Word: argentinas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...
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...
Moscow, which has been more of a taunting spectator than a participant in the Falklands dispute, stands to gain the most from the North-South fighting, even if the government in Argentina does not become more accommodating to the Soviets. Both Haig and British Foreign Secretary Francis Pym have complained that the U.S.S.R. has been "fishing in troubled waters" with its propaganda attempts to capitalize on the crisis. Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, speaking at a Moscow dinner honoring Nicaraguan Leader Daniel Ortega Saavedra, said that the South Atlantic confrontation occurred "precisely because there are forces that are trying to preserve...