Now, Alas, the Guns of May

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veering between authoritarianism and anarchy have produced a political culture of cynicism in Argentina. What is right is all too often what can be got away with. In that context, many if not most Argentines regard fulfillment of their historical claim to the Falklands as more important than the means used to attain it. Even though the population has become increasingly restive after six years of military rule, the junta enjoys solid public support for its stand on the Falklands.

That attitude is shared even by members of the country's community of more than 100,000 Argentine citizens of British extraction, descendants of the generations of British traders and technicians who helped build modern Argentina. Those Anglo-Argentines have long formed a special, privileged class in the country, with their own schools, hospitals, charities, churches and genteelly British ways of life. They congregate at institutions like the Hurlingham Club, a vast social and recreational complex in the heavily British Buenos Aires suburb of Hurlingham. The club has five polo fields, two swimming pools, a golf course, cricket pitch and gabled clubhouse. Says an Anglo-Argentine businessman: "The tragedy of it all is that 99% of the Anglo-Argentine community are in favor of the Argentine stand. We can't understand why Mrs. Thatcher reacted so violently."

Even so, the Thatcher government has advised the roughly 17,000 British subjects in the country to leave, and British officials in Buenos Aires are asking them to register at the Swiss embassy, which is handling London's interests. "We're just counting our flock," says one diplomat. So are the Argentines: plain-clothes policemen are reported to be conducting a census of Britons in Buenos Aires. Anglo-Argentines are feeling suddenly vulnerable in a country where weeks ago it was a mark of status to be British. Says one nervous Anglo-Argentine: "Everybody's scared. We've never been faced before with this situation of having to separate our two very strong loyalties. Today we're keeping a low profile and hoping to sit it out."

The same uneasy stirrings, reports TIME Correspondent William McWhirter, are beginning to affect the faraway town of Ushuaia (pop. 10,000), located 1,450 miles from Buenos Aires at Argentina's extreme southern tip. The bucolic community, which is the site of a major naval base and is now considered to be part of a national security zone, is normally a haven of tolerance where the police chief speaks English and local duty-free stores are filled with Burberry raincoats, Dunhill men's accessories, Mary Quant cosmetics, Pringle woolens, Johnnie Walker Scotch and other British goods. Writes McWhirter: "The mood of the town has begun to change along with the moving tides of war. Ushuaia's younger men have left their jobs to serve in the town's police reserves. Three British journalists have been arrested on charges of espionage after they were discovered taking notes and using binoculars near an airport. No local lawyer will take on their case. Two weeks ago, a 30-minute blackout drill was almost festive. This week the drill lasted an hour, and failure to comply carried a jail sentence."

The niceties of conduct in Ushuaia and elsewhere in Argentina may dwindle further when, and if, British and Argentines square off ashore in