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Trying to avert a crisis this day in 1982.
Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said “substantial differences” still separated Britain and Argentina and abruptly postponed his return to Buenos Aires. Argentina, meanwhile, prepared its fleet to sail, possibly against the British blockade around the Falklands.
Leaving 10 Downing Street, Haig said that “we made some progress” in detailed discussions with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her foreign and defense secretaries of “some ideas we had developed in Buenos Aires” during talks Saturday with the Argentine military government of President Leopoldo Galtieri. Haig said then that he was leaving immediately to return to Buenos Aires to continue his shuttle diplomacy but early this morning the U.S. Embassy here announced that he was staying in London for the time being. Without further explanation, the embassy said Haig had been in touch several times Monday night by telephone with Buenos Aires and “a complication has arisen at that end.”
Meanwhile, Argentina’s military government endorsed a proposal for a’ 72-hour truce with Britain while Haig seeks a diplomatic solution to the dispute and called on Britain to suspend its naval blockade in the South Atlantic. Britain was studying the proposal, according to British sources. An Argentine Foreign Ministry’ spokesman said in Buenos Aires that Argentina had agreed to a truce in a note from Foreign Minister Nicanor Costa Mendez submitted to the Peruvian ambassador there late Sunday. The note said that for the truce to take effect, Britain would have to suspend its threat to subject all Argentine ships within 200 miles of the Falklands to attack, the official said.
And Palestinians rioted throughout the occupied territories Monday, enraged by a Jewish gunman’s attack on the Moslem shrine Temple Mount. Israeli troops and police used rifle fire, rubber bullets and tear gas to battle the worst Arab riots in years. Israel Television counted 30 disturbances in Arab East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and said 30 people were wounded 16 Palestinian Arabs hit by Israeli gunfire in four separate riots and 14 Israelis or foreign tourists mostly injured by rocks hurled by Arab rioters. One soldier, hit by a rock in Nablus in the West Bank, was among the Israelis injured.
And that’s a tiny fraction of what happened this April 12, 1982 as reported by the CBS World News Roundup.
