Two Hollow Victories at Sea

By George Russell

And bombs fall on the Falklands as negotiators seek a way out

Steadily, malignantly, the ugly stain of war spread over the leaden South Atlantic last week. Sophisticated missiles streaked across the waves, while less visible but no less deadly computer-assisted torpedoes coursed through the icy waters. Before the week was over, each side had lost a proud warship to these lethal new engines of destruction. For the first time, the military forces of Britain and Argentina had mauled each other on the high seas in the bizarre battle for possession of the remote, inhospitable Falkland Islands. Then, as if stunned by the enormity of their actions, the adversaries momentarily drew apart, offering yet another opportunity for diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the crisis, which had begun with Argentina's invasion of the desolate territory on April 2.

As the fighting mounted, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who had led the U.S. only days before from the position of concerned mediator to that of avowed British ally, threw himself into an indirect attempt to provide a peaceful settlement. Haig's plan would have produced a cease-fire between the two sides by noon E.D.T. on Friday. But the effort failed, and at week's end the best hope for peace seemed to rest with the United Nations and a vague proposal sponsored by its Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar. Both Britain and Argentina maintained that they were pursuing the peace plan "urgently and constructively," but the language was contradicted by the mood: pessimism.

Despite the losses they had sustained, both countries and their leaders seemed as grimly committed as ever to their antagonistic objectives: Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, to making some 10,000 Argentine troops leave the Falklands; Argentine President Leopoldo Fortunate Galtieri, to winning acknowledgment of his country's sovereignty over the islands, which Argentines call the Malvinas (after the 18th century colonists who settled there from the French village of St. Malo). The British task was by far the harder one, yet Foreign Secretary Francis Pym sounded as firm as ever when he declared that "we shall do whatever necessary to end [the Argentines'] unlawful occupation. Our resolve remains undiminished."

To emphasize that point, Britain late last week declared that any Argentine ship or aircraft found more than twelve miles from Argentina's mainland would be considered hostile and dealt with "accordingly." Buenos Aires' Ambassador to the U.N. Eduardo Roca immediately denounced the move as "illegal." There was speculation that the 66-ship British armada, its deadliest elements standing at battle stations off the Falklands, might send troops ashore early this week. Weighing against that possibility was the fact that much of the equipment necessary for the invasion of the islands was aboard ships sailing from Ascension Island, 3,800 miles away, and was not expected to arrive until midweek or so. Britain, meanwhile, continued to requisition vessels of its commercial fleet, including the 67,500-ton Queen Elizabeth 2, the world's second largest passenger liner (after the 70,202-ton Norway), to ferry additional troops and supplies to the Falklands region (see box).

Violence of some sort had been expected as soon as the British task force, led by the aircraft carriers Hermes and Invincible, reached the area of the Falklands on April 29. The first action of the fleet's commander, Rear Admiral John ("Sandy") Woodward, 50, had been to enforce a total air and sea blockade within 200 miles of the islands. In a daring, long-distance raid on May 1, a delta-winged Vulcan bomber blasted the airstrip near the Falklands' tiny capital, Port Stanley. Flights of carrier-based Sea Harrier jets pounded the airfield with more bombs and also attacked a second, grassy airstrip 50 miles away, near the settlement of Goose Green. A British Sea King helicopter reportedly launched a strafing attack near the settlement of Port Darwin. British warships pulled close to the islands to add their gunfire to the punishing of the Port Stanley field. Throughout this early action, the British claimed to have avoided serious casualties and to have destroyed at least three Argentine warplanes.

The 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.

Armed with surface-to-air Seacat missiles and 6-in. and 5-in. naval guns, the venerable Belgrano, first commissioned by the U.S. in 1939,* had more firepower than any ship of the British fleet. But unknown to the 1,042 men aboard the Argentine warship, the cruiser-was being watched. Shadowing the Belgrano, as it had been doing for days, was a British nuclear-powered attack submarine, H.M.S. Conqueror.

To the skipper of the British sub, Commander Richard Wraith, the Bel-grano's movements seemed to indicate that the cruiser intended to close with the British fleet. TIME has learned the details of what happened next:

Wraith flashed the information of the Belgrano's course change to Fleet Commander Woodward, who passed it on to London. Admiral Sir Terence Lewin, chief of the British defense staff, took the news at once to the five-member emergency War Cabinet of Prime Minister Thatcher, which was meeting at 10 Downing Street. Lewin's recommendation was that the Conqueror act to defend the British task force. The War Cabinet agreed, and the order to fire was sent back to Commander Wraith.

