Malvinas: Jeremy Moore, His Ostracism

 

“The Ostracism of Jeremy Moore”

One does not always receive a warm welcome on returning from a war. And this applies not only to the defeated, but also to the victors. Even, indeed, to supposedly victorious generals.

Of the three British generals who directed operations on land, two were forced into retirement after the conflict because of their poor handling of the wartime situation. Not even the supreme commander of the British land forces sent to Malvinas, Major General John Jeremy Moore of the Royal Marines, escaped ostracism. After the conflict, following only the minimal and strictly prescribed honours required by law (he was merely made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, which he had already received in 1973), he made a very swift and discreet exit from the service in 1983.

Margaret Thatcher’s government never forgave him for the setbacks of the campaign, of which there were no few for the British. He was also held responsible for the disaster at Bluff Cove, a landing near Puerto Argentino which ended with two ships put out of action and heavy human and material losses as a result of attacks by the Argentine Air Force. Nor was it of any help that he sent to London what he himself called daily rubbish — rubbish or daily drivel, in plain terms. These were colloquial-style messages, full of optimism to the point of stretching credibility, concealing the fact that he was unable to secure the great and rapid victory being demanded of him, with which the Argentines stubbornly refused to cooperate, clinging fiercely to every inch of ground.

However, what sealed his fate was his disobedience of the order to demand an unconditional surrender from the Argentines. After the conflict had ended, Moore said that he had been greatly troubled by the possibility that fighting might resume. Although the Argentines had withdrawn from the heights dominating the capital, the British were equally exhausted and short of ammunition. For that reason, he removed the word unconditional from the instrument of surrender.

In an article written by Ana Barón shortly before the first anniversary of the war for Gente magazine, it was stated: “Today Jeremy Moore is no longer a general. This man has become one of the approximately four million unemployed in Great Britain. His pension is 1,500 dollars a month, that is to say half the salary he earned when he was still in service. Evidently, that sum is not enough to pay for the education of his three children: for the time being he manages by making television programmes about the war. But he knows that this is not a solution. At fifty-four years of age, no one resigns himself to being without work, much less someone who has led a life as eventful as General Moore’s.”

In that interview — conducted despite the obstacles placed by the British Ministry of Defence, which claimed not to know where Moore was living — he declared in a tone of regret: “I feel great sadness when I think that we had to endure a war simply because there were people with political power who did not know how to solve the problem by peaceful means.”

He never wished to write a book about the war, and passed his idle hours serving as churchwarden of the church in Wiltshire where he lived, until his death on Saturday, 15 September 2007.

It was not until Monday the 17th that The Times published his obituary. Naturally, it extolled his figure as a military leader. An obituary written in very professional terms… and nothing more.

In the same newspaper, the obituary for Galtieri, who died on 12 January 2003, not only appeared the day after the event, but was also twice the length of the one devoted to Moore.

The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph published the news the following day. In the former, it appeared only on page 42 of the main section, and on the Telegraph website the story did not receive a single comment. For its part, The Independent did not report his death until 26 September.

The British Ministry of Defence, when consulted by the AFP news agency, said that “no comment was to be made on his death”, arguing that “he was no longer in active service”.