Word: argentina
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...Brooklyn-class cruiser had a distinguished history. As the U.S.S. Phoenix, she survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequently carried then Secretary of State Cordell Hull to the 1943 Casablanca conference. She was sold to Argentina in 1951 for $7.8 million...
...initial strikes had a limited, surgical purpose, in keeping with the declared British strategy of using minimum force and maximum diplomatic and economic pressure to make Argentina relinquish the Falklands. But this principle of military restraint became one of the first casualties of the South Atlantic war. As the British fleet went to work in the Falklands, elements of the Argentine navy were also preparing for action. Some 36 miles outside the British total-exclusion zone, the 13,645-ton Argentine cruiser General Belgrano and two escorts had suddenly turned, according to the British, toward their task force...
...Argentine reaction to the Belgrano's sinking was heated. At first, Buenos Aires said that Britain's announcement was "a lie" and part of a campaign of "psychological warfare." The next day, however, Argentina conceded the ship's loss and denounced the attack as a "treacherous act of armed aggression...
...House of Commons, the opposition Labor Party, which after some fretting had taken a posture of bipartisan support for the government's combination of military and diplomatic pressure on Argentina, became restive again. Labor Leader Michael Foot refused a Thatcher offer of briefings on the military progress in the Falklands, and renewed demands that Britain try U.N. mediation of the dispute. Labor's foreign policy spokesman, Denis Healey, warned that "if this military escalation continues, more lives, both Argentine and British, could be lost than there are on the Falkland Islands." Outside the Commons the Archbishop of Canterbury...
...Thatcher, the signs of growing disunity among her Western European allies were more alarming than domestic doubts. Before the Belgrano sinking, Western Europe had been unanimous in supporting Britain, to the point of imposing stiff economic sanctions and suspending trade relations with Argentina. The first country to break ranks was Ireland. Immediately after the sinking of the Argentine cruiser, the Irish government declared that it was "appalled by the outbreak of what amounts to open war" in the South Atlantic, and said it was "imperative" that the U.N. become involved in settling the dispute. Irish Defense Minister Patrick Power went...