Caught in the Fallout

By Thomas A. Sancton

The U.S. is already a loser as Britain besieges the Argentines

At last the end was in sight. From his secure position on Mount Kent, Major General John Jeremy Moore, commander of the British ground forces on the Falkland Islands, gazed through his binoculars at the blue-and-white Argentine flag fluttering over the capital, Port Stanley, twelve miles away. "We'll hoist the Union Jack down there just as soon as we can get there," he told his men confidently. "And believe me, it won't take long."

Although freezing fog appeared to hamper the British at week's end, time was indeed running out--and not just for the besieged Argentine soldiers. Britain's rapid drive toward the island capital had touched off an eleventh-hour flurry of diplomatic activity that sought to prevent a final bloody battle, which could make a bad situation worse. A head-on clash at Port Stanley could not only lead to appalling casualties on both sides but further inflame Latin American bitterness against both Britain and the U.S. It might also allow the Soviets to gain influence in a strategically important corner of the South Atlantic by offering aid to a beleaguered Argentina.

Washington policymakers feared that by inflicting a humiliating military defeat on its foe, Britain might wreck any chance of a broad, long-term settlement that would have to involve Argentina. Such a defeat, the U.S. believes, could also precipitate the downfall of Argentina's ruling junta, leading to political chaos and revolving-door governments that might be even more prone to renew attacks on the islands. In addition, protracted hostilities would put an enormous drain on Britain's resources and on NATO, which would be deprived of British ships and troops.

Outlining the dangers that a continuing conflict posed for U.S. policy, Secretary of State Alexander Haig said that "in many respects, American interests were more heavily engaged in the Falklands than even the interests of the two parties." Haig was referring to the fact that by backing Britain, the U.S. had endangered its overall relations with Argentina as well as with Latin America as a whole. But the Administration had accepted Haig's view that the U.S. had no choice but to side with an ally--and against a country trying to gain disputed territory by force.

The issue brought about an angry confrontation between the Secretary of State and Jeane Kirkpatrick, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., who had argued that the U.S. should avoid taking sides in order to protect its relations with Latin America (see box).

Seeking to avoid a potentially disastrous clash at Port Stanley, the U.S. was urging the Argentines to withdraw before the British drove them off the islands. Privately, American officials warned Buenos Aires that the U.S. could do nothing to prevent a British assault and that Argentina's bargaining position would be far weaker after a crushing military defeat.

At the same time, Washington was preaching moderation to Britain. "We have been telling them in every way that the only thing worse than a British military defeat is the wrong kind of victory," said a senior U.S. diplomat. That concern was shared by Britain's European allies, who were engaging in what one West German official called "a lot of quiet diplomacy" in favor of a peaceful settlement. Stressing the need for "negotiations," French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson said last week, "I'm a little sorry I have not heard that expression the last few days in any British mouths."

Secretary of State Haig had urged the British to be "magnanimous" in victory, but British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher seemed unmoved. Magnanimity "was not a word I use in connection with the Falklands," she told a television interviewer at midweek. To give in "to an invader and an aggressor and a military dictator," she said, "would be treachery or betrayal of our own people." Only one thing could halt the British drive: an immediate Argentine decision to "withdraw within the next ten to 14 days."

Although Reagan had telephoned Thatcher earlier in the week to warn against humiliating the Argentines, the President offered the Prime Minister his support when the two met for 90 minutes on Friday before the start of the Versailles summit conference. On leaving the meeting, Thatcher said that "the United States is firmly on our side, and we are grateful to them for being staunch allies."

In the U.N., meanwhile, where British Ambassador Sir Anthony Parsons and Enrique Ros, Argentina's Deputy Foreign Minister, had wearily negotiated for weeks, the Security Council tried again to find a compromise. Spain and Panama introduced a resolution implicitly Unking a cease-fire with unilateral Argentine withdrawal and a vaguely defined U.N. role in the future administration of the Falklands.

