"You Ought to Be Shot"

The only North American journalist allowed to remain south of Buenos Aires after military restrictions were placed on the southern coast, TIME Correspondent William McWhirter spent five days in Ushuaia (pop. 10,000), the world's southernmost town. There he encountered surprising warmth and civility from a people whose nation was at war. But all that ended on April 30, when the U.S. declared its support for Britain. McWhirter was ordered to leave for Buenos Aires on the first available flight. He describes his experience:

At daybreak in Ushuaia I was put on a 44-seat air force Fokker turboprop for a mail flight to the coastal bases of Rio Grande and Rio Gallegos. It was the first leg of a three-flight, twelve-hour journey in custody. It was also an edgy and unpleasant experience. My bags were "searched" twice, that being the kindest term for the hostile way in which personal contents can be scornfully tossed, spilled and made to seem like bits of compromising evidence all their own. Why was a "distinguished" American journalist carrying a duffel bag? Why were his shirts rumpled? One army officer found a bottle of shampoo to be suspicious. Another officer confiscated an assortment of old notes, then asked me to number each page with a forwarding address. That was so I could not later claim anything had been stolen, he explained. "How old are you?" asked an officer. "You've lived a good life. You ought to be shot."

At Rio Gallegos I was put aboard a six-seat air force Turbo Commander bound for Comodoro Rivadavia. It was jammed with commuting army officers. There were no buenos dias, no smiles. Just two hours of their staring impassively at the American passenger. Their looks said they assumed I was there because I had done something wrong, something against them and their country.

Although I was kept in confinement at each airport along the way--official permission was required to walk to the restroom--the trip north provided a unique view of a country that was not only mobilized, but now half expecting a wider war. The airports that only a few days before had exhibited a kind of normalcy were now closed down completely.

At each airport the war had swiftly overtaken any trace of civilian life. The camouflaged C-130 cargo planes were dropping like slow-moving drone bees onto the runways, their engines still running as they loaded up for unknown destinations. Despite reports of heavy British bombing of the runway at Port Stanley, one pallet of mail and Argentine magazines was routinely marked is. MALVINAS. In Comodoro Rivadavia a convoy of perhaps 40 Mercedes-Benz trucks painted in camouflage carried units of the country's elite paratrooper corps. I was repeatedly told that the reason for the tightened security at the airports was an expected mainland bombardment by the British. The towns behind the airports remained oddly still. Buenos Aires is for the big rallies. Comodoro Rivadavia could manage only a long line of cars draped in the blue-and-white Argentine colors moving through the town in silence, as solemn as a funeral procession.

Finally I was told there was a plane ready to take me back to Buenos Aires. From the outside it was a normal Boeing 707 with Aerolineas Argentinas markings. Only after I boarded did I realize that the Argentines had had the last laugh: the plane was an empty shell used for transporting cargo and troops. It might be uncomfortable enough with several hundred soldiers as its only source of heat, but a single passenger sitting on a bare metal floor in the darkness was not enough to keep the temperature above that of a meat locker. The last sentence from the pilot: "Maybe the passenger would like a whisky and a steak dinner?" They were not offered, nor do I expect they will be in the days to come.

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