Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XIII, Conflict in the South Atlantic, 1981–1984

107. Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Haig and British Foreign Secretary Pym ¹

London, April 13, 1982, 2:15 p.m.

H: Francis, we have been doing some thinking on this thing and have some ideas.² Let me tell you how I would propose to proceed from here. Would it be possible for you and some of your colleagues to meet here in the hotel rather than at No. 10?

P: It is not a good idea to go back there.

H: I will share some of those ideas with you. Then I would go to the airport and make a statement there (read proposed statement to Pym).³ I will do it formally at the airport. I think it is important you and I have a heart-to-heart as we look at these new ideas and then I can stay in very close touch as you consider them over the next 24 hours. I assume I would wait at least a day in Washington before going on. It is clear they are terrified. They don’t want things to break off. I won’t attribute the ideas to anyone and I won’t indicate where the difficulties came from.

P: What you plan to say sounds fine, but I think we should agree after the meeting. I think it would be lower profile if I came to you.

H: There is great sensitivity somehow that we are becoming an agent.

P: I can say I am coming to see you off at your hotel. Come as soon as possible?

H: Leave your place in 15 minutes.

P: Say be there in a half-hour?

H: Yes.⁴

1. Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, Files of Alexander M. Haig, Jr., 1981–1982, Lot 82D370, (2) Falklands Crisis—1982. Secret; Nodis. Haig was speaking from his suite at the Churchill Hotel.
2. Haig wrote in his memoirs that prior to this conversation with Pym, Costa Mendez telephoned him at 2 p.m. Haig recalled: “I was able to tell him that I had spoken to the highest figures in the British government, and that I saw grounds for a breakthrough. Costa Mendez agreed that I should return to Buenos Aires.” (Haig, Caveat, p. 285) No memorandum of conversation of this exchange has been found, although it is possible that he was mistakenly recalling the conversation in Document 105.
3. At 5:30 p.m. Haig delivered the following statement to assembled reporters upon his departure from London’s Heathrow Airport: “As you know, yesterday I had planned to go on to Buenos Aires in continuation of our effort to help in this crisis, but difficulties developed to change those plans. We have now received some new ideas, and while the parties are considering those ideas it will provide an opportunity for me to return to Washington to report to President Reagan prior to proceeding on to Buenos Aires shortly.” (Telegram 7977 from London, April 13; Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D820193–0063) He also made a statement and spoke with reporters on his arrival at Andrews Air Force Base on April 13. For the text, see the Department of State Bulletin, June 1982, p. 82.
4. No record of this meeting has been found.