How Falklands war unfolded in Downing Street 40 years ago and the key warnings that were ignored – Bernard Ingham

Forty years earlier we were not 
exactly prepared for the Second World War.

Falklands veterans deserve better than this ignorance and disrespect as 40th anniversary of Argentine invasion looms – The Yorkshire Post says

And now 40 years on the West stands accused of doing little or nothing to deter Vladimir Putin from invading the Ukraine.

The big question immediately after the Argentine invasion of the Falklands on April 2, 1982, was whether Britain had brought it on itself.

First, we had hawked around South America the idea of “leaseback” – conceding Argentine sovereignty but leasing it back to the Falklanders – 
until the idea was shot down in the Commons.

Then we intended to withdraw the Antarctic survey ship, Endurance, as an economy measure. The vessel had all the military threat of a peashooter but it was a token of our commitment to the Falklands area.

And finally a Latin-American Steptoe and Son, as they were described, landed on South Georgia and hoisted the Argentinian flag before starting
 to dismantle the old whaling station.

You cannot do much immediately to shift interlopers from a dependency 800 miles east of the Falklands on the edge of Antarctica.

But did we react strongly enough?

All this flew at me, as Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary, at the start of the most testing, wearing and traumatic three months of my entire career.

Never in my 24 years of Government service have I felt such a sense of Ministerial shellshock as on the day after the Argentine invasion – a Saturday.

The tenseness of the atmosphere in the PM’s room at the House was electric, even though Labour was as outraged as Ministers at this invasion of the Queen’s territory.

Then Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, gave me the thumbs down signal on his return to Cabinet after addressing Tory MPs.

He and his Ministerial team resigned over the failure of intelligence from Buenos Aires. And as if that were not enough Defence Secretary, John Nott, also wanted to resign – until Mrs Thatcher told him to do his duty.

All this against the background of 
high inflation and interest rates and soaring unemployment as Mrs Thatcher battled to rescue the economy from 20 years’ abuse of union power.

It has long been argued that no male PM would ever have sent a task force steaming 8,000 miles south on such a risky venture to recover the islands.

But for Mrs Thatcher it was a matter of honour and principle.

“No small country will be safe if dictators can march in and take over”, she told a torn President Reagan.

The day was saved among much pessimism when the First Sea Lord, Admiral Henry Leach, said he could assemble a task force over the weekend.

He was told to get on with it, pending a final decision to sail.

And sail it did – to much national fervour.

The least of my early problems was maintaining public support.

But behind the scenes I was fighting two internecine wars – with a secretive machine that left me dangerously exposed and more specifically with the Ministry of Defence.

The Royal Navy understandably did not want a single journalist aboard the task force.

I felt that we simply could not go to 
war without reporters, still less set the media against the Government from the outset.

Eventually, I managed to get 29 reporters, cameramen and technicians accredited.

Then the MoD’s Permanent Secretary, Sir Frank Cooper, rang to say he did not want me briefing the media.

I said he had a problem: there was not a spare inch of carpet left in my room when I met the press.

In any case, the PM was running the show.

I had for months been trying to get 
the MoD to appoint a professional head of PR.

All I got was the deputy, Ian McDonald, cruelly deputed to give Dalek-type statements for the cameras.

When the MoD did get round to appointing a head of PR, the respected Neville Taylor arrived only to find he was in charge of everything presentational but the Falklands campaign.

And so it went on.

My trials were not, of course, lethal in a campaign that cost 255 lives.

But I can think of few worse ways to embark on a perilous adventure.

In spite of it, we won, but 40 years on the Argentine doesn’t give up its claim to the Falklands. Beware.

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