise was in Britain at that time. It was a very high unemployment for me, the kind of theme tunes of the time where Oliver Zarmie, the great Elvis Costello number and the specials Ghost Town. So there's this kind of feeling of terminal decline. You've got this new female prime minister who in those days, she wasn't the Mrs. Thatcher we came to know. She was, well, she was unpopular. That bit remained true. But she was very much an untried quantity. And she herself was the first to admit at the time that she didn't really know much about the business of governing. So there's this sense of drift and of hopelessness. And although the armed forces nowadays have a very high place in a national estimation, in those days they didn't. And indeed, the Falkens War was something that actually restored their credibility and their honour in some ways. So we'll see, there were other invisible, like the Royal Navy. You never heard anything of the Royal Navy at all. Or when they did pop up in the news, it was usually in a slightly negative way. They were in Northern Ireland trying to keep the peace and invariably from time to time there'd be some sort of shooting incident or something. And this would create a sort of media flurry about the army's tactics and behaviour. So all in all, Britain didn't seem to be in a very good place. Is that how you saw it? It's all I mean, you're a young guy, but you studied the period. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you think of it from a military history perspective. It's downhill all the way since the end of the Second World War. Our armed forces are gradually diminishing in effectiveness, size, the Navy is getting smaller and it's about to get a lot smaller too. And there was very much a feeling, I think, even growing up that we were no longer a great power, we were heading very much for second class status. We were of course still members of NATO, but we felt we needed to latch on to other powers like the US, like other powers in NATO to be relevant in the world. But it was remarkable for all that, how much the political class got behind this. I think I was really struck actually. You know, you had people like for two against, you know, they were campaigners for nuclear disarmament. We're talking about Michael Foot, the the Labour famous Duffelcoat wearing Labour opposition leader. Indeed, it had been, you know, an anti appeaser in the 1930s. He's very much against Hitler and the Nazis, but since then, is also a great decoloniser and a great CND against nuclear weapons marching from Aldermarston and all the rest of that. Exactly right, Michael Foot, as you say, the leader of the opposition leader of Labour Party. I remember my mum going to marches in the 70s and early 80s, which Michael Foot would be there. And you would naturally have expected him to have opposed this sort of postcolonial venture. But the reality is the provocation was quite obvious. There was a matter of principle going on there. And even the Labour opposition were firmly behind the determination to do something about this. Did they want it to be a shooting war? Well, not necessarily, but they certainly felt we needed to make a stand. Over this aggressive invasion. Do you see it as part of a broader issue, a matter of principle, your self part tree? Yeah, well, this is, you know, we don't want to labour comparisons, but this is something that never goes away in history. This is something that's always with us. A big country trying to impose its will on a neighbouring territory against the wishes of the inhabitants. So, of course, we're seeing it in the most terrible fashion in Ukraine today. The principle remains the same. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? You know, I mean, I don't think many people will naturally make that connection between Ukraine and the Falklands. But in a loose sense, I think there is a very real link between a an authoritarian regime, partly for reasons of domestic consumption, deciding that it's going to bully its weaker neighbour. The difference, of course, of the Falklands is that although the Falkland miners were small and weak and neighbouring Argentina, it actually had a really, even though it was declining still a significant military power that could possibly do something about this. That's true, but, you know, these things have always come down to will ultimately. And although we had the appearance of a significant military power, did we have the will to actually project for us? It was going to be a tricky operation, whatever happened. And so, you know, here we can talk, they talk in the House of Commons, it all sounds great, rather as now people are very good on the rhetoric of supporting Ukraine, but not necessarily so good on the follow through. So everyone was standing back to see what we were actually going to do. Our reputation in the world was pretty low. And even with our supposedly our strongest ally, the United States, they didn't hold us in particularly high esteem either, and as it turned out, their role in the whole drama that was about to follow was a bit ambiguous. We'll come onto that later on, but that's an important element in the story. So what we've got to ask ourselves is really how we got to where we are, did you think? Yeah, I mean, you, one of the key things with any wars we know, Patrick, from our writing is you can have a military capability, but you've also got to have the political will, which we did have in the UK, but you've also got to have this broad coalition of support. Partly because it matters, on the one hand, you need support going down there, possibly