Two wire-guided torpedoes of the Tigerfish type, one of the many exotic modern weapons that have come into play in the Falklands dispute (see box), flashed toward the Belgrano. Both hit their target. About 40 minutes later the stricken Belgrano disappeared from British and Argentine radar screens, the biggest casualty of the war. Indeed, it was the largest warship sunk in a naval engagement since Admiral William Halsey's attacks on the Japanese Inland Sea in 1945.

At first report, only about 125 members of the Belgrano's crew were said to have survived. Later, as Argentine rescue boats combed the waters of the area, the number of known survivors rose to about 800. But the strike against the cruiser was as much a psychological shock as a military one. The Belgrano was the second largest ship in the Argentine navy, behind the 39-year-old aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo. Loss of the vessel was a substantive blow to Argentine prestige. Moreover, the decision to sink the Belgrano outside the 200-mile blockade constituted a sharp escalation of the fighting and an abrupt change from the "minimal use of force" concept.

The British government's explanation was that on April 23 it had warned that any Argentine ship or plane representing a clear threat to the fleet would risk an "appropriate response." The dangers of broadening the war, British officials asserted, had to be measured against the risk of allowing the Belgrano to train its impressive firepower on the British task force. As Prime Minister Thatcher told the House of Commons, "The worry that I live with hourly is that Argentine forces, in attacks both naval and air, will get through to our forces."

The 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."

As well as the Belgrano, the Argentines announced--mistakenly it turned out--that yet another navy vessel had been lost. According to Buenos Aires, a dispatch ship, the Sobral, had been fired on by British missile-carrying Lynx helicopters as it searched for a downed Canberra bomber crew within the 200-mile zone. The British said that the Sobral and another Argentine boat had been hit and at least one sunk. A day later, the Sobral limped back into the Argentine port of Deseado with eight dead crewmen.

Britain also kept up the military pressure on land. Despite claims to have knocked out the airstrips at Port Stanley and Goose Green, the British sent another wave of Sea Harriers against both targets, followed by a second solo Vulcan attack on the field at Port Stanley. The initial attacks had left it possible for smaller aircraft to fly from the fields; the British also wanted to inhibit Argentine repair work. During these raids the British admitted to suffering their first loss: a Sea Harrier was downed, its pilot killed.

But this was merely a prelude. Some 42 hours after the attack on the Belgrano, the Argentines gained spectacular revenge. British Defense Secretary John Nott appeared before a dismayed House of Commons to report that a British destroyer, the 4,100-ton Sheffield, had been demolished by a French-built Exocet antiship missile fired from an Argentine fighter-bomber. The toll of dead, wounded and missing among the 270-member crew was 44; the death count was later announced to be about 20.

At the time of the attack, the Sheffield, a modern, computerized ship commissioned in 1975, and known in the British fleet as "the shiny Sheff," was on radar patrol about 70 miles from the Falklands. Its main duty was to protect the vulnerable aircraft carrier Hermes from air attack. Instead, the destroyer fell victim. At least two, and possibly three, French-built fighters, including at least one Super-Etendard fighter-bomber, were about 550 miles from a mainland airbase, presumably at Rio Gallegos, and nearing the limit of their combat range when the radar on a Super-Etendard locked in on the Sheffield. About 20 miles from the ship, two of the pilots fired one Exocet each and then wheeled away without waiting to see the results. One missile went wide of the mark. The other hit the Sheffield square amidships, penetrating all the way into the destroyer's highly electronic fire-control room before its 360-lb. warhead exploded, igniting, among other things, the remainder of the missile's volatile propellant. The effect, recalled the ship's captain, James Salt, 42, was "devastating."

As Salt told British journalists later aboard the Hermes, "We had time only to say, 'Take cover.' Three or four seconds later the missile hit, traveling at hundreds of miles an hour. It came in at six feet above the water level, damaged two large compartments and when inside the ship, exploded outward and upward. It hit the center of the ship, the center of all operations--mechanical, detection, weaponry. Within 20 seconds, the whole working area of the ship was engulfed by black, acrid, pungent smoke."

