Sink the Belgrano

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Thirteen Days - Diplomacy and Disaster, the Countdown to the Great War (2003), Pimlico, ISBN 0-7126-6826-8 When later asked about the sinking of Belgrano, Wre ford-Brown responded with typical British understate ment: “The Royal Navy spent 13 years preparing me for such an occasion. It would have been regarded as extremely dreary if I had fouled it up.” A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (2007), Penguin, ISBN 0-14-303898-2 Penguin's description of the book Progress and Barbarism: The World in the Twentieth Century (1998), Chatto & Windus, ISBN 1-85619-610-0; published in the US as The Twentieth Century: A World History (1999), Henry Holt & Co., ISBN 978-0-8050-6088-1

Elton, Rodney (20 March 1985). "Official Secrets Legislation". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). HL Deb vol 461 c613 . Retrieved 1 December 2017. the highly classified chronology prepared by Mr. Ponting now known as 'the crown jewels'The Sun newspaper greeted the sinking of the Belgrano with surely the most infamously memorable headline of its controversial life – GOTCHA – although the text claimed the sinking of another Argentine ship. Addison, Paul (28 June 1990). "Paul Addison · Garbo & Co · LRB 28 June 1990". London Review of Books. 12 (12). The events of Ponting's charge and trial were dramatized by Richard Monks on BBC Radio Four in May 2022. [14] Academic career [ edit ]

Ponting was married four times. In 1969 he married Katherine Hannan. After their divorce in 1973 he married Sally Fletcher, who also worked in the Ministry of Defence. Laura, a teacher, was his third wife. His fourth wife, Diane Johnson, died before him in 2020. [4] Retirement [ edit ] This single submarine action by HMS Conqueror, the first and only torpedo sinking of an enemy combat ship by a nuclear submarine, managed to deter and deny the Argentine Navy from threatening the British naval task force. HMS Conqueror’s performance demonstrated the value of nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines. With the capability to travel at high underwater speeds with a long underwater endurance and large operational radius, nuclear hunter-killer submarines continue to be a prized strategic asset today. Following his resignation from the Civil Service, Ponting served as a reader in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Wales, Swansea, until his retirement in 2004. He was one of the pioneers of Big History. [15] Shortly after his resignation, The Observer began to serialise Ponting's book The Right to Know: The Inside Story of the Belgrano Affair. The Conservative government reacted by amending the secrets legislation and by introducing the Official Secrets Act 1989. Before the trial, a jury could take the view that if an action could be seen to be in the public interest, the right of the individual to take that action might be justified. As a result of the 1989 modification, that defence was removed. After the enactment, it was taken that "'public interest' is what the government of the day says it is". Berkoff, Steven (2000). Steven Berkoff: Plays One (Reviseded.). Faber and Faber. p.145. ISBN 0-571-20721-9.The play is about British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to torpedo the Argentinian ship General Belgrano, as it was purportedly retreating during the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina. [ citation needed] A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (1991), Penguin, ISBN 0-14-017660-8 Dalyell had resigned from the shadow Cabinet over the reconquest of the Falklands and was as voluble opponent of Thatcher’s. He had spoken in Parliament against the action and was therefore an obvious destination for the “jewels”. Dalyell realised they were political dynamite. In 1951, it had been sold to Argentina and renamed the ARA General Belgrano. It would not see out 1982 and survive the Falklands War.

His historical works have attracted attention from other academics, with scholar Paul Addison writing that "Ponting writes well and the clarity with which he summarises the issues calls to mind a model civil servant briefing his minister. He swoops like a hawk on the damning quotation or the telling statistic." [16] [17] [18] C. J. Coventry reviewed Ponting's biography of Churchill, writing that "Ponting shattered the Churchill illusion for his readers leaving them little to piece together, just marble shards on the floor of his looted temple". [19] Personal life [ edit ] When he was asked later about the sinking of the Belgrano, the Conqueror’s captain, Chris Wreford-Brown, responded wryly: “The Royal Navy spent 13 years preparing me for such an occasion. It would have been regarded as extremely dreary if I had fouled it up.” After the loss of Belgrano the Argentine navy withdrew all units to its nation’s coastal waters, where they remained for the duration of the war, leaving the fight against the Royal Navy to land-based air force and naval aviators. By June 14 the war was over, the British having retaken Stanley and ejected the Argentines from the islands. The sinking of the General Belgrano remains controversial, mostly in Argentina and on the British left. The Argentine Navy and the captain of the Belgrano, however, have maintained that the sinking was legal. Focus on the Belgrano’s end, however, has obscured the service that USS Phoenix performed in the Pacific during World War II. She was the last of the survivors of Pearl Harbor to be lost to enemy action, even if the “enemy” turned out to be the Royal Navy. Hannan, Martin (14 November 2018). "Clive Ponting warns of Brexit threat to Scottish Parliament". The National.

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There had been a Peruvian peace proposal 14 hours earlier, which Britain would later accept (although Argentina rejected it) and in a live television interview on BBC1’s Nationwide the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, denied that she had received it. The Belgrano was a threat to British ships, she said, justifying the action. In November 2018 he gave a speech in which he warned fellow Scottish National Party members that a No-deal Brexit would be used as context in which to disband or constrain the Scottish Parliament. [20] The Belgrano had been sunk outside the 200-mile maritime exclusion zone that Britain had imposed around the Falklands and, according to reports, had actually been heading for port.