The Downing Street Years (57 page)

I received a telephone call during the dinner to return immediately to No. 10 and arrived back at 11.30 p.m. By then a second message had arrived from the President. In this he stated that he had decided to respond positively to the request for military action. I immediately called a meeting with Geoffrey Howe, Michael Heseltine and the military and we prepared my reply to the President’ two messages, which was sent at 12.30 a.m. There was no difficulty in agreeing a common line. My message concluded:

I followed this up twenty minutes later by telephoning President Reagan on the hot-line. I told him that I did not wish to speak at any length over the telephone but I did want him to consider very carefully the reply which I had just sent. He undertook to do so but said, ‘we are already at zero.’

At 7.45 that morning a further message arrived, in which the President said that he had weighed very carefully the considerations that I had raised but believed them to be outweighed by other factors. In fact, the US military operation to invade Grenada began early that morning. After some fierce fighting the leaders of the regime were taken prisoner.

At the time I felt dismayed and let down by what had happened. At best, the British Government had been made to look impotent; at worst we looked deceitful. Only the previous afternoon Geoffrey had told the House of Commons that he had no knowledge of any American intention to intervene in Grenada. Now he and I would have to explain
how it had happened that a member of the Commonwealth had been invaded by our closest ally, and more than that, whatever our private feelings, we would also have to defend the United States’ reputation in the face of widespread condemnation.

The international reaction to American intervention was in general strongly adverse. It certainly gave a propaganda boost to the Soviet Union. In its early reports, Soviet television news apparently thought that Grenada was a province of southern Spain. But soon their propaganda machine began firing on all cylinders. The Cubans were portrayed as having played an heroic role in resisting the invasion. When I went to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in New Delhi the following month it was still Grenada which was the most controversial topic of discussion. President Mugabe claimed that American action in Grenada would provide a precedent for South Africa in dealing with her neighbours. My own public criticism of American action and refusal to become involved in it also led to temporarily bad relations with some of Britain’ long-standing friends in the Caribbean. It was an unhappy time.

In Britain we had to face strong pressure, not least in the House of Commons, to renegotiate the arrangements for the deployment of Cruise missiles. The argument was that if the Americans had not consulted us about Grenada, why should they do so as regards the use of Cruise missiles. Similarly, the new leader of the SDP, David Owen, wrote in the
Daily Mail
on 28 October that ‘British public opinion will simply not accept any longer the Prime Minister’ refusal to insist on a dual mechanism to cover the launching procedures for any Cruise missiles that are deployed in Britain before the end of this year.’

So when President Reagan telephoned me on the evening of Wednesday 26 October during an emergency House of Commons debate on the American action I was not in the sunniest of moods. The President began by saying, in that disarming way of his, that if he was in London and dropped in to see me he would be careful to throw his hat through the door first. He said he very much regretted the embarrassment that had been caused and wanted to explain how it had all happened. It was the need to avoid leaks of what was intended which had been at the root of the problem. He had been woken at 3 o’clock in the morning with an urgent plea from the OECS. A group had then convened in Washington to study the matter and there was already fear of a leak. By the time he had received my message setting out my concerns the zero hour had passed and American forces were on their way. The military action had gone well and the aim was now to secure democracy.

There was not much I felt able to say and so I more or less held my peace, but I was glad to have received the telephone call. At that Thursday’ Cabinet there was a long discussion of what had happened. I told my colleagues that our advice against US intervention had, I believed, been sound. But the US, for its part, had taken a different view on an issue which directly touched its national interests. Britain’ friendship with the United States must on no account be jeopardized.

Just as events in the Lebanon had affected American action in Grenada, so what I had seen in the crisis over Grenada affected my attitude to the Lebanon. I was concerned that American lack of consultation and unpredictability might be repeated there with very damaging consequences.

Naturally, I understood that the United States wanted to strike back after the terrorist outrage against its servicemen in Beirut. But whatever military action now took place, I wanted it to be a lawful, measured and effective response. I sent a message to President Reagan on 4 November welcoming assurances which Geoffrey Howe had received from George Shultz that there would be no hasty reaction by the Americans in retaliation and urging that a more broadly based Lebanese Government be constructed. The President replied to me on 7 November, emphasizing that any action would be a matter of self-defence, not of revenge, but adding that those who committed the atrocity must not be allowed to strike again if it was possible to prevent them. A week later he sent me a further message saying that although he had not yet made a final decision he was inclined to take decisive but carefully limited military action. The US had reports of planning for other terrorist acts against the MNF and he intended to deter these. He added that, because of the need for absolute secrecy, knowledge of his current thinking was being severely limited within the US Government.

I quickly replied to the President. I said that I well understood all the pressures upon him to take action but I wanted to give him my frank views about the decision which only he could take. Any action must in my view be clearly limited to legitimate self-defence. It would be necessary to ensure the avoidance of civilian casualties and minimize the opportunities for hostile propaganda. Surprise was likely to be difficult because a range of possible targets had been publicly discussed by the media for days past. I was glad that he did not envisage involving Israel or targetting Syria or Iran, action against either of which would be very dangerous. I hoped that my message was as clear as it could be: I did not believe that retaliatory action was advisable. However, in the end France did launch air strikes — at
American urging, as President Mitterrand told me later. And in response to attacks on its aircraft, the United States struck at Syrian positions in central Lebanon in December.

