Falklands 40: Headlines from The News on May 15, 1982

Countdown to decision day, UN envoy predicts rapid moves

Britain’s top negotiator in the bid to solve the Falklands crisis peacefully arrived home today for talks ‘of the greatest importance’ with Mrs Thatcher.

Sir Anthony Parsons, Britain’s envoy at the United Nations in New York, said today that he would be returning to America on Monday - and that things would then start to move very rapidly.

He arrived at Heathrow airport shortly after Britain’s Ambassador to the United States, Sir Nicholas Henderson.

The two men were having talks with senior Foreign Office officials today, and will also meet Mrs Thatcher and Foreign Secretary Mr Francis Pym, probably tomorrow.

Sir Anthony said: ‘These talks do not denote panic, but there will be a general expectation when I get back to New York on Monday that things will then move very rapidly one way or another.

‘These talks I am having are of the greatest importance.’

Sir Anthony, who has been involved in the negotiations being co-ordinated by UNThis Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, added: ‘My government suggests that the negotiations had reached a point when it would be useful to take stock and see me personally.

‘I will be involved in discussions all over the weekend and will go back to New York on Monday.

‘We are still in business. We are still in business. We are ploughing on, and you can never tell. The situation changes from day to day.’

Thatcher ‘jingoism’ attacked

Liberal Party Leader Mr David Steel today accused the Prime Minister of abandoning her reasoned approach to the Falklands crisis and returning to ‘flag-waving jingoism’.

He told a meeting at Jedburgh: ‘There is no significant body of opinion in the House of Commons which believes in peace at any price.

‘The vast majority of us across the party are agreed that the Argentine aggression must not be allowed.

‘The readiness of some editors and MPs to send other people’s sons into battle is alarming. The Prime Minister, in the face of the Scottish Tory conference, yesterday abandoned her reasoned approach of recent Commons debates and returned to flag-waving jingoism.’

Ship missing, says junta

An Argentinian ship missing near the Falkland Islands may have been hit by a British missile, the privately-owned news agency Dyn said in Buenos Aires today.

Quoting military sources, it said the Isla de Los Estados carried a crew of between 30 and 40 and was making supply runs ‘among the various defensive positions in the islands.’

Argentina’s military high command said last night that radio contact with the vessel had been lost, and that a search was under way. It said the ship had been carrying out inter-island transport services.

City hospitals in the firing line, emergency services unaffected

Strike action will hit Portsmouth’s two major general hospitals and could bring many routine ambulance journeys to a halt on Wednesday.

Ancillary staff at St Mary’s, Milton, and Queen Alexandra, Cosham, have voted to join the national one-day stoppage in protest over pay, and Hampshire ambulance stop stewards have decided that ambulance crews will not cross picket lines set up outside hospitals.

‘Emergency services will not be affected,’ said the National Union of Public Employees’ Area Officer (Mr. R. Jewison).