TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/82/82win

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                                                  ╟««And Now, to Win the Peace

June 28, 1982

Thatcher exults, Galtieri falls and Reagan faces Latin anger

"Today has put the Great back in Britain."  So said an exultant Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher last week as she greeted the euphoric
crowd that had gathered outside 10 Downing Street, cheering and
singing Rule Britannia, to celebrate Britain's victory in the ten-
week war for the Falkland Islands.  An emotional Thatcher shook hand
after hand, and declared, "This is a great vindication of everything
that we thought was right.  What a night this has been for Britain!
What a wonderful victory!"

So it was.  But hardly had the white flags of surrender been hoisted
over the island capital of Port Stanley when a set of new,
potentially more formidable problems emerged.  Three days after
Britain's triumph, Argentina's top generals ousted President Leopoldo
Fortunato Galtieri.  He was temporarily replaced as President by yet
another general, Interior Minister Alfredo Oscar Saint Jean, and as
army chief by Major General Cristino Nicolaides.  Said Galtieri,
following his removal from power:  "I am going because the army did
not give me the political support to continue."  In fact, Galtieri's
fall may have been hastened by crowds of a very different sort from
those that greeted Thatcher.  Frustrated and angry at their country's
defat, some 5,000 Argentines had gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in
central Buenos Aires, throwing coins at the President's palace to
symbolize a "sellout" surrender, and chanting." Galtieri to the
wall!"  It was one of the worse displays of public discontent since
1976.  For those who experienced the chaos of that earlier, turbulent
era, the demonstration was a reminder of the volatility that has
marred so much of Argentina's history, and once led to the kind of
nationalistic populism that was the hallmark of the late dictator
Juan Domingo Peron.

At week's end Argentina's leaders still refused to admit military
defeat.  Clinging to the position that had doomed all efforts at a
negotiated settlement before the guns were unleashed in the South
Atlantic, the Argentines insisted that their claim to sovereignty
over the Falklands to be negotiated as part of any settlement.
Buenos Aires warned that any cease-fire in the Falklands would be
"precarious" so long as British forces remained on the islands.
While the Argentines seemed willing to suspend hostilities for the
moment, they left open the possibility of further fighting.  If the
fragile cease-fire broke down, the conflict could easily escalate
into a new and possibly even more violent confrontation, since the
British have not ruled out the possibility of answering additional
attacks with the bombing of Argentine airbases and the mining of
Argentine harbors.

Britain's hard-won victory, paradoxically, added to the woes of a
U.S. Administration preoccupied with the new conflict in the Middle
East.  Some Latin Americans, and especially Argentines, were blaming
Washington more severely than London for the Falklands debacle.  They
claimed that Britain had won only because it had received extensive
support from the U.S., notably in the form of sophisticated, high-
tech weapons--a view that was promptly dismissed in London and
Washington.  Latin American bitterness was already beginning to
undermine U.S. efforts to create a non-Communist consensus in the
Western Hemisphere, and, in the long run, might offer significant
opportunities to the Soviet Union.  Officials in Washington were deeply
concerned that U.S. relations with all of Latin America would be
severely harmed unless, as Secretary of State Alexander Haig has put
it, Thatcher was "magnanimous" in victory.

But with Britain's loss of 255 lives in the recapture of the
Falklands, Thatcher was in no mood to compromise.  She insisted that
Britain would "uphold its commitment to the security of the islands,
if necessary, alone."  Brushing aside suggestions that the Falklands
be handed over to some form of international administration, such as
a United Nations trusteeship, the Prime Minister said, "I cannot
agree that [British troops] risked their lives in any way to have a
United Nations trusteeship.  They risked their lives to defend
British sovereign territory, the British way of life and the rights
of British people to determine their own future."  Thatcher announced
that Rex Hunt, the islands' former governor, would return to Port
Stanley as "civil commissioner" to administer the territory with the
victorious British field commander, Major General John Jeremy Moore.

Moore's victory in the final battle for Port Stanley came with
unexpected swiftness.  British troops, who had been poised atop Mount
Kent, ten miles outside the capital, began closing in on the
Argentine garrison that had formed a defensive horseshoe around Port
Stanley.  The combat was fierce.  Said Moore:  "It was a bloody
battle, with hand-to-hand fighting.  It was fighting with bayonets in
the end."  The British advance was punctuated by a heavy Royal Navy
bombardment of the last Argentine positions on the heights outside
the Falklands capital.  The combination of artillery pounding and
determined British pressure on the ground was too much for the
Argentines.  Suddenly, they broke and ran.  Said British Journalist
Max Hastings, who traveled with the attacking troops:  "I think their
soldiers had simply decided that they had had enough.  The Argentine
generals had to recognize that their men no longer had the will to
carry on the fight."

