Thatcher Urges Argentina To Avoid Climactic Battle

London Demands Troop Pullout

London, June 2 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called on Argentina today to withdraw its troops from the Falkland Islands within the next few days to avoid a bloody battle for the capital of Stanley.

Thatcher said she would not delay the British military advance toward the capital. But during the short time it will take British forces to prepare for the battle, she said, she hoped that the Argentine military government might agree to a guaranteed, supervised withdrawal, which would amount to surrender.

“No one would be more pleased than I should be if either President [Leopoldo] Galtieri or the commander of their local garrison should say, ‘This is absurd that we should sacrifice our young people in this way and we will not fight further.’” said the prime minister in an interview with The Washington Post.

Granting an interview for the first time since British troops landed on the Falklands 12 days ago and began ground operations, Thatcher said of the Argentines, “They must have a lot of fine young men there. I know we have.” She added, “You know what happened at Goose Green and Darwin. There was a battle in the early stages and then they suggested there should be a surrender.”

Thatcher indicated her hope that the Argentine troops at Stanley might similarly decide to surrender without authorization from Buenos Aires after the battle had begun. Leaflets were dropped by British planes yesterday urging the Argentines to surrender, a senior British official said tonight.

Thatcher said she continued to doubt that Galtier's government would agree to withdraw without attaching conditions unacceptable to her. “I've always thought it would be unlikely that a dictator would withdraw, although after both sides have suffered it is just remotely possible,” she said. “But so far, I've seen no sign of it.”

“So far, when they've talked about withdrawal, they've talked about it only in the sense that they want to keep some of the fruits of their occupation,” Thatcher said. “And that, of course, is not acceptable to me.

“It's too easy a ploy for the invader who is in occupation of the greater parts of the Falklands to say, ‘All right, a cease-fire,’ when that still leaves them in occupation of our people.”

Asked if she thought Britons would accept a considerable increase in casualties in the battle for Stanley, Thatcher said they “know that to defend liberty and justice, previous generations have lost their lives. They are prepared to see that liberty and justice [are] defended now, and know that it may mean more loss of life. We hope to minimize that loss of life.”

Thatcher said she thought President Reagan would contribute to a “multinational force” to protect the Falklands from a new Argentine invasion after British troops left because Britain agreed to participate in the U.S.-led peace-keeping force that supervised the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Sinai. She said she also hoped that at least one South American country, which she would not name, would participate.

[In Washington, informed sources said the president discussed the Falklands with Thatcher by telephone last weekend and tentatively hopes to meet with her in Paris Thursday, in addition to an already scheduled session in London next week.]

[The sources said that while Thatcher reiterated her uncompromising stand on Argentine withdrawal, she expressed understanding for the problems U.S. support of Britain is causing U.S.-Latin American relations. The prime minister promised that once Britain regained control of the Falklands, she would consider negotiations with Argentina on the long-range future of the islands and the role that Argentina might play there.]

Thatcher, interviewed in her study at 10 Downing Street, responded heatedly when asked about the belief of most Argentines that they have a legitimate claim to what they call the Malvinas.

“That was because they had been brainwashed for 40 years,” she said, her voice rising. “It started under Peron.

“What are you going to say to me, ‘Just start brainwashing your people that they're entitled to the territory next door and then they've got a claim on them’?”

Asked about the practical problem of reestablishing relations with Argentina if it were humiliated militarily in the Falklands, Thatcher responded instantly, “Do you want Britain humiliated?”

But later today, in interviews on British television, Thatcher said, “I am not seeking to humiliate anyone at all. I am just asking that the invader return his troops to the mainland. That is not humiliation. It is a restoration of the rule of law.”

After Britain repossesses the Falklands, Thatcher said, she intends to “rebuild and rehabilitate and develop” the islands and increase their population with new settlers. “I'm not talking about Argentinians,” she said, but others who might be attracted by development of the Falklands' offshore oil and fishing resources.

“It is then my earnest desire that the Falkland islanders, who are British, have the right to self-determination just as in the early days of history we helped many South American countries to be liberated and come to self-determination.” Thatcher said. She added that this likely would mean eventual independence for a more populous and better developed Falklands, whose low-income, sheep-farming economy is currently dominated by a British colonial company.

Emphasizing that Britain has given “self-determination and independence” to about 40 former colonies - what she called “quite a large slice of the United Nations” - Thatcher said, “I would like to do that for the Falklands.” [end p1]

But she added that “other people would have to respect that independence,” which would require that the security of the Falklands “be guaranteed by a number of countries, of whom I hope the United States will be one.”

Thatcher appeared to rule out any future deal with Argentina concerning sovereignty over the Falklands now that British blood had been shed to repossess them. She said the Falkland islanders “will naturally be more hostile to Argentina now, very much more hostile. You've heard the reports from Goose Green and Darwin.”

