ON THE FALKLANDS
“The San Carlos landings were absolutely brilliant. The navy was incredible, and San Carlos was chosen because it cut down the chances of there being any sea-skimming missiles there, and they landed without [major] casualties. I was with the CDS (chief of the defence staff) at the time and I heard a lot of the thing coming over real-time over satellite, and we knew not only that they had landed, but that they had come up against virtually no opposition at all.
“We had stressed, the chief of staff had stressed, I particularly stressed, that once the landing happened they should get out of the bridgehead and get across to the vital ground, otherwise I had awful visions of them getting stuck and there being an international ceasefire or something, and we would be out and the thought that he more or less decided to do both options together.
“When the chiefs had vetted the plan with our commander-in-chief and the general staff, of which I was the head, we weren’t too happy about San Carlos. We thought it was too far away from where they had to go and it would have been better to land [elsewhere]. I expressed my misgivings to the CDS and he said that we’ll talk to the
