 Early reports suggested that more than 1,000 Argentine sailors might have been killed in the sinking; it was in fact around a third of that total.The sinking occurred 14 hours after President of Peru Fernando Belaúnde proposed a comprehensive peace plan and called for regional unity, although Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and diplomats in London did not see this document until after the sinking of "General Belgrano".Diplomatic efforts to that point had failed completely.