History: Reagan On The Falkland/Malvinas: “Give[] Maggie enough to carry on…”

The United States secretly supported the United Kingdom during the early days of the Falklands/Malvinas Island war of 1982, while publicly adopting a neutral stance and acting as a disinterested mediator in the conflict, according to recently declassified U.S. documents posted today by the National Security Archive.

On the 30th anniversary of the war, the Archive published a series of memoranda of conversation, intelligence reports, and cables revealing the secret communications between the United States and Britain, and the United States and Argentina during the conflict.

At a meeting in London on April 8, 1982, shortly after the war began, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expressed concern to U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig about President Ronald Reagan’s recent public statements of impartiality. In response, according to a previously secret memorandum of the conversation, “The Secretary said that he was certain the Prime Minister knew where the President stood. We are not impartial.” Read Article