Thatcher 'threatened to nuke Argentina'

[Ironsight 1]

From Guardian.co.uk

Quote[/b] ]Margaret Thatcher forced François Mitterrand to give her the codes to disable Argentina's deadly French-made missiles during the Falklands war by threatening to launch a nuclear warhead against Buenos Aires, according to a book.

Rendez-vous - the psychoanalysis of François Mitterrand, by Ali Magoudi, who met the late French president up to twice a week in secrecy at his Paris practice from 1982 to 1984, also reveals that Mr Mitterrand believed he would get his "revenge" by building a tunnel under the Channel which would forever destroy Britain's island status.

The book, to be published on Friday, is one of several on France's first Socialist president to mark the 10th anniversary of his death on January 8 1996. Despite a now tarnished reputation, he remains a source of fascination for the French in general and the left in particular. Rendez-vous provides revealing insights into the man's mysterious character, complicated past, paranoia and power complex, but nothing as titillating as his remarks on the former British prime minister.

"Excuse me. I had a difference to settle with the Iron Lady. That Thatcher, what an impossible woman!" the president said as he arrived, more than 45 minutes late, on May 7 1982. "With her four nuclear submarines in the south Atlantic, she's threatening to unleash an atomic weapon against Argentina if I don't provide her with the secret codes that will make the missiles we sold the Argentinians deaf and blind." He reminded Mr Magoudi that on May 4 an Exocet missile had struck HMS Sheffield. "To make matters worse, it was fired from a Super-Etendard jet," he said. "All the matériel was French!"

In words that the psychoanalyst has sworn to the publisher, Meren Sell, are genuine, the president continued: "She's livid. She blames me personally for this new Trafalgar ... I was obliged to give in. She's got them now, the codes."

Mr Mitterrand - who once described Mrs Thatcher as "the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe" - went on: "One cannot win against the insular syndrome of an unbridled Englishwoman. Provoke a nuclear war for a few islands inhabited by three sheep as hairy as they are freezing! But it's a good job I gave way. Otherwise, I assure you, the Lady's metallic finger would have hit the button."

France, he insisted, would have the last word. "I'll build a tunnel under the Channel. I'll succeed where Napoleon III failed. And do you know why she'll accept my tunnel? I'll flatter her shopkeeper's spirit. I'll tell her it won't cost the Crown a penny."

[harley 3 1185 0]

I'd know I'd be looking to grind some French balls if my ships were being sunk by French Missiles carried in French Aircraft by Pilots trained by Frenchmen. If Thatcher did threaten to nuke Argentina in exchange for the Exocet codes, and that's a big if, she must have been bluffing. The cost of buying more of those damn Polaris missiles would have been prohibitive to say the least, as well as widening the missile gap between Britain and France.

Good for her, anyway.

"Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds be set..."

[EiZei 0]

Seriously, start a nuclear war over some islands that have more sheep than people on them? Mitterrand got scared way too easily or there is something I do not know.

Maybe she had PMS at the particular time? *ducks*

[harley 3 1185 0]

Last I heard the Argentinians had no nukes, so no war there.  America was too busy praising Reagan and suffering under Reaganomics.  The Rooskies were too busy playing around in Afghanistan, and no doubt the French were too busy trying to stuff Exocets into someone else.

A bomb going off somewhere in Argentina wouldn't have posed too many problems, unless you happened to be Argentinian of course. Probably would have been cheaper firing a Polaris into the heart of Vaquero country and scaring the shit into Buenos Aires than all the fucking about (pardon my French) we did putting together a task force from our dilapidated fleet, sending a few troops, inadequate air support etc etc.

[EiZei 0]

Last I heard the Argentinians had no nukes, so no war there. America was too busy praising Reagan and suffering under Reaganomics. The Rooskies were too busy playing around in Afghanistan, and no doubt the french were too busy trying to stuff Exocets into someone else.

A bomb going off somewhere in Argentina wouldn't have posed too many problems, unless you happened to be Argentinian of course.

So you do not think using nuclear weapons over something petty as this would not have caused any problems at all? If my memory serves right the british economy was hitting rock bottom already and im sure boycotts and generally being viewed as some kind of a rich rogue nation would have not helped one bit.

Quote[/b] ]

Last I heard the Argentinians had no nukes, so no war there.

So it's nuclear terrorism then.