From their commanding positions, the British could see hundreds of
Argentine soldiers streaming back into Port Stanley.  Within hours,
the Argentine commander, General Mario Benjamin Menendez, was in
contact with General Moore, offering a temporary cease-fire.  Moore,
agreed to talk, ordering his troops to hold their fire unless
attacked.  The rival commanders met in a government building in the
center of Port Stanley.  There, Menendez agreed to capitulate.  Said
Moore:  "I feel absolutely great.  Now, happily, the killing stops."

Menendez made only one significant change in the four-paragraph
surrender document presented to him by the British.  Apparently
mindful of his superiors' threat to continue the war, he crossed out
the word "unconditionally" to describe his capitulation.  According
to Moore, Menendez also gave his personal assurances that there would
be no further attacks from Argentina on the British forces in the
Falklands.

Moore immediately radioed the good news to London.  Said he:  "The
Falkland Islands are once more under the government desired by their
inhabitants.  God save the Queen."  Then the British commander
strolled down the main street of Port Stanley to meet some of the 600
residents who had stayed in the settlement during the final assault.
At the West Store, a large, barnlike emporium, a crowd of about 125
Falklanders gave the general a huge cheer of welcome.  Responded the
British commander:  "I'm sorry it took us three weeks to get here."
Whereupon the kelpers lifted Moore onto their shoulders and sang For
He's a Jolly Good Fellow.

Even before the surrender, Journalist Hastings, who was waiting on
the outskirts of the capital along with members of the Parachute
Regiment, had changed his military fatigues for civilian clothes and
set off alone toward the capital.  Waving a white handkerchief high
over his head, he talked his way past Argentine guards.  Then
Hastings encountered "hundreds, maybe thousands, of Argentine troops
milling around, marching in columns through the streets, some of them
clutching very badly wounded men and looking completely like an army
in defeat with blankets wrapped around themselves."

Amid the detritus of war left by the Argentines were a few surprises.
One was a plentiful supply of ammunition, indicating that the British
air and sea blockade of the Falklands had been less successful than
claimed by London's Defense Ministry.  Despite repeated bombing
attacks on the Port Stanley airport, Argentine C-130 Hercules
transport aircraft had managed to land on the pockmarked 4,000-ft.-
long strip, delivering supplies to the garrison.  In addition, it was
learned the Argentines had sneaked a ship, the Formosa, through
Britain's naval blockade.

The British also reportedly discovered packing crates for a land-
based version of the French-built Exocet missiles that had sunk the
British destroyer H.M.S. Sheffield and the cargo vessel Atlantic
Conveyor.  The Argentines had used the land-based Exocets against the
British light cruiser H.M.S. Glamorgan, killing 13 Royal Navy crewmen
and injuring 17 others, during the climactic shelling of Port
Stanley.

The biggest shock of all for the British was coping with the number
of Argentine soldiers ashore in the Falklands. By preliminary
estimate, there were some 11,000, including the garrison on
neighboring West Falkland.  Hard pressed to supply their own troops,
the British were overwhelmed by the flood of P.O.W.s, who patiently
handed over their arms and then awaited aid.  Said a worried Rear
Admiral John ("Sandy") Woodward:  "They are already suffering from
malnutrition, exposure, trench foot, scabies and diarrhea, brought on
by lack of food and pure water, proper clothing, shelter and
sanitation.  Even feeding them for a week presents huge problems."

At week's end London and Buenos Aires agreed on the return os most of
the P.O.W.s to Argentina, and two British ships left the Falklands
carrying nearly 6,000 Argentines home.  But British officials
declared that about 1,000 selected prisoners, most of them officers
and commanders, would be held in response to Argentina's refusal to
accept an unconditional end to the Falklands hostilities.

Argentina's leaders had only belatedly prepared the country's
population for the impending defeat.  Upon getting news of the
surrender, knots of angry Argentines gathered on the Plaza de Mayo in
front of the country's presidential Casa Rosada to hear a scheduled
balcony speech by Galtieri.  As evening fell, the mood of the crowd
turned ugly.  "They lied to us," said a student.  "We went to war
with our hearts full, and now they are empty."  Said an airplane
mechanic:  "We have been cheated, and our young conscripts have died
for nothing."  Finally riot police armed with shotguns and tear-gas
launchers moved in on the crowd, firing rubber bullets and canisters
of the eye-stinging gas.  The mob scattered, setting fire to garbage
cans and vehicles on side streets.  The unrest continued for several
hours.  Galtieri never did come out on the balcony.  He confined his
oration to a twelve-minute television address in which he maintained
that Argentina had lost a battle but not the war.

