Margaret Thatcher’s closest advisers warned her that Norman Tebbit’s 1986 attack on the BBC for its coverage of the US bombing of Libya was “in danger of turning into another Westland affair”, personal papers of the former Conservative prime minister published on Monday reveal.
The papers disclose for the first time that Tebbit’s six-month campaign against the corporation over its coverage, particularly from its correspondent Kate Adie, who highlighted the civilian casualties live from Tripoli, alarmed Downing Street and was regarded as so “obsessive” that Thatcher had to ask her party chairman to call a halt.
The 1986 personal papers released by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation also show that she was left almost isolated within her own cabinet after she agreed to the request from the then president, Ronald Reagan, to allow the American airstrikes to be launched from US bases in Britain. France, Spain and Italy all refused even to allow the US F-111 bombers to fly through their airspace.
Previous accounts have highlighted that Thatcher’s decision in April 1986 was greeted with anxious criticism and reservations including from her deputy PM, Willie Whitelaw; Geoffrey Howe; Nigel Lawson; and, perhaps surprisingly, Tebbit, who was said to be horrified at the idea of giving Reagan a blank cheque.
The newly released papers held at the Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge, include a letter from Thatcher’s Welsh secretary, Nick Edwards, from his hospital bed, telling her that many people, particularly young people including his own daughter, Sophie, regarded Reagan as “a dangerous and rather foolish old man”.
Edwards told her it was essential any further decisions on US airstrikes from British bases included full cabinet involvement. “Without it, your position and the party’s in parliament would be too much at risk,” he warned. His own wife, Ann, had also written a much stronger letter to Thatcher criticising her decision to allow US bombers to fly from British bases.
The Thatcher papers also show that the overwhelmingly negative public reaction to her backing for the bombing of Tripoli was reflected within the wider Conservative party itself. Her private secretary Stephen Sherbourne reported: “Central Office have received an unusually large number of calls expressing concern about Libya and the use of British bases. It was the biggest reaction since the Falklands.”
Sherbourne told her there were Tory party worries that the US president was impulsive, that innocent civilians were casualties and that the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, would order his hitmen to single out British targets. He said: “Television pictures of weeping mothers and children are making a big impact.” But Thatcher was unmoved, writing at the bottom of Sherbourne’s note: “Terrorism thrives on appeasement.”
The US airstrikes on Libya came three months after the Westland affair in January 1986, in which two cabinet ministers, Michael Heseltine and Sir Leon Brittan, had resigned, and during which Thatcher had come closest to being forced out during her premiership.
Libya imperilled Thatcher’s recovery from that close call and Tebbit, as party chairman, responded to the political danger by launching a fierce counterattack on the BBC. He accused its news coverage of the bombing raids of being “subjective and confrontational”, with its main news on the day after the attack leading with the headline “Worldwide condemnation of the American airstrike on Libya. Children are casualties – three from Gadhafi’s own family.”
A detailed dossier drawn up by Tebbit, comparing BBC and ITN news coverage, claimed the corporation’s reporting “mixed news with views, speculation, error and hostile propaganda, and was thus unbalanced, unfair and partial”.
The BBC’s new chairman, Marmaduke Hussey, who had just been personally appointed by Thatcher, responded robustly by publishing a detailed rebuttal and insisting the BBC charter required it “to resist undue influence from any political party”.
But Tebbit was not satisfied and started to campaign for the BBC to accept “an independent assessment” of his charges. The papers reveal that Tebbit’s campaign was alarming Downing Street and the home secretary, Douglas Hurd, who was responsible for broadcasting. Hurd had persuaded Thatcher that the proper position was neutrality and that complaints were a matter for the BBC board of governors, whom Tebbit was trying to bypass.
Nigel Wicks, Thatcher’s principal private secretary, told her that the situation was risking a direct clash between Tebbit and Hurd, who had “every justification” to be indignant. “At the risk of being alarmist, I see a danger of some elements of this episode repeating the Westland troubles. A colleague with an obsession, doing things difficult to reconcile with collective responsibility. And all this at a time when things are going well for the government.”
Sherbourne added in a separate note that both he and Wicks were “both concerned that this matter does not get out of hand”. He reported that Tebbit had been told that Thatcher would prefer him to call a halt to the campaign. She agreed to try to make time the next day to deliver the same message herself.
