Armoured Cars and Archbishops: Human Rights, Religious Pressure Groups, and Arms for El Salvador, 1977–8

David Owen, who was appointed as Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary following the death of Anthony Crosland in February 1977, committed the Labour government of Jim Callaghan to a human rights-based foreign policy, stating in his first major speech that Britain would take a ‘stand’ on human rights violations in every corner of the globe. This ambitious agenda faced a major challenge when, in October 1977, Owen was alerted to the imminent shipment of British Ferret and Saladin armoured vehicles to the repressive Salvadoran regime of Carlos Humberto Romero. By uncovering the machinations that led to the eventual cancellation of the armoured vehicles contract in January 1978, this article explores how the Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR) spearheaded a powerful lobbying campaign, bringing the combined pressure of sympathetic journalists, parliamentarians, civil servants, and representatives of the Catholic Church within Britain to bear on the foreign policy establishment. This article therefore contributes towards a greater understanding of Britain’s burgeoning human rights network, the connections it cultivated within Whitehall, and the processes through which it was able to effectively subvert traditional modes of foreign policymaking during a ‘breakthrough’ moment in human rights history.