The Ping in Golfo Nuevo

Unidentified foreign submarines tend to show up in Argentine waters about the same time as naval appropriations bills show up in Congress. Two years ago, the Argentine navy made brief contact with what it said was a sub in desolate Golfo Nuevo, 650 miles southwest of Buenos Aires, and a month later got to buy an aircraft carrier; last year it sighted another elusive submarine, got enough money from Congress to buy planes. Last week, as Navy Secretary Rear Admiral Gaston Clement was doing fiscal battle with economy-minded Economics Minister Alvaro Alsogaray, a submarine--or something--was again roiling the waters of Golfo Nuevo.

Newspapers, including Buenos Aires' Clarin, genially kidded the government about the sub for a while. But as more than 30 planes and a dozen warships flailed Golfo Nuevo to foam with showers of depth charges, as troops in full battle dress moved up to the bleak Patagonian shoreline, as the Puerto Madryn air and naval base at the gulf's head went on a war footing, as U.S. planes rushed emergency equipment to the scene, the skeptics stopped in mid-snicker. Most important of all, President Arturo Frondizi took it seriously, and presumably the navy would not dare to mislead him.

Blackout. The intruder was first sighted, at midmorning three weeks ago, by a sonar operator during a training-patrol mission of three destroyers. The sonar's ping indicated a solid object moving slowly 90 ft. below the surface of the 30 mi. by 40 mi. Golfo Nuevo. The sonar target outsped the attacking destroyers, and out went a call for planes. A few hours later, a Neptune antisub plane reported spotting a submarine; ships and planes attacked, but the target disappeared.

The Navy declared Golfo Nuevo a war area, out of bounds to airliners and ships, and blacked out the Puerto Madryn base. It sent intelligence agents on house-to-house searches ashore, put three destroyers, 18 warplanes, and some helicopters to patrolling the gulf itself, and lined up five warships at the seven-mile entrance, where the depth is only 60 ft. For top security, ships communicated with one another in the Guarani Indian dialect, spoken by Paraguayan naval cadets aboard the Argentine vessels for training.

Five days later, sonar operators made the second hard contact, but an attack only sent the intruder to 420 ft., well beyond the 300-ft. range of the Argentine depth charges. On the eighth day, radar spotted a sub, or its snorkel, above the surface. The target dived to 540 ft., but the pursuers heard a sound like hammering for the next two days, possibly indicating damage being repaired.

U.S. Help. The Argentine Navy Ministry called in the U.S. Naval attache; he sent his assistant to the scene. Hours after the assistant returned, U.S. Ambassador Willard Beaulac was closeted with President Frondizi. Next day, Washington announced that it had sold Buenos Aires $25,000 worth of electronic equipment, aircraft flares, depth charges; and two well-loaded Globemasters took off for Argentina.

At week's end, the Argentine navy officially announced that a "second unidentified submarine" had moved into Golfo Nuevo "with the apparent purpose of helping" its trapped and crippled sister.

There was not a scintilla of hard evidence to indicate what a submarine would be doing prowling around the desolate Patagonian coast or to suggest its nationality, except that the U.S. and British Ambassadors promptly disclaimed ownership. Sonar can confuse submarines with whales, old wrecks, even underseas prominences. Most of the world still waited for the Argentine navy to produce a real-life submarine. If it does, the reward may be the biggest appropriations yet.

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