logistical support from an ally like the United States. And the big question mark at the beginning of this war is whether we were going to get that sort of support. So the decision to possibly use military force was a bold one in that sense, because there was an element of uncertainty as to how the United States, which after all had been courting Argentina in its anti communist kind of moves in South America. And therefore, was it going to consider our alliance more important than its need to carry favor with the Argentinians? And indeed, how was the whole world going to look at this? Because we're still remembered as being this once mighty empire now down on its luck. As a general anti colonial move abroad, Argentina could quite successfully play the card of, well, you know, this is colonial possession. It really has nothing to do with Britain at all. It's right next door to us. So therefore, a day facto, it's surely ours. And I think that's something that they would very much put as a central plank in their argument in the diplomacy that followed. The other thing we shouldn't forget, of course, in all of this Patrick is the determination of the Falkland Islanders not to be Argentinian. We're going to discuss this after the break with me, look at the long road to war and some of the key decisions that were taken and how it all came about. But there is another parallel there. The Argentinians were determined to make the islanders by force Argentinians, and they didn't want that to happen. And frankly, the same thing's happening in Ukraine at the moment. Right, well, we can go into this in more detail, and we're extremely fortunate in having a man with us after the break who actually was at the heart of all the great decision making. That is Lord Luce, who was then Richard Luce, who'd be asking him, were blunders made, were warning signs missed, and who was responsible. We're about to find out. So we're going this after the break. So welcome back. Now the first thing that happened when the crisis blew up was people reached for their attestors to find out where the Falklands actually were, and most of them turned to the pages on Scotland assuming that it was somewhere off the mainland coast. Now Falklands, it sounds a bit Scottish. Where'd it actually come from, sir? Well, I've done a little bit of digging into this, and apparently the first recorded sighting of the islands was in 1690 by British sailors. And they named the channel between the two principal islands, that's the Eastern West Falklands, Falklands Sound. And the reason they did that is because at that time in 1690 the treasurer of the Navy was Vycount Falkland. So that's how they got the name. Now it's interesting, in the next century there's a claim from not just Britain but also France and Spain to the islands in each established settlements at various different times. And so you can see that this disputed claim has a long history. Yeah, and it goes back and forth. Back and forth. Sometimes it's settled, sometimes it's deserted. And that's where you get this confusion over the name because one of the early settlements was landed there by the great French explorer, Buganville. And the people who were settling came from San Marlowe in Brittany, they're known as Maluene. So that became the Maluene Islands. And of course that was corrupted then by Spanish into Las Malvinas, the name to which they cling to very, very strongly to this day. I think we should say at this point, Patrick, that Argentina of course didn't exist as a separate country as part of the Spanish empire. But in 1820, when it gets its independence from Spain, this is the point at which the Argentinians now relate their claim because they argue of course that the islands are really bequeathed to them when they get their independence. The next crucial day we need to think about in terms of our Britain's claim to the islands is 1833 because it's at that point that physically by sending ships to the islands we take control and have been in possession this unbroken connection ever since that day. Yeah, you might wonder why anyone would prize these islands because when you actually look at them, the Scottish thing is coincidental but it's a very apt comparison because they do look very much like a Hebradian island, they're not mountains on it, they're more hills. I mean the biggest feature on the foreground is only 2,300 feet high, that's Mount Azborn. The next biggest is Mount Kenta which we'll be hearing a lot about later. But it's pretty poor territory, the living that you can make there is many from sheep, so sheep is really the foundation of the economy there. The people who settled it, I think at the time it evades them about 1800 of them, they live a very lonely existence and there are virtually no roads on the island, so you have these kind of settlements where it's a bit like an Australian sheep station I suppose, except in much colder wet conditions where a small group of shepherds essentially live in bunkhouses hardly ever see anyone else. To do that you have to be very kind of self reliant and let's reflect it in the kind of character of the island as they're understated people but what they do feel they feel very strongly, they think they felt very very strongly indeed was that they were British and they didn't want to be Argentinians. Now the next key bit of the story is really the 1960s when the Wilson Labour government tries to solve this conundrum about what to do in the long term with the Falkans and let's remember this is decolonisation so we're really looking to divest ourselves of various possessions around the world and