Word: sheffield
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...major exchange of blows last week in the battle for the Falklands. After a series of seemingly effortless British successes-the retaking of South Georgia Island, the bombing of the Falklands' airstrips and the sinking of the cruiser General Belgrano-Argentines savored the notion that in destroying H.M.S. Sheffield they had evened the score. Declared a Buenos Aires taxi driver: "We're going to clobber the English so hard they'll know who the Argentines...
Navy Secretary John Lehman defended the Administration's plan to build 110 new surface ships, including spending $7 billion for two 90,000-ton Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers. The sinking of the Sheffield, said Lehman, showed that relying on smaller aircraft carriers, as proposed by Colorado Democrat Gary Hart and other military reformers, would be dangerous. Only large carriers can transport airborne defenses, including F-14 "Tomcat" fighters and surveillance planes, that will adequately protect fleets against modern missiles. The Argentine plane carrying Exocet missiles "would not have gotten anywhere near one of our battle groups," he claimed...
Another military lesson of the war is that world arms sales often beget unintended consequences. The flagship of the Argentine fleet is an aircraft carrier built by Britain; the Sheffield was sunk by a missile made in France. U.S. proposals to sell F-5E fighter jets to Taiwan have exacerbated another lingering territorial dispute. Vice President George Bush went to Peking last week to try to ease Sino-American tensions caused by the proposed arms sale...
Although Reagan downplayed the drama, his appetite for information was strong. When the Sheffield was hit by the Argentines, Reagan wanted details on the French-made missile that struck the ship. He also wanted to know why the British had split up their fleet, thus leaving the destroyer exposed...
Until last week the President accepted the British theory that a show of force would drive Argentina into negotiations before there was significant loss of life. With the attack on the Sheffield and rising indignation against the U.S. throughout Latin America, Reagan conceded that this idea had been a miscalculation. Some of the President's advisers concluded that perhaps they had abandoned evenhandedness a bit too dramatically, even though Reagan's luck seemed to be holding. A reminder for next time: more finesse...