MARGARET THATCHER pleaded with Charles Haughey to help crush the Argentinians at the outbreak of the Falklands War.
Confidential files show the then British prime minister personally urged the then taoiseach to “hit them hard” by halting trading with the South Americans.
Thatcher admitted she had been forced to turn to “close friends” for support because she suspected the Soviet Union would block any proposed United Nations sanctions.
“I now seek your personal help to bring about the urgent introduction of economic and financial measures against Argentina, by national action co-ordinated among us,” she wrote to Haughey.
In the message, marked “personal and confidential”, the Tory leader said Argentina had made clear it would defy a UN Security Council resolution issued on April 3rd, 1982, to withdraw its forces from the Falkland Islands.
Thatcher said economic and financial steps would have a powerful impact. The Argentine economy was vulnerable and “measures to limit their access to markets and to credit will hit them hard”.
She said time was short and experience had shown – in the case of Iran two years earlier – that the Soviet Union would veto UN proposals for a global economic assault on Argentina.
The British prime minister accepted sanctions would hit the Irish economy as much as the Argentinian, but she insisted they would bring the Argentine government “to their senses” and quickly lead to a peaceful pull-out of troops.
As well as a complete ban on the supply of arms and an embargo on all or some imports from Argentina, Thatcher sought an Irish ban on export credit guarantees and international lending to the South American country. She predicted that international money markets would cease loans to Argentina because of the economic upset.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said Ireland did not directly impose financial or trading sanctions on Argentina. “The only measures taken by Ireland in the course of the hostilities between the UK and Argentina were those taken by us as a member state of the then EEC, eg the EEC arms embargo of 1982,” a spokeswoman said. – (PA)