High life
War games
Taki
New York My good friend Luis Basualdo is an Bnglish Argentinian who dresses like .an country squire but looks as English as an MGM castle. Luis used to be married to a pretty little thing called Lucy Pearson, 'laughter of Viscount Cowdray. Lucy, needless to say, was loaded when Luis mar- ried her. It is also better left unsaid that she Was less loaded when he finished with her. Luis snatched Lucy virtually from her cradle. I believe she was about 14. They had t,w, children and then it was time to divorce. When the terms of the settlement Were announced, I was shocked. My friend Ins accepting alimony instead of paying it. ,vv. When I ran into him one evening, I asked nun why. 'Because I lent my Conquistador name to those awful middle-class , '.'„nglishmen,' was his answer. Although I u° not exactly approve of men accepting out from the weaker sex, I had to laugh ''t loud. Basualdo's reasoning was not too tar off the mark. The Pearson family was middle-class until the present Viscount's grandfather started Shell-Mex, thus giving a good start to the acquisitive habits of the Present Lord Cowdray who is, I believe, the richest of England's peers. And Basualdo's family did have something to do with the Conquistadores. I believe a member of his family ran a restaurant by that name in downtown Buenos Aires.
When the trouble over those unspeakable islands began last week, I rang my friend Luis. Being an anglophile he refused to say what he was really thinking, but he did give me something to ponder about when he asked me what I thought the British response would have been if, say, the Soviet Union had decided to take the Falklands. Basualdo, in his infinite wisdom, was trying to tell me something; something we all know deep down but are not brave enough to say out loud. The reason Britain is play- ing tough is because Argentina's fleet is on a par with that of Andorra, and her army a little bigger but not better trained than that of Luxembourg. If, say, Cuba had decided that the Antarctic was a good place to run wild over, and the Falklands a convenient jumping-off point, would not the armada that is at present steaming down to the South Atlantic have been more than likely sent on a good-will mission to Monaco? The point I am trying to make is that military expenditures and nuclear arms do deter people from taking liberties with one's property and real estate. One of the reasons Truman dropped two nuclear bombs on the Japanese was that those brave little people had nothing more lethal than samurai swords to drop on the Americans. Now the very people who strip- ped England naked are playing macho with a nation of polo players and lovers. It's enough to make Argentinian polo players give up for ever servicing English wives and working so hard on the polo field.
Despite my friendship with people like Basualdo — after all, he used to play with the Prince of Wales until the heir to the Throne was made an offer he couldn't refuse by that egregious social-climbing art dealer, Guy Wildenstein — and other polo players, I cannot remain neutral in this war. But I do want to put in a good word for an old-fashioned war. Modern warfare has deteriorated almost as much as manners have. We now have guerrilla terror on the TV screen, and nuclear terror on the brain, hirsute mobs taking hostages or planting bombs in synagogues. It is almost a relief to 'Is it a bird? Is is a plane? No, it's General Haig!' contemplate an old-fashioned war in the dreadnought tradition. Moreover, we have been spared the ghastly network farce. We have not as yet seen Jon Snow or his American counterparts jabbering away in front of bomb craters. Ever since the troubles began we have been transported from our present complex age and returned to another century where there are no guer- rillas, no angry third world protests, no Cubans, no nuclear threats, no Moslems. After India, Burma, Malaya, Egypt, Jor- dan, Sudan, Pakistan and Rhodesia, England has suddenly woken up. The Falklands must remain as part of the Em- pire. But I hate to think what will happen to Cowdray, Smith's Lawn and Cirencester this summer.
Unlike the French, who mind terribly when the Argentinian polo players service their wives, the English cannot cope without them. My friend Luis Basualdo swore that if the war comes to pass, the Argentians will stick to polo and c'est tout, when in England. I think Her Majesty's Government has to take this last threat into account. The consequences could be more serious than we may think.
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