[Supah 0]

I'd know I'd be looking to grind some French balls if my ships were being sunk by French Missiles carried in French Aircraft by Pilots trained by Frenchmen. If Thatcher did threaten to nuke Argentina in exchange for the Exocet codes, and that's a big if, she must have been bluffing. The cost of buying more of those damn Polaris missiles would have been prohibitive to say the least, as well as widening the missile gap between Britain and France.

Good for her, anyway.

"Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds be set..."

Seriously, why doesnt france have the right to sell its arms abroad without being harrased when those are used in earnest? Demanding the codes to screw up the exocets is just daft and threatening to use nukes would have only made me go "Go and recreate yourself in a sexual matter ms thatcher" if I was Mitterand. Every war has two sides and the Argentinian pilots in their super etendards were brave men fighting a numerically and materially superior foe. They had just four vampires to fire and three struck home even though their pilots werent well trained in using them. The Royal Navy got taught a hard lesson about missile defense and not putting all your eggs, or helicopters and mars bars, in one basket.

[sanctuary 19]

Noticing the way such 'journalist' reported this kind of affair in such a funny way, i guess there was a bit more than a "give me your security codes or i cry and then kill the whole Argentina with nukes and throw my country into the most horrible international ban ever and certainly in a war against other countries" and that the United Kingdom gave France something in exchange of such missiles codes ?

As if it was not the case, Mitterand would have been directly threw in a french jail because of high treason (giving french codes to foreign countries is not something France security would have taken lightly) as it is the only kind of situation a french president can be threw in jail (and one of the reason most of all french politcian with some past "problems" want the job ).

But is that code story actually true , to start with, or is it one of those funny to read along some "my wife is an alien from outer space" news ?

[harley 3 1185 0]

I'd know I'd be looking to grind some French balls if my ships were being sunk by French Missiles carried in French Aircraft by Pilots trained by Frenchmen.  If Thatcher did threaten to nuke Argentina in exchange for the Exocet codes, and that's a big if, she must have been bluffing.  The cost of buying more of those damn Polaris missiles would have been prohibitive to say the least, as well as widening the missile gap between Britain and France.

Good for her, anyway.

"Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds be set..."

Seriously, why doesnt france have the right to sell its arms abroad without being harrased when those are used in earnest? Demanding the codes to screw up the exocets is just daft and threatening to use nukes would have only made me go "Go and recreate yourself in a sexual matter ms thatcher" if I was Mitterand. Every war has two sides and the Argentinian pilots in their super etendards were brave men fighting a numerically and materially superior foe. They had just four vampires to fire and three struck home even though their pilots werent well trained in using them. The Royal Navy got taught a hard lesson about missile defense and not putting all your eggs, or helicopters and mars bars, in one basket.

Thatcher had only recently consented to the legislation effectively turning the Royal Navy into a North Atlantic ASW Force; the Falklands Operation was beyond the scope of the projected Navy which the government wanted, so any failures in Anti-Missile Defense would for the most part have to be laid at the door of the government.  The sinking of the transports is another matter.

And does the fact that the war was a near run-thing say more for the Argentinians or the British?? Argentina was effectively next door to the Falklands - supply was not too much of a problem, compared to the logistics of sending a fleet all the way from Britain - it was either win or sink for the RN.

As to the French exporting their armaments, I don't disagree to it.  Seeing as Exocet wasn't a state secret, and it wasn't too much of a problem obtaining the codes from the maker, it was in France's best interest to see that Britain didn't get totally humiliated by the use of French-made weapons.  Mitterand did the right thing in handing over the codes, even if he had to face a crazed witch.  After the war, French military exports to Latin America basically stopped.  The Juntas obviously didn't want to do business with a party pooper.

[Commander-598 0]

Seriously, why doesnt france have the right to sell its arms abroad without being harrased when those are used in earnest?

Because they have the decision making skills of a 14/15 year old cheerleader?

It's not like anything bad could happen from selling state of the art weapons to a tin-pot dictatorship...

[Tovarish 0]

*edit* uhhh....nevermind...I blame tiredness/dyslexia

[EiZei 0]

Seriously, why doesnt france have the right to sell its arms abroad without being harrased when those are used in earnest?

Because they have the decision making skills of a 14/15 year old cheerleader?

It's not like anything bad could happen from selling state of the art weapons to a tin-pot dictatorship...

In case you did not notice everybody sells weapons to these people as long as they can afford it.

Or guess selling weapons Saudi-Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, pre-democracy Greece, Iran, countless insurgents in the middle-east and S. America, Jordan or pre-democracy Turkey is responsible behaviour.

