Postscript The Beagle War - April – June 1978
In the spring of 1978, the South Atlantic was not high on anyone’s list of potential global flashpoints. There had been a longstanding dispute between Chile and Argentina over the Beagle Channel and the chain of islands there. If anywhere in the region was deemed likely to provoke a military conflict it was the Falkland Islands, which the Argentinians also laid claim to, though the fact these were British dependencies should have ruled out any move by the Argentinians to try and invade them. Despite the high risk the Argentinians seriously considered an amphibious assault to seize the Islands and South Georgia in late 1977. They believed that with PM Dennis Healy and the Labour government focused on domestic issues on domestic issues and looking to reduce the defence budget there might be an opening for a swift decisive invasion of the Falklands This idea was also partly motivated by the fact that a British led international tribunal had awarded control of Picton, Lennox and Nueva to Chile in June of 1977. Wanting to punish the British for this action and deliver a military success that would bolster their failing public support the Junta controlling Argentina at the time had convinced themselves that faced with a fait accompli the British would protest but do nothing else. This theory was soundly rebuffed when intelligence pointing to Argentinian intentions was received in London and the Destroyers
HMS Sheffield and
HMS Hood were dispatched on a visit to the Falklands in November of 1977, along with the nuclear submarine
HMS Temeraire. The presence of two British warships anchored off Port Stanley caused the Argentine Junta to reconsider their options and yet instead of abandoning the idea of using military action to distract from Argentina’s economic woes the Junta turned their attention back to the Beagle Channel.
If targeting the Beagle Channel avoided starting a conflict with a major western power invading the islands risked spilling over into a full-scale war with Chile instead, and whereas Britain was thousands of miles away Chile and Argentina shared a long common border. Still the Argentinians carried on planning an invasion to seize control of the islands supported by a full-scale invasion of Chile if necessary. It was a case of military minds seeking a military solution to social and political problems. The Argentines were willing to take this risk because they erroneously believed they would have the support of the USA, since the Americans had been willing to supply arms to the Junta precisely because of their enmity towards Chile. The US government had not been happy when Salvador Allende became president of Chile and the CIA worked with elements in the Chilean military to orchestrate a coup. This went spectacularly wrong in late 1972 when the Washington Post published details of the ‘Cuba Papers’, which not only revealed information about the conduct of the military and the CIA during the occupation of Cuba but also revealed information about some of the CIA’s other ‘black ops’ including their connections with the Chilean military. This resulted in a number of army officers, condemned as American puppets, being arrested or fleeing the country, including chief conspirator General Augusto Pinochet. He found refuge in Argentina, which only served to increase the strain on relations between the two countries. Much to the surprise of the US Allende followed the Chilean constitution which forbade anyone from being President for two consecutive terms and he was replace by his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva, which was not much of an improvement in American eyes. Some had hoped that after Nelson Rockefeller won the US Presidential election in 1976 there might be a thawing of relations, especially considering the constant accusations about the brutal treatment of opponents of the Junta in Argentina. Unfortunately, these hopes were dashed as the Rockefeller administration renewed US support to Argentina, and the US was distinctly non-committal about ratifying the disposition of the Beagle Channel arrived at by the arbitration commission.
It was this that led the Argentine to believe that they could count on the US to prevent any meaningful international response and the invasion of the islands began just after dawn on the 22nd of April. The Chileans had very little in the way of a presence on any of the trio and in the face of near simultaneous landings on all three there was little they could do to resist. The only significant casualties for the Argentines came when two amphibious assault vehicles collided just off Picton island and sank, claiming some twenty live in the process. Publicly the Argentines justified their action by claiming that control of the islands was vital to Argentina’s national interest and that the arbitration had been biased and possibly even corrupt, a claim that aroused the ire of the British.
Initially the US reaction to the capture of the islands was all that the Argentines could have hoped for. When he addressed the issue on the 24th of April President Rockefeller called for a halt to any further military action and for both sides to agree to sit down and negotiate. This superficially reasonable position served to infuriate many of the professional diplomats in Washington as it could be read as acceding to the Argentinian seizure despite the action being in violation of international agreements the USA was technically a party to. Rockefeller claimed that the fact things didn’t escalate into a full-blown Argentine invasion of Chile, or vice versa, was owing to his call for restraint. In fact the Argentines had concluded that despite possessing a much a larger military than the Chileans the terrain along the border and the natural advantages that accrued to the defender would make such an attack far too costly, though it seems this was not finally decided until the 23rd of April, too late to reconsider the Beagle Channel operation. Being heavily outnumbered served to dissuade the Chileans from any operations in the opposite direction, for the time being at least, and instead they began to work on plans to remove the Argentines from the islands and trying to build up international support, whether diplomatic or practical.