it's at this point that it gives the first indication to the Argentine government that we're going to talk about sovereignty and that's really letting the genie out of the bottle because you've now got the British foreign office trying to tread this delicate balance between the Argentinians who have this expectation of sovereignty. On the one hand and on the other hand the group you've already been talking about Patrick, the islanders who are absolutely determined to remain British and it's going to be this tension that's going to lead to the road to war. And of course the appetites on the Argentinian side to repossess the islands is getting stronger and stronger for internal political reasons around this time there's been a military juncture in power for a couple of years now and they've been fighting what was termed the dirty war, literally a war against their own people, anyone suspected of left wing sympathies, communists etc. were fair game and I think they're an estimate of the casualties goes as high as 30,000 people killed in this internal war. So there's sitting on a bubbling cauldron of violent discontent, they're meeting it with even more force in the military very much involved in the country and the surgery operation and I think some people feel that they felt that their honour had been very severely tainted by the part they played in torture killing all sorts of ghastly death squad activities. And so for a couple of reasons an invasion looks like a very good idea, the fork and first it unifies the people of Argentina, one thing they agree on is that the Malasmovina is belonged to them and secondly it's an opportunity for the army to actually sort of redeem themselves in a way and fight a proper war. And so we arrive at the beginning of 1982 with this unwanted problem at least for the British looming larger and larger and to try and untangle our way through this thicket we're going to talk to someone who's right at the centre of events. Now that is Lord Loose then Richard Loose who was the foreign office minister responsible for the Forklens and we're going to find out from him how this diplomatic dispute led to war. Lord Loose, welcome. Can you paint a picture for us of where Britain stood in the world in the spring of 1982? Well of course 1982 was three years after the election which brought Margaret Thatcher to office and my first spot for there was the minister for Africa. And we had by then settled pretty well settled in Barbue which was an Albuquerque round our next which we had to get rid of and had to negotiate a solution. And we were looking out towards we were negotiating hard with the European Union and about the single market which Margaret Thatcher actually played a major contribution to and Britain I think by then after the 70s which had been as you remember a very stormy period and a very difficult period for Britain we were beginning to restore the reputation of the country in our position in the world. Tell us a bit about the cold war was that that was still very much a kind of dominant feature of the diplomatic landscape wasn't it? Where did we fit in there at that moment? We were a strong partner in NATO but I mean definitely a very strong partner. Our economy was relatively strong at that time but we were recovering from the disasters of the 1970s and times were quite tough in one sense. The Transluccheca de Javier Howe had to take some fairly tough measures and I think it was only rarely the Auckland situation which turned the tide for the prime minister. There was an analogy today or day enough with the Ukraine not in the same position at all but there's some similarities there and the Falklands had no peoples minds on to totally new and serious challenge. Can we go a little bit into the nitty gritty of the Falklands negotiations particularly your own role Richard. So in February 1982 your minister trying to resolve the issue with the Argentine negotiator and Rique Ross in the at the UN in New York. Can you give us a sense of the key issues that were at stake in those negotiations? Well we have to put it into context that my predecessor was Nicholas Ridley who had made a bold attempt to find a way forward and the proposed something called the least fact to speak scheme which really meant seeding sovereignty altogether but Britain continuing to minister the portland. Some of them dismissed that immediately and therefore we were faced with a situation when I became the minister of state in the autumn of the previous year responsible for the Americas including the Falklands. We were faced with a really serious challenge because the Argentine had been led to expect for 20 years since in fact 1966 just under 20 years that Britain British gunmen were prepared to talk about sovereignty and that was first made plain in 1966 by the then government. And ever since that period up until 1982 putting it into context the Argentine government once after the other thought that it would be possible to negotiate an agreement leading to transfer of sovereignty. And all the events up to then when they realized Britain was not prepared to just hand away the portland islands there was a sharp reaction from the islanders parliament wouldn't have anything to do with it. Britain was a dictatorship in the Argentine and Gal Terri the new dictator was much stronger and more robust and much fiercer than his predecessor and clearly there were very restless. There were real outrestedist to get action out of Britain and our backs went to the wall because we weren't prepared to seed sovereignty just like that without the agreement of the islanders