Instead, she stressed, for the first time publicly, the option of giving the Falklands independence after a long period of restored British colonial rule. She said she has already asked a British expert on the Falklands, Lord Shackleton, to update his 1976 government plan for improving the island's airport and roads and developing its mineral resources.

“I believe there is quite a potential for development,” Thatcher said, although the Shackleton plan had been shelved for years until now. “The thing that has been holding it up, of course,” she added, “has been the quarrel with Argentina. One's purpose will now be to get that development going somehow because there are possibilities there.

“I believe we will get more people there with the development. Quite often when people have been to a place and see the potential, some will like to stay. I think there will be a renewed interest in the Falklands.”

While the islanders are still likely to want to maintain the Falklands as a British colony, Thatcher said, she was seeking self-government for them “so no one can accuse us of colonialism.”

The prime minister said President Reagan, in his recent statements on the Falklands crisis, has been “absolutely marvelous on one of the supreme things, that aggression must not be seen to pay. If it does, there are 50 to 100 other territories that would be in danger, and I think those of us who lived through our generation and his know that.”

Asked about Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.'s suggestion that she show “magnanimity” in victory in the Falklands, Thatcher said, “I'm not talking so much of victory, but of a return of Argentine forces to the mainland.”

“After that is achieved,” she said. “… we shall start to make special efforts to restore the most friendly relations throughout Latin America.” [end p2]

Thatcher: No Doubt Or Regrets

London, June 3 - “The reason I am in politics,” Margaret Thatcher said as she leaned forward from the edge of her chair to stare intently into her interviewer's eyes, “is because I believe in certain things and try to put them into practice.”

What she believes in and has become an evangelist for are Victorian English virtues: industry, charity, self-reliance and duty. She considers them cardinal principles for which she is determined to fight at any political cost. Critics and even close colleagues speak instead of stubborn prejudices and self-righteous combativeness.

But after more than three years as Britain's prime minister, Thatcher said she has no doubts or regrets. Her resolve has been tested first by the long unpopularity of her survival-of-the-fittest economic policies and now by prosecution of a completely unexpected Victorian colonial war in a faraway place for national honor, pride and principle.

Asked during a 70-minute conversation yesterday in a second-floor study of 10 Downing St. on a humid, early summer day what had surprised or troubled her during an unusually eventful and controversial period in office, Thatcher fell uncharacteristically silent. After [end p3] thinking for a moment, her chin in her hand, she said, “I've fallen so well into it now, one's learned to cope. I can't think of anything that's surprised me.”

Asked about her accomplishments, Thatcher listed a reduction in inflation, abolition of various government economic controls and increased efficiency of some British businesses. But she said three years were not nearly enough time for the kind of fundamental changes she wants to make in Britain. “Maybe 23 years,” she said, with only a trace of a smile, as she talked of the necessity of a minimum of two five-year terms.

This is the self-assured foe facing both the Argentine military junta in the Falkland Islands and currently beleaguered opposition politicians here in Britain. Described by one close associate as someone who thrives on crises while having little long-range vision, Thatcher appears to have been as personally energized by the Falklands war as she and her Conservative Party have been buoyed by it in public opinion polls.

A new poll by the respected Market Opinion Research International firm published today showed that public satisfaction with Thatcher's government has jumped from 18 percent last December to 49 percent this week. Thatcher's own overall performance as a prime minister is now approved by 56 percent of the voters, compared with about 80 percent approval of her handling of the Falklands crisis.

Thatcher said she realizes from a 30-year career in politics not to read too much into the recent surge of patriotic support for the government in the polls. Anyway, she said, “I wouldn't dream” of calling a quick election to try to capitalize on this support after the Falklands war ends.

“I was elected for five years with a good majority,” she insisted. “I intend to serve for five years and then run on my entire record. People know what I stand for and will judge me on that.”

Like much of what she says about “honest money,” “duties to society” and “standing up for what one believes in,” this can easily sound naive or disingenuous outside her constituency of middle- and skilled working-class Britons who, like Thatcher, have grown disillusioned with postwar welfare-state and values here.

Thatcher clearly found it frustrating at a dinner this week with American correspondents here, their numbers swelled by the Falklands crisis, when she felt unable to persuade many of them that she meant what she was saying about fighting the Falklands war to the end for the principles of freedom, self-determination and democracy, and about not following a popular victory with an early election. “What you see,” an aide said of Thatcher, “is all that is there.”

In yesterday's interview, her first with an American newspaper in three years, Thatcher repeatedly tried to explain why so much of the British public appears to support a potentially costly a war for the sake of 1,800 Falkland Islanders - and why she believes this was so significant for the Britain she sees herself as leading.

“I think what we are seeing now is something quite fundamental in the drawing together of the British people once liberty and justice are challenged once again,” Thatcher said, summoning memories of the embattled island nation during World War II.

