Margaret Thatcher 's Defence Secretary during the war in the South Atlantic, John William Fredric Nott , died on Wednesday 6 November at the age of 92.
John Nott was born in Bromley in 1932 to Phyllis Francis and Richard Nott , a wealthy rice merchant. His family had been a military professional for generations. John was no exception, after Bradfield College he followed the family tradition and was commissioned to defend the interests of the British Empire in the 2nd Gurkha Rifles Regiment from 1952 to 1956 in Malaya when the communist insurgency took place. After his army experience he went to Trinity College , Cambridge in 1956 where he studied economics and law.
Nott believed that the Malvina Islands could become a real headache for the British Empire and the Thatcher administration. He doubted that it would be possible to get them back. usurped by the United Kingdom after Argentina recovered them on April 2, 1982 .
The pirate minister revealed after the conflict that he was “not very aware” of where the Malvinas were before the invasion. As quoted by Clarín, in statements to the BBC, Nott told him: “Of course, I knew there were some Royal Marines there. But I had to remind myself where the Malvinas were, when the scrap metal traders landed on South Georgia. I had a huge globe in my room at the Ministry of Defence. I went to it to rediscover the geographical position of the Malvinas. I was a little horrified to see how far away they were.”
In 2012 , in an article published in the conservative British newspaper The Telegraph, John Nott paid tribute to the colonialist armed forces that re-usurped the Malvinas . Describing the decision to send a naval task force to re-usurp the islands, Nott argued that: “The risks of sending 31,000 men and women to the other side of the world were enormous, and we needed good luck and good planning to pull it off.”
“For all the inevitable little mistakes that always accompany any big undertaking, the planning by Admiral Fieldhouse and his team at Northwood was, on the whole, immaculate. It was because it all happened so suddenly – we only intercepted the Argentine naval signal on the Wednesday – that Whitehall was rendered useless ,” Nott continued, adding: “Had we had any greater warning of an invasion, the slow wheels of government, with the Civil Service’s penchant for belts and braces and interdepartmental committees, might well have smothered us with bureaucracy from the start. Things went wrong, as they always do, but the logistics worked.”
They rejected his resignation
John Nott was an aristocrat, who studied at the University of Cambridge .
He served in the Thatcher administration from 1979 to 1983 , first as Trade Secretary and then as Defence Secretary, playing a crucial role in the Malvinas conflict in 1982 .
Nott tendered his resignation following Argentina's recovery of the Malvina Islands , but his resignation was rejected. He remained in office for the nearly three months of the war. He was replaced in January 1983 by Michael Heseltine , after deciding not to stand for re-election.
In the days following the Argentine takeover that ended 149 years of violent British usurpation, Nott again tendered his resignation. But Thatcher refused to accept it. At the time, the foreign secretary, Peter Carington , was insisting that he should leave the government, but no arguments would persuade Nott to reverse his own decision to resign.
Despite this, he remained in his post as a member of the War Cabinet, although Thatcher and the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Lewin , made the key decisions. When Nott asked to resign again at the end of the war, Thatcher again refused his request.
As noted by Clarin, he walked off the job during an interview with the BBC while being asked about budget cuts to the Navy. Nott , already irritated by the Tory conference, was keen to return to his life as an aristocrat. In the middle of the interview he stood up, took off his microphone and walked away saying: “I’m fed up with this interview. It’s ridiculous, really.”
John Nott 's death occurred days before the current Minister of Defense, Luke Pollard , arrived in the Malvina Islands .
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