parliament. And that is the context in which I came into that meeting. When we get to the meeting I'm face to face with a very nice decent person and Rika's was with Deputy Foreign Minister professional diplomat serving under the Foreign Minister costumenders and of course under Gal Terri. And my purpose was to try and negotiate a broad understanding of how we would embark upon a dialogue but understanding the parameters how we are the atmosphere the parameters so to speak of how we would be prepared to negotiate. Now the thing that I found about and Rika's loss is that he went along with quite a lot of the things that I was proposed to agree to do which was the establishment of this negotiating commission which would enable both sides to talk. But each time we moved forward onto some proposal or other he would ring up Gal Terri or costumenders. There's a parallel today with Putin and Lavrov. Exactly the same. You ring up the dictator because you're too frightened to take your own decision. You know you might be able to rule. And that is actually what happened. So basically they were not empowered to actually make any real decisions and every step of the way they were going back to Buenos Aires to get instructions. At what stage did you get the impression that Gal Terri wasn't really interested in a negotiation and had already pretty much made up his mind to take the road to war? Well the warning signals came soon after those negotiations in New York. Because we agreed to some kind of a communique and Rika's loss of myself. Perfectly reasonable one to set up the negotiating commission. He was immediately repudiated. The moment he got back to Buenos Aires and as a result of that we realized things were going to get difficult. It was obvious that Gal Terri was in trouble himself because he was having strikes in the archentine, his economy was not in a good condition and that's a well net impactable wanting to divert attention. So we were aware that there were dangers and that we had to keep the trying find a some kind of a way forward. So this was followed by a meeting that I had with Lord Carrington and one or two senior diplomats. I think it was on the third of March. Yeah. To discuss the way forward. I think the advice we got was quite clear that we've seen all this before. For example in 1977 Jim Callahan, the Labour Prime Minister, actually sent a submarine to the South Atlantic because they were worried there might be some incidental invasion. Although in fact what transpired was the submarine never surfaced at all and it was only by surfacing that the the Argentinians would have realised there was a threat to them. There was a deterrent there. But put down on one side, his intention was probably good and we were told by the advisers that there was no evidence of anything serious emerging at that time that there was no need to take any action that there was no intelligence which said that we needed to do so. That was a serious turning point. Where was that advice coming from? This was from MI6? No, no, no. Senior diplomats. But they were getting the advice from the ambassador on the spot. And I think it's right for me to say this stage. And my anxiety afterwards was this. In fact I was slightly harsher than the Franks commission that looked into it afterwards. That we hadn't had all the intelligence, both from the ambassador, the embassy, from the captain of HMS endurance who had been through a lot and from other sources as to really what the thinking in the Argentine was and the bubble and the military leadership. It wasn't all pulled together. And I think it's partly psychological. They thought they'd seen all this before. This is nothing new and they go on like this and then it proceeds and it comes back again. Because it happens so often over the previous 15 years that the threat and then the threat never happened. But that was a serious point. And thereafter, of course, soon after I was run up where I am now in this house as Minister of State at the time on a Saturday afternoon and told that the metal scrap company Christian Salvoson had sent some men onto South Georgia but there was some evidence one or two might be military people. So from that moment onwards and for the next 13 days I think before the invasion, I certainly realised we were indeed troubled. So what you're referring to of course is the moment on the 19th of March when Argentine scrap metal dealers actually land on the island of South Georgia, which was 800 miles to the east of the main Forklorn Islands but a dependency of the islands and raised the flag and shots are fired and there's almost no doubt that because this was organised by the Argentine Navy, this is a deliberate act by Argentina to effectively claim possession of South Georgia. But the raising of the flag was very symbolic, wasn't it? Absolutely, absolutely. And as the days went by after that, we realised our backs were to the wall. The regime was taken, I always feel very sorry for the captain of Aishomist endurance but he was sent backwards and forwards. But that ship had only just, we'd only just persuaded the Ministry of Defence not to withdraw it altogether, which meant that all we had in the Forklorns would have been 35 Marines. And that of course was an MOD decision, wasn't it, to save a bit of cash, objected to I seem to recall by the foreign office, by Lord Carrington and yourself, presumably, the year earlier. Yes, yes. Well, of course, it was a dependency that John Lott was undertaking and one of this involved the reduction in the size of the Navy. And this is not a criticism of John Lott, I'm just saying