This book explores the links between the British government and the dictatorships of Argentina and Chile, 1973-82, using newly-opened British archives. It gives the most complete picture to date of British arms sales, military visits and diplomatic links with the Argentine and Chilean military regimes before the Falklands war. It also provides new evidence that Britain had strategic and economic interests in the Falkland Islands and was keen to exploit the oil around the Islands. It looks at the impact of private corporations and social movements, such as the Chile Solidarity Campaign and human rights groups, on foreign policy. By analyzing the social background of British diplomats and tracing the informal social networks between government officials and the private sector, it considers the pro-business biases of state officials. It describes how the Foreign Office tried to dissuade the Labour governments of 1974-79 from imposing sanctions on the Pinochet regime in Chile and discusses whether un-elected officials place constraints on politicians aiming to pursue an ethical foreign policy. 

Grace Livingstone is an Affiliated Lecturer at the Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, UK, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, UK. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She is also a journalist and has reported for the BBC World Service, theGuardian, theObserver and the Independent. She is the author ofInside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy and War andAmericas Backyard: the United States and Latin America from the Monroe Doctrine to the War on Terror.

1. Introduction: Making Friends with the Junta.- 2. Chile: 1973 to 1982.- 3. Welcoming Pinochets Coup (1973 to 1974).- 4. Ethical Foreign Policy?  Labour versus the Foreign Office (1974 to 1979).- 5. Tea with a Dictator: Mrs Thatcher and the General (1979 to 1982).- 6. Chile: Conclusion.- 7. Argentina: From 1976 until the Invasion of the Falkland Islands on 2 April 1982.- 8. Business as Usual: Arming the Junta (1976 to 1979).- 9. Oil, the Islands and the Falklands Lobby (1976 to 1979).- 10. Befriending Common or Garden Dictators (1979 to 2 April 1982).- 11. Antarctica, Oil and Leaseback: Britains Strategic Interests in the Falklands (1979 2 April 1982).- 12. Conclusion.