These retaliations in the Lebanon failed to have any effect. The position there continued to deteriorate. The real question was no longer whether there should be a withdrawal but how to effect one. In February 1984 the Lebanese Army lost control of West Beirut and the Lebanese Government collapsed. The time had clearly come to get out and a firm joint decision with the United States and other members of the MNF was accordingly made to do so and detailed plans for this tricky operation were drawn up. I left it to the British commander on the ground to make the final decision as to what time of the day to move. He decided that it should be done by night. But I suddenly learned that President Reagan would be making a broadcast that evening to tell the American people what would be happening and why. Obviously it became necessary to alert our men to be ready to move as soon as they could. Then, at the last minute, while I was at Buckingham Palace for an audience with the Queen, I received a message that the President was reconsidering the decision and would not after all broadcast. As it turned out — not greatly to my surprise — the postponement decision promptly leaked and the President had to make his broadcast in any case. Clearly, we could not carry on like this, putting the safety of British troops at risk: so I refused to countermand the planned withdrawal of our men to British naval vessels lying offshore, which was duly effected with the British Army’ usual professionalism. In fact, all the MNF forces were shortly withdrawn to ships away from the perils they would have faced on shore. Nothing could now be done to save the Lebanon; the reconstituted Lebanese Government increasingly fell under the control of a Syria whose hostility to the West was now reinforced; and in March the MNF force returned home.

The American intervention in the Lebanon — well intentioned as it was — was clearly a failure. It seemed to me that what happened there contained important lessons which we should heed. First, it is unwise to intervene in such situations unless you have a clear, agreed objective and are prepared and able to commit the means to secure it. Second, there is no point in indulging in retaliatory action which changes nothing on the ground. Third, one must avoid taking on a major regional power, like Syria, unless one is prepared to face up to the full consequences of doing so.

By contrast, American intervention in Grenada was, in fact, a success. Democracy was restored, to the advantage not only of the
islanders themselves but also of their neighbours who could look forward to a more secure and prosperous future. No one would weep any tears over the fate of the Marxist thugs whom the Americans had dislodged. Yet even governments acting on the best of motives are wise to respect legal forms. Above all, democracies have to show their superiority to totalitarian governments which know no law. Admittedly, the law on these matters is by no means clear, as was confirmed for me during a seminar I held after the Grenada affair to consider the legal basis for military intervention in another country. Indeed, to my surprise, I found that the lawyers at the seminar were more inclined to argue on grounds of
realpolitik
and the politicians were more concerned with the issue of legitimacy. My own instinct was — and is — always to found military action on the right of self-defence, which ultimately no outside body has the authority to question.

Grenada was still very much on my mind when I went to Bonn for one of my regular Anglo-German summits with Chancellor Kohl on Tuesday 8 November. Like me, Chancellor Kohl was worried about the impact of the American action on European public opinion in the run-up to the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles later that month. The West German Government had originally been very critical of the Grenada operation but had since toned this down. Helmut Kohl was showing a good deal of courage as well as political cunning in handling West German public opinion at this crucial time, and I admired him for it.

The main purpose of my visit, however, was to seek German support for the line I would take at the European Council in Athens, now just a few weeks away. So Athens was the principal topic of my discussion with him, in which we were later joined by Geoffrey Howe and the German Foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher. I began by making what I hoped would be the welcome suggestion that the next President of the European Commission should come from Germany, if the German Government wished to put forward a candidate. As I had rather expected, it appeared that they did not. Chancellor Kohl said that he agreed with me that the Commission was too big and tended to create unnecessary work. Then a little more diplomacy: I said that our aim was to build on the excellent foundation laid under the German presidency. After this we got down to business. I stressed
the need for firm control of spending on the CAP if there was to be anything left of the Community’ ‘own resources’ for other purposes, such as the development of the electronics industry, which the Germans wanted. I also warned against allowing growing protectionism to create another area of disagreement with the United States. The Germans were most interested in the future level of MC As,
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which affected German farmers’ incomes, and the steel industry where they considered that they were receiving a raw deal and that the Italians were using subsidies to undercut German producers. I hoped that at the end of this discussion each side had understood the areas on which we would stand firm and those where compromise was possible. In particular, I hoped that the Germans realized how serious I was about achieving my objectives on the budget question at Athens.

As usual before European Councils I held a number of preparatory meetings with ministers and officials. This was partly to ensure that I was thoroughly briefed, but also to sort out with colleagues our precise objective on each issue. It was not enough to decide what was ideal for us: I had also to establish and fully master the least bad alternatives. All too often the ideal was not attainable.

In the meetings for Athens on the budget question both Nigel Lawson and I felt that we had to be really tough in pressing for the required package if there were to be any question of our agreeing to an increase in the Community’ ‘own resources’. We had to be satisfied with the way the burden on Britain was measured. The result must reflect our ability to pay. And whatever system was finally agreed must be able to be relied upon to work over time and without significant damage to the UK position. Above all, to take into account relative prosperity, we decided to press the view that if a member state’ GDP per head was 90 per cent or less of the Community average it should make no net contribution at all, with states above that threshold making progressively higher contributions the richer they were. (This scheme was known as ‘the safety net’ or ‘threshold’ system.)