6.53 pm
Mr. Edward Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil)
When I spoke in the debate in April 1982, in common with many other right hon. Members on all sides of the House, I called for action to free the Falkland Islanders. I am deeply glad and relieved that action resulted in the freedom of the islands and the islanders. I am saddened by the fact that it meant war and that more than two dozen of my young constituents, and young constituents of other hon. Members, had to go and fight.
Efforts were made to avoid that war once the invasion had taken place. Once those efforts failed, I have no doubt that, given the principle and the issues, it was right to fight. The skill, bravery and professionalism of our soldiers and sailors in fulfilling that duty and those responsibilities has been rightly and justifiably admired by everyone.
Tonight we are debating another set of responsibilities—not the conduct and management of the war, but the mismanagement of the peace leading to the war.
The Franks committee was asked to look into a series of specific events before the invasion and to look further back at the earlier issues and policies. I should like to do that also. It emerges from the report that there was common ground between successive Governments and that it was perfectly honourable to endeavour to avoid a Fortress Falklands policy. I had four years on the treadmill of British-Argentine negotiations to try to avoid that policy. It meant biting one's tongue, pulling one's punches and compromising one's instincts at times. One was negotiating with a pretty nasty bunch of people on many occasions.
I still believe that the general policy that we adopted, and which was adopted by the Government before us and the one that followed, of trying to avoid a Fortress Falklands policy and to find somehow a way of bridging the almost irreconcilable gap between the sides was perfectly honourable and reasonable. Fortress Falklands would have led to immeasurable and unpredictable financial and military consequences. I find it sickening and offensive that that policy was followed even further by the right hon. Lady the Prime Minister and the Government.
If one listened to some of the things that the Prime Minister has been saying recently, one would not believe that she belonged to that Government that justifiably and understandably tried to resolve the problem by offering the freehold of the territory lock, stock and barrel to Argentine. This afternoon when the Prime Minister was chiding us—as she chided me in April 1982—about Southern Thule, one would not believe that she had done nothing to restore the territorial sovereignty and integrity of that uninhabited island. What evidence is there in the report that the Government did the slightest thing to remove the Argentines from that uninhabited island? There is no evidence to suggest that she ever showed the slightest interest in it. Many of us believe that her passion for the Falkland Islands was discovered on about 2 April 1982. The evidence contained in the report suggests that her intervention and her involvement in the decisions preceding the run-up to the disasters of April 1982 were few and remarkably disinterested.
[column 833]Mr. Michael Shersby (Uxbridge)
From his intimate knowledge of the matter, is it the hon. Gentleman's opinion that the Argentine mission on Southern Thule was, as stated by Lord Goronwy-Roberts in the House of Lords in 1978, a scientific mission or a military presence? If it were a military presence, why did his Government do nothing to remove it?
Mr. Rowlands
Throughout the difficult negotiations that took place when we endeavoured to resolve the Southern Thule dispute, the Argentines never described the presence as anything other than scientific. That is why we turned to extending the principle of the Antarctic treaty in 1978.
We decided not to go to war over Southern Thule. The point I make is that, between May 1979 and April 1982, neither did the Government. Their present position on these matters is newly discovered.
I want to leave what may be common ground and the question whether successive Governments may or may not have tried to avoid a war and our present position, and look at the basic task that the Franks committee was given—to look at the events leading up to April 1982 and to decide how the Government managed those events.
I have read the report in detail. For four years I was involved in negotiations similar to those in which the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce) and the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) were involved since 1979. I read the account with great interest, relating it to my own experiences. The narrative in the Franks report justifies the conclusion that there was a fundamental failure of crisis management in the fateful early days of March 1982. In part that failure of crisis management, which Franks was asked to investigate, derived from the way in which the Government acted and made decisions. I shall justify that statement by reference not only to Franks but to my experience.
The first months of 1982 were months of considerable tension and were fraught with potential conflict. The general who had come to power in Argentina, combined the power of president and commander of the armed forces. He set up if not an unprecedented, certainly an offensive, public press campaign with threats that the new regime intended to use force to resolve the issue. We were not aware of the next factor, as we were not told about it—I do not complain about that. The problems in South Georgia did not break out in March 1982, but were there throughout the first three months of the year. This is all stated in Franks.