exactly what the situation was at that time. And endurance, Aishomist endurance, was a signal that if you withdraw the last remaining sort of symbol, then the message to the Argentine must be, well, not really bothered, Britain. And that was part of the whole story and misreading of each other. And my goodness, how often this happens in history and is happening today, that neither side understood each other and what their motives were, what their intentions were. So that was the background as it developed with a military leader who was desperate to do something to divert attention from his own internal troubles. The decision to send nuclear submarines, I think it was on the 29th of March, you're getting more and more intelligence that the Argentine naval force is building up and invasion looks likely. So the decision is taking to send those submarines down there. Now a day later, you make what sounds to the House of Commons like a very emolient speech. It seems like an olive branch. Can you tell us a little bit about your intention that day? Well, I think I can't remember precisely that particular day. But whenever I was pressed to give an assurance that we were taking appropriate measures, that is to say principally military measures, to actors of the turn, I could not possibly have divulged to the House what we had in mind and what we were doing, because otherwise Gal Cherry would have worked out how he was going to respond to it. We were beginning to wake up. A lot of cabinet ministers really couldn't believe any more than the Americans could believe. And that's a very important point in this health story. The American intervention was very weak. Intervention with the Argentine would try and get them. A lot of the cabinet ministers couldn't believe that we were delighted to have military action involving a small overseas territory. And it took time for that to get through. And for people to realise there was a problem. I think the Prime Minister got on to it quicker than others. Tell us about that. She's an untried force, really. I mean, she's been in power for a couple of years, but she's got plenty of problems around cabinet. She certainly not held in an equate esteem by the electorate, it seems. Tell me about your first encounters with her in the crisis and how she reacted to it. Well, it was only rarely in that week leading to the invasion that she got intensely involved. Lord Carrington, my outstanding boss, as far as I'm secretary, was away in Israel, but keeping his tabs almost R by R on what was happening. And any returned early to join us in discussions. And I would have to say, and this may well have happened with Churchill too, in some stages in the war, that she was walling around because this was all new to her. I mean, how could she have thought a week previously that there would be a problem in the fault of the violence which might lead to a war when she had all these other difficulties all over the world to deal with, let alone not just in Africa but in Europe and elsewhere. So she had to adjust. It was very difficult for her, but I was full of admiration because if we get to the critical point where she called me over to a meeting in the House of Commons, I think it was on when that Wednesday, the 31st. That's correct, yeah. I think it was that day. John Not was there as defense secretary. I was in place of Lord Carrington and there were one or two other officials not many. She was walling around as I would if I was fineness that that might be trying to work out frozen cons of what we should do, how we should respond. Because by then we'd assume there was going to be any faith. The evidence was becoming Clare and Clare. And it was only when the first sea Lord came in in his uniform looking the appropriate part at Roll Leach that things began to clarify. After then, John Not had said it wasn't we haven't got the capacity to occupy. Now you may want to ask John Not, he's a pinion of this, but that is what he said until Admiral Leach came in and the Prime Minister said to him, now Admiral, this is the situation. What is your advice? When I ask you to retake the Falklands, assuming there's an invasion, can we do it? And there was only a short pause and you said if you ask me Prime Minister, we'll do it. And that was the turning point. She then became stronger because she knew it was the right thing to do. If you allow countries to invade each other without no punishment whatsoever, then the price would be very heavy indeed all over the world. She knew that, deep down in her heart. That was a turning point for her. And then of course she was rising to it and involved day by day. What was the attitude of the army? As I understand it, they weren't quite as keen as Sir Henry Leach on the whole prospect. Well, first of all, the chief of the depends staff, Admiral Loewins, who is a wonderful person, but he was in New Zealand, unfortunately, at that time. He was doing an official visit. And so really it was the first he loathe he was leading. And I never really, I dealt more with some of the ministers in the defence on one or two issues, but it was principally the Navy leading. And of course we have to remember that in Argentine, the Navy was the strongest factor. The Navy was powerful in the Argentine, as you will remember. They also at that time they had quite often did training exercises. So it wouldn't be very difficult for a group of ships to load a large in time army on board and suddenly diver from the exercises. And that obviously is what they did. So the result of this meeting of course is that the fleet is put on initial alert. That doesn't