Stormy Times for the U.S.

(2 of 4)

The Administration tried hard to reduce the damage to its relations with Latin America. Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote to members of the O.A.S. last week, assuring them that the U.S. is sensitive to their anticolonial concerns. He said that the U.S. sided with Britain only to uphold the all-important principle of nonaggression, which decrees that force should not be used to resolve international disputes. President Reagan wrote personal notes to five key Latin American leaders with a similar message. Said he: "My Government fully understands the deep national commitment of Argentina to recover the islands and its frustrations of long years of fruitless negotiations."

Washington's pro-British tilt, which it had little choice about adopting in the end, severely damaged what was a blossoming, albeit controversial, relationship with Argentina. The junta in Buenos Aires, shunned by the Carter Administration because of indefensible human rights violations, was courted by Reagan as a strategic ally in the anti-Communist crusade. Last year Administration officials proposed the resumption of arms sales to Argentina, which, like the U.S., is supporting the military campaign of El Salvador's government against leftist guerrillas. Some Latin American experts regarded this friendly abrazo as naive and misguided. Argued Johns Hopkins University Professor Riordan Roett: "The idea of a U.S. condominium of interest with the Argentine military to thwart revolution was a terrible one. Its demise is no loss."

Some of the anti-Soviet hard-liners within the Administration fear that the rupture of relations with Argentina may drive it into an alignment with Moscow. But most experts consider this unlikely, even if the regime of General Leopoldo Galtieri is overthrown. Capitalist and predominantly Roman Catholic, Argentina is not a likely place for a Marxist revolution, especially after years of violent government repression of leftists. Any regime that replaces Galtieri will almost certainly also be controlled by the anti-Communist military.

Nevertheless, the current crisis could ease Argentina into closer ties with the Soviet Union, its No. 1 trading partner. To the dismay of the Carter Administration, the junta undermined the 1980 U.S. grain embargo against Moscow, and now sells 77% of Argentina's crop to the Soviets. "It is altogether possible that the Argentines may want to give the Soviets base rights," says Richard Helms, former director of the CIA. Even if it were to keep the Kremlin at arm's length, an Argentina humiliated by the outcome of the Falklands crisis could be dangerously destabilizing to the region. Buenos Aires has not signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and operates a reactor capable of making weapons-grade plutonium. Question: Would a vengeful regime build the Bomb? Would it threaten to use it?