The press

Bewildered, Cheltenham

Paul Johnson

It is heartening,' wrote reader R. Pirl rteham to the Guardian, `to find the British people so united in their resolve to repel the invasion of the Falkland Islands.' United? You could have fooled me. Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph took a rather different view: whereas the Bennite polytechnic elites and the Foreign Office upper-class elites both Want a scuttle, 'the people want gunboats'. For the first time since the war, he wrote, Britain is launched on a great military ven- ture in the cause of what a massive majority of the people believe to be right'. But that is not quite the impression given by letters People write to the papers, or at least those which editors choose to print. The elite is as divided as any other group. I have no confidence,' wrote Lord Wigg to The Times, 'in improvised military adven- tures in pursuit of undefined objectives.' doubts had been 'further emphasised by the attitude of The Times which, during mY lifetime, has been wrong on every major

from General Sir Robert Ford, writing itOm the Cavalry Club, blamed 'gross crisis

mismanagement' and the fact that the 'well- tried and established Defence and Overseas 1.°11cY Committee' had been 'steadily erod- ed by successive prime ministers'. Sir Michael Hadow, writing to the Daily Telegraph, feared the fate that overtook the Repulse and Prince of Wales. Rear-Admiral Anderson hoped `Mr Nott now feels some sense of shame Seldom had any politi- cian suffered such an immediate and Justified comeuppance.' As usual,' wrote Rear-Admiral Bolt, `it falls to the lot of the Serviceman to pay for the blunders of the politicians.' It is time,' Lord Brockway told the Guardian, 'that the great body of

Pinion in our country dedicated to peace asserted itself.'

Guardian peace-dedicatees, in fact, were already

out in force. Brendan Gallagher

thought the fleet should have waited: Three weeks-, even three months, militarily matters not.' Tom Gallagher deplored 'the spectacle of Michael Foot dressing up as John Roll'. Ken Coats described the British !?(Pedition as 'senseless brutality', V. P. underwood compared it to 'an Opium War or a War of Jenkins's ear'. Fergus Cook,

heartless', the risk of appearing unpatriotic and neartless', thought that 'Britain should

have handed over sovereignty of the islands long ago and must do so now'. 'We have read in history books about war hysteria,' wrote Anna and Julian Crowe, 'but have not ourselves witnessed it until now ... Can sensible people really be thinking of fighting over these South Atlantic islands?' Hiran Bhattacharya pointed out that, under the new Nationality Act, the Falklanders, as citizens of a British Dependent Territory, `have no right to come to this country'. Plenty of appeasers among Times readers, too, to judge by reactions to its leader 'We Are All Falklanders Now'. 'Nineteenth- century rhetoric,' wrote Ronald Gray. 'Rhetorical nonsense ... hardly a paragraph that could stand up to five minutes cool scrutiny' according to Christopher Derrick. It should have been dated 1882, thought George Binney.

There were plenty of angry jingoes of course. Mrs A. J. Holt, writing to the Daily Mail, felt 'ashamed that my once great country' should be humiliated 'at the hands of a bunch of South American thugs'. 'A band of South American desperados', as Trevor Gaskell put it in the Telegraph; 'our jack-booted friends from Argentina' was David Delvin's expression. But not all the rage flowed towards Argentina. Mail reader Miss M. Ashby felt Margaret Thatcher had `courage and resolution' but had chosen 'a clapped-out team'. Mrs M. Stephens wanted 'the resignation of the entire Con- servative government'. Miss S. Wyllie de- nounced 'our cretinous, bungling govern- ment'. Mrs J. Turner thought, 'It is as if this government wanted the invasion of the Falklands to happen.' P. Ebo castigated Carrington and Nott as 'dithering ... made to look idiots ... Sir Francis Drake must be turning in his grave.' In the Telegraph, J. Hayward compared the fiasco to the loss of Calais: if Mary Tudor had Calais engraved on her heart, 'Margaret Thatcher will have the Falkland Islands on hers'. In the Observer John Lodge thought the Govern- ment 'guilty of the gravest folly, blunder and contempt'. The diplomats came in for particular censure. 'Well,' snarled B. Thomas in the Telegraph, 'that's one ex- pensive, irritating nuisance the Foreign Office has got rid of, isn't it? And they've contrived to come out of it all wide-eyed, indignant innocence, as the injured party,

rather than the betrayer. Clever!'

What should be done then? Derek Bloom, in the Sunday Times, thought we

might get back South Georgia but not the Falklands. F. H. Simon wanted the islanders shipped to New Zealand. In the

Telegraph, J. T. Menhinick felt President

Reagan should be allowed to speak in Westminster Hall after all, `if he mediates

successfully'. E. B. Radcliffe suggested that 'all nations' should pull out of the World Cup 'and perhaps force Argentina to withdraw'. J. Caroe wanted the Falklands to become 'a non-political international base for the Antarctic, administered by the United Nations'. M. Litton didn't think the New Zealand idea a good one: 'I do not recollect that the inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha took easily to a changed way of life after their volcanic disaster.' Carmel Budiardjo, in the Sunday Times, compared the Falklands with the case of Portuguese East Timor; E. M. Hall, in the Observer, to that of Basutoland, Swaziland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Other readers thought the Falklanders should be shunted off to the Outer Hebrides, placed under UN protection or evacuated by a fleet of small ships loaned by neutrals. Humphrey Smith, writing to the Guardian, argued that 'one vital aspect' of the crisis had been 'com- pletely ignored — the importance of con- tinued British presence and influence in the South Atlantic and Antarctica in order to safeguard their wildlife and renewable marine resources'. A. P. Garlick was wor- ried, `if there is a shoot out', about 'who claims the scrap metal'. Telegraph reader N. L. Brown proposed that until the ques- tion of sovereignty was settled the islands `should be administered by Argentine citizens of British extraction'. J. R. Gibbs had a more radical solution: 'the Spanish invaders should hand Argentina back to the Charrua and Querendi Indians from whom they stole it by conquest some 300 years ago.' The Marquess of Linlithgow allowed that 'the public must make what judgments they can' about the crisis, but personally, 'in these last few hours it has been demonstrated, at least to me, that the House of Lords ... has proved itself an essential ingredient of our complex political matrix'. So there goes one satisified reader anyway.