The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 6

THE GUARDIAN BELGRANO EXTRA mm 4 May 2, 1982: survivors set out in hteboats as the stricken Belgrano lists to port Sink the parliamentary questions, discouraged Dalyell from asking more questions. On May 9, 1984. Ponting do not believe it is possible to sustain' this line." There were, anyway, he said, sound tactical reasons for giving a complete picture, rather than allowing the information to come out piecemeal. Heseltine rejected this advice. A draft reply (never sent) to Dalyell showed quite a different story' to that given to MPs.

It was leaked by Ponting to Dalyell on July 1G and was then leaked to the press a month later. It showed that the Belgrano had reversed course at 9 am London time on May 2 eleven hours before it was attacked and, Commons foreign affairs committee "would show that the change on May 2, 1982, was not restricted to the Belgrano: but included all Argentine warships over a large area. It would also reveal there was a delay until May 7 before the appropriate warning was issued for the May 2 change." It was not until May 7 that Britain told Argentina that in future any Argentine or milit--ary aircraft outside its 12-mile territorial limit would be regarded as "hostile." Britain told the UN on May 8 that the announcement was made "to reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding about the UK's intentions." It. is clear, if only because of the Cabinet row, that in practice and politically, the April 30 and then the May 2 changes were significant extensions of-the general April 23 warning to Argentina. Asked about the delay in giving the warning until May 7, Mr Heseltine told MPs on the foreign affairs committee in November, 1984, to ask the Foreign Office.

Yet the FO' told the committee in July, 1984, that it was the MoD which was responsible for rules of engagement. On May 1, 1982, Mr Pym said in Washington: "No further military action is envisaged at the moment except to keep the exclusion zone secure. Lord Lewin. last November, said that Mr Pym had no justification for saying that. Mr Pym replied that it was a perfectly reasonable thing to say at the time.

In August, 1984, Professor John Erickson of Edinburgh University, a leading authority on defence, told the Guardian that in what he described as the murky middle ground' between peace and war," rules of engagement are crucial. Without them, or by not honouring them, a country, could be guilty of piracy or murder. Belgrano SO SERIOUSLY did Clive Ponting take what he saw as a Government cover-up over the Belgrano affair that he was prepared to jeopardise a successful Civil Service career and. risk a gaol sentence by leaking documents. MPs, from the tenacious Tarn Daiyeii to the former Foreign Secretary Dr David Owen, have relentlessly refused to let the matter drop.

Inquiring journalists have given them continuing support. Two and a half years on, the Belgrano still won't sink. There remains much public confusion, far removed from the relatively simple question of the legitimacy of torpedoing an enemy ship during an armed conflict between two countries. It comes down to the simple question of why, if it is, the Government should be secretive about one incident in what was a "popular" war? Every time one of" those involved in the affair offers "clarification" the mystery deepens. The stream of contradictions over various aspects of the sinking of the Belgrano are here laid out by RICHARD NORTON-TAYLOR.

there. They support the Government's case." The pressure from Mr Dalyell, now backed by Mr Denzil Davies. continued. At a- meeting on March 30, 1984, which took the whole of the morning. Mr Ponting and Mr Whitmore argued that the time of the first sighting or the Argentinian cruiser should be disclosed.

The meeting was also attended by Mr Heseltine. Mr Stanley, and Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse Fleet). That evening Mr Heseltine and Mr Whitmore had a long meeting with Mrs Thatcher, who finally agreed with the Ponting Thatcher line. So, a month after he wrote his letter. Mr Davies received a replv from Mrs Thatcher.

She admitted that the Conqueror sighted the Belgrano for the first time on May 1." It had taken nearly two years to establish that fact. Nott. in the Commons on May 5, 1982. stated: "The actual decision to launch a torpedo was clearly one taken by the submarine commander." Exactly two months later, the Conqueror's Wreford-Brown, told the Scottish press on the submarine's arrival at the Faslane base on the Clyde, that the decision was taken by London. It was that contradiction which fired Mr Dalyell's initial determination to pursue the Belgrano affair.

