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Reagan's remark about being friends with both sides gave ammunition to those who criticize the Administration's priorities in balancing hemispheric anti-Communism against the need to maintain NATO unity. It also provided an opening for political extremists, including British Labor Party Radical Tony Benn. He told the House of Commons that "President Reagan is not only going to be neutral but bitterly hostile to any act of war against Argentina, because American power rests on the rotten military dictatorships of Latin America." The situation worsened when a U.S. Defense Department spokesman said: "The U.S. is right down the middle on the Falklands dispute."
The British understood the desire of the Administration to appear as neutral as possible as it tried to defuse the crisis, but Thatcher's government made it bluntly plain that it expected the U.S. to use its leverage to induce Argentina to remove its troops from the Falkland Islands. Meeting with Haig, British Ambassador Henderson said: "Our view, frankly, is that American interests are at stake as much as ours. If it's a question of overthrowing frontiers and sovereignty and territorial integrity by force in the American hemisphere, goodness knows where it could end." Henderson reminded Haig: "If U.S. territory were occupied or assaulted, as it has been, you wouldn't start negotiating until the military situation was restored. The U.S. did not sit down with Japan the day after Pearl Harbor." Henderson said later that the British were not asking for military assistance from the U.S., nor did they want U.S. intelligence reports. Said Henderson: "We have the capability to achieve our objective ourselves."
Haig also met with Argentine Foreign Minister Costa Méndez, who a day earlier had excoriated Britain for "colonialism" at a Washington meeting of the 28-member Organization of American States. (The O.A.S. has delicately postponed taking any action on the invasion issue until this week.) Costa Méndez also threatened to invoke the 1947 Treaty of Rio de Janeiro, which requires its Western Hemispheric signatories to help one another if attacked. The U.S. is a key signatory, but after 73 minutes with Haig, Costa Méndez sounded far less eager to test the theoretical limits of the inter-American mutual defense system. Instead, he welcomed the forthcoming visit of Haig to Buenos Aires.
Thatcher's formal invitation for Haig to come to Great Britain arrived the following day during a morning meeting at the White House of the National Security Planning Group (the inner circle of the National Security Council). The Falklands confrontation and Haig's possible role were the main topics of the 40-minute meeting. Said a White House aide: "What was being weighed was the likelihood of success. Would we come up emptyhanded? The conclusion was that nobody knew for sure whether this would be a success. But with both sides