ABSTRACT
A number of aspects of the Falklands Campaign became the subject of official inquiries. This final section considers these inquiries in the light of the evidence and analysis contained in this book. Their impact was shaped by the fact of victory. Public opinion was more forgiving than it might otherwise have been of the handling of both the underlying dispute and the particular crisis which led to the war. Nor did the various shortcomings in military capabilities have the political effect they might have done if the forces had suffered an embarrassing defeat. The only charge that the Government found it difficult to refute was that it had deliberately foregone a chance for peace by sinking the Belgrano, although this was the most poorly founded of the charges. In this chapter I consider the first charge, of missing the warning signs of imminent war. This was addressed by the first of the major inquiries into the conflict-the Franks Report. In Chapter 20 of the first volume, covering the origins of the conflict, I questioned the Report’s conclusions: in this chapter I explain why it turned out the way it did.