Not only did Wreford-Brown contradict Nott's. Commons statement, he also said that that the orders were confirmed during the afternoon of May 2 in signals from London. The orders were repeated twice, suggesting that, if not actually questioned by Wreford-Brown, they were confirmed after the Conqueror's captain reported the Belgrano's change ol Mrs Thatcher has said only (letter to George Foulkes. September. 1984): "It was not until alter 5 pm that IIMS Conqueror reported that she had received and iiudemtmid the new order and intended to attack." Nolt.

on May 4. 1982. and Mrs Thatcher in her reply to Foulkes. on September" 19, 1984, emphasised "delays" and "limitations" in communications with the Conqueror. According lo Lord Lewin.

then Chief of Defence Staff (for example, World This Weekend, January 30, 1983): "On this occasion the communications worked very quickly." On May .4, 1982, both Mrs Thatcher and John Nott said that the two destroyers accompanying the Belgrano "were not attacked in any way." Only two torpedoes, it was said, were fired by the Conqueror. The Conqueror fired a salvo of three torpedoes, one of which hit the Argentinian destroyer, the Hippolite Bouchard, without exploding. This was not acknowledged by Mrs Thatcher until she wrote to Mr Owen on October 8, 1984. -Sip sUTH Atlantic Positions of General 1 ocean Belgrano FALKLAND cJ" ISLANDS Rio I Stanley Gallegos Sir TOTAL General EXCLUSION Belgrano ZONE Stt'f'C 15.00 General- Sfo Belgrano 05.00 sunk 20.00 2nd May 2nd May 2ndMy grano until the following morning. IT the Belgrano was such an important threat, critics ask, then why were not Lewin and the War Cabinet told immediately? To many Whitehall observers this episode culminating in Lewin's success in persuading the War Cabinet in a 20-minute meeting an a ante-room of Chequers at lunchtimc on May 2 lo change the rules of enjjage-ment to enable the Belgrano to be attacked suggests that the Navy wanted to bounce Ministers into making the final decision.

Having initially concentrated on the importance of the Belgrano itself, Ministers have latterly emphasised the threat posed by the Argentinian fleet as a whole. Mrs Thatcher last September dwelt on reports that the Argentinian navy was planning a pincer movement, involving the carrier, the Veinticinco de Mayo to the north and the Belgrano group' to the south. This had been described by Woodward in a lecture to the Royal United Services Institute two years' earlier. Mrs Thatcher has also! seized on an apparent conflr-i mation of this by Admiral. Juan Lombardo, the Argentinian naval commander, in the BBC Panorama programme on April 16 last year.

Two days later, in the Argentinian paper, Clarin, Lombardo said that his remarks were taken out of context. The Belgrano's mission, Lombardo told Clarin, was "to stay out of the exclusion zone in waiting; alter the action on May 1 (Argentinian air strikes and British strikes on Port Stanley airfield) for any vessel it might attack." Argentinian signals were intercepted and decoded by GCHQ in Cheltenham. Asked by the Commons foreign affairs committee when Whitehall learnt of the Argentinian orders to recall its fleet during the night of May 1. Lewin replied that he had "no idea." adding that he believed it was not until May 3 after Ihe Belgrano was attacked. Details are likely to be in the Defence Ministry's top secret Crown Jewels document which was discussed in camera during the Ponting trial.

Lord Lewin, to the Commons foreign affairs committee, December 5, 1984: The carrier (the Veinticinco de Mayo) was the unique threat." In an interview in the Guardian, October 2, 1984, Lewin said that, if asked by Mrs Thatcher to delay an attack on the Belgrano against the background of peace negotiations, he would have said yes, not as good a chance as we have now (midday May 2. 1982). but a reasonable chance, because once a nuclear sub is hooked an to a surface ship, it should be able to tail her." Thatcher: political control John Nott told the foreign affairs committee an December 5, 1984: Our principal concern then (April 30, 1982) was with the carrier and not with the rest of Ihe Argentine It is understood and details were originally given in the Gavshon and nice book, The Sinking of the Belgrano, that GCHQ intercepted at least three signals sent by Argentinian naval commanders to its fleet. Late on April 29, they ordered the Belgrano to conduct a patrol to a point southwest of the Falklands; and then turn round to a holding position at Staten Island, near the southern tip of Argentina.1 On the afternoon of April 30 they ordered the fleet to attack the British task force through a pincer movement involving the northern carrier group and a central corvette group. On the evening or May 1 they ordered these two groups to stand off Then early in the morning of May 2 they confirmed that the groups should return to their home waters.