The fire quickly spread through the Sheffield's electrical wiring and its paintwork. The explosion also knocked out the ship's lighting and destroyed the principal water main used for onboard fire fighting. Said Salt: "We couldn't get below decks near the seat of the damage. We knew there were men down there, but we didn't know how many." After hours of unsuccessful fire fighting, Salt made the agonizing decision to abandon ship. Later he returned to his command by helicopter to view the damage. The Sheffield had refused to sink, but it remained an inferno. Recalled Salt: "The whole of the working area of the ship was a roaring mass of flames. We could see right down into the engine room."

The pall of smoke from the Sheffield had been clearly visible from the Hermes, where it brought a personal sense of loss to Fleet Commander Woodward. He was captain of the Sheffield from 1976 to 1978. There was another irony. While the Sheffield was being built at Barrow-in-Furness, England, a part of her hull was damaged in an industrial explosion. An identical type of destroyer, the Hercules, was being constructed alongside the damaged vessel, and the prospective owners, the Argentine government, generously offered to give the hull section intended for their ship to the British. The Hercules and a sister ship, Santisima Trinidad, are now the most modern vessels in the Argentine fleet.

News of the disaster rocked the British, who had until then been carried along on a wave of euphoria and rhetoric by the ability of their task force to inflict damage without sustaining serious casualties. In reality, however, the British had never been enthusiastic about losing lives in defense of their remote colony, even if the lives were Argentine. A Market & Opinion Research International poll, taken four days before the Sheffield sinking, had shown that three out of five Britons were not prepared to lose one serviceman's life in defense of the Falklands.

In Portsmouth, anxious families gathered in pouring rain outside the gates of the British naval headquarters for news of the fate of their loved ones. Special telephone lines installed to pass on information to next of kin were jammed with calls. In the destroyer's namesake city, Union Jacks were lowered to half-mast. Sheffield's Lord Mayor Enid Hattersley was on the verge of tears as she asked mournfully, "What is worth losing young lives for? One is too many." The re-action of most Britons was summed up by a Portsmouth man, who said he "had thought we might lose some because of the weather in the South Atlantic, but I never thought we would lose any to the Argies."

Among families of the dead, the forms of grief were mixed. Said Harry Taylor of the Dorset village of Ryme Intrinseca, father of the first Harrier pilot to be shot down: "I am proud to have a son who died doing the job he loved for the country he loved. Nick was always fully aware of the dangers." But Joan Goodall, the Enfield, Middlesex, mother of a 21-year-old cook aboard the Sheffield, was far airport stoic. Said she of her son Neil: "He never joined the navy to die for something as wasteful as this. I feel totally shattered and heartbroken."

The loss of the Sheffield sharpened the political situation for Thatcher and her Cabinet. Even before that setback, the spirit of unified support for the British government in its campaign to win back a territory taken by force had begun to give way, both at home and abroad. Indeed, the change in mood took effect almost immediately after the sinking of the Belgrano.

In the 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 Robert Runcie expressed similar fears. Said he: "It is a moral, not just a political duty to count the cost at every stage as the conflict develops."

Nonetheless, Thatcher still had staunch public support. According to recent public opinion polls, her government enjoyed 71% approval, even though the disapproval rating had risen from 20% to 25% in one week. More important, Thatcher's Conservative Party last week won a plurality of about 40% in nationwide local elections, the largest percentage of any party since age of any party since World War II. The nation was still rallying behind a leader beset by foreign foes.

For 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 a dubious step further and declared that "obviously, the British are very much the aggressors now." For that, Power received a public reprimand from Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey, but the change in feelings was clear. Explained one Irish diplomat: "The level of casualties is getting so high that somebody had to take the initiative." Ireland called for an immediate meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss an end to hostilities.

In Bonn, a West German government spokesman declared his Cabinet's "dismay" at the toll of human life in the South Atlantic; Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was widely reported to have told the Cabinet that "there can be no blank check of solidarity with Britain." In Paris, the Socialist government of President Franc,ois Mitterrand stated its "consternation" over the widening hostilities, and the French Council of Ministers called for a U.N.-negotiated settlement. The Italian government was more circumspect in its pronouncements, but popular pressure for a rethinking of all-out support for Britain was increasing; one reason was that at least 42% of Argentina's population is of Italian descent, and commercial ties between the two countries are strong.