The next night, Argentina's army commanders convened in their Buenos
Aires headquarters.  During the heated midnight-to-6 a.m. meeting
with his top 14 generals, Galtieri insisted on pursuing the war with
Britain as if Argentina still had something left to right with.  When
the others demurred, Galtieri offered to resign.  "O.K.," he said, "I
can't count on the army."  With that, he retired to Campo de Mayo,
the sprawling barracks of the First Army Corps on the outskirts of
Buenos Aires.  There he remained until the head of the army's general
staff, Jose Antonio Vaquero, brought word that Galtieri's "voluntary
resignation" had been accepted.

Few Argentines appeared to miss their deposed leader,who had been
President only since December.  Said the English-language Buenos
Aires Herald:  "Galtieri lasted not quite six months and managed to
plunge the nation into a farcical war which besmirched the honor of
the military."  Proclaimed a prominent businessman:  "He should be
hung.  No, drawn and quartered.  No, it is better to let him live
with his dishonor, 24 ours a day for the rest of his life."  That
outraged judgment seemed far from fair in a country that has been
teaching its children for more than a century that the Malvinas, as
the islands are known in Latin America, are Argentine.  Says Jose
Dumas, a business consultant:  "It was the junta as a whole that made
the decisions.  Galtieri is the sacrificial lamb."

For the time being, Galtieri's powers were divided between two
generals.  Major General Alfredo Oscar Saint-Jean was appointed
President, but only temporarily.  More significant perhaps was the
announcement that Major General Cristino Nicolaides, a close Galtieri
friend and protege, would be the army's new commander in chief.  That
automatically made the tough anti-Communist and right-wing
nationalist a member of the junta.  His promotion does not augur well
for a return to civilian rule in Argentina.

In the immediate future, the greatest danger for Argentina is that it
will continue its obsession with the Falklands, while neglecting its
political and economic stability.  As the Buenos Aires Herald said
last week, "It is time to get down to the serious business of
building the kind of strong, stable, democratic nation Argentina
could be and to leave behind forever the embarrassing stigma of the
underdeveloped world where power struggles and stagnation are the
order of the day."  The economy is in even worse condition than when
the war began.  Inflation stands at 140% and unemployment at 13%.
The worse possible outcome for the country might be a return to the
intensely nationalistic and ultimately destructive economic policies
that were repeatedly tried under the banner of Peronism between the
1940s and 1976.

Those concerns were far from the minds of the war's victors.  In
London, Prime Minister Thatcher's announcement to the House of
Commons that Argentina had surrendered drew a thunderous cheer from
all political parties--and her first smile in the Commons since the
Falklands crisis began.  From his front-bench seat on the opposite
side of the parliamentary chamber, Labor Party Leader Michael Foot
rose to tender his congratulations.  Said he:  "Perhaps there will be
arguments about the origins of this matter and other questions, [but]
I can understand that at this moment the anxieties and pressures may
have been relived, and I congratulate [Thatcher] on that."

One of the few notes of recrimination in the Commons was sounded the
following day by Radical Labor M.P. Tony Benn, who demanded a full
analysis of the "costs in life, equipment and money in this tragic
and unnecessary war, which the world knows very well will not provide
an answer to the problem of the future of the Falkland Island."
Thatcher's reply:  "He [Benn] called it an unnecessary war.  Tragic
it may have been, but he would not enjoy the kind of freedom of
speech which he puts to such excellent use unless people had been
prepared to fight for it."

In the flush of victory, Thatcher might imagine that she could be
disdainful of opposition attacks.  Last week a British Gallup poll
put her public approval rating at 51%, 17 points higher than before
the Falklands crisis began.  Fully 64% of Britons polled said that
the handling of the Falklands crisis had made them feel more
favorable toward the government.  Approval for Opposition Leader
Foot, meanwhile, stood at a mere 14%.

But Thatcher's triumphal moment is unlikely to last.  Two
parliamentary investigations have been ordered into the conduct of
the Falklands war.  The first will examine the handling of earlier
negotiations with Argentina for the island.  Many Labor M.P.s have
been claiming that the Thatcher government misread Argentina's
intention to invade.  The other investigation will focus on the
British Defense Ministry's censorship of information from the South
Atlantic.  Other questions are bound to arise, including Britain's
decision to prune its conventional navy in favor of a strategic,
submarine-based nuclear strike force, and the ultimate cost of Prime
Minister Thatcher's determination to defend the Falklands.

