56. Memorandum From the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Koch) to the Senior Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Howe)1

SUBJECT

  • Kirkpatrick Dinner/Falklands2

(C) 1. Other ranking figures now slated to attend are Stoessel and Middendorf. Mrs. Kirkpatrick intends to go. Bosworth had regretted for other reasons prior to April 1.

SecState will have to make the call on this one, per Bosworth.3

(C) 2. State has also considered withdrawing our Ambassador.4 This is on hold, and cool heads see it as unproductive, and counter-productive. The problem is getting players to focus on the mid-term. We don’t want our redeveloping relationship in Argentina to go smash—even if they are the agents of it.

[Page 101]

(C) 3. The over-riding complication is the President’s closeness to Mrs. Thatcher. The President called Galtieri and Galtieri told him to mess out.5

Noel C. Koch 6
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
International Security Affairs
  1. Source: Washington National Record Center, OSD Files, FRC 330–84–0003, Argentina (Jan–15 May) 1982. Confidential. A copy was sent to Iklé. A stamped notation at the top of the memorandum indicates that Carlucci saw it on April 2.
  2. On the evening of April 2, Kirkpatrick, along with Stoessel, Enders, Middendorf, Marsh, Meyer, and former Secretary of State William P. Rogers, attended a scheduled dinner, held in Kirkpatrick’s honor, at the Argentine Embassy in Washington. The attendance of the U.S. officials was confirmed publicly to United Press International by the Argentine Embassy, April 8. (“Ranking U.S. Official Guests At Argentine Embassy Dinner,” Washington Post, April 8, p. A22) In an April 8 press interview, Henderson commented on Kirkpatrick’s attendance: “I wouldn’t have done so. If I had been asked by the Iranian Embassy to go to a banquet the night your hostages were taken, I wouldn’t have done so.” (John M. Goshko, “U.S. Even-Handedness Is Seen as Best Hope for Damage Control,” Washington Post, April 9, p. A14) In his memoirs, Haig wrote that Kirkpatrick “persevered in her intention to attend” the dinner and “raised, at the outset, a doubt in the minds of the British as to her impartiality, and no doubt underlay their subsequent consternation about her activities.” (Haig, Caveat, p. 270) Thatcher later wrote of the event: “Unfortunately the attitudes of Mrs Kirkpatrick and some other members of the US Administration were at this point of considerable importance.” (Thatcher, Downing Street Years, p. 180)
  3. An unknown hand drew two parallel lines in the right-hand margin next to this sentence.
  4. See Document 50.
  5. See Documents 40 and 41.
  6. Koch signed “Noel” above his typed signature.