Falklands War

Walter Gonzalez hawks military pins, key chains and ribbons from a makeshift stand at a bustling plaza, peddling memories of a war few care to remember. "When we returned from there, we remained in the shadows," says Gonzalez, a fatigue-clad, shaggy-haired survivor of battle and years of postwar therapy. "No one wanted to talk about it."

As education secretary in the 1970s, Margaret Thatcher said she did not think a woman would become British prime minister in her lifetime. She would occupy the job for nearly a dozen years, moving into 10 Downing St. in 1979. Thatcher died Monday at the age of 87. Here are memorable quotes from her political career: “I stand before you tonight in my Red Star chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up and my fair hair gently waved, the 'Iron Lady' of the Western world.

Argentina will insist on punishment for any British veterans of the 1982 Falklands war who may be found guilty of crimes against Argentine prisoners, President Carlos Menem said Tuesday. Britain's metropolitan police are probing allegations made by veterans of both sides that British soldiers had tortured and shot Argentine prisoners during the 10-week war in the South Atlantic.

LONDON -- In an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, published as an advertisement in the Guardian and other newspapers Thursday, the president of Argentina demanded the return of the British-ruled Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.   In the letter, copied to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called for a U.N. resolution to return the Malvinas, as they are known in Argentina, to...

Nicanor Costa Mendez, 69, a former Argentine foreign minister and key figure in the Falklands war in 1982. A lawyer linked to right-wing Catholic groups, Costa Mendez gained prominence 10 years ago as one of the people who inspired Argentina's internationally rebuffed attempt to retake the Falkland Islands, a British Crown Colony since 1832. He was appointed foreign minister and the principal civilian counselor of military President Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri.

Lord John Fieldhouse, commander of British forces during the 1982 Falklands War, has died at 64, the Ministry of Defense announced Tuesday without giving a cause of death. He died Monday at a hospital in Southampton, about 80 miles southwest of London. Fieldhouse retired as a fleet admiral in 1988 because of his health. He was Britain's highest-ranking admiral when Argentina invaded the Falklands on April 2, 1982, claiming sovereignty over the south Atlantic island group.

Argentina and Britain announced an agreement Thursday to restore full diplomatic ties, nearly eight years after they fought a 74-day war over the Falkland Islands, a sparsely populated archipelago off Argentina's coast in the South Atlantic Ocean. The announcement capped two days of talks here between Argentine and British officials. Britain agreed to lift by March 31 a 150-mile military protection zone enforced around the islands since Argentina invaded them in 1982.

Britain today brushed off a new Argentine offer for peace talks on the disputed Falklands, saying that it will not discuss sovereignty over the islands and that the proposal appears to offer nothing new. On Monday, Argentina proposed replacing the truce that ended the 1982 Falklands War with a permanent cease-fire if Britain lifts its 150-mile military protection zone in the south Atlantic around the Falklands. (Story, Page 7.)

India has bought the aircraft carrier Hermes, Britain's flagship during the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina, for about $90 million, officials here said Wednesday. The deal, signed over the weekend, ended 10 months of negotiations for the 28,000-ton ship, which will be India's second carrier, the officials said. The price includes a six-month refitting in Britain. The Hermes was built toward the end of World War II and went into service in the 1950s.

Both the United States and Britain have versions of the so-called jump jet, popularized during the Falklands War. The unusual fighter, produced for the U.S. Marine Corps., is capable of vertical takeoffs and landings, delivering thousands of pounds of vertically on an unimproved forward site. Crew: one Max speed: .88 Mach at sea level Armament: 25-mm gun, Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, Maverick air-to-ground missile, Laser-guided and gravity bombs, Rocket launchers.

In his mostly excellent Nov. 3 Op-Ed article, "War Is Hell," Jonathan Zimmerman makes a very good point: You can't judge a war by the atrocities committed fighting it. This makes sense logically; the larger moral purpose of a war doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how soldiers fight that war. But Zimmerman ignores the larger implication of wartime atrocities: You can judge all wars by the atrocities committed in any war, because violence...

Nicholas Henderson, a British diplomat who served as ambassador to the United States during the Falkland Islands war and helped build U.S. support for the British military operation that regained control of the islands, died Monday at his home in London. He was 89. "Nicko" Henderson, as he had been called since his school days, was an urbane Oxford graduate who managed to look unkempt even in Savile Row tailoring.

Francis Pym, an antagonist of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who served as her foreign secretary during the Falklands War, died Friday after a long illness, his family said. He was 86. Pym served two years as defense secretary during Thatcher's first term as prime minister. In 1982, while Britain was battling Argentina to keep control of the Falkland Islands, he was named foreign secretary after the resignation of Peter Carrington. Thatcher fired Pym after winning the 1983 election, and he became increasingly critical of her policies.

Walter Gonzalez hawks military pins, key chains and ribbons from a makeshift stand at a bustling plaza, peddling memories of a war few care to remember. "When we returned from there, we remained in the shadows," says Gonzalez, a fatigue-clad, shaggy-haired survivor of battle and years of postwar therapy. "No one wanted to talk about it."

In the world of opera, where performers must learn to summon up emotions caused by fictional incidents of horror, death and destruction, Argentine tenor Dario Volonte stands alone. He's seen those things for real and felt the trauma.

Heavy winds and high seas off Argentina's rugged South Atlantic coast forced explorers Friday to suspend the search for an Argentine warship sunk by Britain in the 1982 Falkland Islands war. The expedition, led by the National Geographic Society, struggled for 12 days to locate the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, whose recovery was to be the centerpiece of a planned two-hour documentary.

A federal prosecutor recommended that members of a former ruling junta in Argentina, including former President Leopoldo F. Galtieri, be imprisoned for from 15 to 20 years for starting the 1982 Falklands War. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told a federal appeals court that Gen. Galtieri, Adm. Jorge I. Anaya and Gen. Basilio Lami Dozo, the air force commander, are responsible for the loss to Britain of the 74-day war and for the deaths of 712 Argentine servicemen.

Re "How to Win Friends, Influence Diplomats," Commentary, Feb. 28: That Allan Gerson was former chief counsel to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. during the Reagan administration says a great deal about the Keystone Kops handling of the Falklands War in 1982. Gerson's disingenuous characterization of Britain's response to an Argentine incursion upon British sovereign territory as an "invasion" is absurd. That he would call Britain's defense of her citizens from an occupationist army in the Falklands a "violation of international law" is patently outrageous.

Preparing for the first visit to Britain by an Argentine leader since the 1982 Falklands War, President Carlos Menem said Friday that he "deeply regretted" the bloody Anglo-Argentine conflict and hoped to further relations between the two countries next week. But his regrets, conveyed in the Sun tabloid Friday morning, served to open old wounds rather than heal them.