mean it's definitely going to go, but they've got to prepare for it to go. And just a couple of days later the invasion itself happens. Yeah, this is overnight on the 2nd of April, the Argentine's launch operation, Rosario, which is basically the amphibious landing on the islands. There is a around port standing, there's a marine garrison, which when the Argentinians arrive, they put up a fierce resistance, but of course they're heavily outnumbered. There's only 86 of them. And eventually after a couple of hours of intense firefight, the governor Sir Rex Hunt realizes the situation is hopeless and announces the surrender. And now when this news gets back to Britain, of course, this is the point where you resign, you and your boss resign. Well, perhaps I could put this into context of what happened after the invasion. On that Friday morning, I went to the chamber and I think there was a Humpriakians who was the Lord Privacyl who announced that the invasion had taken place. I immediately decided that as the Minister of State for Day to Day responsibility as a matter of honor with something as disastrous as that in terms of our foreign policy that I should go and hand in my resignation to the Prime Minister. I went straight to Seidel Kainton who was in his office. He was back from Israel and I came in and he said, you're not going to. He'd taken a guess what I was going to try and do. But I came and sat down and I said to him, look, somebody's going to carry the can for this. And he quite rightly said to me, I'm the foreign secretary, not you. And the person who carries the can is me. And we're going to stay at our post and we're going to battle through this one. And over the weekend, I want you now to take charge of rallying the United Nations in support of Britain. And I felt I said to him, okay, but if you come to a moment when you feel that you want to resign and it is right to resign, I will do it with you. So I spent a weekend doing what I could, but I sought the Prime Minister's help. We rallied country after country. I spoke to as many heads of government as I could, but when I got to the difficult ones, all the ones we really needed, like King Usain, I rang out the Prime Minister on the Saturday or Sunday and said, Prime Minister, could you intervene? She did that, rallied whatever person they were. And we got the vote on our side. But I always felt that it wasn't going to last. And I did alert the Prime Minister that as a matter of honor, I thought I should go. She sent messages by Parliament to private safety saying no stage or post. But when I used the word honor to her, she said, I can't quarrel with that. So I waited because I felt that something would happen in the next day or two. The aircraft arrived at Brise Norton with the governor and the Marines on the Monday morning. And in the editorial of the Times, we were described, particularly me and Lord Cainton, as pretty much to our country. That led to Lord Cainton ringing me at Brise Norton as the plane was landing and saying, Richard, I'm resigning. I said, when you've got to hang on, because I've got to come back and resign too. He said, you better be quick, because I'm going at lunchtime. So I took the poor governor who got off the aircraft in a flight to North Elk and then threw all the red lights by car to see the Prime Minister. And he said to me on the way, do you always drive like this? And I said, I'm resigning. And then he railed. And I'm sure he understood the reason why. And that is what led to our joint resignation and what mattered was the loss of Lord Cainton, never to come back into government. He's going to be Secretary General Nato, which is good, but never to be a back in government. And to do the job, he was so good at it. Richard, terrible question, but a historian has to ask it. I mean, with the benefit of hindsight, at what stage do you think the crucial errors were made that made the war almost inevitable? Well, I certainly thought that even before going into New York and once Caltyari had come in, that it was going to be extremely difficult to find any solution, because both points of view were totally irreconcilable. On the one hand, you had Caltyari who felt that Argentine had sobbing rights over the Balkans. On the other hand, you had 2,000 Balkan islanders who wanted to remain British. But British had been there with sobbing authorities since 1832. And the British Parliament felt very strongly indeed. There's no doubt about that. So I felt that we were in great danger after the talks in New York broke down. But the evidence wasn't that there was about to be a military action. The advice we had was that we might get increasing pressures on us and troubles of one kind of another with the Argentine. But if there was likely to be an military action, it wouldn't come to 150th anniversary of our sovereignty, which was not till 1983. And so we went along with that. Now hindsight is a very easy thing. I wouldn't, I know, I couldn't and wouldn't have done anything other than what I did with Lord Carrington at that time. But with hindsight and had we now, of course, the obvious thing should have been done, would be to have sent two submarines much, much earlier. Submarines are then surface in a South Atlantic, more than one. And then allowed that to sink in with the Argentine leadership. I think that would have made a difference. Wonderful stuff. Thank you so much, Richard. That's amazing recall beautifully put and your voice is coming up. Well, you helped me. You helped me. Good luck with everything. Okay. I think it's actions you're doing this. People have to be reminded