In London, there was a growing fear that Western Europe might decide to discontinue its economic sanctions against Argentina, which must be renewed on May 17 at a foreign ministers' meeting. West Germany has already dropped hints that it might press for lifting sanctions. One Itallian source within the European Community suggested, however, that they would be renewed, but with a time limit: "No more than another month, perhaps just a couple of weeks."

Britain did retain the support of her allies at a meeting of NATO defense ministers, where Defense Secretary Nott reaffirmed Britain's willingness to cease hostilities, but only if Argentine troops were withdrawn from the islands. Failure to make that stipulation, he said, would "leave the burglar with the spoils."

Of even more concern to the Thatcher government was the attitude of the U.S., which had officially swung to Britain's side in the Falklands dispute only on April 30, after a month of unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a diplomatic settlement. Thatcher's War Cabinet realized that it could not afford to lose U.S. sympathy. As a senior British Cabinet member told TIME, "We cannot and will not repeat the ghastly mistake of Sir Anthony Eden at Suez in 1956, when he led Great Britain into war without the backing of America." Of Prime Minister Thatcher, widely known as one of the most hawkish voices in her inner circle, the Cabinet member said that "Margaret's heart may be telling her to leap into the fray, but her head is telling her that you cannot militarily operate in the Southern Hemisphere without U.S. explicit or implicit support."

Accordingly, almost because the fighting had worsened, the emphasis swung back to negotiation. Said a key British politician: "We realized that only the swiftest diplomatic action could recapture the international support we have been losing." The British looked first to Haig, who in turn found a mediator in Peruvian President Fernando Belaunde Terry. The use of Belaunde as an intermediary seemed to have several advantages. Peru is a Latin American country with traditionally friendly ties to Argentina. When the threat of war first emerged, the Peruvian Congress voted to send military supplies to Argentina. Belaunde, however, is a democratic moderate with close personal ties to the U.S.

The Peruvian plan was in essence a slightly modified version of proposals that Haig had been urging during his shuttle diplomacy last month. A senior British Cabinet member described it as "an American car painted in Peruvian colors with Haig in the driver's seat." The chief elements of the package were 1) a cease-fire with a simultaneous Argentine withdrawal from the islands and a pullback of the British fleet; 2) an end to economic sanctions against Argentina imposed by Britain's supporters; 3) establishment of an interim U.S.-Brazilian-West German-Peruvian authority for the Falklands while the two disputing countries negotiate ultimate sovereignty over the territory. Belaunde's chief contribution to the plan was to simplify some aspects of the U.S. ideas for the transitional administration of the islands.

Meanwhile, a second possibility for negotiations was opening up at the U.N., through the offices of Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar, himself a Peruvian. Some key details of Perez de Cuellar's peace proposals were deliberately unclear, but they also called for a cease-fire and pullback by the forces of both sides, as well as a temporary administration for the Falklands (this time under U.N. auspices).

Significantly, the Secretary-General's plan made no mention of the issue of ultimate sovereignty. Argentina was insisting that sovereignty is nonnegotiable, and Britain maintained that any settlement must respect the self-determination of the 1,800 Falkland Islanders, who are heavily in favor of remaining British. Perez de Cuellar set a midweek target for British and Argentine responses to his ideas, and a closed-door informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council was called the following day to consider the issue.

Britain was intent on pursuing the Peruvian initiative, which kept the U.S. indirectly involved in the negotiations. Secretary of State Haig showed it to British Foreign Secretary Pym in Washington. The pair discussed the ideas for four hours, before Pym flew on to the U.N. After making some changes, they sent the proposal to London. Two days later, the British responded through their Ambassador to Washington Nicholas Henderson. The collective ideas were sent on to Lima, where representatives of the Argentine junta were waiting for them.

In order to keep U.S. support, the British were willing to make a number of significant concessions. As Pym informed the House of Commons after returning from New York City, a "vital ingredient of the ideas on which we are working is an early cease-fire and the prompt withdrawal of Argentine forces." That wording differed from previous British demands, which had called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Argentine forces from the islands before any other discussion could begin. The British also seemed willing to soften their insistence on self-determination for the Falkland Islanders, now saying only that their "wishes" had to be taken into account. Finally, the British said that they would find a U.N. administration acceptable, as opposed to their earlier demand for a "return to British administration" in the Falklands before any negotiations.