Thatcher's commitment to British sovereignty and institutions in the
Falklands has steadily hardened during the war.  For the 1,800
Falklanders, she now favors a form of self-government just short of
independence.  In effect, the Falklands would cease to be a British
colony and become a protectorate of the British Crown.  Queen
Elizabeth II would be represented by a High Commissioner with
responsibility for defense and foreign affairs, who would govern with
a six-member executive committee drawn from an elected legislative
assembly of 20 to 30 members.

Thatcher still hopes to ensure the security of the Falklands with a
multinational military force that might include troops from the U.S.,
Jamaica and Brazil.  As an additional guarantee of the islands'
security, she may even invite certain countries to station diplomatic
representatives in Port Stanley.  Though Thatcher refuses to budge on
the issue of British sovereignty, Whitehall hopes that at some future
date the Falklands will become a de facto multinational protectorate.
But if Thatcher is unsuccessful in obtaining international guarantees
for the islands' status, she is prepared to defend them by leaving
3,000 troops and major elements of Britain's naval task force in the
South Atlantic.

The Prime Minister's attitude reflects not only her own hardheaded
views but a phenomenon that is new for postwar Britain:  an upsurge
of nationalism similar to what France experienced in the 1960s under
President Charles de Gaulle.  Said a member of Thatcher's War
Cabinet:  "In the Falklands, Britain regained her self-respect, and
in the process a new determination to play a major role in world
affairs."  That change could have broad implications.  As Malcolm
Rutherford, assistant editor of London's Financial Times, put it,
Britain could "become more demanding toward Europe, less tolerant of
the Irish Republic and generally a more awkward ally, taking a pride
in British cussedness rather as the French took pride in being
different under DeGaulle."

Although Thatcher's Western European allies supported her decision to
regain the Falklands, they share the U.S. view that Britain must now
show the flexibility to find a long-term solution that will avoid
another war in the South Atlantic.  Says a French Foreign Ministry
spokesman:  "Talk of turning the islands into a kind of aircraft
carrier is not the answer."  Similarly, West Germany is anxious to
lift the economic sanctions that were leveled against Argentina at
the beginning of the crisis.  Belgian Foreign Minister Leo Tindemans
noted that the main purpose of the sanctions was to bring pressure on
Argentina to negotiate over the Falklands.  Whether the sanctions
remain in force, he added, "depends on whether action for peace
develops."

Britain's next moves will be watched throughout Latin America, where
many countries have charged the U.S. with violating the 1947 Rio
Treaty by supporting a European "aggressor" in the hemisphere.  Yet
despite the anti-U.S. sentiments, Argentina's Latin neighbors have
taken widely differing positions on the Falklands war.  Colombia,
South America's largest democracy, opposed the use of force to seize
the island.  Says Colombia's Interior Minister, Jorge Mario Eastman:
"Argentina's defeat is a triumph for the [view] that international
disputes must be resolved through legal procedures and not
aggression."

The most powerful Latin countries in the hemisphere, Brazil and
Mexico, have carefully maintained support for the principle of
Argentine sovereignty over the Falklands but without endorsing the
invasion that precipitated the South Atlantic war.  Some of the
smaller Latin countries have been positively relieved by Argentina's
defeat.  One example is Belize, which is claimed by neighboring
Guatemala.  Protected by an 1,800-man British garrison, Belizeans saw
the Falklands war as a dry run of their ability to survive as an
independent nation.

In Chile, officials regarded the Falklands ware with foreboding from
the start.  Chile and Argentina almost went to war in 1978 over three
tiny and barren islands in the remote Beagle Channel at the southern
tip of the continent.  Many Chileans are convinced that Argentina's
assault on the Falklands was part of a broader plan that also
included a takeover of the Beagle Channel islands.  But Chileans have
not been heartened by Argentina's defeat.  They are worried that
Buenos Aires will lash out in their direction as a kind of
psychological compensation.  Says an official in Santiago:  "The
situation is very dangerous."

In fact, support for Argentina's invasion of the Falklands has come
from only a handful of Latin American countries.  Chief among them
are Peru, a traditional Argentine ally on the South American
continent; Ecuador, which smarts from the loss of more than 70,000
sq. mi. of territory to Peru in various wars; Bolivia, which lost a
Pacific coastline to Chile a century ago; and above all, democratic
Venezuela, which claims about half of neighboring Guyana's territory.
In an interview with TIME's Carribbean bureau chief William
McWhirter, Venezuelan President Luis Herrera Campins warned that the
U.S. "would have to bear the brunt of all the feelings of
anticolonialism now rising across Latin America" as a result of U.S.
support for Britain in the Falklands war.  Said Herrera Campins:
"The U.S. has probably never taken a greater risk in its
international relations.  We never thought that the U.S. would take
an active part in a war against Latin America in this part of the
20th century."

