10. Editorial Note
On February 24, 1982, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in London, Edward J. Streator, met with British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Richard Luce for a tour d’horizon of Latin American topics in anticipation of the latter’s meeting with Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas O. Enders, scheduled to take place in Washington on March 1. During the meeting, which also touched upon El Salvador, Belize, and Cuba, Luce commented on the upcoming negotiations on the Falklands/Malvinas, set to begin in New York on February 26. In telegram 4235 from London, February 25, the Embassy transmitted a synopsis of the meeting and on these negotiations: “Luce noted that he would be in New York over the weekend for further discussions with Argentine officials on the future of the Falkland Islands. The Argentines, he said, were if anything more prickly than ever. The new regime in Buenos Aires was sounding more hawkish. It came through in a more aggressive attitude toward Chile over the Beagle Channel, and the Falklands negotiations could easily go the same route, to the disadvantage of all [Page 24] concerned. Luce wondered if we might quietly pass the word to the Argentines to ‘cool it’ a bit.” (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D820101–1058)
No memorandum of conversation or summary of Luce’s March 1 meeting with Enders has been found, although British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington stated in his March 8 message to Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr. that the Falklands/Malvinas were among the topics discussed by the two officials (see Document 12). The Department transmitted a summary of the portion of the meeting in which British commitments to Belize were discussed in telegram 55897 to Belize, London, and Guatemala, March 3, repeated for information to USSOUTHCOM, March 13. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D820114–0181)