If the reaction from Washington towards the invasion was rather lukewarm the political temperature in London swiftly approached boiling point. The accusations of bias and corruption in the arbitration was a direct slap in the face to the British. Equally importantly this reckless action by the Argentinians raised serious concerns about what they might do next, meaning that the security of the Falkland Islands was once again in question. By pure coincidence other events had served to bring the Falkland Islands to the attention of the British public, specifically a BBC documentary that had explored the islands and their wildlife, meaning that when details of the previous Argentinian threat to the island leaked the press made them front page news. Several British newspapers who were inclined towards supporting the Conservative Party accused the government of jeopardizing British interests by their inaction, conveniently ignoring deployment of the Royal navy ships to the Falklands the previous winter. The two destroyers and
HMS Temeraire had returned to Britain in January and rather than simply sending another small force of warships Prime Minister Healy decided that a clear and unequivocal message had to be sent to Argentina and so despite objections from some in the Royal Navy, and in his own cabinet, he decided a fully-fledged taskforce would be dispatched with the aircraft carrier
HMS Vanguard at the heart of a force of fourteen warships which would escort a group of transport ships carrying a force of 385 Royal Marines to reinforce the defences on the islands. Healy announced his decision on the 27th of April and stated the task force would depart within the next fortnight. This both allowed the British government to be seen to be taking strong action and left a window of opportunity for pressure to be applied to the Argentinians to withdraw from the Beagle Channel and avoid the risk of clashing with the Royal Navy.
There was consternation in both Buenos Aires and Washington at the British decision, though regrettably not much in the way of a coherent response. In Washington there had already been some heated discussions behind closed doors at the White House about the President’s ‘hasty’ pronouncement, with Vice-President Ronald Reagan being particularly unhappy. He was of the opinion that the US should have followed the British lead and dispatched a US Navy Taskforce to the area, with US Marines taking control of the Beagle Islands ‘temporarily’ while conducting long term negotiations with Chile and Argentina over their final disposition. This idea horrified the State Department, still dealing with the mess created by the US withdrawal from Cuba, and annoyed President Rockefeller, who was in no mood to be portrayed as having been misunderstood or as having flip-flopped on his position. These disagreements served to prevent any positive action from Washington as April turned to May and the US Ambassador to the UN was left in the embarrassing position of having to abstain while a resolution condemning the Argentine occupation of the Beagle islands was passed in the General Assembly.
In Buenos Aires there was considerable apprehension among the leaders of the Junta at the British move, and this was nothing compared to the mounting tension among the general population, where the seizure of the Beagle islands had done nothing to bolster the standing of the Junta. Common sense might have dictated they take advantage of the opportunity seemingly afforded by President Rockefeller’s statement and seek an agreement to withdraw from the islands on condition the issue of control would be renegotiated. Given the divisions in Washington attempts by the Junta to reach out produced no result as the professional diplomats were desperately trying to distance the USA from this idea. Faced with this the Argentinians sought to calm the situation with the British by sending assurances that they had not been accusing them of any wrongdoing with regard to the arbitration and that they had never intended to invade the Falkland Islands. Given that the British had intelligence that gave the lie to this latter claim this diplomatic effort also failed dismally and with great fanfare the Royal Navy taskforce duly set sail on the 9th of May.
The time it took for the taskforce to reach the South Atlantic created a further opportunity for diplomacy and there would be several attempts to create some sort of workable compromise, with Peru taking a leading role acting on behalf of the UN. These efforts foundered because the Chileans were utterly unwilling to entertain any plan that might reopen the question of control of the Beagle Islands and the dispatch of the British taskforce simply stiffened their resolve. The Chileans were making discrete diplomatic overtures to London, looking for more active support from the Healy government. Even if a direct intervention was out of the question the Chileans hoped that might be able to obtain weapons and equipment that would strengthen their defence and encourage the Argentinians to back down. No one in London was prepared to go that far, yet, but neither did they encourage the Chileans to back down in the face of Argentine aggression. Adding the continued arguments in Washington over what steps they should take and in support of whom it was not surprising that the crisis was still threatening to flash over into a full-scale war between Chile and Argentina when the taskforce arrived on the 24th of May.