The U.S. Administration has opted for a balancing act that combines
strong public declarations of support for Thatcher with delicate
hints that the U.S. would prefer negotiations.  "The President fully
supports Mrs. Thatcher, not as a matter of national bias but as a
matter of principle," Secretary of State Haig said in New York City
Friday.  He added:  "It remains to be seen if a framework can be put
together to remove the pervasive animosities that will continue if
this is improperly managed."

Since the current mood in Britain is not likely to lead to
negotiations soon, the wisest course for the U.S. might be to address
demands that Latin Americans have been making for decades:  more
economic aid from the U.S. and freer access to U.S. markets.  Says
former CIA Director William Colby:  "There is nothing terribly new in
Americans choosing their European friends over their Latin friends.
But Latin Americans will look to their own economic interests first."
Says Robert Wesson of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and
Peace:  "There is little to be done but say 'sorry about this' and
then go on to increase trade, build a new life, so to speak, after
the Falklands."

But for the time being there was no easy way to patch the breach
opened by the lamentable Falklands war.  As long as emotions remained
a guiding force both in Britain and in Argentina, the only U.S.
option, in the words of a State Department official, was "quiet
encouragement."  The best hope was that time would heal the wounds
opened so brutally, that a rational appraisal of each country's best
long-term interests would eventually prevail, and that the hard-won
peace would not unravel.


Special Section

Just How Much Did the U.S. Help?

The Argentina military establishment had no trouble last week
explaining why Britain was able to recapture the Falklands:  massive
U.S. military assistance.  Despite the Reagan Administration's
declaration of support for Britain, Argentina's accusation is based
much more on diplomatic posturing than fact.  British officials
emphatically point out that almost all the assistance made available
to Britain by the U.S. was the result of longstanding agreements
within NATO.  Whitehall officials say that at least 90% of the
equipment used in the Falklands was British.  "All these claims that
U.S. technology won the Falklands war for Britain are nonsense," says
a senior British official.  "It played a part, and we are very
grateful for that, but it was not the decisive element in our
victory."  Included in the military aid that the U.S. did supply:

Fuel.  As part of a routine agreement, the U.S. sent 1.5 million gal.
of aviation fuel to the joint U.S.-British airbase at Ascension
Island.  It also made KC-135 aerial tankers available to Britain, but
these were never sent to the South Atlantic.  Instead, the Royal Air
Force used its own KC-135s for midair refueling of Vulcan bombers
making the 3,800-mile trip from Ascension to the Falklands, while
U.S. planes in Europe were reassigned to British NATO duties.

Ammunition.  The U.S. sold Britain an unspecified quantity of 20-mm
shells and supplied sonar-equipped buoys for use in antisubmarine
warfare.  Washington officials will not say if any of this equipment
was ever used on the islands.

Missiles.  The U.S. sold Britain about 100 AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles
(for $48,000 apiece).  Of 27 Sidewinders fired by Harriers during the
war, 23 scored hits.  These, however, were most probably British
missiles; the U.S.-supplied Sidewinders were apparently used only to
replenish inventories in Britain.  Also supplied were highly
effective laser target indicators for British ground forces and a
radar system for the Royal Navy's Seawolf surface-to-air missiles.

Intelligence and Communications.  As a NATO ally, Britain always had
regular access to the U.S.-built Defense Satellite Communications
System, which relays encrypted messages around the world.  Routine
information from U.S. meteorological satellites was also available,
although their effectiveness was severely limited by bad weather over
the South Atlantic.

By no means did London get everything it wanted.  Lacking an
effective airborne early-warning system to protect its naval task
force from surprise air attacks, the British asked to borrow an
undisclosed number of U.S. AWACS.  Washington refused on the grounds
that American servicemen, who would be necessary to main the
aircraft, should not become involved in the conflict.

Ironically, the most impressive weapon in the war came from
Argentina's arsenal:  the French-built Exocet missiles, which sank
the H.M.S. Sheffield.  And in the final analysis, military experts
agree, Argentina was defeated not by sophisticated weaponry but by
the superior training, tactics and morale of the British forces.

--By George Russell.
  Reported by Bonnie Angelo/London and Gavin Scott/Buenos Aires