MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Lord Pym's major and controversial part in Falklands' war
Francis Pym in January 1982. (AP) As Foreign Secretary in Margaret Thatcher's War Cabinet, Francis Pym played a major and controversial part in the conduct of the Falklands War and particularly in the various peace proposals seeking a settlement to avoid conflict.
His attitude was influenced as a former army officer who had witnessed conflict and killing on a grand scale in North Africa and Italy in the Second Wold War. In 1982, he had intensive contact with the American Secretary of State, General Alexander Haig in his shuttle diplomacy between Buenos Aires, Washington and London, and with the United Nations Secretary General and President Belaunde Terry of Peru all of whom put forward proposals for negotiation, as did Francis Pym himself at a critical meeting of the War Cabinet. Though they had been close colleagues for years, the Prime Minister distrusted his judgment and advice and regarded him as pessimistic and a weak negotiator. She was appalled by his proposals which she argued would have placed the British Task Force at a big military disadvantage in a limited withdrawal, failed to ensure Argentine withdrawal of their forces from the Islands, abandoned the principle of Falkland Islands self-determination and allowed Argentine settlement which would have swamped the existing population. "Did Francis realize how much he (in his proposals) had signed away?" she asked. The War Cabinet rejected Pym's plan and supported Margaret Thatcher. "So", she declared later, "a great crisis passed. I could not have stayed as Prime Minister had the War Cabinet accepted Francis Pym's proposals. I would have resigned". Sacking him when she won the 1983 election, Margaret Thatcher said his sense of direction had proved faulty on several occasions. "Francis and I disagreed on the direction of policy, in our approach to government and to life in general". But as such a respected figure in Parliament she proposed to nominate him for the prestigious post of Speaker of the House of Commons. But he declined and returned to the back benches as a Member of Parliament. By Harold Briley, who knew Lord Pym personally and reported the Falklands War, writes from London.
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