On November 7, "1984, 'Mr Heseltine told the Commons foreign affairs committee that the Crown Jewels the document drawn up by Mr Clive Ponting convinced him that the Prime Minister was right to order the sinking of the Belgrano. But he added: It also revealed to me that there were inaccuracies in the statements made to the House of Commons about the detection of, and attack on. the Belgrano." In spite of repeated questioning from MPs. those inaccuracies had not been officially corrected until September. 1984.

The Crown Jewels were written six months earlier than that. 4 THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT Nott: necessary rules Sill JOHN NOTT, May 1982: "We -could not conceivably have had' any lesser rules of engagement than those we had." Mrs Thatcher, May 4, 1982: "Our second duty (after looking after the safety of our forces) is to see that we try to use minimum force." Mrs Thatcher: May 4, 1982: "The task force is and was under full political control." Both Mr Heseltine and Lord Lewin have persistently emphasised that the change of the rules of engagement on May 2. to enable the Belgrano to be sunk was taken on strong military advice, stressing the urgent need for the decision. Mr Heseltine to foreign affairs committee, November 7, 1984: "There might have been changes authorised by the Secretary of State (then Sir John Nott) which did not get referred to the War Cabinet." Nott to foreign affairs committee, December 9, 1984: "As far as I'm aware, all changes in the rules of engagement were aeciaea by the War Heseltine and Stanley persistently refused to give the foreign affairs committee details about rules of engagement changes. In a note sent to the committee in July 1984.

Stanley said: "It is important to remember that the legal basis for it was our right of self-defence, as recognised in article 51 of the UN Charter." Both the Ministry of Defence and Mrs Thatcher have repeatedly suggested that the general warning to Argentina on April 23 was an adequate basis for any future activity inside or outside the total exclusion zone. This stated: any approach on the part of Argentine warships, which could amount to a threat to interfere with the mission of the British forces in the South Atlantic, will encounter the appropriate response." In October 1984, Mrs Thatcher for the first time acknowledged that Francis Pym, the then Foreign Secretary, questioned whether the April 30 decision by the War Cabinet to allow the Argentine carrier to be attacked outside the exclusion zone was compatible with the UN Charter covering self-defence. In November, Heseltine told the foreign affairs committee: Two ministers (Pym and the Attorney-General, Sir Michael Havers) raised the issue of whether we were in a position to convince ourselves we acted in a proper way." Commenting on these doubts, Lord Lewin told the committee the following month: "But we convinced ministers," adding that Pym was worried about the reaction "among his colleagues in France and Germany." Confidential minute, since declassified, from Michael Legge, assistant secretary at the MoD. to Ministers. July 1984: A full list of rules of engagement changes for the Lewin: MoD tension ON MAY 4.

1982, two days after the Belgrano was sunk with the loss of 368 lives. Mrs Thatcher and Sir John Nott, then Defence Secretary, made statements to the Commons that are known now to have been false. Yet it was the height of the Falklands conflict: a more complete and" accurate explanation could be expected later. The Government's persistent refusal to give MPs and the Commons foreign affairs committee simple facts backfired to such an extent that more embarrassing information was uncovered. II has emerged that there were serious disagreements in the war cabinet about changes in the rules of engagement, notably between the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office; that there was tension within the Ministry of Defence between Nott and his staff, between fleet headquarters at Northwood and Ministry officials, and that the lines of communication even between Northwood and Lord Lewin, then chief of defence staff.

Mrs Thatcher has recently suggested that there were deficiencies in crisis management procedures. As the debate continued Ministers suggested that the threat from the Belgrano was potential rather than immediate, saying that whether they knew or not about the course of the Belgrano bel'ore it was attacked was irrelevant. In any case Lord Lewin has said that there would be no recorded minute of it, so, as he told the Commons foreign affairs committee on November 5, 10B4: I'm afraid nobody will ever know." What was important, Lewin said last September, was who knew what, and when. Last month Mrs Thatcher, in a letter to the Labour MP George Foulkes, said that Lewin her senior military adviser was not told by Northwood of the crucial signal from the submarine Conqueror that it had sighted the Belgrano on May 1, 1982, until the following morning. The signal had reached Northwood in the afternoon of May 1.

