They show how David Joy, of the British Embassy in Buenos Aires,
contacted his Chilean counterpart Raul Schmidt to discuss
tensions with Argentina before filing a restricted memorandum on
March 5 1982. Chile and Argentina had long been in dispute over
the possession of Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands in the Beagle
Channel at the southern tip of South America and had come to the
brink of war in 1978. According to the documents, as revealed by
BBC World's Spanish language service, Mr Schmidt told Mr Joy
that Argentina's sovereignty disputes with Chile and Britain
both stemmed from the country's desire to have a naval base
further south. "The Schmidt thesis is based essentially on the
Argentine Navy's need of a strategic port further south than its
current and most secure port, Puerto Belgrano, (south of the
province of Buenos Aires)," one document states. "The obvious
option Ushuaia was not satisfactory from a security point of
view because it is under constant Chilean surveillance.
"Therefore the Argentines a