La guerre des Malouines dans les relations internationales

Valuable possessions
Annexes
I decided Government House would be the operational headquarters for the Royal Marines.
After I had sent my wife and son to a safer house, I told the domestic staff to go away and just
take their few most valuable possessions. Nanny, our housekeeper, got her priorities right.
Off she went with a picture of the Queen under one arm and a bottle of gin under the other.
From five to six the next morning until dawn, which was 6.35, it was a very fierce fire fight. I
was under my desk with my assistant. I had to make a conscious effort to think through the
noise.
People say "weren't you frightened?" I think I would have been but I was stunned of all
emotions because of the noise.
I had a little handgun and I was going to use it if they got as far as my office.
At about 6.35, the firing subsided and (Royal Marine Major) Mike Norman popped his head
round the door and said: "We've repulsed the bastards".
Injured
I could hear some groaning and I said "Mike, we'd better get our injured in," and he said:
"They're not ours, they're theirs."
That was when I realised how close they were. There were three of them who had been shot in
my wife's vegetable garden just 15 yards from where I was.
I knew I would have to give in sometime. My one anxiety was how many lives I had to lose
before I gave in, and had we done enough to resist to get the response from Britain that we
needed?
If I had known Maggie Thatcher as well then as I know her now I would not have had that
anxiety.
I got the admiral in charge of the task force to come to me and he urged me to give the order
to lay down arms.
He said otherwise I would be held responsible for any further casualties.
I did point out that it is the people who start the shooting that are to blame. But I did take his
point. It was an overwhelmingly superior force.
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