How CIA plotted to move Falkland islanders to Scotland
THE CIA secretly proposed ending the Falklands War by transporting the population of the islands to Scotland – before handing their homeland to Argentina.
Under the astonishing plan, only revealed yesterday, anyone taking up the offer would have been paid £55,000 – the equivalent of around £135,000 today – to help them start a new life.
If they refused, they would have had to stay in the Falklands under the rule of the Argentine junta.
US agents thought the plan would be so popular they proposed closing the offer to any babies born more than six months after it was made public, fearing islanders would have children just to cash in.
The proposal was among docu-
‘Relocate to British area’
ments newly released by the CIA. President Ronald Reagan was said to have been keen on a peaceful resolution following Argentina’s invasion of the British territories on April 2, 1982.
Some countries believed Britain would simply surrender the islands to Argentina.
But Margaret Thatcher sent a military task force 8,000 miles to the Falklands to drive out the Argentine invaders.
The islands were retaken by mid-June, with the loss of 255 British lives and 650 Argentinian.
The CIA’s secret proposal was in a briefing note entitled Solution to the Falklands Islands Crisis written by Henry Rowen, chairman of the US National Intelligence Council.
He said the priority was to end the fighting and hand the islands to the South Americans while forcing them to pay some sort of compensation.
He claimed Britain had been ‘prepared for some time’ for ‘ an ultimate turnover of the island to Argentinian sovereignty’.
Mr Rowen wrote that after a ceasefire could be agreed, the Argentinians should be given a ‘large compound’ on the island which should immediately be declared Argentine soil, until a total handover three years later.
It went on: ‘For a period of three years the inhabitants will be given a chance to consider whether they wish to relocate to an area of British jurisdiction with a relocation grant of $100,000 [£55,000 at the time].
‘It is likely many residents will find this sufficient inducement to relocate to some other area, perhaps in Scotland or elsewhere where conditions may be similar to the Falkland Islands.
‘The cost of the relocation grants will be borne 50/50 by the Argentinian and British governments.’
‘If every one of the 1,800 residents took up the offer – it would have to be residents alive now or within the next six months to avoid a population increase not intended by the offer – the offer would be less than $200m [£110m], half the cost of the dispatch of the British fleet alone.’
As a sweetener to Britain, Argentina would have had to pay for damage done in its invasion, and for industries left behind, buildings and ‘sheep et cetera’.
The CIA proposed that any oil or other minerals found after the British departure would have been shared between the two nations.
But it would seem that US chiefs completely ignored the document.