logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2024
3m 32s

Introducing: The Belgrano Diary

THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
About this episode

On 2 May 1982, the British submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentinian warship, the General Belgrano, killing 323 men. It was the bloodiest event of the Falklands War – and the most controversial.

The account of the sinking given by Thatcher's government was inaccurate in every crucial detail – and the truth would only emerge from the pages of a private diary, written by an officer onboard the submarine.


The Belgrano Diary is a story of war in the South Atlantic, iron leadership, cover-ups and conspiracies, crusading politicians and competing journalists, and an unlikely whistleblower.

A new six-part series from the Documentary Team at the London Review of Books, hosted by Andrew O’Hagan.


Episode One coming 28 March. Find it wherever you're listening to this podcast.


Archive:

‘Good Morning Britain’/ITV/TV-Am

Parliamentary Recording Unit




Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
Lessons from the Peace Process
Adam is joined by Robert Malley to discuss the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and the long history of the peace process, in which Malley has been involved on behalf of several US administrations. They also talk about his recent book about the conflict, Tomorrow Is Yesterday, ... Show More
1 h
Oct 8
Why should we listen to Amanda Knox?
It's nearly eighteen years since Amanda Knox was arrested on suspicion of murdering her housemate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, and more than ten since she was finally exonerated of the crime. She has just written her second book, Free, which, as Jessica Olin wrote recently in the ... Show More
44m 48s
Oct 1
On Politics: The Death of the Conservative Party?
In its nearly two hundred years of existence the Conservative Party has survived through a combination of protean adaptability and ruthlessness, not least in its willingness to change leaders. Yet under its present leader, Kemi Badenoch, the party often described (by itself, at l ... Show More
55m 22s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2022
Falklands40: What Started the Falklands War?
On April 2nd 1982 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands in the Southern Atlantic. To make sense of the conflict on its 40th anniversary, the podcast is bringing you a special season of episodes marking the key moments of ... Show More
39m 1s
Sep 2023
In the Room: Falklands War
In the final episode of our special ‘In the Room’ series, we look back at the 10-week Falklands War between Argentina and the UK in 1982. Andrew Mueller speaks to Michael Heseltine, former deputy prime minister of the UK, David Omand, former director of the British government com ... Show More
42m 26s
Nov 2021
The government vs the BBC: A Hundred Year War
This week Jack picks through the long and turbulent relationship between the government and the BBC, and asks why these two great pillars of British public life can't seem to get along. Veteran BBC Radio 4 presenter and author Edward Stourton and BBC historian Professor Jean Seat ... Show More
48m 25s
Mar 2022
171. The Falklands War: Battle for the Islands (Part 3)
In the third episode of our Falklands War mini-series, the story heats up. The most controversial episode of the war, the sinking of the Belgrano, takes place, the British Task Force lands and battle plays out. Tom and Dominic thumb through their copies of the Sun, relive Reagan' ... Show More
53m 35s
Nov 2023
The Queen's Soviet Spy
Sir Anthony Blunt, esteemed art historian and a favourite of the Royal family, was publicly revealed as a Soviet spy on 15th November, 1979, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher confirmed he had been part of the "Cambridge Five", a group of double agents who secretly passed sens ... Show More
11m 56s
Aug 2023
The Brighton Bombing - the attempt to kill Margaret Thatcher
In 1984, the Conservative Party, lead by the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, gathered in the seaside town of Brighton for their annual conference. In the early hours of October 12th a bomb ripped through the Grand Hotel where Thatcher and several other conservative lead ... Show More
50m 5s
Mar 2022
Destroying a Nazi Stronghold: The St Nazaire Raid
On 28 March 1942, in the darkest months of World War Two, Churchill approved what seemed to many like a suicide mission. Under orders to attack the St Nazaire U-boat base on the Atlantic seaboard, British commandos undertook “the greatest raid of all”, turning an old destroyer in ... Show More
27m 57s
Jan 2014
1984
Martha Kearney uncovers the secrets within the Government files of 1984.Margaret Thatcher's government faced some formidable adversaries. The long-anticipated battle with the National Union of Mineworkers and its leader, Arthur Scargill, finally erupted, dominating the political ... Show More
56m 29s
Aug 2023
WW2: Life in Tanks
What was it actually like to operate a tank during the Second World War?In this episode, we explore the iron belly of tank warfare through the eyes of Private Arthur Ibbotson, who enlisted in the war as a young lad in 1942, first joining the Grenadier Guards in London and who end ... Show More
43m 38s
Oct 2021
EP89: The History of Pinball, The Day a Soviet Nuclear Attack Submarine Rammed an American Aircraft Carrier and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
On this episode of Our American Stories, Jeremy Saucier of the Strong Museum of Play shares the long, and surprising, history of pinball--from its origins in French parlor games, to its prohibition, and then to its emergence as the immersive and popular game that it is today; The ... Show More
38m 12s