“If you ask a person here what he would associate with Britain, it's not this talk about the welfare state or any sort of benefits or jargon,” she said. “He would say, ‘We are a free country.’”

Thatcher's economic philosophy is founded on similar beliefs in freedom from government interference or protection beyond the bare necessities of law enforcement and public infrastructure. She harked back to the Victorian era's unfettered free enterprise when industrialists dipped charitably and voluntarily into its profits to provide for the public good.

“Look at the enormous increase in industry and commerce in this country during Victorian times, which brought with it a consciousness of duty to others,” she said. “They built the hospitals. They built the schools. They built the prisons. They built the industries. They built the town halls. They had confidence in the future, and their success brought them the wealth and resources to build the future.”

In present-day Britain, Thatcher said, “What I can't stand are all the people who are prepared to go tap the industries making profits for the arts or music or charity, and then, in the next breath, despise industry.” Instead, she said, she is trying to attract new interest, talent and investment to British industry so it can help rebuild the country and pay for what is to remain of the welfare state.

Thatcher cited, as a model for the Britain she is seeking to build, “the whole climate and atmosphere in the United States of success. You're expected to be successful and you're applauded when you are. We're trying to get that kind of atmosphere over here, and we shall do it.”

She said she is seeking to “build a strong, responsible people and a happy people - not a pleasure-seeking people in any way, but a people whose whole talents and abilities are being used.

“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied just at the end of the day,” Thatcher said. “It's not a day when you lounge [end p4] around doing nothing. It's when you've had everything to do, a real challenge, and you've done it. Life really isn't just an existence. It's using all the talents with which you were born. You can only do that if you've got a government that believes that is the purpose of life as well.”

Thatcher acknowledged that this goes against the postwar drift of British society toward greater leisure despite a declining economy. But it matches her own workaholic life style. She boasts of needing less than five hours sleep at night, has no hobbies and sets aside very little leisure time.

Thatcher's combativeness and headstrong leadership style also is a departure from tacit postwar bipartisan cooperation in running the welfare state through generally collegial Conservative or Labor governments. Although she has been more ready than she publicly admits to compromise with less radical Cabinet colleagues on some aspects of economic and other policies, she usually drags the government back to her chosen course through dogged argument often criticized as a schoolteacher's lecturing and even humiliating hectoring of some colleagues.

She has remained convinced throughout the Falklands crisis, for example, that Britain had little alternative but to recapture the islands militarily and restore British administration as it had been before the Argentine invasion on April 2. Under both domestic and international pressure while British forces prepared for their counterinvasion, she reluctantly agreed to compromises that were never, as she expected, accepted by Argentina. Since the big British landing at San Carlos on East Falkland, she has largely shaped events her way once again.

Thatcher insisted in yesterday's interview that “we've never had a more united Cabinet than over the whole Falklands issue.” But, tacitly acknowledging her practice of working primarily through Cabinet committees of largely trusted membership, Thatcher noted that her inner “war cabinet” contains some of her closest colleagues.

“We've been together a long time,” she said of William Whitelaw, the deputy prime minister and home secretary. She added that Defense Secretary John Nott “and I have thought the same way for years.”

She denied persistent reports that the war cabinet has been split by differences between her and Foreign Secretary Francis Pym over how much Britain should have been prepared to compromise to achieve a negotiated settlement with Argentina. “He has done absolutely marvelously,” Thatcher said of Pym, “after being thrown into the deep end” when Lord Carrington resigned after the Argentine invasion of the Falklands.

“They're all in my camp,” Thatcher said. But she added that, “of course, in formulating policy we argue. What else would you expect? When you're talking tactics and what to do next, you've got to talk things through. You owe that to” the British troops.

She insisted that she does not bully or ignore her Cabinet on this or other issues, but rather that she works out decisions through sometimes vigorous argument, which she suggested some people might misunderstand. Thatcher's love of verbal combat is evident at prime minister's question time in Parliament and in press conferences. Her eyes light up and she smiles broadly when she believes she has scored a point, oblivious to the possibility that her style sometimes may appear needlessly abrasive.

“The idea that a prime minister is there just as a chairman to collect votes is absolute nonsense,” Thatcher said of her approach to Cabinet government. “You're there to give a lead. You may modify your approach as a result of discussion.”

On the other hand, she added, “you must never have a head of government who will not permit argument. A lot of people work like myself, and you have to argue a thing through. If you have a view, you must be prepared to put it to the test and submit it to argument.”

“I don't want to be the sort of person who has toes to tread on, if you understand what I mean,” Thatcher said. Among her oldest colleagues, she said, “We just have this saying, ‘We don't have any toes.’ We do have toes, of course. But we are not so concerned about someone else treading on our toes that it dominates our views for heaven knows how long. You just carry on. What matters is that we get the right answer between us.”