Mrs Thatcher said that it had not been possible to establish why Lewin had not been told immediately about what the Government has repeatedly insisted was a serious threat to the task force. According to Whitehall officials, the relationship between Sir Henry Leach, the then First Sea Lord who has sharply criticised the Government's policy towards the navy cutbacks and Lewin was strained. Nevertheless. Lord Lewin quite properly saw his job as telling Ministers tvhat the priorities were for the naval commanders. Having lost the prime target, what he called "the unique threat" the Argentinian aircraft carrier, the Veinticinco de Mayo he was able, as he put 'it.

to "convince" Ministers of the need to seize the opportunity "to knock off' another major unit of the Argentine fleet. Clive Ponting has argued that the Government had nothing to hide, that he was not questioning that the Belgrano was a threat, and certainly did not sympathise with Tarn Dalycll's argument that the cruiser sunk to scupper the US-Peruvian peace plan. His motivation was simply the Government's refusal to give the Commoms information which he believed it had a right to have. "It's an important issue," he told the Guardian. "It is not iust about the Belcrano: it is about Ministers and their responsibility to Parliament, In the end, Ministers are dependent on Parliament for their authority, and their con tinuance in office.

It was alwavs one of the cardinal unwritten parts of the British Dalyell: applied pressure with one minor adjustment, steamed consistently -away from ther task force. The document also conflicts with successive replies (notably by Mrs Thatcher on December 16, 1982, and Lady July 13, 1983) that-the Belgrano had changed her course many times on May 2, 1982. And in his entry for May 2, Narendra Sethia. an officer on the Conqueror, the submarine which sank the wrote in his diary: "They (the Belgrano and her escorts) spent the night meticulously paralleling the exclusion zone no zigs, no sonav transmissions and only the occasional radar sweep." Mrs Thatcher finally acknowledged that the Government's replies over Ihe past two years had been untrue, in a long annex lo a letter to the Labour MP, George Foulkes, on September 19, 1984. Fleet headquarters at Northwood knew of the cruiser's change of course on the afternoon of May 2.

1982." This advice was consistently rejected by Heseltine and Stanley, who gave blocking answers, Stanley suggested, for example, that MPs should be told the information was classified though it was not or that it was not the practice to give information on "Military operational matters" though the Government otten did. On May 14, 1984, Heseltine wrote to Dalyell stating: "Your purpose in asking the questions you put to me is to pursue your campaign that the Belgrano was attacked in order to destroy the prospects for peace negotiations rather than 'for the military reason that she posed a threat to the task force. I do not believe that there is any p.oint in. prolonging this argument by a further round of detailed correspondence." On May 9. 1984, Ponting minuted to Ministers in a reference to Stanley's blocking approach: "Unfortunately 1 do not believe if is possible to sustain this line There are also tactical reasons for answering the questions posed by Mr Dalyell rather than allowing the information to emerge in pieces via parliamentary questions." Heleltine rejected this advice.

THE SIGHTING JOHN NOTT (Defence Secretary) to the Commons. May 4. 1982: "On May 2. at 8 pm London time, one of our submarines detected the Argentine cruiser, General Belgrano." No attempt to alter this was made in the Government's White Paper in December, 1982. Jerry Wiggin, a Junior Defence Minister, that month told Mr Tarn Dalyell: "It would not be in the public interest to disclose the extent of our knowledge of Argentine naval activity." On February 21, 1984, Mr Dalyell asked Mrs Thatcher whether the Belgrano was detected the same day as it was sunk.

The Prime Minister replied: The full facts were given in several replies to the House, All the fads are DIPLOMACY Pym: no piece of paper ALEXANDER HAIG, then US Secretary of State, in his memoirs (Caveat) published spring, 1984: On May 1, 1982, President Belaunde of Peru' "gained acceptance in principle from both parties" to the latest US-Peruvian peace plan. Haig on BBC Panorama, April 16, 1984: By morning of May 2, "we were down to words, single words Francis Pym, on same BBC Panorama programme: "There was no actual text discussed between us an Sunday (May 2, 1982), no actual words there was no actual piece of paper with a text." Mrs Thatcher to Denzil Davies, MP, April 6, 1984: "The first indications of the possible Peruvian peace proposals reached London from Washington at 11.15 pm London time on May 2." Lord Lewin said in the Guardian, October 2, 1984. he was convinced by the last week of April. 1982. that Britain could do a deal with the junta on a settlement "keeping them in power and Mrs Thatcher in power." Lewin" told 'the foreign affairs committee on December 5, 1984, that by April 30 the day before he went to Washington "my own view was at that stage there was no hope for a negotiated settlement." Nott told the committee later on December 5.

