Life and death in the South Atlantic

Hold hard. Ten years on, the second wave is about to break. The ultimate Channel 4 documentary series is already in the can. It seems that the tributary of personal reminiscence from high and low (but chiefly high) has not run dry after all Recollected in tranquillity, it turns turbulent once more—as witness the fascinating collective testimony elicited by Michael Charlton in The Little Platoon (1989), at once pointer and landmark for the new wave. Already we have the Carrington memoirs, the Whitelaw memoirs, and even that most unlikely artefact, the Tebbit memoirs. From Washington come the Haig memoirs and the Weinberger memoirs, not to mention a shoal of smaller fry. Our man in Buenos Aires author of a prophetic complaint about the typical British approach to the Falklands, that is, ‘to have no strategy at all beyond a general Micawberism’ talked at length to Michael Charlton and to Peter Kosminsky (for the excellent Yorkshire TV documentary ‘Falklands—The Untold Story’). Our men in Washington and at the UN, both writers of distinction, have published revealing accounts of their stewardships. These British accounts can now be matched against the waspish reflections of Jeane Kirkpatrick, the dissentient US Representative at the UN, an exercise full of interpersonal and international interest. The generals and admirals of each side continue to be remarkably forthcoming, in one case from prison, in the other from retirement—such are the spoils of war.