This thread has a remarkable life, having been started ten years ago... On a sadly ironic note, today's Royal Navy comprises 19 surface combatant vessels, the largest of which is a destroyer. This would not suffice to resist a re-invasion of the Falklands, unless of course the US opted to send a carrier down there with her accompanying aircraft. The RN has two carriers on order for 2020.
There are a number of references to Argentina in *The Churchill Documents, *vol. 19,* September 1943-April 1944 *(upcoming in January from Hillsdale College Press) and in the subsequent volume 20 (May-December 1944, later in 2017). They involve President Roosevelt pressuring the Argentines to throw in the the Allies, telling Churchill they were about to sever relations with Germany in January 1944. (They severed relations with several Hitler client states in February, but not Berlin, and did not declare war on Germany until March 1945.) Churchill, in turn, was concerned mainly to sustain London's contract for Argentine beef, on which his island and military were heavily dependent, though he was ultimately willing to follow the American lead, while FDR expressed anxiety not to disrupt his ally's meat supply. I found nothing, however, involving the Falkland Islands. For the nonce, researchers should refer to Argentina references in Warren Kimball's *Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence for 1944-45, *and the *Complete Speeches *or *The Dawn of Liberation* for Churchill's long speech on 2 August 1944: As an Englishman, I may be pardoned at this moment for thinking of another South American country with which we have had close ties of friendship and mutual interest since her birth to liberty and independence. I refer to Argentina. We all feel deep regret and also anxiety, as friends of Argentina, that in this testing time for nations she has not seen fit to declare herself whole-heartedly, unmistakably and with no reserve or qualification upon the side of freedom, and has chosen to dally with the evil, and not only with the evil, but with the losing side. I trust that my remarks will be noted, because this is a very serious war. It is not like some small wars in the past where all could be forgotten and forgiven. Nations must be judged by the part they play. Not only belligerents, but neutrals, will find that their position in the world cannot remain entirely unaffected by the part they have chosen to play in the crisis of the war. This received praise from FDR's confidant (from *The Churchill Documents, *vol. 20): Harry Hopkins to Winston S. Churchill Prime Minister’s Personal Telegram T.1580/4 *(Churchill papers, 20/169)* 8 August 1944 Personal and Secret No. 38 Your speech in Parliament made very favourable impression here. Everyone particularly appreciative of your statement in relation to the Argentine. We are having difficulty about our production because far too many people think the war is over. Nevertheless the military operations of the Allied Armies surely give every reason to hope that we are going to crush them on the battlefields. I, personally, do not take much stock in the idea of internal collapse in Germany. ---------- Richard M Langworth Senior Fellow, Hillsdale Colleg e Churchill Project winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to churchillchat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to churchillchat@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