Behind the scenes, through political and diplomatic machinery, a strident demand was being made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Buenos Aires that we should agree to a rigid and detailed timetable for holding sovereignty talks. It was also the 149th anniversary year. The regime had made it clear publicly and privately that there would not be a 150th anniversary. All those factors added up to growing tension and crisis. I was much more afraid in the first three months of 1982 than when I held responsibility in the summer and spring of 1977. Do not let us cover up all the comparative analysis, but let us state that the first three months of 1982 by any standards looked serious.
As the Franks report states in paragraph 302, insufficient weight was given to that collection of events and “the changing Argentine attitude” . I agree with the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Atkins). I have a [column 834]high personal regard and affection for the officials who served with me in the Foreign Office for four years. I have no complaint. We should not hide behind officials. Not just the officials but Ministers gave insufficient weight to the changing Argentine attitude. From January 1980 through to the early months of 1982 there was no meeting of the Cabinet to discuss the issue and no meeting of the Overseas and Defence Committee to review the changing situation and the growing tensions. There was no meeting to discuss what the hon. Member for Shoreham was going to do at the February talks in New York.
A question has been asked about what pattern of Cabinet Committee government we adopted on those issues. Before every major round of talks there was a full-scale meeting of the Overseas and Defence Committee chaired by the Prime Minister, who examined the policies submitted by the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. Before every set of talks in which I took part the Overseas and Defence Committee met to discuss in detail what my remit should be—and rightly so. Even if there was no fundamental change of policy, there was a review of the situation before every round of talks. There was one before my visit in February 1977 and one in the middle of the year before officials went to Rome, and three meetings in November. We were making plans for the negotiations. There was another meeting in February 1978. However, as the Franks report reveals, there was no discussion in the Cabinet when during the first three months of the year there was a mounting crisis.
That is Cabinet Committee negligence by any standards. When one reads the Franks report one realises how much of a crunch the February talks were. It was not an ordinary round of negotiations. They had been preceded not only by the virulent press campaign in Argentina but—none of us knew this until the Franks report revealed it—by the stiffest set of demands that had ever been made. I have more sympathy in retrospect for the hon. Member for Shoreham when he had to go to the talks, the runup to which had been a detailed demand about the timescale for the talks. I am glad to say that in my four years of negotiation I never came under such pressure.
There was no Cabinet Committee meeting and no review to consider what would happen if the talks broke down or what would happen if, understandably, Ministers felt that they could not go anywhere near meeting the Argentines' demands. That is why the comparison with 1977 is not only valid but pertinent when we discuss how things went wrong in early March 1982. Having read the Franks report I am more convinced than ever that the comparison between 1977 and 1982 is valid.
The reason why we chose to send the force in November 1977 was, as the report states, to buttress the negotiations. It was not sent there to deter Argentine action before the talks. It was sent there not to wield a big stick, fly the flag or demonstrate that we were virile in our assertion of sovereignty, but because we feared that the talks would break down or the junta would disown the outcome of the talks. The purpose was clear and specific.
The right hon. Lady was saying before I intervened that we could not send a force because of this or that danger. The chiefs of staff advised us on the mix of the force. We did not advise on the mix. They told us the combination of the force, which has being sent for the purpose to which we had agreed. The purpose was that if the talks broke down or if the junta disowned the outcome of the talks and denounced them, we would not be totally unprepared and [column 835]the islands would not be totally unprotected. It was a good old boy scouts' principle—to be prepared for trouble because we sensed that there would be trouble. It was not meant to do anything other than that.
When the trouble did not arise, when the negotiations did not break down, when we had agreed a communiqué and I knew that the junta would not denounce or disown it—we checked that—and when we agreed at New York that we would jointly report progress to the United Nations, it was only then—on 19 December, I believe—that I had the onerous duty of telegraphing home to the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) that I believed the task force could be quietly withdrawn because it had served its purpose. Its purpose had been to be there if and when the talks broke down or the junta denounced the outcome.
Mr. Mates
The hon. Member is making much point of the sending of the task force in 1977. He is also by implication criticising the present Government for not having done the same thing before the talks in February 1982. What does he say to the specific remark in paragraph 328 of the Franks report:
“It was believed that the round of talks in December 1977 could lead to a breakdown of negotiations. The circumstances leading up to the February 1982 talks were different, and we consider that they did not warrant a similar naval deployment” ?
