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121CLOSING REMARKSby Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Michael BeethamSir Michael joined the RAFVR in 1941 and flewLancasters on operations with No 50 Sqn. His postwar flying included further experience onLancasters with Nos 57, 35 and 82 Sqns. He latercommanded No 214 (Valiant) Sqn and RAFKhormaksar. His senior appointments includedDirectorships at the MOD, Commandant RAF StaffCollege, ACOS (Policy and Plans) at SHAPE,DCinC Strike Command, CinC RAFG Germanyand COMTWOATAF. He became CAS in 1977 andremained in post for five years, which included supervision of the RAF%u2019sparticipation in Operation CORPORATE.In opening his presentation on the Vulcan, when we resumed afterlunch, the Chairman observed that he had drawn the graveyard slot. I amnot sure what that makes mine at the end of the day! It has been a longday but, I am sure that you would all agree that it has been a mostinformative one in which many interesting points have been brought out.There is an old adage that the war, or the crisis, that hits you will notbe the one that you expected and that applies however many defencereviews or Strategic Defence Reviews are conducted. OperationCORPORATE certainly fell into that category. That said, the Chiefs ofStaff do routinely review all overseas commitments but the Falklandswere always assessed as being indefensible without major resources.Apart from the guardship and any available naval vessels, crucial to thedefence of the islands was an extension of the runway at Port Stanley topermit the delivery of reinforcements if we ever had to go down there.But I am talking about 1981 remember, and we simply didn%u2019t have thenecessary resources. In fact, we had just had a defence review and, nosooner had we finished it than the Government was asking us for furthercuts. The upshot was that our NATO obligations had to be givenabsolute priority, and it was recognised that any external commitmentswould have to be funded at the expense of our NATO budget. TheGovernment did understand this and the implications that it had for theFalklands; in short, that somehow they needed to get rid of them or tonegotiate some sort of a deal with Argentina. Unfortunately, the