[Commander-598 0]

Quote[/b] ]everybody sells weapons to these people as long as they can afford it.

We(America) might hand out obsolete small-arms by the box full, but we don't sell multi-million dollar weapon systems to just anybody. It's not like we just tossed a Javelin to Afghani Rebels or handed some third-world nobody the keys to our Abrams. We don't even handle obsolete aircraft that liberally, much less the weapons that go on them.

We also don't hand off weapons like that to someone who could easily end up as our enemy(READ: Unstable Governments). Judging by the hands we've seen Exosets in, the French Army is likely going to end up fighting it's own state of the art equipment someday.

[ozanzac 0]

Quote[/b] ]everybody sells weapons to these people as long as they can afford it.

We(America) might hand out obsolete small-arms by the box full, but we don't sell multi-million dollar weapon systems to just anybody. It's not like we just tossed a Javelin to Afghani Rebels or handed some third-world nobody the keys to our Abrams. We don't even handle obsolete aircraft that liberally, much less the weapons that go on them.

We also don't hand off weapons like that to someone who could easily end up as our enemy(READ: Unstable Governments). Judging by the hands we've seen Exosets in, the French Army is likely going to end up fighting it's own state of the art equipment someday.

Yeah, the Iranian government was far more stable than the Argentinians when America handed over F-4's, F-14's, their associated weaponry and the Hawk SAM system....

[EiZei 0]

Quote[/b] ]everybody sells weapons to these people as long as they can afford it.

We(America) might hand out obsolete small-arms by the box full, but we don't sell multi-million dollar weapon systems to just anybody. It's not like we just tossed a Javelin to Afghani Rebels or handed some third-world nobody the keys to our Abrams. We don't even handle obsolete aircraft that liberally, much less the weapons that go on them.

Uhh.. what?

The iranians have F-14s, chinooks, F4s, F5s and possibly still some maverick missiles, the stingers given to mujahideen in afghanistan were hardly obsolete, the saudis and the egyptians have abramses, iran, jordan and pakistan have cobras and TOW missiles had been sold to Iran in the infamous Iran-Contra affair.

Quote[/b] ]

We also don't hand off weapons like that to someone who could easily end up as our enemy(READ: Unstable Governments). Judging by the hands we've seen Exosets in, the French Army is likely going to end up fighting it's own state of the art equipment someday.

Odd of you to say that considering problem has been brewing in Iran lately.

Anyways, Super eterands are hardly state-of-the art and Rafales and Eurofighters have not been sold outside europe so far.

EDIT: Odd, ozanzac's message did'nt show up before I hit the reply button, oh well.

[Supah 0]

Seriously, why doesnt france have the right to sell its arms abroad without being harrased when those are used in earnest?

Because they have the decision making skills of a 14/15 year old cheerleader?

It's not like anything bad could happen from selling state of the art weapons to a tin-pot dictatorship...

If selling weapons to tin pot dictatorships is a sign that you have the decision taking ability of a 14 year old cheerleader what does that say about the USA? Where did you think the Argentinians got the A-4 Skyhawks and Mk.82's from? In whose hands have you seen exocets? Argentinia and Iraq are what I can come up with. Both of which were buying loads of weaponry from the US at the same moment when they purchased the exocets from france. Exocet is a capable anti shipping missile on the same level as harpoon

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]We(America) might hand out obsolete small-arms by the box full, but we don't sell multi-million dollar weapon systems to just anybody. It's not like we just tossed a Javelin to Afghani Rebels or handed some third-world nobody the keys to our Abrams. We don't even handle obsolete aircraft that liberally, much less the weapons that go on them.

We also don't hand off weapons like that to someone who could easily end up as our enemy(READ: Unstable Governments). Judging by the hands we've seen Exosets in, the French Army is likely going to end up fighting it's own state of the art equipment someday.

I know you´re just 17 years old, but this shouldn´t hinder you from getting your facts straight.

The US is still the biggest worldwide weapondealer:

Multimillion dollar deals are done with unstable and possibly dangerous countries and those weapons are even used to keep regimes in place.

I don´t know where you got your myths from but reality is very different.

Just to name some: Somalia, Iran, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Georgia.......

Defense security cooperation agency

On the original issue of this thread.

