More Sorrow Than Anger

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Will the U.S. be the loser?

Argentine Foreign Minister Nicanor Costa Méndez was sitting across from U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig as the Organization of American States met in Washington last week for an emergency session to consider the Falklands crisis. Staring directly at Haig during a virulent, 45-minute speech, Costa Méndez charged that U.S. support for Britain was "illegal and repugnant" and that the U.S. had "turned its back" on Latin America. He warned: "The future of the inter-American relationship is under threat." As Haig sat in stony silence, most of the assembled delegates gave the Argentine diplomat a long standing ovation.

That gesture seemed to confirm a fear that has haunted U.S. policymakers almost from the day Argentina seized the Falkland Islands: that there was no way the U.S. could side with Britain, a loyal NATO ally, without alienating much of Latin America. Venezuelan President Luis Herrera Campins, a U.S. friend only a few months ago and now Argentina's most vocal supporter in South America, declared last month: "It is already clear that the country that will lose the most in this confrontation between Britain and Latin America will be the U.S." Panama President Aristides Royo has accused the U.S. of betraying its Latin neighbors by "changing hats and choosing sides when it should have remained neutral." Most U.S. experts take Latin America's anger seriously. Says Robert Leiken of Georgetown University: "This has struck a very deep nerve." The U.S. is viewed as tricky, sly and selling out its Latin friends."

In an effort to contain the damage, Haig delivered a conciliatory response to Costa Méndez. He rejected Argentina's demand for application of the 1947 Treaty of Rio, which calls upon the U.S. and 20 other signatories to come to each other's aid in the event of aggression from outside the hemisphere, on the ground that the first use of force in the Falklands crisis did not come from a non-American nation. A few days earlier, Haig had tried to patch up relations with Latin America by publicly calling upon Britain to be "magnanimous in victory." Summing up the U.S. dilemma, Haig asked his fellow O.A.S. delegates: "Is there a country among us that has not counted itself a friend of both [Britain and Argentina]?" Overriding a plea by Haig, the O.A.S. the next day approved, by a vote of 17 to 0, an Argentine-sponsored resolution condemning Britain's "unjustified and disproportionate armed attacks" and asking the U.S. to lift the economic and military sanctions that it had imposed against Buenos Aires last month. The U.S. abstained, along with Cuba, Colombia and Trinidad-Tobago.

Within Latin America, paradoxically, public emotions were restrained. Resident or visiting Americans encountered no demonstrations urging " Yanqui go home." Nor were there any anti-American mobs of the sort that pelted Vice President Richard Nixon with eggs in 1958 and forced Governor Nelson Rockefeller to cancel official visits to Chile, Peru and Venezuela in 1969. Although popular sentiment has been running in Argentina's favor, the most violent reactions have been the burning of a few British and U.S. flags in Caracas.