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A day of negotiations and walking on eggshells as the crisis over the Falkland Islands escalates.
Secretary of State Alexander Haig arrived in London just at a time when the fragile US posture of strict neutrality in the Falkland Islands crisis was wearing thin. State Department officials said Britain was bringing pressure to bear on Washington to “get off the fence ” and support the programme of economic sanctions initiated by Mrs. Thatcher’s Government against Argentina.
A division of opinion was reported in the State Department with the old-line foreign policy establishment, led career professionals who placed a high value on the Atlantic Alliance leaning towards more open support for Britain. Among those was said to be Deputy Secretary of State Walter StoesseL.
Meanwhile, President Reagan, on the first stop of a trip designed to amplify U.S. friendship with the island nations of the Caribbean, said yesterday he is determined to expand “the opportunity of your people to trade freely with us.” eagan, greeted by Prime Minister Ed-waro Seaga and schoolchildren who danced the calypso beneath a blazing sun, told his hosts that “Jamaica is an inspiration to all of us who believe freedom and economic development are compatible and mutually reinforcing.” “The people of Jamaica and the people of the Caribbean are the hope of economic recovery of this region so vital to us,” Reagan said. He said he and his wife were “delighted to visit Jamaica as so many Americans do each year.” The president then headed for a formal meeting with Seaga, followed by a state dinner. Several hundred Jamaicans lined an airport fence for Reagan’s arrival aboard Air Force One. Seaga told Reagan he wished he could remain longer than the scheduled 19 hours, so he could gain “a personal impression” of “the degree of welcome the people of Jamaica” would express to him. Jamaica is the third-largest island in the Caribbean. It gained its independence from Britain 20 years ago.
Reagan’s visit is the first by an American president to either Jamaica or Barbados, his second stop.
And Welsh housewife Enyd Muxworthy began her own propaganda war against Argentina and the Falklands crisis. She picked up the phone, dialed a Buenos Aires number at random and rendered two choruses of “Rule Britannia” down the line. “I had just watched the scenes as our naval task force sailed out and I was feeling very patriotic, but very frustrated about what I could do to help,” said Muxworthy. 37. “I felt better afterwards. It helped get it off my chest.” It costs $1.80 a minute to telephone Buenos Aires from Llantrisant and Muxworthy said she’ll wait for the phone bill before extending her campaign. That news must have come as some relief to the residents of Buenos Aires. “She has a terrible voice,” said her husband, David.
And while tensions continued to ramp up over the Falklands, that’s just a small slice of what went on, this April 8, 1982 as reported by The CBS World News Roundup.