When the resolution came to a vote, it was rejected by Parsons on the grounds that it did not explicitly demand an Argentine withdrawal within a fixed time limit. Reluctantly supporting the British position, Kirkpatrick also vetoed the resolution. But when her turn to speak came, she had conciliatory words for Argentina. Kirkpatrick expressed the hope that "cooperation will be restored and friendship mended," and pointedly referred to the Falkland Islands by their Argentine name, the Malvinas. Then came the surprise of the evening. "I am told that it is impossible for a government to change a vote once it is cast," Kirkpatrick said. "But I have been requested by my Government to record the fact that, were it possible to change our vote, we should like to change it from a veto, a no, that is, to an abstention." Her switch was greeted with incredulity-Parsons was flabbergasted. "Breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking," he was heard to mutter as he left the session shaking his head.

Kirkpatrick told reporters that she had voted on the basis of previous instructions, but had then been asked to change the vote by a telephone call from what she called the "principal officers," an allusion to Reagan and Haig. Asked if she had been embarrassed by the about-face, Kirkpatrick replied: "Of course I am."

According to State Department sources, Haig's first instructions were indeed to join the British veto. But when Haig returned from the opening dinner at Versailles, he received a call from Deputy Secretary of State Walter Stoessel recommending that the decision be reconsidered in light of changes made in an attempt to strengthen the link between a cease-fire and an Argentine withdrawal. Haig concurred. He discussed the changes with British Foreign Secretary Francis Pym and then telephoned instructions to Stoessel to tell Kirkpatrick to abstain from the vote. Finding that he was too late, Haig asked that Kirkpatrick issue her recantation. Later, Haig blamed the confusion on communications problems. It was, said he, like placing a "buy with a distant broker and finding out that the price has changed." Trying to make the point that the U.S. had not engaged in a maneuver designed to placate both Britain and Argentina, White House Spokesman Larry Speakes said, "This does not indicate any change in our basic position." Still, the embarrassing flip-flop was hardly an impressive show of U.S. resolve.

While the diplomats talked and British forces closed in on Port Stanley, a somber, war-weary mood replaced the earlier exuberance in Buenos Aires. The patriotic fervor seemed to have wilted like the faded blue-and-white flags that dangled from telephone wires under a winter drizzle. On hearing of the loss of Port Darwin and Goose Green last week, an almost tearful hotel desk clerk pleaded, "We simply have to win this war. No other war really mattered as much to our pride and our history as this--we must win it."

Loss of faith in that national dream could threaten the ruling junta, which had rallied unprecedented public support in the wake of Argentina's April 2 invasion of the Falklands. But there were some signs last week that the junta may be looking ahead to a time when it might have to loosen its control on the government to stay in power. Brigadier General Basilio Lami Dozo, the commander of the air force and one of the three members of the junta, spoke vaguely of the need for the "participation by all sectors" in the government in the future. The junta, however, had not been talking with the leaders of Argentina's suspended political parties.

Changes in foreign policy seem certain as Argentina seeks what Lami Dozo calls "a new place in the world." However that evolves, Argentina will clearly continue to be hostile to the U.S., which before the war had been successfully wooing it as an ally in the fight against Communism in the Western Hemisphere. "There is only one loser in all this, and that is the U.S.," said an Argentine official. "We can sign a treaty with Great Britain, the enemy, and it will be over. But what do we do about the U.S., supposedly our friend? We are betrayed. Things will never be the same again." Reagan, an Argentine military officer complained privately last week, is just "a Brit in U.S. clothing."

The alarming corollary of anti-U.S. feeling is a possible swing by Argentina to the Soviet bloc for future aid, as absurd as that seems for a staunchly anti-Communist regime. After a 30-minute meeting with President Leopoldo Fortunate Galtieri last week, Soviet Ambassador Sergei Striganov expressed Moscow's "sympathy with the Argentine people's hard fight against British imperialism." Galtieri later said that he would accept "any hand that is offered" to aid his country. It was unclear just what the Soviets, who bought 75% of Argentina's grain exports last year, were prepared to give Buenos Aires in the way of military assistance. Washington sources say that Moscow has been giving the Argentines satellite data on the location of British ships for "some time," and there were unconfirmed reports last week that some 20 Soviet technicians were helping the Argentines link up a nationwide radar system. Most Western analysts, however, doubted that Buenos Aires would fall under the Soviet shadow.