I´m not sure if the story is true. In fact I doubt it is. Thatcher has been a b**** sometimes but threating to nuke something is way too over imo. Well if the case is true and Mitterand really handed the codes (which is very much against french policy) she had risked to get europe into a deep crises. Not only the policy crises but also a big crises for the french military industry as their top notch system at the time would have been rendered useless. I doubt that the story is really true to that extend.

I like that quote though:

Quote[/b] ]One cannot win against the insular syndrome of an unbridled Englishwoman. Provoke a nuclear war for a few islands inhabited by three sheep as hairy as they are freezing! But it's a good job I gave way. Otherwise, I assure you, the lady's metallic finger would have hit the button.

Funny enough that even after the codes have been handed to the Brits in may the missiles still sunk some more ships...

[-Ash- 0]

After Sheffield the Exocets hit 2 more ships. Atlantic Conveyor was sunk as the original target (Aircraft carrier HMS Hermes) deployed Chaff and the missile was deflected onto her.

HMS Glamorgan was hit by a land based exocet (from ARA Guerrico when she was battered by the Royal Marines in South Georgia) but did not sink, although there was loss of life.

Frankly I don't believe the story about nuking Argentina to be honest, however its true that a lot of the task force were still carrying nuclear arms from their normal North Sea patrols in cold war time.

[Balschoiw 0]

Thatcher also threatened to use nukes during GWI if Brit forces would be attacked with bio or chemical agents. Rattling the sabre and the usual political musclegame, although Thatcher would have been mad enough to push the button imo.

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

Thatcher also threatened to use nukes during GWI if Brit forces would be attacked with bio or chemical agents. Rattling the sabre and the usual political musclegame, although Thatcher would have been mad enough to push the button imo.

She wasnt in power during GW1. She left office in 1990. John Major was the Prime Minister at that time.

Im curious to see where you get that claim from.

[Commander-598 0]

I concede. It was ten thirty at night, my research skills were shot. I was comming up with it all off the top of my head.

[Balschoiw 0]

Yawn...:

oral history: margaret thatcher

Quote[/b] ]Thatcher: Oh, I broached the problem of chemical and possibly even biological with the President and we all knew that if they did, we hadn't chemical or biological weapons. That we had to threaten much worse than that and that the threat would be enough to stop them using it, which it was.

I often had to say to some of our generals, look I'm concerned that we haven't any chemical to deter chemical, biological should never be ...... what is the answer? And they would say, the answer is, if anyone uses chemical weapons, you in fact use a nuclear weapon, and I used to say, now, just give me your view, do you think that would deter them. He said it's a much more effective deterrent than chemical weapons back.

So it was not used, the threat didn't need to be used, but it was known that it was always there...

Q: Saddam Hussein understood, you think, that the nuclear option was there?

Thatcher: He knew, that if he used chemical or biological, there would be a terrible reply. You make it clear that you would consider it in order to secure the non-use of those things. Now I think they did. We have had experience of Saddam Hussein using it during the Iraq/Iran war, we'd had experience of him using it on his own people, on the Kurds.

So you never make it explicit, they just understand.

Q: But you as British Prime Minister would have sanctioned the use of nuclear weapons against Iraq, if they had got ...

Thatcher: You would have considered the situation with which you are faced. That was where were your own troops, would it affect them, and what were the alternatives? But, you would not rule it out.

She was in office when the preparations for GW1 were on the way.

You may want to check the GW 1 timeline:

GW I timeline

Quote[/b] ]Im curious to see where you get that claim from.

Happy now ?

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

Yawn...:

....

Happy now ?

That you have some 'solid' facts yes. Thank you.

[Tigershark_BAS 0]

Quote[/b] ]everybody sells weapons to these people as long as they can afford it.

We(America) might hand out obsolete small-arms by the box full, but we don't sell multi-million dollar weapon systems to just anybody. It's not like we just tossed a Javelin to Afghani Rebels or handed some third-world nobody the keys to our Abrams. We don't even handle obsolete aircraft that liberally, much less the weapons that go on them.

We also don't hand off weapons like that to someone who could easily end up as our enemy(READ: Unstable Governments). Judging by the hands we've seen Exosets in, the French Army is likely going to end up fighting it's own state of the art equipment someday.

ROFLMAO.

Yeah...I know exactly what you mean. No F-14s to Iran, no Stingers to Afghanistan....no F-16s to Indonesia.....

Only boxes of old Springfields from WW2.

[-Ash- 0]

Touche

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Thats ok, i threatened to nuke Margaret Thatcher once.