Argentinean purchase of Avro Vulcan bombers?

[Pioneer]

G'day gents

I have just found an article in Air Enthusiast (Nov-Dec 1996 No.66) stating -

"Conversations had recently [?date?] been held with the British Government with a view to purchasing 12 redundant former RAF Avro Vulcans to provide the Argentine Air Force (FAA) with a heavy and long-range bombing capability................."

I've never heard of this before! How ironic indeed!
Does anyone have any more details about this?
Can anyone denote the time frame of these disscusions between Argentina and Britain??

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Arjen]

The idea of weapons sales to Argentina were made even as Britain and Argentina were engaged in negotiations seeking a solution to the 150-year-old sovereignty dispute including talks deliberately kept secret from the Falkland Islanders.
These are among astonishing revelations made public in the Official History of the Falklands Campaign by a distinguished military academic, Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies and Vice-Principal of King's College, London, who was given access to previously secret documents when the Government asked him to embark on this task.
[...]

In 1981, Nicholas Ridley (the Foreign Office Minister for South American affairs and for the Falklands sovereignty negotiations) agreed to a proposal for supply of two further ex-RAF Canberras but a tentative interest in refurbished long-range Vulcan bombers, which were about to leave RAF service after two decades as a nuclear strike force, was quashed at official level. In September 1981, there had been some discussion of the sale of a single Vulcan aircraft, which, it was assumed would not materially affect Argentina's strike capability. The FCO judged that a strike aircraft would 'be entirely suitable for an attack on the Falklands' (In fact, a British Vulcan bomber carried out an remarkable bomb attack on Stanley airport during Argentine occupation, in a complex long-distance flight from Ascension Island which took the Argentines by surprise and unnerved them psychologically)

Source: Mercopress, June 28th 2005
- review of 'Official History of the Falklands Campaign' (two volumes) by Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies and Vice-Principal of King's College, London, published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group on behalf of Whitehall History Publishing, June 28th [2005].