Whatever the extent of Soviet help, the Argentines seemed determined to get as much political mileage as possible out of their new overtures to the East. Last week Nicanor Costa Mendez became the first Argentine Foreign Minister to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro took power in 1959. In a startling scene, Costa Mendez embraced the Communist leader, who had done his best to stir up trouble in Latin America. Addressing a conference of nations professing nonalignment with the major powers, Costa Mendez then roundly denounced the "aggression of Great Britain" and said he was "astonished that the U.S. has given Britain arms and assistance to kill our people." Before leaving Havana, Costa Mendez signed a $100 million trade agreement with Cuba, which had earlier promised Argentina "all necessary help."

To a degree, Latin America's bitterness against the U.S. has extended to European countries that have backed Britain with economic and military sanctions against Argentina. The West Germans, who trade heavily with South America, have even dispatched a Cabinet minister on a troubleshooting tour of Latin America to explain Bonn's support of Britain. A French diplomat noted that the government of President Franc,ois Mitterrand "has made one of its central foreign policy goals that of improving North-South relations. To the extent that the Falklands retard that, everyone loses."

In Britain, where news of last week's military successes was greeted with increased national pride, the idea of losing seemed far, far away. Britons were basking in the afterglow of the historic papal visit, which lifted spirits everywhere, and enjoying a spate of warm, sunny weather. The Queen went to the Epsom derby and smiled. There was even good economic news: inflation dropped into the single digits for the first time since Thatcher took office in May 1979.

The Prime Minister, her face fresh and unlined, eyes bright and voice clear after eight weeks of crisis, was riding a mounting tide of popular support. Market & Opinion Research International, Britain's leading polling organization, last week reported a 56% approval rating for Thatcher (up from 25% last December) and a 49% rating for her government (up from 18% in December). There is no precedent in Britain for such rapid gains.

To be sure, Thatcher had her critics among opposition politicians who called for a last try at a negotiated settlement. Abandoning negotiations, warned Social Democrat M.P. David Owen, the Foreign Secretary in the last Labor government, would mean "abandoning the U.N. charter, Britain's friends and allies, and, even more important, Britain's moral authority on the issue." Senior Labor M.P. Roy Hattersley predicted "a permanent state of siege" in the Falklands and disclosed that "all sensible people know there has to be some accommodation with the Argentines."

But Thatcher showed no signs of accepting that necessity. Instead, she talked about an extensive postwar reconstruction of the Falklands under British sovereignty. She has let it be known that she will not contemplate any Argentine participation in the future administration of the islands. As Thatcher told a BBC interviewer last week: "[The islanders] never wanted to go to Argentina before. They'll be even less likely to now." While Thatcher might eventually accept the idea of a U.N. administrator, she is adamantly opposed to a U.N. trusteeship, which would allow the Argentines "equality of access" and permit them "to flood the islands." Above all, she is committed to consulting the islanders on all proposals concerning their future.

In Thatcher's view, Britain must make the islands economically viable and militarily secure after the war. Her formula for doing that calls for multinational invest ments and an international peace-keeping force that would include the U.S. Thatcher believes that the presence of even a small force of U.S. troops on the islands would persuade the Argentines not to launch any further assaults. As she pointedly remarked last week, "When the Americans asked us to join them in a multinational force in the Sinai, I said yes, be cause it helped peace in that area."

But Washington, already severely burned in its Latin American relations, was not anxious to take part in such a scheme without Argentina's approval and the participation of at least one other Latin American country. The idea of U.S. membership in a peace-keeping force came up during Reagan's meeting with Thatcher in Paris, but both sides said no commitment was made. Referring to Thatcher's proposal at week's end, Haig told a news conference that it was "too early to say" whether the U.S. would participate in a peace-keeping force. He added noncommittally: "The U.S. is anxious to do anything it can to bring about a peaceful, long-term solution to the situation." No doubt. But just what Washington could do to hasten the peace was not much clearer than it was the day the crisis began.

--By Thomas A. Sancton.

Reported by Bonnie Angelo/London and Marsh Clark/Buenos Aires

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo, Marsh Clark

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