Mr. Rowlands
If the hon. Member will allow me to complete my remarks, I think I will answer the point.
Mr. Mates
Do you disagree with Franks?
Mr. Rowlands
The House is passing a judgment. I do not agree with every single word of it. I hope I have deployed an effective case to show that the first three months of 1982 were very serious, whatever comparison one wants to make with 1977. I was explaining the purpose of the November 1977 operation because much disinformation and misinformation have been put out about it. I was explaining clearly and straightforwardly the purpose and point of that operation.
I was about to say that what we feared, the nightmare of any negotiator in negotiations between Britain and Argentina, the very thing that concerned and frightened us in November 1977, happened on 1 March 1982. It happened as vividly as anyone could imagine. The “fruitful and positive” communiqué, as I think it was called, was signed. The Argentine delegation had not even got out of New York before the junta had disowned the talks and issued a unilateral communqué. By comparison, if that had happened in 1977 we would certainly have required the deployment that was made and no doubt I would have been telegraphing for reinforcements.
More important, in the early days of March 1982 it was crucial that there should be cover and protection. Instead, what happened? Lord Carrington had a brief conversation with officials during which the 1977 experience was referred to and dismissed. He asked himself the wrong question and drew a hopelessly wrong conclusion about the 1977 operation. Never again in those crucial early days of March was the option of deploying some sort of submarine cover for the islands ever taken up.
On 3 March the Prime Minister scribbled on a telegram. Reading very much between the lines of the report I think [column 836]she was referring to civil contingency plans for the islands. It is not clear, but in the context it seems they were as much civil as military.
The Prime Minister
That is not true.
Mr. Rowlands
In that case I withdraw it. If they were civil and military, fine. It does not matter. It was only that one sensed that the contingency plans were civil, but it is not basic to my case or argument.
Did the Prime Minister call her Ministers together? Did she summon them and say, “For goodness' sake, I have seen these telegrams and they are worrying me” ? Did she say, “Let us have an urgent meeting of the Overseas and Defence Committee” ? Five days later the letter went out formally from her office; such is the urgency she managed to instil in her office about the contingency plans. Even the Franks report uses cautious terms, saying that it would have been better and to advantage if Ministers had got together and considered this option in detail.
The report says that 5 March was the last day when it would have been possible to deploy anything in the light of subsequent events. I do not agree with that, because no one knew what was about to happen. It emerges from the report that there was a total breakdown in the normal Cabinet Committee type of responsibility.
Mr. Dalyell
rose——
Mr. Rowlands
I should like to complete my case. My hon. Friend will have ample opportunity to speak. I do not want to speak for much longer.
When situations like this are beginning to emerge, it is surely the role of a Prime Minister to bring Ministers together or even to knock heads together. I recall my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) once observing that the Foreign Office believed that diplomacy would get one everywhere and that the Ministry of Defence did not believe in moving anything anywhere. More than once, in the context not only of the Falklands but of Belize as well, I was usually one of the victims of his head-knocking operations.
In early March things needed to be moved. It had been found that diplomacy certainly could not get us what we wanted, despite the pleas to the President of the United States. The decision not to take any action in early March and not even to consider it at any ministerial meeting meant that the islands were left unprotected and the Government were caught unprepared.
The other thing that emerges from the Franks report when one reads the account of the last half of March is of a ship of state rudderless, lurching, drifting, as the low farce of the South Georgia scrap merchants' episode turned into the full-blown tragedy of the invasion itself. Messages were drafted but not sent. The Endurance was sent to South Georgia; then it was recalled and was found somewhere between South Georgia and the islands. Press talk of a nuclear submarine that never was scuppered the valiant diplomatic efforts behind the scenes to defuse the growing crisis. Still the Cabinet and the Overseas and Defence Committee did not meet.
For me anyway one overriding impression comes out of the report. It is of a highly personalised system of government that has been adopted in the last three years—the Foreign Secretary doing his thing and the Prime Minister doing her thing. Very rarely do they seem to come together. They certainly do not come together [column 837]within the structure of Cabinet government and Cabinet Committee government. The Prime Minister has fostered the image of a highly personalised government and decision-making process. When in March 1982 that led us to a disaster in war she cannot blame us for saying that we must hold her personally responsible for the conduct of the peace leading up to the war.