Now, Alas, the Guns of May

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Argentine diplomat declared that the U.S. mediation effort was "suspended" and that his country was "technically at war" with Britain. Costa Méndez took his case to a Washington meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization of American States. There Argentina intended to invoke the 1947 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, to which the U.S. is a party. That pact, also known as the Treaty of Rio, stipulates that an armed attack against any one of the signatories will be considered an attack against them all and provides for various sanctions against the aggressor.

Most Latin countries are sympathetic to Argentina's claim, but not to its use of force. In the end, the O.A.S., by a 17-to-O vote with the U.S. and three other countries abstaining, passed a resolution supporting Argentine sovereignty in the Falklands. But the resolution also demanded adherence to U.N. Security Council Resolution 502. The junta had miscalculated.

Meanwhile, European Community* foreign ministers reaffirmed their backing of economic sanctions against Argentina during a meeting in Luxembourg attended by Foreign Secretary Pym. Clearly, the British were succeeding in consolidating their support. At the meeting Pym also defended the U.S. for failing by that time to join in the sanctions, showing sympathy for Haig's continuing efforts to act as mediator. Privately, however, many Britons were growing resentful of the American public posture of evenhandedness in the conflict.

Pressure was growing in the U.S. Congress for the Reagan Administration to side more openly with Britain. The Senate voted 79 to 1 in favor of a pro-British resolution that called on the U.S. Government to "use all appropriate means to assist the British government." Haig, meanwhile, cabled his settlement proposals directly to the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina for transmission to that country's junta. Two days later the answer came back via Argentine Ambassador to Washington Estaban Takács: No. With that, the U.S. moved to back the British.

The sanctions announced by Haig are more important diplomatically than they are in economic terms. While Haig has been fostering improved relations with Argentina, American assistance to that country has not recovered from the chilly period when the Carter Administration was outspokenly critical of an earlier Argentine junta's human rights record.

Any U.S. military assistance of consequence would have needed congressional approval. The loan guarantees from the federal Commodity Credit Corporation are used mainly for financing the sale of American agricultural products abroad; but Argentina is a major agricultural exporter, especially to the Soviet Union, and was expected to receive only $2 million in loan guarantees this year. The most important sanction was on credits from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which will affect $500 million in Argentine purchases of hydroelectric equipment. Despite the sanctions, the U.S. would remain among Argentina's largest foreign trading partners. Argentina last year bought $2.2 billion worth of goods from the U.S., and sold $1.12 billion in return. Britain's European allies have gone one big step further than Washington by also severing their trade links with Argentina.

In Buenos Aires, the three-member junta headed by President Leopoldo

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