"Be Bold, Bloody, Quick"

General Sir John Hackett, commander of NATO's Northern Army Group until his retirement in 1968, is perhaps better known as the man who started World War HI--and ended it, 360 pages later, in his chilling 1979 bestseller, The Third World War: August 1985. TIME asked Hackett for a general's assessment of the Falklands crisis. His analysis:

A growing and now great majority in Britain welcomed the dispatch of the Royal Navy task force to the South Atlantic. But some in the U.K. are beginning to express anxiety about its use. Sending the force was all right, the argument goes, but using it is quite another matter. Would that be wise, would it be right? The question can be simply and robustly settled. "Covenants without swords," wrote Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century, "are but words." There is no point in sending guns unless you are prepared to use them.

When I landed on a visit to North America on April 3, the day Parliament met on a Saturday for the first time since the Suez crisis in 1956, I was asked on all sides: What would happen next? I replied that the obvious first thing would be a blockade. What then? Repossession of South Georgia, I suggested, to give a land foothold and at the same time show that Britain meant business. And then? If the Argentine government could not see the possibility of a new entry into the negotiating field, there was likely to be a battle. The task force had been sent out to fight a battle, if it must, with forces formidably equipped, stoutly manned and resolutely commanded to do just that.

Among many problems facing the task force, two stood out. Winter was approaching. The increasing violence of some of the worst weather in the world made it imperative to act soon. Keeping a fleet of that size at sea about 8,000 miles from home would raise problems even in the conditions of a tropical paradise. In autumn in the Roaring Forties [the South Atlantic from 40DEG to 50DEG latitude, a region near the Falklands known for rough seas] what has to be done must be done quickly. Argentina's advantage lay in spinning the negotiations out, Britain's in speedy resolution. Be bold, be bloody, be resolute if you really must--but be quick.

The other difficulty that towered above the rest was provision of air cover for a seaborne assault. Excellent though Britain's Sea King helicopters and the Harriers might be, Argentina's Skyhawks, along with the Israeli Daggers and French-made Mirage fighters, would have the advantage. The runway at Port Stanley had been improved by the invaders but could hardly be considered fully operational, even for the Skyhawks carrying lightened loads. The airbase could, moreover, be readily neutralized from the sea. But Argentine planes could still operate from the continental mainland. The air force could not be completely contained and reduced by aerial combat, or even by surface-to-air missile attack, notwithstanding British electronic superiority. The air force would have to be taken out at base, and that would mean the bombing of targets on undisputed Argentine territory, on the mainland, almost certainly with civilian casualties.

To do damage on territory you claim as yours, where the only civilians are your own nationals, is one thing. To attack the territory of another, and perhaps kill his civilians, is something different. The means were there. The R.A.F. Vulcans were in service and their bomb loads ready. There was little doubt that they could greatly reduce, even entirely neutralize, the Argentine air force. Would the resulting uproar in the Organization of American States and perhaps in the United Nations, and the probable worldwide shift in sympathy toward the Argentines be worth it? Would it not be preferable to accept the certainty of higher casualties and the possibility of stalemate--or even failure--in the assault?

As the negotiating sands ran out and weather in the South Atlantic worsened, both governments, for different reasons, saw a pressing need for success. Mrs. Thatcher, her position at home strengthened by an improving economic outlook, had gone all out for restored possession of the Falklands as a precondition to any further discussion of sovereignty. General Galtieri, with inflation rising at 147%, the peso at 11,300 to the dollar (official rate) and serious internal discontent, had so far whipped up national sentiment as to have pasted himself into a corner. There were others at hand, quite prepared to oust him if his venture failed. Among the admirals were men of much more fascist temper than he. The air force generals, long in second place to the admirals, were gaining in clout. Galtieri had to succeed. How could he withdraw--and survive?

I have met Galtieri. Before me as I write is a handsome block of marble with the Argentine army's badge on it in metal and a little brass plate recording that it was given to General Sir John Hackett by Lieut. General Leopoldo Galtieri.

It was in 1980 that CERIEN, the Spanish acronym for the Center for Studies of International Relations and National Strategy in Buenos Aires, asked me to give lectures and hold some conferences. Galtieri, then commander in chief of the army, invited me to address the chiefs of staff and senior officers of all three services. He explained that the Argentine armed forces had been successfully engaged for several years in the suppression of terrorism. (It was hardly possible for me to tell him that the means they had used were almost universally condemned.) The Argentine military must now, Galtieri said, be turned back to its proper role. I took this task in hand, explaining to my hearers that although Argentina was many thousands of miles from where so much of the international action lay, we all lived on the same planet and had to see it whole. The Beagle Channel at the southern tip of Argentina, for example, was to them of compelling interest. Yet the Strait of Hormuz and the waterways through the Indonesian archipelago, industrial Japan's lifeline, were perhaps more important. I did not, I said, soon expect to see an Argentine squadron in the Indian Ocean, though it would be welcome. The faces of the admirals were wreathed in smiles.

The general impressed me as a forthright and determined man as well as a devoted, and probably pretty able, professional soldier. He could cut an impressive figure as a leader and would not, I thought, be easily turned from his purpose. He asked me, as he put it, to open for him and his colleagues a window on the world. I tried to do so. Could it be that when I threw the window open they looked out--and saw the Falklands?

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