ABSTRACT
If lease-back was going to prove difficult, Rowlands judged that the only alternative basis for negotiations would be the transfer of sovereignty over the uninhabited Dependencies to Argentina in return for an abandoned or at least deferred claim to the Falklands. In this context the discovery, at the start of 1977, that Argentina had already taken a unilateral initiative in this direction was something of an embarrassment. South Thule is one of the South Sandwich Islands, 1,200 miles south-south-east of Stanley, just to the north of the Antarctic Treaty area. It was first discovered by Captain Cook but not annexed by Britain until 1908. Argentina laid its first claim in 1948, which was rejected by Britain as being without legal or historical foundation. Nonetheless, in pursuit of this claim, Argentine personnel landed twice between 1955 and 1957. They started to establish a base (in practice a couple of huts) for scientific purposes but this was never completed, probably as much because of the harsh conditions as British protest. This sort of activity was not unknown at this time in other Antarctic Islands claimed by Britain. When and if discovered, normally action did not extend beyond a formal protest, although in 1953 when a small Argentine party (and an unoccupied hut put up by Chile) was discovered on Deception Island in the South Shetlands they were removed by a warship. In this case, however, there was an existing British base close by.
