John Nott(I)
John Nott was born on February 1, 1932, in Bideford, Devon, in
Southwest England, son of Richard and Phyllis Nott. He served in the
armed forces in Malaysia from 1952 to 1956, but left to study law at
Trinity College, Cambridge. From there, he entered law practice. He
entered politics when he won a seat in Parliament in the 1966 General
Election, as a Conservative MP representing St. Ives. He served as an
MP for seventeen years. When
Margaret Thatcher led the Conservative
Party to victory in the 1979 General Election, John Nott was appointed
Secretary of State for Trade. He served in that capacity for a year and
a half, until he was moved to head the Ministry of Defense in January
1981, replacing Francis Pym. John Nott was
Minister of Defense during the 1982 Falklands War. With the outbreak of
war, John Nott offered his resignation to the Prime Minister, but
Margaret Thatcher refused it, saying
he had a bounden duty to stay once British troops were sent into
battle. John Nott did not share
Margaret Thatcher's enthusiasm for
fighting the Falklands War; when Argentina invaded, John Nott
reportedly said that once invaded, the Falklands could not be retaken
by the British. This was unacceptable to
Margaret Thatcher and she overruled
him, sending over 25,000 troops to fight the Falklands War. As Defense
Minister, John Nott was a member of the War Cabinet, and he oversaw
Britain's victory in the Falklands War, the first major military
victory for Britain since 1945. After the Falklands War, John Nott left
the cabinet and stood down as MP in the 1983 General Election. In 1985,
he was elected chairman of the Lazard Brothers Bank. In 2002, he wrote
an autobiography titled "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow." The title was
inspired by a TV interview in January 1982 in which TV commentator
Robin Day suggested that John Nott was
a 'here today, gone tomorrow' politician. John Nott angrily stormed off
the set, calling that claim "ridiculous."