National Archives files show growing sense of foreboding by Royal Navy that 'ad hoc' cuts would harm national security
Prophetic warnings about the dangers for British seapower were delivered to the government in the runup to the Falklands war, according to secret documents released to the National Archives.
The papers have been released amid a fresh round of deep defence cuts and shortly after Argentina imposed a ban on vessels from the Falkland Islands landing in much of South America.
The precise terms of the verbal broadsides fired off by the first sea lord, Sir Henry Leach, and the foreign secretary, Lord Carrington, during Whitehall battles 30 years ago to resist defence cuts are preserved in the files.
Although the official Franks report published the year after the Argentinian invasion concluded that it "could not have been foreseen", the newly opened documents detail the growing sense of foreboding among key figures.
As the recession deepened and the Conservative government embarked on a round of financial savings, the Royal Navy felt unfairly targeted.
Admiral Leach sent the prime minister a forthright note in May 1981 regretting that she was too busy to see him and begging that she spend "two minutes" reading his letter.
"The [defence cuts programme] has been devised ad hoc in two months," he wrote. "It has neither been validated nor studied in depth. No alternative options have been considered.
"It has all been done in a rush. Such unbalanced devastation of our overall defence capability is unprecedented; it must cause serious doubts concerning US reactions in the context of your own conventional assurance and successful negotiation of the Trident project so important to our country.
"We are on the brink of a historic decision. War seldom takes the expected form and a strong maritime capability provides flexibility for the unforeseen. If you erode it to the extent envisaged I believe you will undesirably foreclose your future options and prejudice our national security."
His note was copied to the defence secretary, John Nott, who also received warnings from Carrington about the risks of withdrawing the icebreaker HMS Endurance.
Carrington said the vessel "plays a vital role in both political and defence terms in the Falkland Islands, [its] dependencies and Antarctica … Any reductions would be interpreted by both the islanders and the Argentines as a reduction in our commitment to the islands and in our willingness to defend them."
Argentinian forces invaded the Falkland islands in April 1982.
Part of his dispatch, marked "secret", is still so sensitive that one paragraph is redacted "under a 40 years freedom of information exemption".
Bombarded with cautionary advice, Nott sent the prime minister a "secret and personal" note on 17 June 1981 before a meeting on defence cuts.
"I am most anxious to avoid a disagreement in cabinet between Geoffrey [Howe, the chancellor of the exchequer] and myself," he explained.
He added: "The package which cabinet will consider is the absolute limit that the party will stand and I still have to persuade the Americans this weekend that our naval reductions should not be vigorously opposed … or Trident called into question."
On the following day, Leach was finally admitted to a meeting with Thatcher. The official note records that: "The point he wished to emphasise was the most serious miscalculation which we would be making is [if] we disregarded the deterrent effect of a major maritime capability in peacetime."
The first sea lord complained that his advice had not been accepted.
In the aftermath of the Argentinian invasion, both Nott and Carrington offered their resignations. Carrington's was accepted. Nott stayed on but left office in 1983.