Word: haig
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Fearful that Haig's mission might be compromised, U.S. officials sought to play down the significance of the pro-British tilt. As close NATO allies, one U.S. analyst pointed out, the two countries' intelligence services are "interlocking at almost every level." Moreover, the facilities at Ascension Island are leased from Britain under terms that require the U.S. to make them available on request...
...Haig shuttled between Washington, London and Buenos Aires, he was criticized by officials at the State Department for being on the road when tensions were mounting dangerously in the Middle East and when issues ranging from Central America to arms control demanded his attention. Haig's detractors, both in and out of the Government, argued that the main job of the Secretary of State was to set broad policy, an aim the Administration has yet to fulfill. Britain and Argentina, on the other hand, welcomed Haig's personal involvement because he provided an influential-indeed the only-channel...
...time went by, more and more resentment was building up in Britain against Haig's scrupulous neutrality in the negotiations. America's most faithful ally, the British reasoned, should not be equated with an unsavory military dictatorship...
Grumbled Denis Healey, the Labor Par ty's shadow Foreign Secretary: "The time has come when we must tell the U.S. that the attitude of an evenhanded broker is not quite enough." In contrast, Prime Minister Thatcher and her ministers last week accepted the fact that Haig had to take a public stance of neutrality, but the British government made it clear to the Secretary that it would expect the U.S. to change its posture if his mediating talks failed; the U.S. would be expected to join in the European trade and economic sanctions against Argentina. Warned a British...
Seeking to quiet those fears, the Ad ministration reportedly assured the Thatcher government that it would side with the British if all prospects of talks with the Argentines broke down. Meanwhile, Haig was not yet ready to give up his efforts to find a way out of a developing crisis between two nations both convinced they are right on a matter of honor and principle. - By John Nielsen. Reported by Frank Melville/London and Gavin Scott/Buenos Aires