of these past things. And there are some, you know, when we face Ukraine today, some parallels, certainly not exact parallels, but some parallels come back. You know, did we understand each other? They put in now that we were going to be robust in our reaction. I bet he didn't. He thought we'd be as weak as anything. So did Galtieri. Yeah. It's very interesting, isn't it? Great stuff. Thank you so much, Richard. Good to talk to you. Bye. Bye bye. Wow. Is all I can say Patrick. I mean, that's one of the key players in the story, Richard Loose, who was the Minister of Responsibility for the Falkton South America. At that time, leading us through the diplomatic sequence of events that led to war. And what's so striking about it, apart from the goose bumps I'm feeling as someone who actually lived through those moments has just recounted it in such extraordinary detail, is how much a sense you get that there's almost nothing you could do to stop it. You know, he was getting not enough information to allow him and the Minister of Defence and Factor to take the sort of action that was needed to prevent that war. Yeah. It was almost about that, wasn't it? So I felt actually privileged to talk to him. There aren't many people around who are actually at the heart of the storm or the eye of the storm when all this was going on and to have someone who's who was such a key player. It's really quite a remarkable thing. I think what came out of it for me was that sort of lack of coordination. I think to be put it into context, as he says, there's so much going on at the time that you can't really expect everyone to keep their eye on the ball all the time. And there is that other great point that he makes is that, you know, it's the old hands who are dealing with this crisis. It comes, it goes, it's on the ball, it goes off the ball again. And so in a way, if you're being fair, you can't really blame them for thinking, well, it's just another, another one of these scores that will blow up and then, and then subside again. So he wasn't afraid to say what he thought nor to a portion blame where it was, but I think his judgment was just in that respect. Yeah, I mean, I think the question we always ask ourselves as historians is, is there a moment along the way when things could have been different? Now, of course there are. We can look back with hindsight. And we know perfectly well, as he said at the end of that interview, if we'd sent the nuclear submarine sooner, might we have deterred the Argentineans a little bit like, you know, if we'd sent different signals to Putin today, might we have discouraged him from invading Ukraine? But the much more interesting question is, is there enough information for the politicians at that time to have done something differently? That's much more relevant, really, than when we look back. And what you see as he works his way through that story is well meaning, bright, capable, determined politicians and diplomats doing the best to deal with the problem that they never realized was going to be as serious as it became. Yeah, also fascinating for me was the way that one man can swing events. In this case, so Henry Leach marching into the meeting in the House of Commons, it is full naval rig. That must have been quite a sight. And clearly, everyone who was there remembers it was a dormous clarity. And it had the obviously put it on to have this effect. And by golly, it did have that effect. So here you've got one forceful character, more or less taking the country to war. Of course, it's the prime minister's decision, but here's a prime minister who is actually quite impressed by Medin uniform. And she's got a great respect for the military men. And with a forceful personality and forceful argument clenched again, very importantly, by this sort of appeal to national honor, we have to do this. It's a question of right or wrong. We've got, we can do it. And what is more, we have to do it. I think that's a really crucial moment in this. I think what's so chilling about that moment is that the way he recounted it even as late as the 31st of March, when it was absolutely clear from intelligence that the Argentinians were gathering a force that was almost certainly going to invade the Falklands. There was still hesitancy, particularly on the part of not and the Ministry of Defence as to whether we could do anything about it, urging caution. And yet it took the courage, frankly, the moral courage of the naval chief leech to actually force events. It also reminds me, of course, Patrick, this great question in history is can individuals make a difference? And this clearly is the case of one person making a big difference. Absolutely. And if it had been something that Richard didn't say because he said he wasn't actually qualified to say, but I've heard from other sources, is that if it had been the head of the army, Dwynn Bramble walking into that meeting, he would have been telling a very different story. His story would be, why do we need the Falklands? They've got low strategic value. They are a drain on our limited resources. Let the Argentinians have them. If we have to go to war over this, we won't actually be able to win it. That was absolutely his view. And the army was, by no means as enthusiastic about the enterprise as the navy was, but we'll hear more about that in episodes to come. Yeah, absolutely. So we've now got to the point in which the task force has been authorized. It's about sale. That's all we've got time for. Do join us next week for episode two of our Falkland Special, the task force sales. Goodbye. MatchbookOneWe.이�cal.edu