Last ditch for peace

The War Cabinet, and later the full Cabinet, today considered a dramatic, last-minute intervention by United Nations Secretary General Señor Javier Perez de Cuellar in a bid to avert full-scale war over the Falklands.

Within hours of the UN negotiations collapsing, the Secretary General telephoned Mrs Thatcher and, in a ten-minute call late last night, appealed to her to make one last effort for peace. He made a similar phone call to President Galtieri of Argentina.

After the calls he said he was gloomy about the prospects and there were wide gaps between the two sides on points of substance.