In Buenos Aires the Junta was now desperately looking for a way out of the crisis but were not at this point prepared to withdraw from the Beagle Islands without at least the guarantee that the result of the arbitration would be revised, something that definitely was not on offer. Any hopes that the seizure of the islands would bolster the Junta had been dashed by the hostile response from London and the clear signs of back peddling from President Rockefeller’s original position in Washington. The mood in Argentina overall was one of sullen unhappiness with an undercurrent of fear, only made worse by a series of false alarms about air attacks heading for Buenos Aires. The one action the Junta did take as the taskforce arrived was to recall the aircraft carrier
ARA Veinticinco de Mayo for fear that there might be an accidental encounter between aircraft from
Veinticinco de Mayo and patrolling fighters from
HMS Vanguard. There was something of an irony in this owing to the fact that the
Veinticinco de Mayo had begun life as the Royal Navy carrier
HMS Vengeance. News of the withdrawal soon reached the Chileans, and this encouraged them to concentrate elements of their own navy around the Beagle Islands. These ships included the
Almirante Lynch, a derivative of the Leander Class of Royal Navy frigates. She had been built in the UK and would engage in the most significant military action of the conflict.
On the 27th of May the
ARA General Belgrano was escorting a transport carrying supplies and equipment for the troops garrisoned on Picton Island. This was meant to be a fast run, but the transport proved incapable of maintaining its rated speed and thus the journey would take a full eight hours longer than planned, which prove to be enough time for the
Almirante Lynch to intercept the pair, though precisely how the Chilean acquired the information on the course and speed of the Argentine ships has been hotly disputed. Many believe that the British passed this intelligence to the Chileans, though records pertaining to operations in the South Atlantic are not due to be declassified until 2028 and successive governments have refused to be drawn on the issue. Conversely the
General Belgrano was unaware that there was a Chilean ship in the vicinity and does not appear to have detected
Almirante Lynch or if the
Belgrano did, she does not appear to have registered the
Almirante Lynch. Given that it was impossible to get any first-hand accounts from the senior officers of the
General Belgrano in the aftermath of the encounter a definitive answer is impossible to come by. The
Almirante Lynch had received updated rules of engagement that called for her to engage any hostile warships approaching the Beagle Islands without warning and she was equipped with a battery of British made Stingray anti-shipping missiles. At about 1810 hours she targeted the
General Belgrano and fired two missiles. One failed to lock on but the second hit home, penetrating the hull just behind B turret. Fire and smoke billowed out of the hole torn in the hull as the explosion started a fire aboard the
Belgrano. Frantic efforts were made to contain the fire but barely ten minutes after the missile hit a massive explosion in the ammunition magazine for B turret wracked the ship and broke her back.
The Admiral Belgrano she slid beneath the water at 1845 hours, taking 904 of her crew with her, including her captain.
The merchant ship the
General Belgrano had been escorting immediately turned around and headed back to port, leaving the
Almirante Lynch to pick up the survivors of the attack. These survivors were shocked to be brought aboard a Chilean warship, apparently believing that the
General Belgrano had been torpedoed by a Royal Navy submarine. This was also the belief in Buenos Aires, even after the
Almirante Lynch radioed her base and reported their successful attack and the rescue of the survivors. It was only when the
Almirante Lynch returned to harbour and offloaded the survivors that the Chilean version of events was finally accepted by the Argentinians, or at least by most of the populace, the Junta still clung to the claim that it was the Royal Navy that had sunk the
Belgrano, which while provocative on one front provided an excuse not to escalate the situation with the Chileans, especially given they had rescued the survivors.
This sudden absence of belligerence was a result of the rapid shift in both the international and domestic attitude to the invasion of the Beagle Islands. On the 29th of May President Rockefeller called for Argentine withdrawal from the Beagle islands, ‘without precondition’. There were also large-scale demonstrations in Buenos Aires, and they were not in support of the Junta. Most Argentinians had concluded that they country was facing to prospect of a war that might draw in the British and Americans for a handful of islands that seemed to have little of value to offer. Crucially this attitude had crept into the ranks of the military as well, meaning that the Junta was on very shaky ground even among its natural supporters. The choices facing the Junta were stark, escalation or withdrawal. With no appetite for the former they would have to embrace the latter and try to avoid total humiliation in the process. The Argentinian announcement on the 2nd of June that they would withdraw was a huge relief to the international community, especially the Chileans and the British. The British were happy that the bulk of the difficult to sustain taskforce could be brought home, though several ships would remain in the area until August and the Chileans were willing to restrain their celebration of victory as they were acutely aware they had avoided a major war by the narrowest of margins.
The withdrawal did nothing to reduce the unrest in Argentina and the Junta would be ousted from power in September 1978. President Rockefeller would last rather longer but the mishandling of the crisis permanently damaged the relationship between Rockefeller and Reagan and established a narrative in the media of a gaffe prone administration that Rockefeller could never shake off, contributing to his defeat in 1980. For Denis Healy however the adventure in the South Atlantic proved to be a boost, with even the usual critics forced to concede that they had acted decisively and protected British interests. How much this influenced the Labour victory in the General Election of August 1978 is debatable, but it may have contributed a couple of seats to the majority of 37 that Labour achieved, allowing them to continue in office until 1983.