The sharpest point of British insistence was that any cease-fire be linked to a guaranteed plan for the withdrawal of Argentine troops. The alternative, Thatcher told the Commons, would play into Argentine hands. "It would be too easy to say 'no military activities during negotiations,' " she said in reply to a question from Opposition Leader Foot. "We should then be hamstrung. The people on the islands would still be under the heel of the invader, while Argentina increased its activities on the mainland, with supplies and reserves, to attack us at their will."

Argentina might well have had something like that in mind. The first response from Buenos Aires was to reject the Peruvian proposal out of hand. Then the junta seemed to reconsider. But on Wednesday, the Argentines informed Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar that they were examining the U.N. peace proposals with, as he put it, "great interest and a sense of urgency." A Foreign Ministry statement also declared that "the first step toward a solution must be an immediate cease-fire." There was no mention of military withdrawal. Britain's insistence on the opposite course of events, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said, meant that "there is no diplomatic solution for the moment."

At the same time, the Buenos Aires government announced a series of austerity measures designed to bolster the country's wartime economy during a prolonged conflict. The Argentine peso was devalued by 17% to boost exports, while a 7% tax was announced on important goods sold abroad, to help pay for the war effort. Additional taxes went into effect for gasoline, cigarettes and liquor.

The following day, the junta made its feelings explicitly known on the vital sovereignty issue. Defense Minister Amadeo Frugoli announced at a Buenos Aires press conference: "Argentina has clearly stated that its sovereignty over the islands should be recognized." He reiterated that the country is "open to any diplomatic negotiations as long as they do not affect its honor and legitimate rights." The Argentines sent Deputy Foreign Minister Enrique Ros to New York City to "explore the ideas" of Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar on peace in the Falklands and to provide unspecified "comments" on them.

So far as the British were concerned, Defense Minister Frugoli's statement ended the Peruvian peace initiative. Commented Pym: "I am deeply disappointed that Argentine intransigence has once again frustrated a constructive initiative. Had they genuinely wanted peace, they would have accepted these latest proposals put to them, and we could have had a cease-fire in place."

Casting a further pall over the British was the news that two more of its Sea Harriers were missing and presumed lost in the Falklands, the apparent victims of brutal South Atlantic weather conditions. The size of the carrier-based Harrier force was thus reduced from the initial 20 to at most 17. In a move to strengthen the task force, a group of 18 to 20 Harriers that were supposed to reach the Falklands by ship were instead ordered to fly to the combat zone from Ascension Island; they will be refueled in air, and most of them should reach the carriers early this week.

Britain's aerial weakness over the Falklands is the task force's Achilles' heel. Rear Admiral Woodward is extremely limited in the number of aircraft he can send aloft for combat patrols and raids on the islands while continuing to protect his fleet. That weakness, more than any other factor, might hamper a British invasion of the islands. To help beef up the British air effort further, the government late last week dispatched long-range Nimrod reconnaissance planes to the South Atlantic. Nimrods, the British version of the AWACS, can give British ships warning of enemy aircraft well before they come within striking distance. In addition, the British government announced that four more frigates would join the Falklands fleet. One other possibility: the ferrying of Royal Air Force Phantom interceptors to the South Atlantic for combat runs, using airborne tankers for refueling, as the British did with their Vulcan bombing runs.

Argentina was fully aware of the British handicap and, if anything, seemed to be taking an even tougher line, both militarily and diplomatically. As one senior Argentine Cabinet minister and confidant of President Galtieri's told TIME last week, "We are not trying to strut like roosters, but I am less worried today than when the British fleet sailed. The loss of so many lives has made negotiations more difficult. Above all, the Argentine people will not let us take one step backward. The Argentines are winning the war."

That assertion was by no means justified. But it did serve to underline a grim fact: as long as military and diplomatic conditions did not force Argentina to a different assessment, the ugly battle at the bottom of the world might be very hard to stop.

--By George Russell. Reported by Bonnie Angelo,Frank Melville/London,Gavin Scott/Buenos Aires

* The 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.

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo, Frank Melville/London, Gavin Scott/Buenos Aires

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