1984, that he had heard what Lewin had said. "It was not my opinion at the time. I personally had not given up hope of a peace settlement and I do not believe other political members (of the war cabinet) did either." Nott added that he had not "the remotest idea" what Pym was saying in Washington un May 1 and 2, 1982. 5 constitution that Ministers tell the truth to Parliament when they are asked questions by elected representatives." The Govermenl's failure to put the record straight provoked the concern of others, including the Social Democrat leader, Dr David Owen, and the former leader of the Commons, Mr Norman St Dr Owen argued-last month that while public opinion even now supported the case for the sinking, the Government had "wrapped themselves up in a tangle of half-truths, evasion, and straight lies." lie put it down to "a simple failure lo admit error, a perverse wish to appear infallible." Senior Whitehall officials including those in the Ministry of Defence put it clown to the bureaucratic instinct, shared by both civil servants and Ministers, tu repeat a consistent line, because it is usually easier, and because to admit mis-lakes would provoke suspicion and fuel further controversy. Mr Stevas put it this way to Mr Heseltine when he was questioned by the Commons foreign affairs committee on November 5 last year.

"Since we are still a country governed by public opinion and by a parliamentary process, would it not be of help if the Government set out as objectively as it could these events, listing also the misstatements, perfectly understandable, that have been made?" 1 THE SHIP'S MOVEMENTS SIR JOHN NOTT (Defence Secretary) to the Commons, May 4. 1982: The Belgrano "was close to the total exclusion zone and was closing on elements of the task force." Viscount Trenchard (Then Junior Defence Minister) to the Lords, May 4, 1982: "There was no doubt about the threat posed by the position and movement of this attack group." Sir John Nott, to the Commons, May 13, 1982: "There was every indication that the General Belgrano group was manoeuvring to a position from which to attack our surface vessels." Peter Blaker (Armed Forces Minister) asked, December 10, 1982, by the Labour MP Tarn Dalyell how long the Belgrano had been steaming westwards: "It is not possible to say." Peter Blaker, December 16, 1982: "(the Belgrano's) movements were consistent with the indications thai she and her escorts posed a. threat to the task force." Mrs Thatcher, to Mrs Diana Gould, on BBC's "On the Spot" television election programme, May 24, 1983: "It (the Belgrano) was not sailing away from the Falklands." Between March and July, 1984. the government was under persistent pressure, notably irom Mr Tarn Dalyell, Labour MP for Linlithgow, but also in a letter from Labour's defence spokesman, Denzil Davies, to the Prime Minister (sent March 6) to reveal the facts about the Belgrano's movements. Many long meetings were held in the Ministry of Defence between Michael Heseltine, John Stanley, Sir Clive Whit-more, permanent secretary, and clive Ponting to discuss how the Government should respond.

On, some occasions, Heseltine and Stanley sought advice from Mrs Thatcher herself. Ponting, afler clearing the information with the Navy to make sure that it was unclassified, repeatedly recommended that the detail's of the cruiser's movements should be revealed. This advice was consistently rejected by Heseltine and Stanley, who gave blocking answers, such as "I have nothing to add." The Commons table office, which vcls THE THREAT ON MAY 1982, Mrs Thatcher said that the Belgrano group posed a very obvious threat" and "a serious threat to the men in the task force. But as more information emerged about the Belgrano's position and movements, Ministers and Lord Lewin played down the immediacy of the threat, implying that it was more of a potential threat. In April, 1984, Lewin told BBC Panorama: "She didn't become an immediate threat because we sank her." In her letter to Mr Owen in October.

1984. Mrs Thatcher said that the Belgrano group could (her emphasis) have been within striking distance of the task force in a matter of five or six hours." Lewin reflected the Navy's attitude in an interview in tne Sunday Mirror on September 11. 1983. "I said we (the War Cabinet) could not wait. Here was an opportunity to knock off a major unit of the Argentine fleet." Mrs Thatcher told Die Labour MP, George Foulkes, in January 1985, that Lewin, her senior military adviser and the key link between licet headquarters and the War Cabinet, was not told about the Conqueror's crucial signal which reached licet headquarters during Ihe afternoon on May 1, 1982 that it had sighted the Bcl.