Word: haig
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After the President's Versailles trip had been expanded to include "unofficial" stops in Italy and Britain, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt made it clear that his government would feel slighted if Reagan bypassed Bonn. Secretary of State Alexander Haig was not only sensitive to Schmidt's concerns, he was anxious to have Reagan attend a NATO meeting. Haig helped arrange the shift of a proposed NATO summit from Brussels to Bonn and persuaded the White House to add the Federal Republic's capital to the President's itinerary...
...basic differences remain within NATO on how best to deal with the Soviet Union. Reagan and Haig will stress the need for increased defense spending to counter the Soviet military threat. The West Germans will attempt to couple any such declaration with one that emphasizes the need to reduce East-West tensions. The final result may be a statement similar to one worked out last month by NATO foreign ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg: "The allies will persevere in their efforts to establish a more constructive East-West relationship aiming at genuine détente . .. Arms control and disarmament...
Although the U.S. would prefer what Haig calls a more "robust" affirmation of the need for a military buildup, any variation of this formula will satisfy Washington. The Administration had considered calling on its allies to renew a collective pledge, first made in 1979, to increase defense spending by 3% per year. Haig, however, opposed such a numerical target because he believed it would be an unfair way to gauge the relative contributions of member nations, and over the past three years has led only to fruitless finger pointing. Washington dropped the idea. Besides, noted one high State Department official...
Those circumstances included growing U.S. matériel support for Britain. Alexander Haig had promised that support when the U.S. abandoned a month-long mediating effort and swung behind Britain, on the principle that unprovoked Argentine aggression could not be condoned. In the early 3 stages of the Falklands crisis, Washington's support for London consisted largely of providing some intelligence information and fuel supplies for the British armada at Ascension Island, the closest British staging area to the Falklands. That help has now been extended to cover a broad range of war goods, such as Sidewinder missiles, which the British...
...adamant is Thatcher toward the junta that she would not agree to any face-to-face talks, private or public, by any British official with the Argentine government. Britain would hope to use as intermediaries either Secretary of State Haig or U.N. Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar. Their first job would be to convince the Argentines that they are in a no-win position with a Britain, says a top government official, that has both the "resources and will power to stick it out indefinitely in the Falklands." In the negotiations, the British would brush aside the Argentine...