Inside Report (4)

US efforts to mediate in the Falklands crisis may be down--but not out.

State Department officials say that if the last-ditch United Nations peace effort fails and fighting in the South Atlantic intensifies, the US again may try to mediate between Britain and Argentina. Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. sent Ambassador-at-large Vernon Walters on a secret mission to Buenos Aires earlier this month.

The apparent goal: keeping lines of communications open between the US and Argentina's ruling junta.