Falkland Islands: Search for a Way Out

Haig shuttles grimly, the British steam, and Argentina digs in

The white Boeing 707 taxied to a stop at Buenos Aires' Ezeiza Airport, and Alexander Haig stepped wearily out into the glow of television lights. The Secretary of State was nearing the end of an arduous diplomatic shuttle that had taken him some 30,000 miles and was in serious danger of stalling. As he prepared to negotiate yet again, he sounded a familiar theme: "It is clear tonight that the task will not be easy, but what is in play is so important that everyone has to apply all the strength possible to achieve a political accord." What was in play was nothing less than the threat of war. In personally mediating the crisis over the Falkland Islands, Haig had committed the prestige of his office—and that of Ronald Reagan's presidency—to a goal of preserving peace. He had also in a highly visible way placed the U.S. in the increasingly uncomfortable and unfortunate position of seeming to be unable to choose between siding with its closest ally or with a repressive government run by a military junta. But that was the unavoidable price of such a mediation effort.

As Haig began his talks in Buenos Aires, a 45-ship British task force, led by the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Hermes, entered the South Atlantic headed for the

Falklands, the remote British colony that Argentina had invaded a fortnight earlier. Steaming at an estimated 18 knots, the armada was expected to be on station by midweek. Meanwhile, the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had already stationed four submarines, three of them nuclear powered, inside a 200-mile "maritime exclusion zone" around the Falklands, and threatened to fire on any Argentine ship that challenged the blockade. Argentina must unconditionally withdraw from the Falklands, Thatcher insisted to the approval of 80% of her countrymen, or Britain would fight.

Argentina's military rulers seemed surprised at Britain's vehemence, and stunned by the nationalistic forces it had unleashed. "The English reaction is so absurd, so disproportionate," lamented Foreign Minister Nicanor Costa Mendez. "This seems like a chapter in a science-fiction novel." The junta had miscalculated international opposition to its invasion and grossly underestimated the risk of war. Its seizure of the Falkland Islands nonetheless remained popular at home. Activist Perez Esquivel, who won the Nobel Prize for his human rights crusade against the government, offered his support to the junta last week, as did an organized group of mothers of Argentines kid naped in a wave of police repression.

As the cold southern autumn settled in, the government ordered its 9,000 troops on the islands to dig in for a long siege. According to one senior officer, the Malvinas, as the islands are called in Spanish, were so heavily fortified that the British could never retake them. "If they intend to," he said, "it will be a butchery." In the island capital of Port Stanley, General Mario Benjamin Menendez, the newly appointed Argentine governor, was ensconced in the office vacated by Britain's Rex Hunt.