Britain | Not even past

The Falklands war resonates 40 years on

The ten-week conflict in the South Atlantic has renewed salience, especially among Conservatives

Unarmed applause

LATE ON THE afternoon of March 31st 1982, the head of the Royal Navy, Sir Henry Leach, returned to Whitehall after a day of routine inspections. On his desk he found two documents. One warned that a feared Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory in the South Atlantic, was imminent. The other concluded that Britain could do precious little about it. Leach, a tall man with a bluff manner, had other ideas, and stormed off to find the prime minister.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Not even past”

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